Hou Family Fellowships in Taiwan Studies 2024-25 repost

The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University is pleased to announce the 2024-25 competition for the Hou Family Fellowships in Taiwan Studies.

The Hou Family Fellowships in Taiwan Studies sponsors one Postdoctoral Fellow and one Pre-doctoral Fellow to join the Fairbank Center to pursue Taiwan-focused research in humanities and social sciences for six to twelve months between August 1, 2024, and July 31, 2025. Affiliation for the full academic year is encouraged. Fellows

Hou Family Fellows are expected to reside in the Greater Boston area for the duration of the fellowship. Fellows will have the opportunity to engage with the Fairbank Center’s interdisciplinary community of scholars and will have access to Harvard’s world-class libraries and other resources.

In addition to maintaining their own research agenda, the Hou Family Fellows will contribute to the Fairbank Center community in ways that could include the following:

  • Presenting research to the Center’s Taiwan Studies Workshop series, or to other Fairbank Center events and audiences,
  • Participating in professional development workshops and serving as a mentor for current graduate students,
  • Attending seminars and academic events and participating in community building activities.

For more information see  https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/programs/hou-family-fellows-in-taiwan-studies/ Continue reading

Shih Ming-teh dies at 83

Source: NYT (1/23/24)
Shih Ming-teh, Defiant Activist for a Democratic Taiwan, Dies at 83
He spent 25 years in prison for campaigning for Taiwan’s independence and democratization. After his release, he led protests to oust one its presidents.
By Chris Buckley and 

A black and white photo of Shih Ming-teh in a suit jacket over an open-collared shirt as helmeted police officers escort him toward a courtroom. He is smiling, and his hands are in his pockets.

Shih Ming-teh being taken into court in 1980 to face trial after he helped lead a pro-democracy protest in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, that was brutally broken up by the police. Credit…CNA

Shih Ming-teh, a lifelong campaigner for democracy in Taiwan who spent over two decades in prison for his cause and later started a protest movement against a president from his former party, died on Jan. 15, his 83rd birthday, in Taipei, the island’s capital.

The cause was complications of an operation to remove a liver tumor, said his wife, Chia-chiun Chen Shih.

Mr. Shih helped lead a pro-democracy protest in 1979 that was brutally broken up by the police and that is now viewed as a turning point in Taiwan’s journey from authoritarianism to democracy. When he stood trial over the confrontation, he smiled defiantly to the cameras, although his original teeth had been shattered years before under police torture, and delivered a groundbreaking argument for Taiwan’s independence from China, an idea banned under the rule of Chiang Kai-shek and then his son, Chiang Ching-kuo.

“I was imprisoned for 25 years, and I faced the possibility of the death penalty twice, but each time I came out, I instantly plunged back into the whole effort to overthrow the Chiang family dictatorship,” Mr. Shih said in an interview with The New York Times in 2022. “I’m someone who never had a youth.” Continue reading

KMT fights to survive

Source: Wall Street Journal (1/19/24)
Party Backing China in Taiwan Fights to Survive
By Chun Han Wong

Kuomintang candidate Hou Yu-ih speaks at a campaign rally. I- HWA CHENG/ AGENCE FRANCE- PRESSE/ GETTY IMAGES

TAIPEI—Beijing’s closest political partner in Taiwan is fighting to remain relevant in an island democracy where voters increasingly see a future that is detached from an authoritarian China.

The Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, once governed China and had dominated Taiwanese politics for decades. It is now on its longest losing streak in presidential elections since this self-ruled island started choosing its leader by popular vote, consigned to a third straight term in opposition.

Whether the century-old party can get back on its feet has ramifications for Taipei’s rocky relationship with Beijing, which claims Taiwan as its territory and considers the KMT a useful partner in efforts to assimilate the island. The prospect that Taiwanese voters might never elect a Beijingfriendly government again could tilt China toward harsher methods to seek unification, including military force.

