Highways & Byways: Deserving a wider audience: YouTubers introduce Taiwan’s seldom-seen sights

TRAX The team behind TraX is motivated by what host Dave Johnson sees as a lack of English-language documentaries that cover “contemporary history, nature, or the more quirky things about Taiwan ... also, what is available isn’t particularly impressive in visual terms.” Shot and edited by Colin Phoenix, TraX is produced under the banner of Guan Xi Media, a Taichung-based platform for artists of all kinds. Guan Xi Media is led by Michael Schram, a Canadian resident of Taichung. “Michael occasionally accompanies us when we shoot a video, but the most important thing is that Guan Xi Media is a registered media company. That carries a bit of weight and opens doors. Through it, we’re now members of Association of Taiwan Journalists (台灣新聞記者協會),” Johnson says. The company’s senior translator and coordinator Kelly Zheng (鄭安閑) also significantly contributes to the production process, Johnson says. “Guan Xi Media was looking to start a video series, and they found me through the stories and photography I’d put online. I went for a meeting to see if our interests matched, and they did,” Johnson recalls. The series was named TraX to incorporate the X of Guan Xi and also to allude to “making tracks,” Johnson says. Guan Xi’s YouTube channel includes Urb-X, a series of urban exploration videos also made by Phoenix. Before TraX got up and running, Phoenix had professional video and editing experience, “whereas I had absolutely no experience in front of the camera. I’m not a natural and I have to fight really hard to pull it off,” Johnson says. “We felt that many of the videos showcasing Taiwan are vlogs, and they concentrate on things like food and night markets. We want to make mini-documentaries that will still be watchable and relevant 10 years from now,” says Johnson, an Englishman who’s lived in Taiwan for 12

By Steven Crook

Lesbian drama earns prestigious selection

In the first scene of Fragrance of the First Flower (第一次遇見花香的那刻), protagonist Yi-ming (Zaizai Lin, 林辰唏) accidentally wanders into a gay wedding. “Although same-sex marriage is legal now, she’s still a little surprised by it,” director Angel Teng (鄧依涵) tells the Taipei Times. “It still hasn’t been completely accepted as the norm. There’s still a little conflict there, and I like highlighting these subtle details found in everyday situations.” Legalization also had little impact on Yi-ming’s life, as she has a husband and son. But when she reconnects with her close high school friend Ting-ting (Lyan Cheng, 程予希), her suppressed emotions are awakened. “She never figured out what her feelings meant back then,” Teng says. “And today, when society finally says that it’s okay to marry a woman, the decision isn’t really available to her anymore. There’s a sense of regret there. This film is not about blaming society for taking this long to push through legalization; it’s just a light-hearted drama where the audience can follow [Yi-ming and Ting-ting’s] relationship and come to their own realizations.” The six-episode mini-drama series made headlines earlier this month as Taiwan’s first title to be officially selected to the prestigious French Series Mania International Festival, which runs from Aug. 26 to Sept. 2. The production evolved out of Teng’s script that won the Gold Award at last year’s inaugural GagaOOLala Pitching Sessions, which provides funding for original LGBTQ projects. Frederic Lavigne, artistic director at Series Mania, praised Teng for being able to “find the right balance between frankness and caution,” noting that the story and characterization is “subtle and sensible” due to Lin and Chen’s “delicate interpretations.” The series will be available on GagaOOLala’s streaming platform in September. SUBTLE DIFFERENCES With a masters degree in psychology, Teng says she enjoys observing changes in people and society, then presenting

By Han Cheung

Should translators fear AI?

