[{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Courtney Donovan Smith \u77f3\u6771\u6587","ar_views":"583","ar_id":"2003830220","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-15","ar_head":"Donovan\u2019s Deep Dives: Quirks in the names politicians use in English","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"One way people in Taiwan can control how they are represented is through their choice of name. Culturally, it is not uncommon for people to choose their own names and change their identification cards and passports to reflect the change, though only recently was the right to use Indigenous names wri","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/15\/2003830220","photo":{"ar_id":"2003830220","ph_attr":"Photo: Peng Chien-li, Taipei Times","ph_cap":"Hon Hai Precision Co founder and former presidential candidate Terry Gou in August 2023 prays at a temple in Miaoli County.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/15","ph_fname":"P12-250115-003.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/15\/P12-250115-003.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/15\/thumbs\/P12-250115-003.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Victoria Turk","ar_views":"386","ar_id":"2003830221","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-15","ar_head":"Five ways to take back control of your tech, from emails to AI","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"MAKE AI WORK SMARTERAsking ChatGPT to write your emails is so two years ago. Generative AI tools are now going beyond the basic text-prompt phase. Take Google\u2019s NotebookLM, an experimental \u201cAI research assistant\u201d that lets you upload not just text but also videos, links and PDFs. It will provide a s","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/15\/2003830221","photo":{"ar_id":"2003830221","ph_attr":"Photo: Reuters","ph_cap":"Artificial Intelligence letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/15","ph_fname":"P12-250115-302.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/15\/P12-250115-302.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/15\/thumbs\/P12-250115-302.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Helen Davidson \r\n","ar_views":"989","ar_id":"2003830158","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-14","ar_head":"China\u2019s military drills around Taiwan set to increase: analysts","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"China\u2019s military launched a record number of warplane incursions around Taiwan last year as it builds its ability to launch full-scale invasion, something a former chief of Taiwan\u2019s armed forces said Beijing could be capable of within a decade.Analysts said China\u2019s relentless harassment had taken a ","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/14\/2003830158","photo":{"ar_id":"2003830158","ph_attr":"Photo: EPA-EFE","ph_cap":"Taiwanese navy personnel on Thursday prepare to set sail during a drill inside a naval base in Kaohsiung. President William Lai pledged in his new year speech to boost Taiwan\u2019s defense budget as China ramps up tensions across the Taiwan Strait.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/14","ph_fname":"P12-250114-301.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/14\/P12-250114-301.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/14\/thumbs\/P12-250114-301.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"","ar_views":"402","ar_id":"2003830159","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-14","ar_head":"India opens giant Hindu festival for 400 million pilgrims","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Vast crowds of Hindu pilgrims in India began bathing in sacred waters yesterday as the Kumbh Mela festival opened, with organizers expecting 400 million people \u2014 the largest gathering of humanity.The millennia-old Kumbh Mela, a show of religious piety and ritual bathing \u2014 and a logistical challenge ","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/14\/2003830159","photo":{"ar_id":"2003830159","ph_attr":"Photo: Reuters","ph_cap":"A woman devotee yesterday prays while taking a holy dip at Sangam, the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers with the mythical, invisible Saraswati river during the \u201cMaha Kumbh Mela,\u201d or the Great Pitcher Festival, in Prayagraj, India.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/14","ph_fname":"P12-250114-305.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/14\/P12-250114-305.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/14\/thumbs\/P12-250114-305.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Michael Turton","ar_views":"1033","ar_id":"2003830099","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-13","ar_head":"Notes from Central Taiwan: Cable cutting as strategy","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People\u2019s Republic o","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/13\/2003830099","photo":{"ar_id":"2003830099","ph_attr":"Photo: AFP","ph_cap":"The Cameroon-flagged Shunxing 39 cargo ship pictured on Jan. 3 off the coast of northern Taiwan.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/13","ph_fname":"P12-250113-313.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/13\/P12-250113-313.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/13\/thumbs\/P12-250113-313.