KMT leaders have put on a brave face, saying they still have the clout to keep Taiwan’s ruling party in check during the next four years. But many members worry that, without decisive overhauls, one of Asia’s oldest political parties could fade into irrelevance, as more Taiwanese embrace a local identity separate from China and reject the KMT’s perceived coziness with Beijing. Continue reading

Taiwan’s democracy draws envy and tears for visiting Chinese

Source: NYT (1/19/24)
Taiwan’s Democracy Draws Envy and Tears for Visiting Chinese
阅读简体中文版 | 閱讀繁體中文版
People with personal ties to China, on a tour to see Taiwan’s election up close, learned of the island’s path to democracy — messy, violent and, ultimately, inspiring.
By Li Yuan, Reporting from Taipei and Tainan, Taiwan

In an illustration, three faces peer skyward as campaign balloons float and streamers fly in front of a rally.

Credit…Xinmei Liu

At the Taipei train station, a Chinese human rights activist named Cuicui watched with envy as six young Taiwanese politicians campaigned for the city’s legislative seats. A decade ago, they had been involved in parallel democratic protest movements — she in China, and the politicians on the opposite side of the Taiwan Strait.

“We came of age as activists around the same time. Now they’re running as legislators while my peers and I are in exile,” said Cuicui, who fled China for Southeast Asia last year over security concerns.

Cuicui was one in a group of eight women I followed last week in Taiwan before the Jan. 13 election. Their tour was called “Details of a Democracy” and was put together by Annie Jieping Zhang, a mainland-born journalist who worked in Hong Kong for two decades before moving to Taiwan during the pandemic. Her goal is to help mainland Chinese see Taiwan’s election firsthand.

The women went to election rallies and talked to politicians and voters, as well as homeless people and other disadvantaged groups. They attended a stand-up comedy show by a man from China, now living in Taiwan, whose humor addressed topics that are taboo in his home country.

It was an emotional trip filled with envy, admiration, tears and revelations. Continue reading

DPP battles to prove its staying power

Source: NYT (1/12/24)
Taiwan Party, Reviled by China, Battles to Prove Its Staying Power
The Democratic Progressive Party has transformed Taiwan into a bastion against Chinese power. Now it is promising a mix of change and continuity.
By Chris Buckley and 

The Grand Hotel Taipei in Taipei, Taiwan in December. The Democratic Progressive Party was formed in the ballroom of the hotel in 1986. Credit…

Nearly four decades ago, a group of lawyers, intellectuals and activists assembled in a hotel ballroom in Taipei to found an illegal political party dedicated to ending authoritarian rule in Taiwan.

No longer a scrappy upstart, the Democratic Progressive Party, born in that ballroom, is now seeking an unprecedented third consecutive term. It needs to persuade voters that after eight years in power, the party can renew itself while also protecting Taiwan from mounting pressures imposed by Beijing, which claims the island as its territory.

Led by Vice President Lai Ching-te, the presidential candidate, the D.P.P. faces a stiff challenge in an election on Saturday from its chief rival, the Nationalist Party, which favors expanded ties with China. Polls have indicated that the Nationalists, led by Hou Yu-ih, a former policeman and the mayor of New Taipei City, may have a fighting chance of returning to power for the first time since 2016, an outcome that could reshape the region’s geopolitical landscape. Election results are expected by Saturday night.

For Su Chiao-hui, a lawmaker with the Democratic Progressive Party, the stakes of the vote are especially personal. Her father, Su Tseng-chang, helped found the party when Taiwan was under martial law and later served as a premier in both the party’s two phases in power, including under the current president, Tsai Ing-wen. Continue reading

Island in Between

Island in Between, directed by S. Leo Chiang, has been shortlisted for an Oscar in the “documentary short film” category. The film can be viewed on the New York Times Youtube site:

Here’s a synopsis:

The rural Taiwanese outer islands of Kinmen sit merely 2 miles off the coast of China. Kinmen attracts tourists for its remains from the 1949 Chinese Civil War. It also marks the frontline for Taiwan in its escalating tension with China. Filmmaker S. Leo Chiang weaves lyrical vignettes of tourist visits and local life with his own narrative as someone negotiating ambivalent personal bonds to Taiwan, China, and the US, ISLAND IN BETWEEN explores the uneasy peace in these islands, and contemplates Taiwan’s uncertain future.

Taiwan likes its democracy loud and proud

Source: NYT (1/11/24)
‘Frozen Garlic!’ Taiwan Likes Its Democracy Loud and Proud
At the island’s election rallies, warming up the crowd for candidates is crucial. “You have to light a fire in their hearts,” one host says.
By Chris Buckley and 

A large nighttime crowd stands facing a stage on which a man stands speaking, and three large screens show the same image.

