Beside the Chiayi Fountain roundabout in 1949, Lin Tien-shou sliced chicken, laid it over white rice, and poured Minnan-style braising sauce on top; only after the U.S. military stationed in postwar Taiwan moved into Shuishang Air Base and brought large numbers of turkeys to Taiwan did this bowl evolve from chicken rice into turkey rice. From Indigenous slate-grilled wild boar, Hakka stir-fried pork intestines with shredded ginger, and military dependents' village Sichuan-style beef noodles to bubble tea invented in Taichung in 1986, and onward to the 419 restaurants included by Michelin in 2025. This island spent four hundred years cooking every borrowed dish into its own form.

69 citations 10 min read

👥 People

Ang Lee: Behind Two Oscars, the Son Who Never Properly Said Goodbye to His Father

On the Oscar stage in 2006, Ang Lee became the first Asian in history to win Best Director, yet in Mandarin he said, 'Thank you all for your concern.' The world remembers Taiwan's pride and his two golden statuettes, but what he spent a lifetime filming was repression, fear, and the father who had always opposed his filmmaking and suddenly died two years earlier. From an unemployed son-in-law who cooked at home for six years to a two-time Venice Golden Lion winner, his real opponent was never the film set. It was the self he could not get past.

50 citations 10 min read

💻 Technology

Submarine Cables: Visible Above the Silicon Shield, the Lifeline Invisible Below

In February 2023, two submarine cables connecting Matsu were severed within six days, plunging Lienchiang County into roughly 50 days of digital darkness. DPP Lienchiang chair Lee Wen described it: "A single LINE text message took 15 to 20 minutes to send." Taiwan's 99% of outbound internet traffic depends on 14 cables buried deep beneath the seabed, all of them international cables landing at four sites on the main island. TSMC's clean rooms are the hero shots above the silicon shield; the submarine cables are the engineer's narrative no one photographs below — they can detach 23 million people from the world without firing a single shot.

49 citations 10 min read

🎭 Culture

Taiwan's Religious Faith: An Empire of Belief That Grew from Fear

The island with the world's highest temple density and Asia's second-ranked religious freedom — its two largest faiths, the Wang Ye lords and Mazu, both trace their origins to plague and death. From 17th-century military migrants binding deity statues to their bodies to cross the Black Ditch, to a 94-point Freedom House score in 2025; from the 1953 ban on Yiguandao, its 1987 legalization as the first faith to gain legal status after martial law ended, to the four great Buddhist mountain orders and the Presbyterian Church each walking separate paths in church-state relations — Taiwan's faith is not in scriptures. It is in the incense smoke at the corner of your street.

45 citations 22 min read

🌿 Nature

Taiwan's Climate Crisis and Net-Zero Transition: On the Day the Maanshan Nuclear Plant Referendum Failed, the Choices Imposed by Physical Limits Had Only Just Begun

The August 23, 2025 referendum on extending the Maanshan Nuclear Power Plant: 4.34 million yes votes, 74% in favor, but turnout of 29.53% fell short of the threshold. The referendum failed; the next day, Lai Ching-te set out three principles, and seven months later, on March 27, 2026, Taipower submitted its lifetime-extension application to the Nuclear Safety Commission. Ninety-eight percent energy import dependence, NT$9 trillion for net zero, a geothermal target of 200 MW with only 7.4 MW built, the world's seventh-largest installed offshore wind capacity, the Onkalo final repository, TerraPower's fourth-generation nuclear power: this island's energy question has never been a political question. It is a question of physical limits.

45 citations 26 min read

🎨 Art

Paul Chiang: After Forty-Five Years Away from Taiwan, Only After Coming Home Could He Paint the Best Work of His Life

In the winter of 1967, twenty-five-year-old Paul Chiang rushed to Paris to find Giacometti, only to discover that his idol had died the previous year. Over the next forty-five years, he sealed off the windows of his New York SoHo studio to search for the light within; in 1975, his Lamagna Gallery exhibition failed to sell a single painting. In the year his father fell in the 1990s, he returned to the incense smoke of Longshan Temple and painted the “Centennial Temple” series. He settled in Jinzun, Taitung in 2008 at the age of sixty-five; by the time the Paul Chiang Art Center opened in 2025, he was eighty-three.

42 citations 10 min read

🏛️ Society

Taiwan’s Diplomatic Allies and International Diplomacy: 12 Allies, 113 Overseas Offices, Visa-Free Access to 177 Countries (2026)

On January 15, 2024, 48 hours after Lai Ching-te was elected president, Nauru announced the severance of diplomatic relations, reducing Taiwan’s diplomatic allies from 13 to 12. Yet that same year, Taiwan had 113 overseas offices, its passport provided access to 177 countries, TSMC produced 90% of the world’s advanced chips, and the European Parliament passed a resolution by 432:60:71 opposing China’s distortion of UN General Assembly Resolution 2758. Recognition on paper is shrinking, the shadow network is expanding, and the interpretive battle over international law is turning.

42 citations 16 min read

🎵 Music

Sunset Rollercoaster: From a Photo Booth Background Shot to Coachella, 14 Years of Singing Taipei Sunsets in English

In 2010, a 19-year-old student casually chose the Mac Photo Booth preset 'Sunset Rollercoaster' as his MySpace profile picture. Fourteen years later, the band became the first Taiwanese band in more than two decades to be invited to Coachella. All-English lyrics, subtropical City Pop, and no reliance on the music industry system: from a casually selected silhouette of a roller coaster, they created one of the ways Taiwan has been heard most clearly by the world.

41 citations 12min min read