Move to another country, learn the language there, then make a living by translating between that language and one’s native tongue. Since the Age of Exploration, countless people have trodden this path. In addition to those who have developed full-time careers in the translation and interpretation (T&I) industry, there are many who translate as a side gig. For decades, David Wang (王宇大) was one of the latter. Wang, who’s now semi-retired, moved to Canada with his parents in 1967 after graduating from elementary school in Taipei. When he returned to Taiwan in 1984, he immediately realized his fluency in English was a big advantage in the job market. “I felt I had a gift for translating Chinese to English, despite my limited knowledge of my mother tongue. My first job in Taipei was translating news articles into English. That forced me to relearn a lot of the Chinese I’d forgotten living in Canada,” he says. Wang taught English at cram schools and — apart from a short period when he worked as an in-house translator — took on translation assignments to supplement what he earned by teaching. “In the 1980s, it would have been extremely difficult to survive in Taiwan by translation work only, due to the slave-like wages,” he says. Most of his translation work came via agencies who paid him a per word or per page rate. “I also found some clients on my own, and by networking. But, in the 1980s and 1990s, it was never easy to pick up well-paid translation work,” Wang says. That was before the advent of the Internet and e-mail. “I actually used a fax machine to receive texts and return my handwritten translations of them,” Wang remembers. For translators, the Internet is fantastically useful. It makes communicating with clients, receiving and submitting assignments, and conducting research

By Steven Crook

Tokyo’s real life Paw Patrol keeps crime on short leash

It’s a neighborhood watch with a difference. A clean-nosed crew, sniffing out trouble and keeping the streets safe for school kids: meet the pups of Tokyo’s real-life Paw Patrol. They might not have the gadgets and gear of their beloved cartoon counterparts, but the dogs of the Wan-Wan (“bow-wow”) Patrol are firm favorites in Tokyo’s Karasuyama neighborhood. Twelve-year-old Yurika Igarashi counts on seeing Sakura, a fluffy toy poodle, when she’s on her way home from school. “Sometimes I’m scared when I’m coming home alone, but I feel okay when I’m walking with Wan-Wan Patrol,” she said, gently cradling Sakura on her lap. Sakura is one of 150 pups who form the Wan-Wan Patrol, a program that enlists dogs and their owners to turn their daily walks into a neighborhood watch, monitoring children, looking out for residents and helping deter crime. The Karasuyama program is one of the oldest such community initiatives in Japan and was founded by a local police officer. “Individual owners walk whenever they can and have their dog wear the same scarf,” said Keiko Shimizu, the patrol’s current leader. Clearly marked canines patrolling the streets means “we can help make the neighborhood less prone to crime,” she added. Many of the dog owners are parents of current and former students of the local school, but others just participate in the community watch as residents. On one recent morning, five pooches in Wan-Wan Patrol’s lime-green neckerchiefs wagged their tails as they accompanied children going to elementary school. Pu, a 17-year-old shih tzu, is one of the oldest members of the patrol and can no longer walk by herself. But she proudly participates from the comfort of a doggy stroller pushed by her owner. ‘CAREFREE’ PLAY “The program helps us get to know each other and become good neighbors, and I feel this place stays safe that way,” said Michiko Takeuchi,

Book Review: A buzz of a tale about plants

Michael Pollan has written for many years, brilliantly, about our relationship with food and farming, in particular for the New York Times. In 2018, in what seemed like a midlife departure, he published a book on “the new science of psychedelics,” which was a personal report on renewed scientific interest in experiments with LSD and Ayahuasca, after decades of taboo. Pollan saw no change of direction in that project, however; he insisted to me at the time that it was simply a natural evolution of his “abiding interest in how we interact with other plant and animal species and how they get ahead in nature by gratifying our desires.” The desire to change consciousness was a fundamental element of that relationship, he suggested. This book, which concerns our species’ symbiotic entanglements with three other potent plant-derived substances — opium, caffeine and mescaline — is a further development of a lifelong inquiry, which began, he writes, when he took up gardening as a teenager and attempted to grow cannabis. His essays on perhaps the three most dramatically efficacious medicinal compounds proceed in a similar way, weaving personal experimentation with each of the “drugs” into informed histories of the ways in which they have taken such a hold of different human cultures. At the root of each case study is a pair of questions: the first asks why, as a species, we have gone to extraordinary lengths to propagate and disseminate these consciousness-changing molecules, and the second is why they are subject to paranoia and regulation in differing degrees. Pollan’s personal history with opium began 25 years ago, when Harper’s magazine commissioned him to grow opium poppies in his garden, and to report on the ethics and effects of his harvest. What began as a sort of academic prank at the height of America’s

