`Hoping for Hoping' might seem a hopeless name for an organization until you learn that the second "hoping" (和平) is actually the Romanization of "peace" in Chinese and that the group is one of the founding members of Taiwan's nascent peace movement.
Their hope is that tomorrow, all peaceable-minded people will turn out for a gathering in Taichung complete with food, drinks and music from 15 local bands. Admission is NT$300 and all proceeds go to local charities.
PHOTO COURTESY OF HOPING FOR HOPING
Jindowin, .22, Dakanow, Milk, Dahai, Anglers, Mandala, Schlumpy, The Deported, Chicken Rice, Boosie Chillin, Rocket Girl!, Robin Dale, Wise Maneouvers, and Blacksummerdaycamp will all take the stage of the Night Sky Outdoor BBQ starting at 2pm with an after party featuring DJs from Chi Funk and the rhymes of Elementality.
"Peace," says organizer Dave Nichols. Hoping for Hoping was founded last year by a group consisting mostly of foreign residents of Taiwan opposed to the US' invasion of Iraq. They met with several like-minded locals and drew some 300 people to a protest rally on the steps of the American Institute in Taiwan last February.
Hsia Chu-joe (夏鑄九), a professor at National Taiwan University and long-time political activist, was among them. He offered a history lesson on Taiwan's peace movement.
"After the lifting of martial law, besides the movement for democracy, there were others, such as the labor movement, the farmers' movement, student movement, womens' movement, gay and lesbian movement and the environmental movement, including people opposed to nuclear power," Hsia said. "We were called the pian di kai hua (
Following that rally, Hoping for Hoping held their first peace rally in Taoyuan County, with many of the same musical acts that will be performing at this year's event.
Night Sky BBQ is located at 199, Chung Gang Road, Taichung (
Last week the Economist (“A short history of Taiwan and China, in maps,” July 10) and Al Jazeera both sent around short explainers of the Taiwan-China issue. The Al Jazeera explainer, which discussed the Cold War and the rivalry between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), began in the postwar era with US intervention in the Chinese Civil War and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) retreat to Taiwan. It was fairly standard, and it works because it appeals to the well-understood convention that Taiwan enters history in 1949 when the KMT retreats to it. Very different, and far
Like many people juggling long hours at work, Chiharu Shimoda sought companionship via a dating app. For two months, he exchanged messages with five or six potential partners, but it wasn’t long before he was seeking out just one — a 24-year-old named Miku. Three months later, they got married. The catch: Miku is an AI bot. And Shimoda knew that from day one. The 52-year-old factory worker is one of over 5,000 users of Loverse, a year-old app that allows interaction only with generative artificial intelligence. Shimoda’s also among a much bigger cohort of people who’ve either given up or
July 15 to July 21 Depending on who you ask, Taiwan Youth (台灣青年) was a magazine that either spoke out against Japanese colonialism, espoused Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) ideology or promoted Taiwanese independence. That’s because three publications with contrasting ideologies, all bearing the same Chinese name, were established between 1920 and 1960. Curiously, none of them originated in Taiwan. The best known is probably The Tai Oan Chheng Lian, launched on July 16, 1920 by Taiwanese students in Tokyo as part of the growing non-violent resistance movement against Japanese colonial rule. A crucial part of the effort was to promote Taiwanese
In 2017, Chuang Ying-chih (莊?智) emerged onto the Taipei art scene with A Topographical Tale of Ximending, a photo series that documented marginalized communities living in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華). The artworks won a number of awards including the Special Jury Award at the 2017 Young Art Taipei Contemporary Art Fair. This month, she’s back with an equally stirring photo series A Time to Scatter Stones, which is currently on view at 1839 Contemporary Art Gallery (1839當代). As with her previous work, Chuang continues to study unique worlds. This time, however, she’s not capturing the “emotions of fading subcultures” but a sense