Lai Ching-te, the presidential candidate for the Democratic Progressive Party, at a campaign event in New Taipei City.

Huang Chen-yu strode onto an outdoor stage in a southern Taiwanese county, whooping and hollering as she roused the crowd of 20,000 into a joyous frenzy — to welcome a succession of politicians in matching jackets.

Taiwan is in the final days of its presidential election contest, and the big campaign rallies, with M.C.s like Ms. Huang, are boisterous, flashy spectacles — as if a variety show and a disco crashed into a candidate’s town hall meeting.

At the high point of the rally, the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential candidate, Lai Ching-te, was introduced to the crowd in Chiayi, a county in southern Taiwan. Ms. Huang roared in Taiwanese, “Frozen garlic!”

The phrase “dongsuan” sounds like “get elected” and, yes, also like “frozen garlic.” Ms. Huang and another M.C. led the crowd of supporters, now on their feet, in a rapid-fire, call-and-response chant: “Lai Ching-te! Frozen garlic! Lai Ching-te! Frozen garlic!” Then they sped up: “Lai Ching-te! Lai Ching-te! Lai Ching-te! Frozen garlic! Frozen garlic! Frozen garlic!”

For Ms. Huang, the event, days before Taiwan’s election on Saturday, was one of at least 15 rallies she would have led by the end of this campaign season. Continue reading

How Taiwanese identity has evolved

Source: NPR (1/8/24)
How Taiwanese identity has evolved on the island in recent generations
By , , , , Hugo Peng

What it means to be “Taiwanese” varies from one generation to the next, influenced by the island’s complicated history with China. NPR talks with members of one family across generations.

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

And I’m Ailsa Chang in Taipei, Taiwan, where I often visited as a kid because this is where my family is from, going back centuries. But, you know, all through my life, I never really thought of myself as Taiwanese, even though I grew up speaking Taiwanese. My parents always just said, you are Chinese, just like, well, someone such as Emily Feng is.

EMILY FENG, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.

CHANG: NPR’s Emily Feng covers China and Taiwan from her base here in Taipei.

FENG: But to be clear, my parents emigrated to the U.S. from China.

CHANG: That’s right. And yet, Emily, a lot of people would clump you and me together as Chinese.

FENG: Yes. And identity is a hugely sensitive issue for this island of 23 million people. Because even though more than 90% of people living in Taiwan can trace their roots to mainland China, the majority of them now identify in polls as Taiwanese only. And that’s a huge shift from just 30 years ago.

CHANG: Exactly. And part of the reason that we’re here is because there’s a really consequential presidential election this week. And for many voters, at the heart of this election is the question, what does it mean to be Taiwanese? Continue reading

Hou Family Fellowships in Taiwan Studies 2024-25

The Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard University is pleased to announce the 2024-25 competition for the Hou Family Fellowships in Taiwan Studies.

The Hou Family Fellowships in Taiwan Studies sponsors one Postdoctoral Fellow and one Pre-doctoral Fellow to join the Fairbank Center to pursue Taiwan-focused research in humanities and social sciences for six to twelve months between August 1, 2024, and July 31, 2025. Affiliation for the full academic year is encouraged. Fellows

Hou Family Fellows are expected to reside in the Greater Boston area for the duration of the fellowship. Fellows will have the opportunity to engage with the Fairbank Center’s interdisciplinary community of scholars and will have access to Harvard’s world-class libraries and other resources.

In addition to maintaining their own research agenda, the Hou Family Fellows will contribute to the Fairbank Center community in ways that could include the following:

  • Presenting research to the Center’s Taiwan Studies Workshop series, or to other Fairbank Center events and audiences,
  • Participating in professional development workshops and serving as a mentor for current graduate students,
  • Attending seminars and academic events and participating in community building activities.

For more information see  https://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/programs/hou-family-fellows-in-taiwan-studies/ Continue reading

Balloons float over Taiwan before an election

Source: NYT (1/4/24)
Balloons Float Over Taiwan Before an Election. Experts See a Sign from China
Some analysts see the objects as a calculatedly ambiguous reminder to voters that Beijing is watching.
By Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien, Reporting from Tainan, Taiwan

Two soldiers in white uniforms fold up a Taiwanese flag in a plaza.

