Judy Chiang (
"overdue justice."
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Liao had accused Chiang and Kuang of plagiarizing a scene from his Turn Left, Turn Right (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Kuang, who won a Golden Melody Award this year for best video, has been behind a number of videos that have aroused suspicion of plagiarism because of, shall we say, references to videos by Japanese, American and Korean pop stars. Liao has said he plans to appeal the case.
Another case to come out of the courts in the past week was Takeshi Kaneshiro's (
We can probably also expect some kind of investigation and perhaps (though if the president gets shot in broad daylight and no one's caught, then it's not guaranteed) a suit in the vicious assault by baseball-bat-wielding thugs on TV personality He Yi-hang (
speculated he may have been beat en in retribution for refusing a show appearance.
There was more rage over the past week when Taiwanese rocker Chang Chen-yue (
The Great Daily News also offered an interesting article after former US president Ronald Reagan's death written by Little S (
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) last week offered us a glimpse of the violence it plans against Taiwan, with two days of blockade drills conducted around the nation and live-fire exercises not far away in the East China Sea. The PRC said it had practiced hitting “simulated targets of key ports and energy facilities.” Taiwan confirmed on Thursday that PRC Coast Guard ships were directed by the its Eastern Theater Command, meaning that they are assumed to be military assets in a confrontation. Because of this, the number of assets available to the PRC navy is far, far bigger
The 1990s were a turbulent time for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) patronage factions. For a look at how they formed, check out the March 2 “Deep Dives.” In the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s the factions amassed fortunes from corruption, access to the levers of local government and prime access to property. They also moved into industries like construction and the gravel business, devastating river ecosystems while the governments they controlled looked the other way. By this period, the factions had largely carved out geographical feifdoms in the local jurisdictions the national KMT restrained them to. For example,
The remains of this Japanese-era trail designed to protect the camphor industry make for a scenic day-hike, a fascinating overnight hike or a challenging multi-day adventure Maolin District (茂林) in Kaohsiung is well known for beautiful roadside scenery, waterfalls, the annual butterfly migration and indigenous culture. A lesser known but worthwhile destination here lies along the very top of the valley: the Liugui Security Path (六龜警備道). This relic of the Japanese era once isolated the Maolin valley from the outside world but now serves to draw tourists in. The path originally ran for about 50km, but not all of this trail is still easily walkable. The nicest section for a simple day hike is the heavily trafficked southern section above Maolin and Wanshan (萬山) villages. Remains of
Shunxian Temple (順賢宮) is luxurious. Massive, exquisitely ornamented, in pristine condition and yet varnished by the passing of time. General manager Huang Wen-jeng (黃文正) points to a ceiling in a little anteroom: a splendid painting of a tiger stares at us from above. Wherever you walk, his eyes seem riveted on you. “When you pray or when you tribute money, he is still there, looking at you,” he says. But the tiger isn’t threatening — indeed, it’s there to protect locals. Not that they may need it because Neimen District (內門) in Kaohsiung has a martial tradition dating back centuries. On