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Han Cheung","ar_views":"1080","ar_id":"2003830050","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-12","ar_head":"Taiwan in Time: Reclaiming a long-hidden identity","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Jan 13 to Jan 19Yang Jen-huang (\u694a\u4ec1\u714c) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they\u2019ll be killed. \u201cOnly then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,\u201d he tells Mayaw Kilang in \u201cThe social culture and ethnic iden","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/12\/2003830050","photo":{"ar_id":"2003830050","ph_attr":"Photo courtesy of Hualien District Agricultural Research and Extension Station","ph_cap":"A portrait of Sakizaya people in Sakul Village.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/12","ph_fname":"p12-250112-sakiraya 01.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/12\/p12-250112-sakiraya 01.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/12\/thumbs\/p12-250112-sakiraya 01.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"","ar_views":"1268","ar_id":"2003830008","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-11","ar_head":"Japan\u2019s \u2018poop master\u2019","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do.\u201cWe survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,\u201d the 7","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/11\/2003830008","photo":{"ar_id":"2003830008","ph_attr":"Photo: AP","ph_cap":"Poop-shaped lights on June 18, 2019 hang in a room at the Unko Museum which celebrates poop in Yokohama, Japan.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/11","ph_fname":"P12-250111-306.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/11\/P12-250111-306.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/11\/thumbs\/P12-250111-306.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Casey Hall","ar_views":"719","ar_id":"2003830009","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-11","ar_head":"Pink fox Linabell fills China\u2019s \u2018emotional void\u2019","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Each week, whenever she has time off from her marketing job, Ida Jia can be found at Shanghai Disneyland queuing for hours to spend a few minutes with Linabell, a fluffy pink fox with big blue eyes.The 29-year-old does not go empty handed, bringing pink fox soft toys dressed in ornate custom-made ou","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/11\/2003830009","photo":{"ar_id":"2003830009","ph_attr":"Photo: Reuters","ph_cap":"Ida Jia, 29, on Dec. 24 holds a plush doll of LinaBell, a character from the Disney series <i>Duffy and Friends<\/i>, during a parade at Shanghai Disneyland, in Shanghai, China.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/11","ph_fname":"P12-250111-329.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/11\/P12-250111-329.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/11\/thumbs\/P12-250111-329.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Tyler Cottenie","ar_views":"960","ar_id":"2003829949","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-10","ar_head":"Dulishan\u2019s Spiral Railway","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/10\/2003829949","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829949","ph_attr":"Photo: Tyler Cottenie","ph_cap":"A train passing through Tunnel No. 10 on the Alishan Forest Railway.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/10","ph_fname":"P12-250110-316asa.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/10\/P12-250110-316asa.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/10\/thumbs\/P12-250110-316asa.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Curtis Yee","ar_views":"364","ar_id":"2003829950","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-10","ar_head":"Participate or keep it quiet?","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"As movie theaters worked to entice Americans back into seats after COVID-19 lockdowns and labor strikes, the industry marketed blockbuster films like Wicked and the dueling releases of Barbie and Oppenheimer as no less than cultural events.But when certain movies become \u201cevents\u201d unto themselves, som","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/10\/2003829950","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829950","ph_attr":"Photo: AP","ph_cap":"This image released by Universal Pictures shows Cynthia Erivo, left, and Ariana Grande in a scene from the film<i> Wicked.<\/i>","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/10","ph_fname":"P11-250110-320.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/10\/P11-250110-320.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/10\/thumbs\/P11-250110-320.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Wendy Ide","ar_views":"371","ar_id":"2003829951","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-10","ar_head":"\u2018Nickel Boys\u2019","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"An unwritten rule of cinema is that great books very rarely make great movies. It\u2019s not inevitable that a film adaptation of a literary classic will turn out to be a stinker, but plenty do: take Roland Joffe\u2019s disposable and tawdry version of Nathaniel Hawthorne\u2019s The Scarlet Letter, Brian De Palma\u2019","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/10\/2003829951","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829951","ph_attr":"Photo: AP","ph_cap":"This image released by Amazon\/MGM shows Ethan Herisse, left, and Brandon Wilson, right, in a promotional photo for the film<i> Nickel Boys<\/i>.