Folding a flag of Taiwan in the island’s capital, Taipei. The balloons from China do not appear to pose an immediate military menace. Credit…Chiang Ying-Ying/Associated Press

A surge in sightings of balloons from China flying over Taiwan has drawn the attention of the island’s military and struck some experts as a calculatedly ambiguous warning to voters weeks before its presidential election.

Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense has reported occasional sightings of balloons floating from China since last month, and a surge in recent days, according to the ministry’s daily tally of Chinese military activities near the island. Official Taiwanese accounts about balloons were previously very sporadic.

The recent balloons have mostly stayed off Taiwan’s coast. On Monday, however, one flew across the island, according to the ministry’s descriptions of their paths. Of four spotted on Tuesday, three flew over Taiwan, and two passed through to the island’s east side, facing the Pacific Ocean. Another flew over the island on Wednesday.

The Taiwanese reports also noted some of the balloons’ proximity to the island’s military bases. Of the four reported on Tuesday, three were first detected 120 to 184 miles from the Ching Chuan Kang Air Base in the city of Taichung. Taiwan’s defense ministry declined to specify how close to the base they may have flown. Continue reading

Taiwan opposition cracks apart

Source: NYT (11/24)
Taiwan Opposition Cracks Apart, and Invites the Cameras In
The split over a proposed joint ticket bolsters the governing party candidate’s chances in the coming presidential election. That won’t please Beijing.
By Chris Buckley and Amy Chang Chien. Reporting from Taipei, Taiwan

Three men in suits sit behind a desk, one passing a microphone, one with his hands around his mouth, one smiling.

From left to right: Terry Gou, a presidential candidate; former President Ma Ying-jeou of Taiwan; and Hou Yu-ih, a presidential candidate of the opposition party Kuomintang, at a meeting open to journalists in Taiwan on Thursday. Credit…Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters

For weeks, Taiwan’s two main opposition parties were edging toward a coalition, in a bid to unseat the island democracy’s governing party in the coming presidential election, an outcome that Beijing would welcome. The election, one elder statesman from Taiwan’s opposition said, was a choice between war and peace.

This week, though, the two parties — which both argue that they are better able to ensure peace with China — chose in spectacular fashion to go to war against each other. An incipient deal for a joint presidential ticket between the long-established Nationalist Party and the upstart Taiwan People’s Party unraveled with the speed, melodrama and lingering vitriol of a celebrity wedding gone wrong.

A meeting that was opened to journalists on Thursday seemed to have been meant as a show of good will within the opposition. But it featured sniping between rival spokesmen, a long-winded tribute to the spirit of Thanksgiving by Terry Gou — a magnate turned politician trying to cajole the opposition toward unity — and mutual accusations of bad faith between the two presidential candidates who had been trying to strike a deal: Hou Yu-ih of the Nationalist Party and Ko Wen-je, the founder of the Taiwan People’s Party.

Mr. Gou tried to break the icy tensions at one point by saying that he needed a bathroom break.

“I don’t want a silent ending on this Thanksgiving Day,” he later told journalists after Mr. Hou and his two allies had left the stage. “But unfortunately it looks like it will be a silent ending.”

Friday was the deadline for registering for Taiwan’s election, which will be held on Jan. 13, and by noon both Mr. Hou and Mr. Ko had officially registered as presidential candidates, confirming that there would be no unity ticket. Mr. Gou, who had also thrown his hat in the ring, withdrew from the race.

Taiwan’s young, vigorous democratic politics has often included some raucous drama. Yet even experienced observers of the Taiwanese scene have been agog by this week, and baffled as to why the opposition parties would stage such a public rupture over who would be the presidential candidate on a unity ticket, and who would accept the vice presidential nomination.

“It really defies theories of coalition building,” Lev Nachman, a political scientist at National Chengchi University in Taipei, said of the week’s bickering. “How do you tell undecided voters ‘still vote for me’ after having a very publicly messy, willfully uninformed debate about who ought to be first and who ought to be second?”

The collapse of the proposed opposition pact could have consequences rippling beyond Taiwan, affecting the tense balance between Beijing — which claims the self-governing island as its own — and Washington over the future status of the island.

