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Jun 2026
🌿 Nature History of Taiwan's Environmental Movement The trajectory of Taiwan's environmental movement, from anti-pollution struggles in the 1980s to recent plastic reduction campaigns, witnessing the intersection of environmental awareness and democratization in Taiwanese society. Jun 9 👥 People Cheng Li-wen From the student activist who went on a hunger strike for 'Taiwan independence' at the NTU gate in 1988 to the KMT chairperson who told Xi Jinping in Beijing in 2026 that 'compatriots across the strait are all Chinese.' What happened along this trajectory? Jun 9 🏛️ Society CommonWealth Magazine: Four Decades of Defining Taiwan's "Success," Standing Closest to Capital In June 1981, a business magazine called CommonWealth launched on a martial-law island, selling out its first print run of 10,000 copies in two days. Founded by economist Kao Hsi-chun, its editorial soul was Diane Ying — a former UPI, New York Times, and Asian Wall Street Journal reporter. Forty years later it became one of Taiwan's most trusted media outlets, and the maker of rankings — the Top 2000, Top 50, Happiest Cities — that quietly define what "success" means. Its credibility and its power to rank others draw from the same distance. Jun 6 📜 History Postwar Economic Development The trajectory of Taiwan's economic miracle, rising from an agricultural society to become one of the Four Asian Tigers Jun 4 🗺️ Geography Taiwan Agricultural Landscapes and Industry Belts The shift in agricultural landscapes from north to south traces Taiwan's transformation from the "Taiwanese Granary" to "precision agriculture." Jun 4 🎭 Culture Urban Character and Regional Culture From Taipei's international metropolis to Tainan's ancient capital charm, how cities across Taiwan shape unique local identities Jun 4 🎵 Music The Evolution of Taiwanese Hokkien Songs: From "Old Man's Music" to Indie Darling Tracing the evolution of Taiwanese Hokkien songs from the nakashi era, the golden age of Hung I-feng and Jody Chiang, to the new-generation bands such as Eggplant Egg, Sorry Youth, and Collage — exploring how Hokkien music has regained the identity of younger generations. Jun 4 🏛️ Society Taiwan's Political Landscape and Electoral System From the constitutional framework, central and local electoral mechanisms, to the deeper party-political culture, a comprehensive analysis of how Taiwan maintains a vibrant and institutionally rigorous democratic society amid complex geopolitics Jun 4
May 2026
🎭 Culture When Plague Became Fireworks: The Accidental Evolution of Taiwan's Festival Culture A small town ritual of setting off firecrackers against plague 140 years ago became one of the world's most dangerous folk festivals May 24 🍜 Food Chiayi Turkey Rice: A City's Identity in a NT$30 Bowl After World War II, the American military brought turkeys to Chiayi. A chef named Lin Tien-shou shredded the turkey meat, poured braised sauce over it, and piled it on white rice. Seventy years later, this NT$30 bowl was voted No. 1 in the Council of Agriculture's Top Ten Signature Rice Dishes of Taiwan. Chiayi people can argue all Lunar New Year about which restaurant makes the best version — but on one point they never argue: turkey rice belongs to Chiayi. May 24 🍜 Food Night Market Culture 164 official night markets, one for every 38,000 people in Tainan — from kerosene lamp stalls under temple eaves to food destinations that put Taiwan on Michelin's radar May 24 👥 People Lin Hwai-min A novelist who created the first contemporary dance company in the Chinese-speaking world and kept it alive for 50 years May 24 🏠 Lifestyle Taiwan Mahjong: Grandma Won't Teach You, but Celebrity Mahjong Will On the second day of Lunar New Year, Grandma sits at the table, plays a hand you cannot decode, and wins. You ask how the scoring works; she says children should be seen and not heard. So you open the computer and let Wu Zong-xian teach you. Celebrity Mahjong (明星三缺一), released by IGS in 2001, accidentally became the mahjong teacher for an entire generation of Taiwanese. May 24 🏛️ Society Poisoned Potatoes: Beyond the 200 ppm — There's 30 ppm, 14 Days, and 15 Years of Food-Safety Scars On 29 April 2026, Chen Binhua of Beijing's Taiwan Affairs Office attacked the Lai Ching-te government with the phrase "poisoned potatoes" — calling it "yet another offering of the public's health to flatter America." The real core of the controversy spans three layers: the 150-fold gap between the EU's 0.2 ppm and Taiwan's 30 ppm CIPC residue limits; the impossibility of "inspecting every single potato" with 85 actual border inspectors against 300 million potatoes; and 15 years of accumulated food-safety scars since the 2011 plasticizer scandal — the foundation this narrative steps onto. May 24 🎭 Culture Taiwan Anime & Manga Culture 'Doraemon,' 'Slam Dunk,' and 'Sailor Moon' were