Mysterious Concrete Coffins in Tainan

In a southern district of Tainan, farmers carefully till their fields, working their way around ancient concrete sarcophagi that sit on the surface, or lay half buried in the sandy soil. One with a mushroom-like lid protrudes from a sand dune beside a farmhouse. Locals say that outsiders consider them

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Expat Chat: On being a Western wife, part 2 of 2

What it’s like being a Taiwan xifu – daughter-in-law…? Curious about other foreign women’s experience of marrying Taiwanese, I interviewed Serina from Australia, who shares her many cultural experiences as a Taiwan daughter-in-law on her blog, http://www.taiwanxifu.com/. Read Part 1 here Serina wrote : “I met and married my husband

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Steven Crook: Taiwan's consummate cultural notetaker

By Trista di Genova, The Wild East (Pick up a copy of next month’s ‘Centered on Taipei’ magazine to see this interview in print.) Steven Crook, a Briton who’s been in Taiwan since 1991, is an amazingly versatile freelancer. He’s worked as a government project consultant, copy editor for Taiwan

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Taiwan Architecture: A Festival of Junk

How and why the island’s modern-day architecture evolved into such a sad state — an aesthetically offensive living museum of bile-inspiring monstrosities By Trista di Genova The Wild East A few years ago, when producer Will Tiao and his crew were scouting locations for the film ‘Formosa Betrayed’, they discovered

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An Adventure 'round the Island: Couchsurfing, Hitchhiking, and Island Hopping

By Mary Weathers The Wild East As soon as I had secured myself a teaching position in Taipei, I decided to take a couple months off to tour the Island that is Taiwan. I needed to see more of the country; I had certainly not fallen head over heels in

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