By Tim Adams

Asian countries stockpile powerful new missiles

Asia is sliding into a dangerous arms race as smaller nations that once stayed on the sidelines build arsenals of advanced long-range missiles, following in the footsteps of powerhouses China and the US, analysts say. China is mass producing its DF-26, a multipurpose weapon with a range of up to 4,000km — while the US is developing new weapons aimed at countering Beijing in the Pacific. Other countries in the region are buying or developing their own new missiles, driven by security concerns over China and a desire to reduce their reliance on the US. Before the decade is out, Asia will be bristling with conventional missiles that fly farther and faster, hit harder and are more sophisticated than ever before — a stark and dangerous change from recent years, analysts, diplomats and military officials say. “The missile landscape is changing in Asia, and it’s changing fast,” said David Santoro, president of the Pacific Forum. Such weapons are increasingly affordable and accurate, and as some countries acquire them, their neighbors don’t want to be left behind, analysts said. Missiles provide strategic benefits such as deterring enemies and boosting leverage with allies, and can be a lucrative export. The long-term implications are uncertain, and there is a slim chance that the new weapons could balance tensions and help maintain peace, Santoro said. “More likely is that missile proliferation will fuel suspicions, trigger arms races, increase tensions, and ultimately cause crises and even wars,” he said. HOMEGROWN MISSILES According to unreleased 2021 military briefing documents, US Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM) plans to deploy its new long-range weapons in “highly survivable, precision-strike networks along the First Island Chain,” which includes Japan, Taiwan and other Pacific islands ringing the east coasts of China and Russia. The new weapons include the Long-range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW), a missile that can deliver a highly maneuverable warhead at more

By Josh Smith

Japan’s technological funk

When Tokyo last hosted the Olympics, in 1964, the unveiling of a bullet train capable of the improbable speed of 210 kilometers an hour heralded the dawn of a high-tech era in Japan. Within a decade and a half, innovations such as Sony’s videocassette recorder, Toshiba’s flash memory and Space Invaders, the arcade shoot-em up that revolutionized the gaming industry, made Japan synonymous with global technological superiority, and the talk was of it overtaking the US as the world’s biggest economy. Today, it seems like another age. As Tokyo again prepares to host the Games this week, Japan is in a technological funk. Its heyday of setting the pace in televisions, recording devices and computers is far behind it. While Japan can claim credit for the Walkman, Apple Inc came up with the iPhone. More humiliating yet, regional rival South Korea and its tech giant Samsung Electronics Co have overtaken Japan in smartphones and memory chips. That’s not simply a blow to Japanese national pride; it’s a corporate dilemma and an economic liability just as a fourth wave of COVID-19 robs the country of Olympic spectators and the revenue they’d bring to help spur a rebound from the pandemic. In an increasingly polarized world where the US and China are setting technology and data standards, Japan runs the risk of being left further behind. Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga is fighting back, with plans to bolster the computer chip industry elevated to a national project on a par with securing food or energy. But executives and government officials in the industry say the solution will also require something else: A fundamental shift in the way Japan has conducted business for decades. That means reducing red tape, recruiting foreign chipmaking talent and completely dropping “a stubborn insistence on Japan-centricism,” said Kazumi Nishikawa, a director at the IT division

A disturbingly prophetic look at the future of America — and our era of stupidity