the shared language of Taiwanese teens in the 1980s and '90s; Fancy Frontier has held over 40 editions since 1999, drawing over 100,000 attendees per event; doujinshi and cosplay nurtured the creators of 'Detention' and 'Devotion'—Taiwan's anime and manga culture is not an imitation of imported entertainment, but the shared memory and creative soil of two generations. May 24 👥 People Pa Chiung: From Hualien Truku Youth to the 'Spy-Master' Wanted by the CCP for One Million Yuan In November 2025, the Quanzhou Public Security Bureau in Fujian issued a wanted notice — targeting Taiwanese influencer Pa Chiung. This Truku youth from Xincheng Township, Hualien, who once won an award for his travel videos, transformed in just six years from a local creator into a figure Beijing calls a 'Taiwan independence thug' — and has continued exposing CCP united-front operations on the international stage. May 24 🏛️ Society The 2026 Cheng-Xi Meeting: Ten Minutes Between KMT and CCP Leaders After a Decade Apart On April 10, 2026, Cheng Li-wun met Xi Jinping in Beijing, becoming the first major political party leader of the Republic of China to meet the CCP General Secretary in ten years. The meeting lasted ten minutes. Meanwhile, 100 PLA vessels were in the Taiwan Strait. What exactly was this 'peace mission' touring? May 24 📊 Economy Taiwan Enterprise: Foxconn Precision Industry — The Same Balance Sheet Behind 8 Trillion Revenue and an Internal Anti-Corruption War On the morning of April 30, 2026, Time magazine listed Foxconn among the 100 most influential companies in the world; that same evening, prosecutors and investigators walked into Foxconn's Tucheng facility with search warrants. From a 1974 mother's rotating credit association loan of NT$100,000 to 2025 revenue of NT$8 trillion — with cloud and network products overtaking consumer electronics — the hardest thing for Foxconn to manage is not geopolitics, not AI server rack shipment rhythms, but its own people. May 24 📜 History Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall It is the most colossal political totem at the heart of Taipei — and the most democratic dance practice space. From authoritarian sanctuary to the storm's eye of transitional justice, this building records the most violent tremors in Taiwan's soul. May 20 📜 History Taiwan On New Year's Day 1979, Taiwan issued its first tourist passport. This was more than the release of a piece of paper — it was a turning point from martial-law isolation to citizen diplomacy, documenting how Taiwanese people transformed from 'foreign-exchange-wasting' sinners into world travelers. May 20 📜 History The 19 Cattle of Qingtiangang: From Yuan Xing Cattle to Tainan Beef Soup, an Island's Beef Industry Breakthrough Taiwan's beef self-sufficiency rate is only 4.6%, yet in 2024 the nation's first privately bred and officially certified cattle breed was born. The story of Yuan Xing cattle is an industry breakthrough scripted by a 94-year-old man, 19 wild black cattle, and a bowl of freshly slaughtered beef soup served before dawn. May 20 🗺️ Geography Administrative Divisions of Taiwan: The Power Puzzle from 'Landdag' to 'Five Municipalities' Taiwan's administrative divisions are more than lines on a map — they are the result of a four-hundred-year experiment in power. From tribal councils under the Dutch, to the Japanese colonial era's elegant place-name renaming campaign, to a post-war plan that nearly named a city 'Shuangwen City,' every border conceals a tug-of-war between governing will and local identity. May 20 🎭 Culture The Divine Pig Festival: A Century of Tension Between Taiwanese Faith and Animal Welfare The divine pig (shen-zhu) tradition is a sacrificial ritual unique to Taiwan's Hokkien and Hakka communities, centered on offering an enormous pig to the gods. Rooted in the Yimin (Righteous People) faith of the Qing dynasty, it shifted toward competitive weight contests during Japan's colonial promotion of animal husbandry. In the modern era, the practice of confining pigs and force-feeding them has drawn intense animal welfare criticism. Festivals across Taiwan are now attempting transitions to 'eco-friendly divine pigs' or naturally raised animals, seeking a balance between faith and respect for life. May 20 🎭 Culture Ethnic Groups (Minnan, Hakka, Indigenous, Mainlanders, New Immigrants) An apology ceremony, a march of ten thousand, 570,000 new families — Taiwan's ethnic story is far more complicated than 'multicultural harmony' suggests. May 20 🎭 Culture Jiaobei: Hearing the Voice of the Gods Behind a 50% Probability From Chiayi craftsman Huang Yi-xun's devotion to the 'bamboo-root jiaobei' to the Pingtung Citian Temple legend of 20 consecutive sheng-bei and a NT$3 million prize, this article explores the probability and warmth behind how Taiwanese people communicate with the divine. May 20 🎭 Culture Development of Cultural and Creative