Taipei residents are somewhat embarrassed, and slightly disgusted by the Taipei City Government’s choice of mascot for this year’s lantern festival. The ‘monkey-gourd’ uses the monkey theme to celebrate the Year of the Monkey, and the shape of a gourd to symbolize fertility. Artist Lin Shu-min (林書民) was inspired by
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By Sean Kaiteri My love affair with Taiwan has been reconfirmed… Old Taiwan may possibly have dropped the ball, Mother Nature exasperated the problem, but New Taiwan certainly has hit those issues for six or hit the ball well the f&*#k out of the park for a touch down:) Mixed
Read moreThe Wild East / Editorial The Taiwan media is notorious for being lame and vacuous, heavily relying on lightweight ‘coverage’ of food stories and the like, since restaurant ‘tributes’ are an important cash cow for them. Chinese New Year ‘reporting’ is especially pathetic. One TV station (must have been TVBS!) replayed the same exact
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It’s a little over 12 hours since a 6.4 magnitude earthquake rattled the southern area of Taiwan and wreaked destruction on the City of Tainan: the oldest city in Taiwan. It’s a relatively short time for those of us observing from afar, even just a few miles away, where buildings
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As you land in Macau, it feels as if the plane is going to touch down on water. The airport, like a lot of the newer developments on the tiny enclave is built on reclaimed land. The sight of hundreds of cranes topping buildings under construction suggest a booming economy,
Read moreThe Wild East recently caught up with American comedy writer, artist and now singer/musician Trista di Genova, who is following her bliss in Taiwan after performing her debut ‘Riding with the Wind’ at Chez Maurice in Tamsui on Christmas Eve. She calls on other would-be artists to ‘carry a guitar
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As expected, the long awaited election for a new president and legislature has seen a resounding defeat for the pro-Chinese-reunification party. After many years of a lame-duck presidency, and a parliament marked by corruption scandals and in-fighting among the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party, the people of Taiwan have decided its
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Rebecca Kehl – December 31, 2015 I lived in Taiwan about ten years ago for 2 and a half years, so I must have seen at least 2 Christmases then, but somehow I can’t recall them. I don’t remember Christmas cards or gift giving or receiving between students or friends and I,
Read moreThe Wild East / Comedy I’ve always enjoyed being in Asia for Christmas because they really don’t give a rat’s ass about it. For this very reason, we are able to have such niceties as Chinese restaurants to eat Christmas dinner in the West, for those who are too lazy
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By Rebecca Kehl – Dec 2015 In this article, a mystery will be revealed before your very eyes… It is the 2-fold challenge of curing modern man’s addiction to plastic. I shall reveal the mystery now, at the beginning, to save you all the suspense. The answer is: Completely adapting to a life of reuseables (the
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