Editor's Note

Lee Teng-hui and Li Yuan-zu were sworn in as the eighth president and vice-president of the Republic of China on May 20, and the president held his first post-inaugural press conference two days later. The complete text of the president's inaugural address and a transcript of the press conference are presented in this issue.

Readers who follow global affairs will be well aware that the world seems to have "rediscovered" Europe this year. The unification of the European Community in 1992 is rapidly approaching, the reunification of East and West Germany is just around the corner, and the spread of democracy and free enterprise in East Europe has changed the bipolar view of the world of the past.

Although much ink has been spilled in the media over topics related to the "new" Europe, Sinorama is offering a series of articles on the subject from our own special angles of foreign affairs, economics and sinology, leading off with "A New Chapter for International Law," in which the R.O.C.'s representative to West Germany, Sampson C. Shen, discusses how to carry out diplomatic work in countries with which we lack formal diplomatic ties.

At a time when the domestic stock market has been sliding back down from its overheated high, a dark horse among investment properties has suddenly become galloped to the fore: works of art. The hottest properties of all have been oil paintings by Taiwan's senior generation of painters.

One of the focuses of our overseas reports this month is on New York's "little Taipei," Flushing. We also sent a reporting team along with the Min-Fon-Yua-Fu, a group of singers that toured the U.S. to raise money for the mainland pro-democracy movement.

This issue also introduces old Taiwanese opera, a version of Taiwanese opera that features all-male casts and was popular on the island around fifty years earlier but is now fading away into the sunset.

The environment and the ecology have always been issues of great concern to us. In this issue we examine a form of pollution that transcends national borders--acid rain.