"If we all work together, the Tamsui will get cleaned up whether it wants to or not!" Taipei Mayor Hsu Shui-teh has quipped. Following the media attention given to the clean-up of Kaohsiung's Love River, the people of Taipei have become excited over the planned reclamation of the Tamsui.
What was the Tamsui originally like? How did it become polluted? What can we do to fix it? This month's cover story, "Diagnosing the Tamsui," looks at the views of the people who live along its banks, the opinions of the experts, and the explanations of the decision makers to help our readers to gain a better understanding of the problems involved and what is being done to solve them.
This issue introduces a new series of overseas reports on life in Hong Kong, in addition to completing our feature on Chinese baseball players in Japan. "Hong Kong's 1997 Syndrome" examines the attitude of the Hong Kong people toward the big date looming in their future.
Several new appointments were made to top government posts during the month of May. This issue reports on the new president of the Judicial Yuan, Lin Yang-kang.