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/10","ph_fname":"P11-250110-318.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/10\/P11-250110-318.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/10\/thumbs\/P11-250110-318.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Courtney Donovan Smith (\u77f3\u6771\u6587)","ar_views":"616","ar_id":"2003829888","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-09","ar_head":"Donovan\u2019s Deep Dives: Similarities and differences between KMT and TPP supporters","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"These are volatile times for the Taiwan People\u2019s Party (TPP), with the party\u2019s founder, Ko Wen-je (\u67ef\u6587\u54f2), in and out and back in jail repeatedly, Ko resigning as party chair and naming TPP caucus convener Huang Kuo-chang (\u9ec3\u570b\u660c) to replace him and an upcoming party leadership vote. How representative o","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/09\/2003829888","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829888","ph_attr":"Photo: EPA-EFE","ph_cap":"Demonstrators on Dec. 20 display placards during a protest against three bills proposed by Taiwan\u2019s opposition parties, outside the Parliament building in Taipei.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/09","ph_fname":"P12-250109-new.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/09\/P12-250109-new.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/09\/thumbs\/P12-250109-new.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By James Baron","ar_views":"437","ar_id":"2003829889","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-09","ar_head":"Book review: Food for thought \u2014 a literary feast","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Like many works of historical fiction, this is a slow burner. Unlike some, this is not down to painstaking characterization.Aside from oneiric recollections of an unexplained childhood isolation at a mountain temple, to which she attributes her \u201cmonstrous\u201d gluttony, the book\u2019s narrator Aoyama Chizuk","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/09\/2003829889","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829889","ph_attr":"","ph_cap":"<i>Taiwan Travelogue<\/i>, by Yang Shuang-zi.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/09","ph_fname":"p11-250109-bookreview.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/09\/p11-250109-bookreview.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/09\/thumbs\/p11-250109-bookreview.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"","ar_views":"407","ar_id":"2003829890","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-09","ar_head":"Myanmar addicts battle their demons in the \u2018House of Love\u2019","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"More than a hundred shaven-headed men pour out of their Yangon hostel around 6am for a day of weightlifting, karate drills, dancing and Buddhist prayer \u2014 drug rehabilitation, Myanmar style. The group of doctors, musicians and street food vendors set off for a jog around a verdant, orchid-dotted comp","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/09\/2003829890","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829890","ph_attr":"Photo: AFP","ph_cap":"Recovering drug addicts on Dec. 14 exercise during a rehabilitation program at the Metta Saneain drug addict rehab center in Yangon, Myanmar.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/09","ph_fname":"p11-250109-301a.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/09\/p11-250109-301a.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/09\/thumbs\/p11-250109-301a.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Steven Crook","ar_views":"483","ar_id":"2003829831","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-08","ar_head":"Environmental Impact Assessment: Bioenergy shows a glimmer of promise","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"As in previous years, last year\u2019s typhoon season left many of Taiwan\u2019s beaches littered with driftwood. Media coverage focused on the legal status of this debris, as the rules which govern who can remove fragments of trees washed out of state-owned forests, what they can take and whether they can us","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/08\/2003829831","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829831","ph_attr":"Photo: Steven Crook","ph_cap":"Firewood stacked in Chiayi County\u2019s Jhuci Township: artisanal food makers in rural Taiwan still often burn wood to grill, stew, or smoke their products.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/08","ph_fname":"P12-250108-Photo1.jpg.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/08\/P12-250108-Photo1.jpg.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/08\/thumbs\/P12-250108-Photo1.jpg.