Parks in Taiwan From old-building revitalization to creative clusters: the development trajectory and innovative models of Taiwan's cultural and creative parks May 20 🎭 Culture Taiwan Floral Fabric From a Japanese-era factory product to a symbol of local culture: the identity journey of Taiwan floral fabric May 20 🎭 Culture Taiwan's Funeral Culture and Views on Death From the wailing of professional mourners to the garden of Yongli Cemetery — Taiwan spent fifty years moving from burial to cremation, then another ten moving from columbaria to a spot beneath a tree. May 20 🎭 Culture Taiwan's Historic Streets and Commercial Districts From the bustling ports of the Qing dynasty to the Baroque-style shophouses of the Japanese colonial era, Taiwan's historic streets are a people's history written in brick and tile. May 20 🎭 Culture Taiwan Indigo Dyeing It was once Taiwan's third-largest export commodity, making mountain towns in northern Taiwan rich overnight. Then it disappeared for half a century — until a group of people decided to grow that shade of 'Taiwan blue' back from the earth. May 20 🎭 Culture Tchoukball: Taiwan's Invisible 43-Year World Champion In 1977, a professor returning to Taiwan from the UK brought back a net frame he had purchased for £30, inadvertently planting the roots of a Swiss-invented 'gentleman's ball' in Taiwan's schoolyards. Over 40 years later, Taiwan's team sits firmly at No. 1 in the world, the international federation is headquartered in Kaohsiung, and yet the sport remains largely unknown to most Taiwanese. May 20 🍜 Food Mingjian Puchung Tea: The Unsung Hero Supplying 80% of Taiwan's Bubble Tea Base The 2025 Mingjian incinerator controversy accidentally exposed that 80% of Taiwan's bubble tea base comes from Nantou's Mingjian. From the Qing-dynasty 'Three Puchung' reputation to the 1975 renaming as 'Songbai Evergreen Tea,' this low-altitude hillside — producing at only 400 meters elevation — is now locked in a fierce battle to protect the tea-growing region's right to survive after an incinerator was planned for the site. May 20 🍜 Food Pineapple Cake: From Election Refreshments to a NT$25 Billion 'Golden Brick' In 1945, Yan Shin-Fa Bakery in Taichung transformed the traditional wedding pastry into the petite pineapple cake. From the winter melon-filling pivot of the 1970s under declining export fortunes, to SunnyHills' 2009 revival of the tart, fibrous native pineapple, this small 'golden brick' has been intertwined with Taiwan's agricultural fate for eight decades, and its annual production value now exceeds NT$25 billion — the most representative Taiwanese flavor in the minds of foreign visitors. May 20 🍜 Food Taiwanese Breakfast Culture From danbing, shaobing, and youtiao to the global expansion of Yonghe Soy Milk, breakfast-shop aunties and Taiwanese morning rituals May 20 🍜 Food Taiwan Pastry Culture From the 1877 Lukang Yuzhenzhai Phoenix Eye Cake to the 2026 Chen Yaoxun's Red Soil Egg Yolk Pastry that sold out in 30 seconds on the Tixcraft ticketing system, Taiwan's pastries carry a 150-year layered story. In between lies the square pineapple cake revolution of Yifutang during the Japanese colonial era, Fengquan's olive-shaped egg yolk pastry experiment in Fengyuan, 270 hectares of native pineapple contract farming at the foot of Bagua Mountain, the craft mutation of oil-wrapped pastry layers, and a century-old Han pastry shop standing on the same Mid-Autumn dining table as a world bread champion. May 20 🍜 Food Taiwanese Ice Cream Culture From Tainan's Tainan Mango Shaved Ice to the Snow Ice Revolution, exploring Taiwan's unique culture of eating ice even in winter May 20 🎨 Art Taiwan's Digital Animation and Imagery Industry From the world's largest animation contract manufacturing kingdom to a new force in original content, the half-century transformation of Taiwan's digital imagery industry May 20 🎵 Music Taiwanese Hakka Music: From Mountain Songs to Lin Sheng-xiang's Award Refusal and the Politics of Language Hakka mountain songs originated in labor life, while Hakka eight-tone ensembles accompanied weddings and funerals. In 1999, the Labor Exchange Band won the Golden Melody Awards for Best Composer and Best Producer with *We Are Going to Sing Mountain Songs*, ushering in the era of Hakka rock. The 14th Golden Melody Awards in 2003 established the Best Hakka Vocalist category; in 2004, Hsieh Yu-wei became its first recipient. In 2007, Lin Sheng-xiang won with *Planting Trees* but refused the award on stage, calling for classification by musical genre rather than language, igniting a debate over the existence of language-based categories that led to the creation of the Golden Indie Music Awards three years later. Hakka TV, founded in 2003, has continued to expand the visibility of Hakka-language music. The threat of language loss persists, but the tension between preservation and innovation