Sanchih local government is trying to put the township on the cultural map by sponsoring a week-long festival (2005三芝鄉筊白筍暨水車文化節) that starts tomorrow.
The sword bamboo shoot festival will take place in and around the Hall of Fame, Putou Village, Sanchih, Taipei (
F 4 Girls, the female version of popular boy band F4, will perform. To get in the group, Amy, Stacy, Tiffany and Fanny had to pass some tough criteria, not least of which was that they had to have F-cup breasts.
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ORIGINALS
Also appearing is blind crooner Lee Bing-hui
Lee and his partner, who died in 2002, stormed the Taiwanese music charts in 1997 with their Walking to Danshui album.
A new band on the local music scene will make its debut tomorrow. The Originals, formed six months ago, covers 1980s songs but with a twist. "Synthesizer pop and then imagine Axel Rose ate it," said Justin Robinet who goes by the name of Ken Tucky.
Other local groups slated to play include latin group Jam Jazz, rock outfit the Little Nurses
Between the band performances, members of the audience will have the opportunity to put questions to the musicians.
Belarussian model Margarita, once the object of Chang Fei's
Proceedings will begin tomorrow with a lion dance followed by cooking competitions, Aboriginal groups performing snake dances, speeches, a beauty contest and a magic show.
Locally brewed beer and other agricultural produce will be on sale.
The festivities start at 9am and end at 10pm with firework displays and laser shows.
For information on transport and event times call (02) 8635 3640.
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
The tropic of cancer bisects the city of Chiayi (嘉義). The morning heat is, predictably, intense. But the sky is blue and hued with promise. Travelers brave the heat to pose for photos outside the carriages lined up at the end of platform one. The pervasive excitement is understandable. HISTORIC RAILWAY The Alishan Forest Railway (阿里山森林鐵路) was engineered by the Japanese to carry timber from the interior to the coast. Construction began in 1906. In 1912, it opened to traffic, although the line has been lengthened several times since. As early as the 1930s, the line had developed a secondary function as