On Saturday next week, Urban Nomad Film Festival begins proceedings with a party. The lineup includes Taiwanese American DJ Mochipet on his first visit to Taiwan. Hailing from San Francisco, the glitch-hop and dubstep artist is heavily into bass and dresses like a purple dinosaur.
He’ll be joined by Taiwan’s own Funky Brothers (who perform with between eight to 10 members on stage at any given time), DJ Marcus Aurelius, and the electro-diva grrrls of Go Chic, which has toured extensively and is producing an album in Berlin with the help of Canada’s foremost electro artist Peaches.
Headlining the night is Japanese art-dance-fashionista-freaks Trippple Nippples. Think Lady Gaga triplets crossed with gross-out band Gwar, and you still aren’t even close.
Photo courtesy of Takeru Kihara
The three lead singers of the band make their own costumes, which have included rotten spaghetti and latex dresses, and rice encrusted headgear and body armor, by hand.
“The process we take while we are making the costume, etc, is the most uncolorful, sweatshop-ish part,” said band member Orea Nippple. “It’s like Third World, but we love it so I guess we can’t complain.”
The group’s wild stage antics and messy costumes have had them kicked out of various venues. “You should think about how you could mess us up rather than worrying about how you can get away from getting messed up,” warned Yuka Nippple, who describes the group’s music as “headache and stomachache and strawberry ice cream.”
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
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