continues to drive Hakka musicians forward. May 20 🎵 Music Taiwan's Music Festival Culture: Why This Island Needs So Many Outdoor Parties From a stage built on a Kenting beach by two Americans in 1995, to more than 50 festivals spread across the island every year. Taiwan may have the world's highest density of music festivals — and the trailblazer wasn't Taiwanese. May 20 🎵 Music Taiwanese Screen Scoring: From Laying Emotion Under Images to Unearthing an Island's Own Sound After Millennium Mambo screened at Cannes in 2001, foreign audiences kept asking, 'Who is Lim Giong?' Taiwanese screen scoring is often described as increasingly international in scale: the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Oscars, Cannes. Yet its true maturation lies not in technical upgrading, but in where composers draw their materials from: from imitating Hollywood-style orchestration in the 1980s to turning back toward the yueqin, Taiwanese opera, suona funeral music, and an old melody collected from the Plains Indigenous peoples. Local sound, as it turned out, is what made this island recognizable to the world. May 20 💻 Technology AI and Artificial Intelligence Industry From manufacturing NVIDIA chips to building an AI ecosystem — how Taiwan is finding its positioning in the AI era May 20 💻 Technology Taiwan Television Industry History: From the "Big Three" to the Gentle Revolution of Qseries From TTV's 1962 launch to Qseries in 2016, Taiwan's television industry traveled 54 years from party-government-military monopoly to the rise of public media. How did a platform that runs no ads tell a story everyone loved? May 20 🌿 Nature Taiwan's Marine Ecology and Coral Reef Conservation Surrounded by sea on all sides, Taiwan is home to rich marine ecosystems. From the coral bleaching crisis to cetacean conservation, this piece explores the protective outcomes of marine national parks and the challenges ahead. May 20 👥 People A-mei: Puyuma Singer, from 1996's *Sisters* to 2024 Taipei Dome Five Shows Born August 9, 1972, in Taitung County's Beinan Township, A-mei is a Taiwanese Puyuma singer and one of the most successful female artists in Mandopop history. Her 1996 debut album *Sisters* sold 1.21 million copies in Taiwan and 4 million across Asia. In 2015, her 'Utopia' tour ran 10 consecutive shows at Taipei Arena. In December 2024, ASMeiR MAXXX at Taipei Dome spanned 5 shows with a production budget of NT$200 million and live hot-air balloon releases. Career cumulative sales exceed 50 million. May 20 👥 People C. C. Wei: Born 1953, from NCTU Electronics to Yale PhD to TSMC Chairman and President Born in 1953. B.S. and M.S. in Electronics Engineering, National Chiao Tung University; Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering, Yale University. Career path: Texas Instruments → STMicroelectronics → Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing (Singapore) → joined TSMC in 1998. In 2012, appointed co-COO of TSMC alongside Mark Liu. On June 5, 2018, succeeded as Vice Chairman and President following Morris Chang's retirement. On June 4, 2024, assumed the chairmanship after Mark Liu's retirement; currently serves as TSMC Chairman and President. May 20 👥 People Chen Chien-jen: SARS Health Minister, Vice President, 31st Premier Born June 6, 1951, in Qishan Township, Kaohsiung County, Chen Chien-jen is an internationally renowned epidemiologist. He took over as Minister of the Department of Health during the SARS crisis in 2003, served as the 14th Vice President from 2016 to 2020, became the 31st Premier on January 31, 2023, and stepped down on May 20, 2024, handing over to Cho Jung-tai. May 20 👥 People Chen Chien-nien: The Golden Melody King in the Police Station, the Grandfather’s Songs the Grandson Turned into Ocean Born on August 1, 1967, in the Nanwang community of the Puyuma people in Taitung. After graduating from the police academy in 1986, he was assigned to Guanshan, Taitung, and served in the police force for 30 years and 10 months. In 1999, at age 33, he released his first album of original songs, Ocean. At the 11th Golden Melody Awards in 2000, he defeated Jacky Cheung, Wang Leehom, David Tao, and Harlem Yu to win Best Mandarin Male Vocalist; at the same ceremony, “Myth” also won Best Composer. On the awards stage, he was still a police officer. In September that year, he requested a transfer to Lanyu to avoid the turmoil, and stayed there for 17 years until retirement. His maternal grandfather, Baliwakes Lu Sen-bao, wrote “Beautiful Rice Ears”; it took the grandson thirty years to take hold of that musical line. May 20 👥 People Chen Chun-Liang: Design Poet and Modern Translator of Eastern Aesthetics Chen Chun-Liang was born in Tainan in 1958 and founded Freeimage Design Co., Ltd. on his 29th birthday, earning the title 'Design Poet' in the industry. He reinterprets modern design language through calligraphy, negative space, and