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By David Frazier","ar_views":"4583","ar_id":"2003829770","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-07","ar_head":"What! Dad made a fortune selling English in Taiwan?","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"In 1990, Amy Chen (\u9673\u6021\u7f8e) was beginning third grade in Calhoun County, Texas, as the youngest of six and the only one in her family of Taiwanese immigrants to be born in the US. She recalls, \u201cmy father gave me a stack of typed manuscript pages and a pen and asked me to find typos, missing punctuation,","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/07\/2003829770","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829770","ph_attr":"Photo courtesy of Amy Chen","ph_cap":"Chen Po-jung, back row second from left, Amy Chen, front, and family in the early 1980s pose for a photo in Orange County, California, US.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/07","ph_fname":"p12-250107-Photo4.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/07\/p12-250107-Photo4.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/07\/thumbs\/p12-250107-Photo4.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Michael Turton","ar_views":"2000","ar_id":"2003829708","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-06","ar_head":"Notes from Central Taiwan: Demographic crisis or deterrent to China?","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Famed Chinese demographer Yi Fuxian (\u6613\u5bcc\u8ce2) recently wrote for The Diplomat on the effects of a cross-strait war on demography. He contended that one way to deter the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC) is by putting the demographic issue front and center \u2014 last year total births in the PRC, he said, rec","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/06\/2003829708","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829708","ph_attr":"Photo courtesy of Changhua Christian Hospital","ph_cap":"The feet of a baby born in Changhua Christian Hospital in Changhua County in an undated photograph.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/06","ph_fname":"P12-250106-015.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/06\/P12-250106-015.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/06\/thumbs\/P12-250106-015.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Han Cheung","ar_views":"1897","ar_id":"2003829660","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-05","ar_head":"Taiwan in Time: The cave-dwellers from the Old Stone Age","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Jan. 6 to Jan. 12Perhaps hoping to gain the blessing of the stone-age hunter-gatherers that dwelt along the east coast 30,000 years ago, visitors to the Baxian Caves (\u516b\u4ed9\u6d1e) during the 1970s would grab a handful of soil to bring home. In January 1969, the nation was captivated by the excavation of pre","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/05\/2003829660","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829660","ph_attr":"Photo: Huang Ming-tang, Taipei Times","ph_cap":"A display of the Changbin Culture humans at the National Museum of Prehistory.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/05","ph_fname":"P12-250105-001.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/05\/P12-250105-001.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/05\/thumbs\/P12-250105-001.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"By Claire Galofaro and Kim Tong-hyung, ","ar_views":"1166","ar_id":"2003829621","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-04","ar_head":"South Korean adoptees and families rocked by fraud allegations","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Her greatest fear, dormant for decades, came rushing back in an instant: had she adopted and raised a kidnapped child?Peg Reif\u2019s daughter, adopted from South Korea in the 1980s, had sent her a link to a documentary detailing how the system that made their family was rife with fraud: documents falsif","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/04\/2003829621","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829621","ph_attr":"Photo: AP","ph_cap":"Joy Alessi on June 25 sits for a portrait behind her baby picture from before she was adopted from South Korea to a family in America in Henderson, Nevada.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/04","ph_fname":"P12-250104-306.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/04\/P12-250104-306.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/04\/thumbs\/P12-250104-306.jpg"}},{"ar_sbhdtease":"","ar_byline":"","ar_views":"886","ar_id":"2003829622","ar_sbhdbody":"","ar_section":"Features","ar_pubdate":"2025-01-04","ar_head":"Blooming hard: Taiwan\u2019s persimmon growers struggle","dp_urlname":"feat","ar_desc":"Taiwanese persimmon farmer Lo Chih-neng stands on a ladder in his sprawling orchard using pruning sheers to cut the golden-yellow fruit still hanging from branches after enduring a tough season.Persimmons are popular in Taiwan where people travel hours to buy bags and boxes of the sweet dried fruit ","ar_url":"News\/feat\/archives\/2025\/01\/04\/2003829622","photo":{"ar_id":"2003829622","ph_attr":"Photo: AFP","ph_cap":"Farmer Lo Chih-neng on Dec. 12 looks at persimmons harvested at his farm in Dongshih District, Taichung.","ph_fpath":"2025\/01\/04","ph_fname":"P12-250104-303.jpg","ph_url":"images\/2025\/01\/04\/P12-250104-303.jpg","ph_url_thumbs":"images\/2025\/01\/04\/thumbs\/P12-250104-303.jpg"}}]