David on Formosa

The Taipei International Book Exhibition opened yesterday. I visited the exhibition today at the Taipei World Trade Centre to see what was new this year. This year’s special guest exhibitor is France. Francophones will be sure to enjoy the large range of French literature on display. There is also a selection of French films screening [...]

I saw the short film Msgamil: Once Upon a Time (泰雅千年) while visiting Smangus in August last year. I then saw Through Thousands Years* (走過千年) at the Ethnographic Film Festival. Msgamil is a short film produced by Chen Wen-bin (陳文彬) about the historical migration of the Atayal. Through Thousands Years, by the Atayal director Pilin [...]

Freedom Square hosted an exhibition of freestyle motocross riding yesterday afternoon. It was part of the Red Bull X-Fighters exhibition tour. The riders pulled off extreme mid-air maneuvers in the space between the National Theatre and the National Concert Hall. Despite having only a short run up to the launching ramp they gained some serious [...]

Taiwan has maintained its status as free in Freedom House’s 2010 report released yesterday. Taiwan received the same score as last year but its score for civil liberties decreased from 1 to 2 while its score for political rights increased from 2 to 1. Taiwan’s score put it equal with Japan and South Korea in [...]

I sent a letter about climate change to the Taipei Times on 7 January, but as of today it hasn’t been published (Update: published on 17 January). The Taipei Times published this letter on climate change today (which contains some ridiculous claims) and also Johnny Neihu took an amusing look at the qualities of Shezi [...]

The Supreme Court last month ruled on the Smangus Beech Tree case sending the case back to the High Court for a reexamination. The news seems to have been almost ignored by Taiwan’s media, but Taiwan Indigenous Television provided some good reporting. In addition to embedding a video of the English news report from TITV [...]