Bottoms Up!

Celebrating Taiwan’s Beer Centennial

In 2019 a Taiwan Beer gift box was marketed to celebrate the centennial of the Taipei Brewery. The gift box featured three bottles of beer with distinctly different labels: a samurai-­themed Takasago Beer label from 100 years ago; a retro label from 60 years ago bearing the slogan “Revive Chin......

A Bird’s-Eye View of Taiwan

Architecture

Taiwan has a diverse architectural culture. Southern Fujianese, Hakka, Japanese, Western, and all kinds of innovative styles find a common home and blossom in this land. This diversity of architecture has become a special part of the scenery in places all over Taiwan. As part of the series “A ......

Scenes of Cloud Gate

Liu Chen-hsiang, born in 1963, is one of Taiwan’s preeminent photographers. When awarding him the prestigious Wu San-Lien Award for Photography in 2010, the judges remarked that his works are “witness to the evolution of Taiwanese society and culture, successfully capturing dancers in their mo......

Tentacles

The 2020 “Nuit Blanche” in Taipei took place in the city’s Nangang District and was met with great enthusiasm. The work that drew the most attention was Tentacles, an inflatable installation piece by the British artist Filthy Luker. Colorful octopus tentacles emerged from the Nangang Station b......

Learning Huayu in Taiwan

—A Journey of Boundless Possibilities

Lukas Engström is a Swedish national based in Taiwan. Shortly after he started to learn Mandarin Chinese here, he visited a soft drinks bar to buy a cup of pearl milk tea. While in the queue, he kept repeating to himself the Chinese phrases he had to say to the staff. When at last he gave the ......

Soothing Taiwan’s Sweet Tooth

Stories of Local Pastries

Rivaling Willy Wonka’s legendary chocolate bars, and laden with even more stories than Marcel Proust’s madeleine cakes, Taiwanese pastries continue to satisfy our sweet tooth. With their origins in traditional Chinese confectionery, they are made with local ingredients rich in cultural meaning......

A New Trend in Medical Tourism

—Healthcare and Health Maintenance in Taiwan

Hospitals in Taiwan possess high-end medical technology and equipment, and Taiwan is a world leader in certain specialties, including liver transplantation and reproductive medicine. Institutions here provide very cost-effective healthcare services and have a competitive advantage against the ......

The Taiwanese Camino:

Mazu Pilgrimages

The activities that take place in Taiwan each March to celebrate the goddess Mazu are the island’s most boisterous folk culture events. For seven to nine days and nights, people follow Mazu—Taiwan’s “number-one goddess”—on pilgrimages and “tours of inspection.” Walking in these processions pro......