David on Formosa

  Taiwan: Snapshots of Democracy in Action (我鏡頭下的民主時刻) is a photo book by Taiwan-based German journalist Klaus Bardenhagen (aka taiwanreporter). As well as being packed with photos it is fully bilingual with text in English and Chinese. The book covers the period from 2008 to 2012 which was Ma Ying-jeou’s first term as president. Events are neatly [...]

A few days ago I received a long awaited package from Taiwan in the mail. It contained copies of a new book, Taiwan Since Martial Law: Society, Culture, Politics, Economy. I was eagerly anticipating the arrival of the book because it contains a chapter I wrote titled, “Nation vs. Tradition: Indigenous Rights and Smangus.” The [...]

In the introduction to Why China Will Never Rule the World author Troy Parfitt sets out his motivation for writing the book. Neither academic nor journalist, he simply wants to see things for himself. However, Parfitt does not arrive in China as a naive foreigner. Instead he has already spent more than a decade living on [...]

The Taiwan Book Fest will take place at Alleycat’s Pizza Restaurant at the Huashan Creative Park in Taipei City this weekend. The event is “a celebration of English-language fiction and non-fiction, with a focus on books about Taiwan.” It includes talks and discussions with Taiwan-based writers and a book exchange. There will also be new [...]

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 [...]