Metropolitan Taipei has a population of 2.7 million, about 13 percent that of Taiwan as a whole. As the capital, where the central government and the headquarters of most corporations are located, Taipei naturally tends to be the focus of the mass media. "Eighty percent of the news is about things that happen in Taipei," a reporter with the Pacific Time s in Kaohsiung complains. He doesn't think it's right that the citizens of Kaohsiung should have to listen to reports about the traffic situation i n Taipei during a short 30-minute TV news program.

Despite its being Taiwan's second largest city, "not many people know about Kaohsiung's sea-fill project. If the project were in Taipei, it would have been on the front pages long ago," the city's mayor, Wu Tun-i, laments, maintaining that the media "favor the north." A local leader concurs: "Anything south of the Chuoshui River seems to lie outside the media's scope of reporting."

"Around Taiwan Today" Debuts: How does the other 87 percent of the population live? What's it like in the rest of Taiwan--where two-thirds of the population of Taipei comes from? To find an answer, Sinorama carried a popular series of articles between 1980 and 1983 called "The Land and the People," which reported in-depth on the history, development and current status of cities, towns and villages around Taiwan and on the daily lives of the residents and their joys and sorrows, hope s and dreams. The series was published in book form in a volume called Town and Country Vignettes.

This series about their hometowns was especially popular with people from Taiwan living overseas. Even though Town and Country Vignettes has been sold out for three years, readers still write asking about it. Experts in landscape design and urban planning view it as a record of local history and keep it on hand as a reference book. Many people have suggested that we republish it, but since it was written so long ag o and so many of the places have changed, we have mulled the idea over but never taken any action.

After much thought and planning, the Sinorama editorial team has decided to go back to various places around Taiwan and report on their current situation, examining why changes have come to some and why they have not to others. This issue's cover story, "Kinmen Changes into Its Civvies," is the opening salvo in our new series "Around Taiwan Today."

A small island just 2,000-some meters off the southeast coast of the mainland, Kinmen changed practically overnight into a frontline military zone after the R.O.C. government moved to Taiwan. In line with the relaxation of tension across the Taiwan Strait and the R.O.C's promotion of democratic government, Kinmen will advance from military administration to local self-rule at the end of September. As the combat gear come s off and its new civilian clothes are being cut, Kinmen faces its greatest turning point in the past 40 years, which is why it was chosen to start off the new series.

100-Percent Full Translations: In addition to "Around Taiwan Today," we have three new treats in store for our readers. According to our latest survey, the most popular of our three main areas of reporting (life on Taiwan today, Chinese traditions and customs and the overseas Chinese community) is the first. In response, we've introduced three new features. "Periscope" and "Style" are aimed at presenting the latest trends on Taiwan in a lively, readable manner. In "Book of the Month," experts are invited to introduce and critique recently published books worth reading. These features will be offered regularly.

It's also worth mentioning that, starting this issue, everything in the articles, including the subtitles, will be translated into English, for the convenience of the many readers who use Sinorama for language study. Before last July, we only translated about half of the Chinese, but we've gradually raised the proportion over the past year to 100 percent. The length is double, but the amount of effort required is even more, because now our translators have to try to capture the flavor of each idiom and nuance, instead of just picking and choosing. The fact that the layout remains as uncramped and uncluttered as before must be credited to our art department. The challenges they were faced with, the same as our translators, were more than doubly difficult.

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Members of the art design and photography departments go over the layout together.