Are we living in the age of stupid? The era of the idiot? The answer of course is yes, with examples of monstrous moronicism everywhere — from climate deniers to the “plandemic” crowd who believe COVID-19 was cooked up in Bill Gates’ basement. On the other hand, human beings have always been illogical creatures. A better question is whether we are, as a species, becoming dumberer. If this is already the era of the idiot, what comes next? An “Idiocracy,” according to film-maker Mike Judge. The Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill and Silicon Valley creator’s dystopian 2006 comedy (which he directed and co-wrote with Ethan Cohen) arrived with its own terminology to help us prepare for the upcoming reality TV special that we may call The Collapse of Reality Itself. Suggesting that morons rather than nerds will inherit the earth, and that the results will be catastrophic, the film begins with a context-setting intro so real it hurts. Judge cuts between an intelligent adult couple discussing why they won’t be having children right now (“not with the market the way it is”) and a ... less intelligent couple breeding like rabbits (“I thought youse was on the pill or some shit?”). Observing that “evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence,” the narrator explains that “with no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most — and left the intelligent to become an endangered species.” In the current era I couldn’t help but think of the BirthStrikers, taking a reasoned response to the climate crisis while hordes of the hoi polloi refuse to accept there is even a problem. Also that famous quote from Charles Bukowski: “The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full

By Luke Buckmaster

Animals stuffed with love

Carefully preserving an animal takes patience and attention to detail — luxuries Pakistani Jahangir Khan Jadoon says he doesn’t always have when a bereaved pet owner rushes into his workshop. “Sometimes an emotional customer will bring his dead pet with tears still in his eyes saying, ‘I can’t live even a night without him,’” says the taxidermist from his studio near the eastern city of Lahore. Surrounded by stuffed leopards, deers, parrots and cats, Jadoon sees his craft as both an art and a vital way to console those in pain. Some animals can take days to properly preserve while others take weeks, depending on the size and particulars of the animal. First the skin is carefully removed, washed and then exposed to the sun. The animals are then stuffed and carefully sown back together while their eyes are replaced with glass balls. But there are times, Jadoon admits, when he has only hours to bring comfort to a distraught client, making the delicate process all the more difficult. “Someone with a parrot or a cat will come and request us to preserve the pet as soon as possible. They say: ‘do it now.’ So in such cases we have to apply extra chemicals. Even then it can take hours,” he adds. Over the years, Jadoon has seen a wide range of species brought into his workshop, from rare leopards to a cassowary bird that lived in a Pakistan zoo for decades. “I learned this skill from my forefathers. My grandfather started it in 1918 after a deer died in Lahore’s zoo,” says Jadoon, adding that he has also stuffed his fair share of animals that merely serve as decorations for fancy homes. ‘WHY IS IT NOT MOVING?’ A growing taste among elite Pakistanis for exotic pets — especially big cats seen as symbols

By Sajjad Tarakzai

Notes from central Taiwan: The irrelevance of strategic ambiguity

For the last two decades, there has been a growing chorus of think pieces arguing that the US should clarify its position on Taiwan and end its policy of “strategic ambiguity,” its refusal to announce an official position stating clearly whether and under what conditions it would defend Taiwan. Like antibodies rushing to defend a breach in the skin, such articles then attract wave after wave of essays contending that ending strategic ambiguity is a bad idea. PRECEDENTS Yet, just off Taiwan are two cases that can shed light on the problems at the heart of strategic ambiguity, the Philippines and Japan. Farther off, the subcontinent offers several others, including India, Nepal and Bhutan. If observers wish to see what might happen when the US commitment is “clear,” they need merely consider the cases of the Philippines and Japan, both of which have mutual defense treaties with the US that compel it to come to their aid if attacked. At present, China occupies features in the South China Sea that indisputably belong to the Philippines, such as Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島, also claimed by Taiwan). It uses both fishing boats and paramilitary vessels to carry out these activities. While the US has made noise, Chinese boats remain at Scarborough and elsewhere in the South China Sea. This occupation, though overt theft, has not triggered a US military response. Similarly, the Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台, known as the Senkaku Islands in Japan, also claimed by Taiwan and China), Japanese since the late 19th century, have been the site of numerous incursions by Chinese boats in recent years. The US has publicly stated that it includes the Senkakus in its mutual defense treaty with Tokyo, and years ago, even carried out wargames there with Japanese defense forces. This clarity — repeated on a regular basis by

