David on Formosa

Last night I attended a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) campaign rally in Taichung. The rally for legislative candidate Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) and presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was held in a primary school hall in the West District of Taichung. As people entered the gates there were tables for collecting donations and registering support for the [...]

My parents have just spent the past week in Taiwan. This was their second visit to Taiwan following their first visit in 2008. The week long visit was just enough time to see a few of Taiwan’s highlights. The first day was spent relaxing and enjoying some of the good things in Taichung. We drank [...]

Two bands featuring the erhu, a traditional Chinese two-stringed musical instrument, took to the stage of the Emerge Live House in Taichung last night. The Hsu-nami (海嘯樂團) came all the way from the USA and Sun Of Morning (晨曦光廊) are a Taiwanese band. Many music fans will already be familiar with Taiwanese metal band ChthoniC’s use [...]

I have just spent ten days accompanying John Seed on a trip around Taiwan. John is an environmentalist from Australia well known for his efforts protecting rainforests around the world and also as a philosopher of Deep Ecology. I met John at the Taoyuan Airport on the morning of 28 March. We then took the high speed [...]

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 [...]

Several dozen members of Falun Gong (aka Falun Dafa) protested the arrival of Chen Zhenggao (陳政高), the governor of Liaoning Province, in Taichung this afternoon. The protesters shouted, “Chen Zhenggao, you’ve been accused, stop persecuting Falun Gong” (陳政高，你被告了，停止迫害法輪功). According to a Falun Gong website 409 Falun Gong practitioners have died as a result of persecution in [...]