David on Formosa

Bruno Walther sent the following letter to the Taipei Times last week. The Taipei Times published a second letter that he also sent last week. He has given me permission to post the first letter here. Ever since the nuclear catastrophe began in Japan, I was just waiting for somebody to step forward with the argument ‘but [...]

The fifth stage of the Tour de Taiwan raced through Taichung today. The 111 kilometre stage began at Taichung Park in the morning. It then made a clockwise loop through Shalu, Dajia and Dongshi followed by a mountain hill top finish at the Taichung Metropolitan Park. Shinichi Fukushima of Japan won the stage. Park Sung Baek of Korea won [...]

Taiwan’s Fourth Nuclear Power Plant under construction in August 2009 with Fulong Beach in the foreground. I had a letter in the Taipei Times today on the subject of nuclear power. It argues that the high cost and long lead times of nuclear power projects defers investment in cleaner and safer forms of electricity generation. [...]

Over the weekend I visited the Bunun community of Kalibuan (Wangxiang, 望鄉部落) with a group of students from Providence University and National Chengchi University. The first stop on the way was a small museum in Xinyi Township of Nantou County. The museum contains a range of materials related to Bunun culture. The picture above shows [...]

The Mega Port Festival (大港開場) was held over the weekend of 5-6 March in Kaohsiung. The festival featured a few bands from Japan and the UK and some big name Taiwanese stars in Wu Bai and Jeannie Hsieh. However, it was largely a showcase of Taiwan’s best contemporary indie bands. Bands played on three stages spread [...]

On the evening of 26 February a group of Taiwanese university students in Taipei went out to show their support for the Jasmine Revolution in China. While attempting to cross the road they were blocked from crossing by a group of plain-clothes people claiming to be police officers. The video embedded above shows the incident. [...]