By Michael Turton

How Watergate saved Taiwan

US president Richard Nixon had a lot on his mind in the spring of 1971. The Watergate break-in that would ultimately bring down his presidency was more than a year away, but he had a full foreign policy plate with an unpopular war in Vietnam, tensions in the Middle-East and stalled efforts to bring Moscow to the table for talks on limiting nuclear arms. One other foreign policy challenge, not then publicly known, was the tantalizing prospect of rapprochement with communist China after two decades of estrangement. Nixon and his national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, both believed a breakthrough with “Red China” would increase their leverage in peace talks with the North Vietnamese and arms talks with Moscow. Something else weighed heavily on Nixon’s mind at that time. Opening up dialog with Beijing might come at the expense of the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. Nixon, who had based his political career on being a staunch opponent of Communism, was a personal friend of the-then 83-year-old Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), whom Nixon fondly referred to as “the old man.” ‘WHAT’S BEST FOR US’ In a phone call with Kissinger on the evening of April 14 — the same day TV networks reported on the US ping pong team being invited to China — Nixon expressed his concern over Taiwan’s future. “The Taiwan thing, that’s sort of worrisome, I don’t know if there’s a damn thing we can do about it, is there?” he asked of Kissinger, who replied: “It’s a tragedy that it had to happen to Chiang at the end of his life, but we have to be cold about it.” Nixon concurred, adding: “We have to do what’s best for us.” On July 17, two days after announcing he would make an historic “journey for peace” to Beijing the following

By Craig Addison

Taiwan in Time: The women claimed by the White Terror

July 19 to July 25 The little girl clutched on to her mother and repeatedly cried, “My mom isn’t a bad person, don’t execute her!” She was born and raised in prison, and most likely knew what it meant when an inmate was abruptly handcuffed and dragged away. The guards ignored her cries, and Ting Yao-tiao (丁窈窕), her mother, met her end that day by firing squad. It was July 24, 1956, two years after Ting and her close friend Shih Shui-huan (施水環) were arrested for allegedly spying for the “communist bandits.” Both women were executed that day, and later accounts indicate that they were likely innocent victims of a fabricated accusation. Ting was 28, Shih was 29. Although the bulk of White Terror victims were men, there were also numerous women who were arrested and executed under suspicion of working for the Chinese Communist Party. According to Women and White Terror Political Incidents (女性與白色恐怖政治事件), a paper by Yang Tsui (楊翠), 26 women were confirmed to have been executed. The real number is probably higher. Like Ting and Shih, most of them were educated, working women in their 20s. Quite a few raised their children in jail. Survivor Chang Chang-mei (張常美) recalls the terrible conditions and the torture they endured, and recalls watching at least seven cellmates being carted off to the execution grounds. She clearly remembers Ting’s daughter crying that day. In a 2015 Human Rights Museum documentary, where she was the only female interviewee, Chang says she will never forgive the government. “I’m not that generous,” Chang says. TROUBLE BREWING Shih and Ting met while working for the Post, Telephone and Telegraph Administration in Taipei. They later served together at a post office in Tainan. According to an article on the Taiwan Association of Truth and Reconciliation Web site, trouble began