Eastern imagery, with work spanning publication design, corporate identity, and national celebrations. In 2005, his 'Heaven Round, Earth Square' state banquet tableware won the Grand Jury Award at the Macau Design Biennale. A long-time contributor to design education, he is one of the most influential graphic designers in Taiwan since the 1980s. May 20 👥 People Chen Yu-hsun Taiwanese comedy film director, creator of Tropical Fish, The Chef, the Actor, the Scoundrel, and My Missing Valentine May 20 👥 People Chi Cheng: Set 10 World Records, Still Running for Taiwan's Name 50 Years Later Born in Hsinchu on March 15, 1944, Chi Cheng became the most outstanding female track and field athlete in Taiwan's history, known as the 'Flying Antelope.' At the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, she won bronze in the 80-meter hurdles with a time of 10.51 seconds—Taiwan's first-ever Olympic track and field medal for a woman. Over her career, she set 10 world records. After retiring, she devoted herself to promoting road running. Now in her eighties, she remains active on the front lines of the campaign to compete under the name 'Taiwan.' May 20 👥 People Chuang Chih-Yuan: Six Olympics, 2013 World Champion, and the Olympic Medal That Was One Step Away Born April 2, 1981, Chuang Chih-Yuan is the longest-serving competitor in the history of table tennis in Taiwan. From Sydney 2000 to Paris 2024, he represented Taiwan at six consecutive Olympic Games. At the 2013 World Table Tennis Championships, he and Chen Chien-an won the men's doubles world title. An Olympic medal remained the one regret of his career — the closest he came was falling short in the bronze medal match at London 2012. After retiring, he became an associate professor of physical education at National Sun Yat-sen University. May 20 👥 People Deng Yuxian: Hakka 1906, Four Songs of the Four Months — Thirty-Nine Years of the Father of Taiwanese Ballads Born July 21, 1906, into a Hakka family in Longtan, Taoyuan; original name Deng Bingyan. Graduated from normal school and was recruited by Columbia Records in 1933. His four masterworks — 'Four Seasons Red,' 'Moonlit Night Sorrow,' 'Longing for Spring Breeze,' and 'Flowers in the Rainy Night' — are still sung today. In 1939, he took a teaching position at Qionglin Public School in Hsinchu. He died June 11, 1944, at Zhudong Hospital, aged 39. May 20 👥 People Hong-Chih Kuo: Taiwan's First MLB Home Run and All-Star, His Elbow Said No but He Kept Pitching Born July 23, 1981, Hong-Chih Kuo was the fourth Taiwanese baseball player to reach MLB and the first Taiwanese player in history to hit a home run in the majors and the first to be selected for the MLB All-Star Game. He served as a key left-handed reliever for the Los Angeles Dodgers, posting an elite ERA of 1.20 in 2010, but injuries repeatedly forced his elbow to stop — and every time, he came back. May 20 👥 People Hsu Mei-hua: Ten Years of an Anonymous Civic Pseudonym, from Anti-Tsinghua Unigroup to the Great Recall "Hsu Mei-hua" is not a real name but a pseudonym that appeared at two critical moments in Taiwan's civil society — in 2015 as one of the "Four Horsemen" who helped block China's Tsinghua Unigroup from acquiring Taiwan's semiconductor packaging giants, and in 2025 as the most counter-intuitive "funding hub" of the Great Recall wave: handling not a single cent herself, yet coordinating over twenty million New Taiwan dollars in civic donations. May 20 👥 People Hsu Shu-ching: Lunbei 1991, Taiwan's First Double Olympic Gold Medalist in the 53 kg Weightlifting Category Born May 9, 1991, into a Hakka family in Lunbei Township, Yunlin County; height 159 cm. At the 2012 London Olympics in the women's 53 kg category, she won silver with 219 kg (96 + 123). After gold medalist Zulfiya Chinshanlo (Kazakhstan) failed a retroactive doping test, Hsu was upgraded to gold in December 2020. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, she won gold outright with 212 kg (100 + 112). Taiwan's first double Olympic gold medalist. Retired June 3, 2018. In 2019, received a three-year ban for a 2017 doping violation (did not affect either Olympic gold). May 20 👥 People Huang Chun-ming: Born in Luodong, 1935 — Chronicler of Small Figures from 'The Days of Watching the Sea' to 'The Sandwich Man' Born February 13, 1935, in Luodong, Yilan. 