Who says environmental education has to be dry and boring? Shei-Pa National Park has come up with a different approach: educational puppet theater. Those involved tell how the idea came to fruition, and how they use the story of Ah Gui and Gui Sao, a pair of Formosan landlocked salmon, to tell audiences about the ecology of this “national treasure” fish and the threats it faces. We also interviewed front-line conservationists to explain the efforts to conserve this fish species, and its importance to our island’s environment.
By happy coincidence, this summer two historically important buildings, the former Taiwan Railways Administration building and the old Taipei Railway Workshop, were both opened to the public, while in October the World Music Festival Taiwan was held in Taipei’s Dajia Riverside Park. These international-class events have delighted fans of railways and of music, and also increased Taiwan’s cultural depth.
Numerous small and low-profile restaurants, art galleries, coffee shops, workshops and stores have settled into Taichung’s cultural and creative industry clusters. Like a big, diverse arts platform, there we find uniquely creative businesses of a style all their own. Speaking of creativity, an Indonesian migrant worker named Pindy Windy has blended Indonesian culture into the traditional handicraft of sculpting dough figurines. Between her fingers, a Javanese wedding or Gamelan musical instruments come vividly to life—a shower of colorful sparks thrown off by the collision of two cultures.
It is this same creativity that has allowed Tai-Hwa Pottery to survive so long amid the changing fortunes of Yingge’s ceramics industry. Tai-Hwa’s technology covers the whole production process from clay to kiln, and can meet the needs of different artists, building a major platform for ceramics creativity in Taiwan. The inexhaustible creative power that all these examples attest to is a critical asset for Taiwan to stand up in the world and be noticed.
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