By Han Cheung

The US-China tech conflict

The historic Belgian city of Leuven is known for its centuries-old university and as the headquarters of brewing giant Anheuser-Busch InBev NV. Less so as the location of a semiconductor research organization that is now the center of both political and industry attention. The Interuniversity Microelectronics Center, or imec, may be Belgium’s best-kept secret, but it’s in global demand for its work on the future of computer chips, with applications in areas from genome sequencing to autonomous driving. It’s also increasingly in the sights of governments as chips become political weapons in the US-China tech conflict. Crippling industry shortages during the pandemic have meanwhile set off a scramble for access to advanced research as the US, China, Japan and Europe all seek greater self-reliance in semiconductor production. POLITICAL ATTENTION The European Commission is consulting with imec on its plans to build out the continent’s chip capacity. A South Korean ministerial delegation visited this month. It was name-checked in last month’s White House review of the US supply chain alongside ASML NV of the Netherlands, which has a virtual monopoly on the machines needed to make the most advanced chips. In the words of one Washington observer, imec is one of those places very few people know about but which everyone should. “We have never been so much in the spotlight as today,” Chief Executive Officer Luc Van den hove said in an interview in his office on the 15th floor of the futuristic imec tower, with 360 degree views of countryside just outside the historic town center. “We have received much more attention than ever before from the politicians: local politicians, European politicians, US politicians.” Chinese politicians, too. Premier Li Keqiang (李克強) visited in October 2018 — before tensions over trade with the Trump administration expanded to chips — and stressed the “vast business opportunities”

Highways & Byways: Lakeside to seaside, by bike and car

If level-3 pandemic countermeasures have dampened the economy, it wasn’t obvious from the non-stop parade of trucks on Freeway 1 just after six o’clock on a weekday morning. I’d cycled under the interchange between Freeway 1 and Freeway 8 in Tainan’s Sinshih District (新市), using a bike trail that’s part of the Mountains to Sea National Greenway (山海圳國家級綠道). This 177km-long route knits together long-established hiking trails, conventional roads and purpose-built cycling and walking paths to connect the Taiwan Strait with the 3,952m-high summit of Jade Mountain (玉山). By comparison, my own ambitions were modest. During level 3, in fits and starts, I’d been working out the best way for an engineless two-wheeler to get from lakeside to seaside. The body of water where I began isn’t famous. Yingsi Lake (迎曦湖) is a manmade feature in the Tainan section of Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學工業園區). Designed to mitigate flooding and stabilize water supplies, the lake is 520m in length and about 20m across. A huge piece of art dominates the lake’s northwestern corner. The Yellow Ribbon (舞彩迎賓 — the Chinese name means something like “a dancing and colorful greeting”) is a 440m-long steel canopy that undulates across the landscape. Usually I’m no fan of this kind of thing, but I think the giant billowing ribbon does add something to the scenery. From Yingsi Lake, I rode northwest on Tainan Local Road 134 to another of the science park’s flood-detention basins. Ditang Lake (堤塘湖) is slightly smaller than Yingsi Lake, and not quite so appealing. I half expected the entrance to the bike path, right across the road from the lake’s southern shore, to be cordoned off with yellow tape. It wasn’t, likely because some people use it to commute to their jobs in the science park. LINKING MOUNTAINS AND SEA The Mountains to Sea National Greenway

By Steven Crook

Movie reviews: ‘Weirdo Series’

Don’t expect to see anything bizarre or outlandish in the Weirdo Series (怪咖系列) — at least not yet. The definition of a “weirdo” differs greatly in Western and Taiwanese culture. Under the local context, anyone who is different and doesn’t follow society’s prescribed values and life path qualifies as one. Thus, this 18-part mini-documentary series produced by veteran documentary filmmaker Yang Li-chou (楊力州) is more of a celebration of ordinary Taiwanese who go against the grain and have the courage to live the way they want to. While more people are breaking out of cultural and societal constraints, there’s still a suffocating pressure to fit in. The featured characters can all attest to this when discussing the hardships they’ve faced. This includes things that they can’t control, such as their physical appearance and sexuality. Through their challenges and endeavors, various social issues are also highlighted. “There is a group of people in Taiwan who have been labeled as [weirdos] throughout their lives,” Yang says in the introductory video. “We want to tell people that it’s actually a nice thing to be a weirdo. I believe that before every person became ‘normal,’ they were once a weirdo too. We must eradicate this discrimination in a progressive society.” Launched last October, the documentaries will be released on YouTube over the course of three years, with five completed so far. The series premiered with two pieces, both under 20 minutes long: Taiwan Batman (動保蝙蝠俠) follows a burly, menacing and heavily tattooed man who has dedicated his life to ending animal abuse, while Legit Moms, Illegitimate Kid (非法母親) chronicles a lesbian couple who travel to Cambodia to get in vitro fertilization treatment since they are not permitted to do it in Taiwan. Three more films have been released so far: Dear Period (尼泊爾布思議) tells the story