'The Days of Watching the Sea' (1967) and 'The Sandwich Man' (1969) represent the core concern of Taiwan's nativist literature for ordinary people. The Nativist Literature Debate of 1977. Recipient of the Wu San-lien Literary Award and the National Award for Arts. His second son, Huang Kuo-chun (a writer), died by suicide on June 20, 2003. Hou Hsiao-hsien adapted his work for the screen in 1983. Still living as of 2026. May 20 👥 People Huang Yu-chiao: Democracy Elder At the critical moment of the 1977 Zhongli Incident, she stood at the police station door urging the crowd not to act rashly — this 58-year-old pharmacist who had studied in Japan, later a four-term Provincial Assemblywoman and DPP founding member, has long been overlooked in historical narratives. May 20 👥 People HUR+: From DD52 Runners-Up to Zepp New Taipei — A Nine-Member Girl Group That Never Stopped In the 2020 idol competition finale, they lost by 2.5 points. Six years later, the champions have disbanded, and the runners-up are still here. The producer put in fifty million NT and said 'the less like a K-pop group, the better' — this is the story of a Taiwanese girl group that survived. May 20 👥 People Jamie Lin: From Academia Sinica to Google Taiwan, Still on the Startup Front Line After Retiring in 2020 Born in 1963, Jamie Lin holds a B.S. in Computer Science and Engineering from National Taiwan University; his doctoral degree is unconfirmed (reportedly from the University of Maryland, USA). He served as Deputy Director of the Institute of Information Science at Academia Sinica from 1993 to 2005. He joined Google in 2006, becoming Employee No. 1 at the Google Taiwan R&D Center, and retired on January 31, 2020. After retirement, he took board positions at startups including iKala and Appier, and has continued promoting AI education. May 20 👥 People Jay Chou In 1997, a shy 18-year-old boy rewrote the history of Mandopop May 20 👥 People JJ Lin: Singapore 1981, the Mandopop King of Creation from 'River South' to JJ20 Born 1981/3/27 in Singapore. Began piano at age 4. 2003 debut album 'Music Voyager' (1.2 million copies in Asia). 2004 'River South'/'The Second Heaven' (1.8 million copies). 2024/4 heart condition requiring daily medication. JJ20 FINAL LAP World Tour (2024-25, 40 cities, 77 shows, 2.6 million attendees). 2024/11 biography 'Beyond the Notes: JJ Lin 20th Anniversary'. May 20 👥 People Li Ang: Lukang 1952, the Trailblazer Who Opened the Path of Taiwanese Feminist Literature with 'The Butcher's Wife' Born in April 1952 in Lukang, Changhua, under the birth name Shih Shu-tuan. In 1983, 'The Butcher's Wife' was serialized in United Daily News, shocking the literary world with its subject matter of domestic violence. 'The Enchanted Garden' followed in 1991. In 2004, she was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. Her works have been translated into English, French, German, Japanese, and other languages, making her one of the most internationally recognized female writers from Taiwan. May 20 👥 People Jonathan Lee: After Writing Others' Innermost Thoughts in Plain Speech, Only in Hill Did He Finally Speak of Himself Jonathan Lee, born in 1958 into a gas shop family in Beitou, feared going back to deliver gas, so he spent his life writing songs. In plain, everyday language, he wrote out the emotional lives and life obstacles of a generation of women singers including Sarah Chen, Winnie Hsin, and Sandy Lam, earning comparisons to Bai Juyi as a writer who could 'peer into people's hearts.' Yet this man who best understood others' private thoughts did not directly speak in song about his own middle age and his father until Hill at age 55 and A Newly Written Old Song at age 60. Meanwhile, even as he 'made a living off women's songs,' his real-life romantic choices also gave him a reputation as a 'scumbag man.' May 20 👥 People Lien Ying: Six Years from 'The Dance Standard a Girl Group Should Have' to a Solo EP In 2020, a twenty-one-year-old girl from Taichung looked at Pan Wei-Po and said: 'I want everyone to know the standard of dance a girl group should have.' Six years later she has a solo EP, fans who crowdfunded a birthday stage in Dadaocheng, and simultaneous support campaigns in three countries. She is delivering on that promise. May 20 👥 People Lin Bai-li: Shanghai 1949, Founder of Quanta Computer and the Notebook ODM King Who Has Fought Cancer for Two Decades Born April 24, 1949, in Shanghai. Co-founded Quanta Computer with Liang Ci-zhen and others in 1988. Diagnosed with lung adenocarcinoma in 2005 (has been fighting cancer for over 20 years). Quanta's 2025 revenue exceeded NT$2 trillion; a key NVIDIA server partner; listed on the Fortune 500. His son's succession has drawn attention. Still serving as chairman in 2026. May 20 👥 People Lu Yen-hsun: From Wimbledon Quarterfinals to Five Olympics, the Man Who Took Taiwanese Tennis the Farthest At the 2010 Wimbledon Championships, Lu Yen-hsun defeated seventh seed Andy Roddick to become the first male player from Taiwan to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal. From Athens 2004 to Tokyo 2021, he competed in five consecutive Olympic Games without missing a single edition—the farthest-traveling player in the history of modern Taiwanese tennis. After retiring, he founded a tennis academy, continuing to wait for a young Taiwanese player who might one day surpass his Wimbledon record. May 20 👥 People Long Ying-tai: Daliao 1952, Public