The situation also makes it more likely that Taiwan’s vice president, Lai Ching-te, the presidential candidate for the governing Democratic Progressive Party, or D.P.P., will win the election — a result sure to displease Chinese Communist Party leaders.

Mr. Lai’s party asserts Taiwan’s distinctive identity and claims to nationhood, and has become closer to the United States. China’s leaders could respond to a victory for him by escalating menacing military activities around Taiwan, which sits roughly 100 miles off the Chinese coast.

A victory for the Nationalists could reopen communication with China that mostly froze shortly after Tsai Ing-wen from the Democratic Progressive Party was elected president in 2016. And a third successive loss for the Nationalists, who favor closer ties and negotiations with Beijing, could undercut Chinese confidence that they remain a viable force.

Lai Ching-te, the vice president of Taiwan, waving as he stands behind microphones.

Lai Ching-te, Taiwan’s vice president, and a candidate from the Democratic Progressive Party. A split between Mr. Hou and Ko Wen-je of Taiwan People’s Party may benefit his campaign. Credit…I-Hwa Cheng/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Taiwan’s first-past-the-post system for electing its president awards victory to the candidate with the highest raw percentage of votes. Mr. Lai has led in polls for months, but his projected share of the vote has sat below 40 percent in many surveys, meaning that the opposition could claw past his lead if it coalesced behind a single candidate. Mr. Hou and Mr. Ko for months sat around the mid- to high 20s in polls, suggesting that it could be hard for either to overtake Mr. Lai unless the other candidate stepped aside.

“This may scare off moderate voters who might have been into voting for a joint ticket for the sake of blocking the D.P.P.,” Mr. Nachman said of the falling out between the opposition parties. “Now those moderate voters will look at this team in a different light.”

For now, many Taiwanese people seem absorbed — sometimes gleeful, sometimes anguished — by the spectacle of recent days. “Wave Makers,” a recent Netflix drama series, showed Taiwanese electoral politics as a noble, if sometimes cutthroat, affair. This week was more like the political satire “Veep.”

Last weekend, the Nationalist Party and Taiwan People’s Party appeared poised to settle on a unity ticket, with each agreeing to decide on their choice of joint presidential nominee — Mr. Hou or Mr. Ko — by examining electoral polls to determine who had the strongest shot at winning.

But teams of statistical experts put forward by each party could not agree on what polls to use and what to make of the results, and the parties became locked in days of bickering over the numbers and their implications. At news conferences, rival spokespeople brandished printouts of opinion poll results and struggled to explain complex statistical concepts.

The real issue was which leader would claim the presidential nominee spot, and the quarrel exposed deep wariness between the Nationalists — a party with a history of over a century that is also known as the Kuomintang, or K.M.T. — and the Taiwan People’s Party, which Mr. Ko, a surgeon and former mayor of Taipei, founded in 2019.

“The K.M.T., as the grand old party, could never make way for an upstart party, so structurally, it was very difficult for them to work out how to work together,” said Brian Hioe, a founding editor of New Bloom, a Taiwanese magazine that takes a critical view of mainstream politics. On the other hand, Mr. Hioe added, “Ko Wen-je’s party has the need to differentiate itself from the K.M.T. — to show that it’s independent and different — and so working with the K.M.T. would be seen by many of his party membership as a betrayal.”

A group of people near a large flag of Taiwan.

A supporter of the Kuomintang, or the long-established Nationalist Party, holding a flag outside the Central Election Commission in Taipei on Friday. Credit…Annabelle Chih/Getty Images

Ma Ying-jeou, the Nationalist president of Taiwan from 2008 to 2016, stepped in to try to broker an agreement between his party and Mr. Ko. Hopes rose on Thursday when Mr. Hou announced that he would be waiting at Mr. Ma’s office to hold negotiations with Mr. Ko.

But it quickly became clear that Mr. Ko and Mr. Hou remained divided. Mr. Ko refused to go to Mr. Ma’s office, and insisted on talks at another location. Mr. Hou stayed put in Mr. Ma’s office for hours, waiting for Mr. Ko to give way. Eventually, Mr. Hou agreed to meet at the Grand Hyatt hotel in Taipei, and party functionaries announced with solemn specificity that the talks would happen in Room 2538.