By Han Cheung

Purists unimpressed by modern twists to 200-year-old Mexican dish

For purists of the iconic Mexican dish “chile en nogada,” new ingredients and even ice cream, tortilla chip and pizza versions have them up in arms as the recipe associated with Mexican independence turns 200 years old. The celebrated fare traditionally uses around 30 ingredients, not least the poblano chile — grown mainly in the central state of Puebla — which is stuffed and covered in walnut sauce. “The chile contains seasonal fruits such as pear, Creole peach and panochera apple, which is different due to its hard texture,” said Olga Mendez, a member of a committee formed in Puebla to mark the bicentennial. “They are combined with almonds, raisins, cinnamon, cumin, oregano and brown sugar, and ground pork and beef are added.” The dish was born in what is known as Puebla’s “convent kitchen” — where Spanish nuns and their indigenous helpers created legendary recipes combining ingredients from both traditions. “It’s a representative, iconic, elegant, Creole dish. We’re proud of it,” said Mendez, who also heads a restaurant union in Puebla. With its red, white and green ingredients, the dish represents the Mexican flag. The stuffed chile, often coated in an egg batter, is covered in a white walnut sauce and decorated with green parsley and red pomegranate seeds. According to historical accounts, the dish was served to Agustin de Iturbide, the first ruler of independent Mexico, when he passed through Puebla after signing the Treaty of Cordoba establishing independence from Spain on Aug. 24, 1821. It is traditionally eaten between July and September — the ideal harvest season for pomegranates, walnuts and poblano chiles. REINVENTING A CLASSIC Traditionalists are worried that the original ingredients are being replaced, partly due to the use of poblano chile seeds from China that are cheaper but yield less spicy peppers. The innovators defend their efforts to give the classic dish a modern-day twist. “I didn’t

Radioactive blast from ICRT’s past

After the deaths of several beloved International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT) personalities over the past several years, former DJ Rick Monday wanted to do something to preserve in time the station’s golden days when “radio was king.” “We couldn’t let any more people go without [recording their memories],” Monday says. “But we didn’t just want to sit there and talk about them. We wanted their voices. So we started reaching out to former employees, and we got 17.” Most importantly, Monday got in touch with former general manager Craig Quick, who took over the station in 1983 and is now in his 80s. “It was his vision,” Monday says. “None of us came here and said we were going to make Taiwan a better place; we all stepped into Craig’s vision.” These testimonials, along with recollections from 10 former listeners, eventually morphed into Radioactive Taiwan, a five-episode podcast discussing the groundbreaking English-language station’s impact on Taiwanese society during the 1980s and 1990s. The show is narrated by iconic former DJ Bobby Kong, who now lives in Tokyo, and produced by former host Gray Gleason out of Manila. “ICRT was social media,” Kong tells the Taipei Times. “People who spoke English listened to ICRT to get the latest music and gossip, and for Chinese listeners it was a place where they could hear native English speakers outside of the buxibans. They could call in, talk to DJs and make requests in a new, unique American style that was different from what was being broadcast in Taiwan.” The retro-sounding series covers much ground, from the station serving as a gateway to Western culture, to reporting on sensitive news topics during martial law, to its role as an active community partner. Among other items, ICRT organized one of Taiwan’s earliest singing contests, helped

By Han Cheung