Intellectual from *Wild Fire* to Taiwan's First Minister of Culture Born 1952/2/13 in Daliao Township, Kaohsiung City. MA in English and American Literature, Kansas State University; doctoral degree has conflicting accounts (P0⚠️). *Wild Fire* first published 12/1985, reprinted 24 times in 21 days, surpassed 100,000 copies in 4 months. Taiwan's first Minister of Culture, 2012–2014 (appointed by Ma Ying-jeou). *Big River, Big Sea 1949* published 2009. May 20 👥 People Lo Ta-yu: From Radiologist to 1982's 'Zhi Hu Zhe Ye' and a 2025 New Album Born July 20, 1954, in Taipei. Graduated from China Medical College (now China Medical University) around 1980/81 (the 69th academic year), and worked as a radiologist. On April 21, 1982, released his debut album 'Zhi Hu Zhe Ye,' pioneering the tradition of social critique in Mandarin pop music. 'Home III' in 2017. 'Love · River · World' in 2023, 'Mother Earth' in 2024, 'Late Spring, Four Directions, Night Rain, Sorrow' in 2025 — still creating at age 70. May 20 👥 People Mark Liu: The Berkeley PhD Who Succeeded Morris Chang — Six Years of Decision-Making in the US-China Chip Crossfire In June 2018, Morris Chang retired, and Mark Liu and C.C. Wei jointly took the helm of TSMC. This UC Berkeley electrical engineering doctorate steered the world's most important chipmaker with an engineer's precision, announcing the Arizona fab, navigating geopolitical crosscurrents amid six years of US-China tech competition, and handing the reins to C.C. Wei upon his retirement in June 2024 — leaving behind a final line: 'Buy TSMC.' May 20 👥 People Ming Hua Yuan: Founded in Tainan in 1929, the Four-Generation Chen Family's Taiwanese Opera Empire Founded by Chen Ming-chi in Tainan in 1929, relocated to Chaozhou, Pingtung in 1962. The second generation, Chen Sheng-fu, introduced modern theater technology, bringing Taiwanese opera to the National Theater. Eight sub-troupes under the banners of Heaven, Earth, Xuan, Huang, Sun, Moon, Star, and Chen. In 2024, *San Xi* toured for the fourth time to mark the 95th anniversary. May 20 👥 People From Underground to the Presidential Office: Nymphia Wind and the History of Taiwan's Drag Queens' Self-Empowerment How a Taiwanese boy who was bullied for his gender expression brought the drag art form — once considered a subculture — to the international stage, and used the banana as a symbol to show the world Taiwan's diversity and confidence. May 20 👥 People Pai Hsien-yung: Taipei People (1971) to the Youth Edition of the Peony Pavilion's 20-Year Tour Born in 1937 in Guilin, Guangxi, son of Bai Chongxi. Entered the National Taiwan University Department of Foreign Languages and Literature in 1956; co-founded Modern Literature with Wang Wen-hsing and others. Published Taipei People, a collection of 14 short stories, in 1971. Published Crystal Boys in 1983. Launched the Youth Edition of the Peony Pavilion in 2003, with its premiere in April 2004, reaching its 20th anniversary in 2024. Received the National Award for Arts in 2003. May 20 👥 People San Mao: The Person Who Wrote Escape as Freedom Born Chen Ping in 1943 in Chongqing, she moved to Taiwan with her family in 1948. She dropped out of junior high after a teacher publicly humiliated her, spent seven years in self-imposed isolation, then returned to writing. In 1973 she married José in the Spanish Sahara; her essays became a sensation, serving as a window to the distant world for Taiwanese readers under martial law. José died in a diving accident in 1979. In 1990 she wrote the screenplay for *Red Dust*, which won eight Golden Horse Awards. On January 4, 1991, she died by suicide at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, aged forty-seven. May 20 👥 People Steve Chang: A Fu Jen Catholic University Math Graduate Who Sold Antivirus Software to the World Born in 1954, Steve Chang graduated from the Department of Mathematics at Fu Jen Catholic University, then went to the United States to earn a master's degree in computer science from Lehigh University. In 1988, at age 34, he co-founded Trend Micro with Eva Chen in Los Angeles. On August 18, 1998, Trend Micro listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (ticker: 4704) and on Nasdaq the same year, becoming the first Taiwanese software company to list in Japan. In 2007 he founded Social Ventures Taiwan, and in 2019 established the Ming-Yi Foundation, pivoting from information security to social enterprise. May 20 👥 People Hsieh Su-wei: Hsinchu 1986, Taiwan's First Grand Slam Champion and Seven Women's Doubles Titles Born 1986/1/4 in Hsinchu. Father Hsieh Tzu-long (bus driver for Taiwan Motor Transport) passed away in 2023/10. Career-high WTA singles ranking: No. 23 (2013). Seven Grand Slam women's doubles titles (2013 Wimbledon / 2014 French Open / 2019 Wimbledon / 2021 Wimbledon / 2023 French Open / 2023 Wimbledon / 2024 Australian Open). First Taiwanese woman to reach a Grand Slam singles semifinal (2021 Australian Open). 