Dozens of journalists converged on the hotel, waiting for a possible announcement. Expectations rose when Mr. Hou entered a conference room where the journalists and live-feed cameras waited. But he sat with a fixed smile for about 20 minutes before Mr. Ko arrived, glowering. Mr. Gou, the magnate, opened proceedings with his tribute to Thanksgiving and calls for unity, recalling his wedding ceremony in the same hotel. But it soon became clear that Mr. Hou and Mr. Ko were no closer.

On Friday, Taiwanese people had shared images online and quips ridiculing the opposition’s public feuding. Photographs of Room 2538, a suite at the Grand Hyatt, circulated on the internet. Some likened the spectacle to “The Break-up Ring,” a popular Taiwanese television show that featured quarreling couples and their in-laws airing their grievances on camera.

Some drew a more somber conclusion: that dysfunction on the opposition side left Taiwan’s democracy weaker.

“In a healthy democracy, No. 2 and No. 3 will collaborate to challenge No. 1,” said Wu Tzu-chia, the chairman of My Formosa, an online magazine. “This should be a very rigorous process, but in Taiwan, it’s become very crude, like buying meat and vegetables in the marketplace.”

Chris Buckley, the chief China correspondent for The Times, reports on China and Taiwan from Taipei, focused on politics, social change and security and military issues. More about Chris Buckley

Amy Chang Chien covers news in mainland China and Taiwan. She is based in Taipei. More about Amy Chang Chien

Book of Wreckage wins Taiwan Literature Award

Source: Taipei Times (11/4/23)
‘Book of Wreckage’ wins top prize
PAINFUL MEMORIES: This year’s TLA winner was chosen for its depiction of the White Terror era. It was also the first time New Bud recipients won Golden Book Awards
By Staff Writer, with CNA

The National Museum of Taiwan Literature on Monday announced the winners of the Taiwan Literature Awards (TLA) for Books, with the top prize going to The Book of Wreckage (殘骸書) by Chen Lieh (陳列).

Taiwan Literature Awards for Books prize winner Chen Lieh, author of The Book of Wreckage, is pictured in an undated photograph. Photo courtesy of Ink Publishing

Chen’s work of prose won the 2023 TLA Annual Golden Grand Laurel Award along with NT$1 million (US$30,957) in prize money after it sailed past 190 other submissions, the annual award’s organizing museum said in a statement.

Chen subtly and deftly depicted the suffering and humiliation that has stayed mostly buried while invoking memories and reflection of the White Terror era, using “plain and complex language to revisit history and his personal experiences,” the statement said.

Chen was sentenced to prison in 1972 for political crimes and spent four years and eight months behind bars.

The book won support from the majority of the judges, who touted Chen’s work as “not only bearing witness to an era, but also set to stun readers from future generations.”

Seven other works were awarded the TLA Golden Book Award, including Bullets are the Remaining Life (子彈是餘生) by Tsao Sheng-hao (曹盛濠, or his pen name, “寺偉哲也”), The Lost River (沒口之河) by Huang Han-yau (黃瀚嶢), and Late Night Patrol of the Abandoned God (夜觀巡場 Ia-kuan Sun-tiunn) by Tiunn Ka-siong (張嘉祥).

The other winners of the Golden Book Award were Brother (弟弟) by Chan Wai-yee (陳偉儀, or her pen name, “陳慧”), Here’s to Us, Bottoms Up (我隨意,你盡量) by Ong Chiau-hoa (王昭華), Mooyi (魔以) by Chen Shu-yao (陳淑瑤) and Eyelids of Morning (鱷眼晨曦) by Zhang Guixing (張貴興). Continue reading

Indigenous healing

Source: Washington Post (10/22/23)
In Taiwan, finding solace — and identity — in traditional healing
By Brendan Ross

Tribal community members encircle Kulas Umo, a prominent sikawasay, or spiritual healer, in ritual dance and song as he spits rice wine to cleanse the ceremony and commune with ancestral spirits in the village of Fata’an in Taiwan’s Hualien County. (Nathaniel Brown for The Washington Post)

FATA’AN, Taiwan — Kulas Umo lights a cigarette against the fire, takes a short drag, then places it on the low wooden altar inside a hut in the forest. He repeats this routine six more times with six more cigarettes. Then he pours a splash of rice wine into seven small plastic cups set beside the smoldering offerings of tobacco.

