David on Formosa

The Penghu casino referendum was held on Saturday. I went to observe the referendum as part of the team organised by Citizen Congress Watch (公民監督國會聯盟). I’ll first report on the observation of the referendum voting followed by some analysis of the results of the referendum and its political implications.

The Kaohsiung Film Festival is in the midst of a controversy over the screening of The Ten Conditions of Love, a documentary about the life of exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer. The Film Festival announced its plans to screen the documentary earlier this month. Since then there has been increasing pressure on the film festival [...]

For the past week I have been involved in various activities of the Anti-gambling Alliance (反賭博合法化聯盟) in their campaign against the plan for a casino on Penghu (澎湖). The residents of Penghu will vote in a referendum on 26 September that will decide whether plans for the casino will be approved. If the referendum passes [...]

On Saturday morning I met some friends at Taipei Station and boarded the Taroko Express to Hualian. In Hualian we met our driver and headed down the coast. Once beyond the city limits of Hualian the coastline has a lot of open space apart from a few small settlements. We visited this beach had only [...]

The 2009 Taipei Deaflympics began with the opening ceremony held at the new Taipei Stadium last night. Today the sporting events began and I went to see the cycling held at Taipei City Hall. The men’s 1,000 metre sprint cycling race began with heats in the morning and then finals in the afternoon. This event [...]

Taiwanese hip hop artists Kou Chou Ching (拷秋勤) have won two awards at the Just Plain Folks Music Awards. They received the awards in Nashville, Tennessee on Saturday 29 August. The Taiwan News reports: Taiwanese hip hop group Kou Chou Ching won the awards for “Best Remix Song” and “Best Music Group” at America’s Just [...]