Moving to the edge of the hut, Kulas, who goes by his given name as is his tribal convention, brings his hands to his mouth and calls out into the dense green expanse. He is trying to welcome back the ancestral spirits of a man seated at the fire.

The 38-year-old is a spiritual healer marshaling an ancient practice, but he also represents a very recent phenomenon: He is part of a revival of Amis traditional medicine in the Indigenous tribal village of Fata’an.

This is partly about addressing inequalities: Taiwan’s Indigenous communities still lack equal access to modern health care and suffer worse overall health outcomes than their Han Chinese counterparts, who make up about 97 percent of Taiwan’s population. The remainder are from Indigenous groups, of which the Amis are the largest, with about 200,000 people.

But it is also occurring at a pivotal political moment as Taiwan’s government under President Tsai Ing-wen, pushing back against Chinese claims to the island democracy, has increased efforts to support Indigenous politics and culture. Supporting the island’s Indigenous tribes helps prove Taiwan’s historical and cultural distinction from China and adds weight to the government’s ongoing sovereignty claims. Continue reading

Reel Taiwan

Reel Taiwan: A Celebration of the 30th Anniversary of Women Make Waves International Film Festival (WMWIFF)

Credit: SPRING CACTUS

NOV. 17 – 19 Download .ics
Co-sponsored by the Center for Religion and Media; Center for Media, Culture and History, NYU
FRIDAY, NOV. 17, 2023, 5:15 PM — 9:00 PM, MICHELSON THEATER, 721 BROADWAY
SATURDAY, NOV. 18, 2023, 3:00 PM — 8:30 PM, MICHELSON THEATER, 721 BROADWAY
SUNDAY, NOV. 19, 2023, 4:00 PM — 7:00 PM, MICHELSON THEATER, 721 BROADWAY

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the Women Make Waves International Film Festival (WMWIFF, Taipei). For three decades, WMWIFF, the largest of its kind in Asia, has promoted and nourished countless women filmmakers from around the world including the Sinophone sphere. This special program (consisting of five fictional, experimental and documentary films) joins the celebrations taking place in Taipei, Paris and elsewhere this fall. The event also provides the happy occasion for a “homecoming” reunion of several filmmakers who studied at Tisch School of the Arts before they launched their fruitful careers as filmmakers, curators, critics, and educators.

The event is co-organized by Zhen Zhang (Director of Asian Film & Media Initiative), Cristina Cajulis (Events Coordinator, Cinema Studies), Yu-shan Huang, and Jane Yu. Special thanks to Women Make Waves International Film Festival and Tingwu Cho. Thanks to Greg Helmstetter and student projectionists for technical support.

This event is free and open to the public. RSVP required. Non-NYU persons will need to show government-issued photo ID for building access.

Wang Wen-hsing dies at 84

Source: Focus Taiwan (10/3/23)
Taiwanese novelist Wang Wen-hsing dies at 84
By Chiu Tzu-yin and Matthew Mazzetta

Former National Taiwan University president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔, left) awarded Taiwanese writer Wang Wen-hsing a certificate of honorary doctorate during a ceremony at the university in 2007. CNA file photo

Former National Taiwan University president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔, left) awarded Taiwanese writer Wang Wen-hsing a certificate of honorary doctorate during a ceremony at the university in 2007. CNA file photo

Taipei, Oct. 3 (CNA) Taiwanese writer Wang Wen-hsing (王文興), best known for his 1973 novel “Family Catastrophe,” has died at the age of 84.

Wang’s death, from natural causes on Sept. 27, was announced by National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Department of Foreign Languages on Oct. 2, and confirmed to CNA by his wife, Chen Chu-yun (陳竺筠).

According to the Ministry of Culture, Wang was born in Fuzhou City in China’s Fujian Province in 1939, and came to Taiwan with his family in 1946, settling first in Donggang in Pingtung County and then in Taipei two years later.

He studied at NTU in its Department of Foreign Languages, where he was part of a group of talented young writers including Pai Hsien-yung (白先勇), Ouyang Tzu (歐陽子) and Chen Ruo-xi (陳若曦) who founded the magazine “Modern Literature” (現代文學). Continue reading