2025/7 Wimbledon women's doubles runner-up. May 20 👥 People Sylvia Chang: From Chiayi to Director of *Love Education* Born in Chiayi City in 1953, Sylvia Chang entered the entertainment industry at age 17 through the film *Dreams of the Heart*. *Childhood* (composed by Lo Ta-yu, 1981) is her song; *The Price of Love* (composed by Jonathan Lee, 1992) is one of her most widely known signature works. In 1986, *My Favorite* won her the Golden Horse Best Actress award; in 2017, *Love Education* was nominated for Golden Horse Best Director and Best Original Screenplay. Spanning the three roles of actor, director, and singer for over fifty years. May 20 👥 People Tsai Ming-liang Golden Lion Award winner at Venice, Malaysian Chinese master of slow cinema aesthetics May 20 👥 People Tzu-Hsien Tung: From Taipei Tech to Pegatron, Apple's Largest Manufacturing Partner Born June 25, 1960, Tzu-Hsien Tung graduated from the Department of Electronics at Taipei Tech (now National Taipei University of Technology), not NTU Electrical Engineering. He joined ASUS in 1988, led the spin-off on January 1, 2008, and founded Pegatron Corporation, becoming a contract manufacturer for Apple, Sony, and Nintendo. He invested in Eslite Bookstore in 2019. In 2025, he continued to publicly advocate for a 'nuclear–renewables coexistence' energy policy. May 20 👥 People Wang Shaudi: The Boys Over Flowers and Taiwan Television's Gentle Revolution General's son turned rebel, rebel turned godmother of Taiwanese television — Wang Shaudi spent forty years proving that making television can be a social movement May 20 👥 People Wu Bai: From Garlic Village, Liujiao, Three Decades of Taiwanese Rock Without Discount Born Wu Chun-lin in 1968 in Garlic Village, Liujiao Township, Chiayi County. Formed 'Wu Bai & China Blue' in 1992; 'Norwegian Wood' in 1995 established his Taiwanese rock identity. Released 'Nail Flower' in 2016, winning the Golden Melody Award for Best Taiwanese Album in 2017. Released new album 'Pure White Starting Point' in 2025, with the ROCK STAR 2 tour spanning both sides of the strait. May 20 👥 People Xu Wen-long: Tainan 1928, Chi Mei Corporation 1959, and the Founder of the World's Largest Violin Collection Museum Born 2/25/1928 in Tainan, passed away 11/18/2023 (age 95). Founded Chi Mei Corporation in October 1959 (capital of NT$2 million). Began acquiring violins in 1990, amassing a total of 1,362 (the world's largest private collection). Chimei Museum officially opened on 1/1/2025 in Tainan Metropolitan Park. A passionate violinist; Chimei Museum was initially open free of charge (current policy P0⚠️ pending confirmation). May 20 👥 People Yang Chuan-kwang: Taitung Tribal Community, Rome Silver Medal, and the Asian Iron Man Who Forced the IAAF to Rewrite Its Rules Born July 10, 1933, in the Malan Amis tribal community of Taitung, Yang Chuan-kwang was Taiwan's first Olympic medalist. He won silver in the decathlon at the 1960 Rome Olympics with 8,334 points. In 1963 he broke the world record with 9,121 points, and his pole vault of 4.83 meters forced the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) to revise its scoring standards. He died of a stroke in California, United States, on January 27, 2007, at age 73. In April 2025, he was designated a national treasure by the Ministry of Culture. May 20 👥 People Yang Dai-Kang: Taitung 1987, Amis Outfielder from Hokkaido Nippon-Ham's Decade of Gold Gloves to Yomiuri Giants via FA Born 1987/1/17 in Taitung City, Amis, formerly known as Yang Zhong-shou. Graduated from the junior high school of National Taitung University Affiliated Sports High School, then went to Japan to attend Fukuoka Daiichi High School. In the 2005 NPB draft, both the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters and the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks selected him with the first overall pick; the Fighters won the lottery. In 2012, he won the Pacific League Outfielder Gold Glove Award — the first Taiwanese fielder to do so. In 2016, he exercised his domestic FA rights and transferred to the Yomiuri Giants. His NPB career: 1,322 games, 105 home runs, 482 RBIs, .270 batting average. He left the Giants at the end of 2021 and moved to independent leagues. May 20 👥 People Yeh Kuo-yi: From Shilin Commercial High School to Building a Half-Century Manufacturing Empire Born on April 21, 1941, Yeh Kuo-yi had no university degree. Starting from Shilin Commercial High School, he founded Inventec in Shilin in 1975. Beginning with electronic calculators, he led the company to become one of the world's leading server ODM manufacturers, supplying cloud computing capacity to Facebook, Microsoft, and Google. In 2023, he handed the chairmanship to his second son, Yeh Li-cheng, and stepped back as group chairman. May 20 👥 People Yung-ching Wang: From a Rice Shop to the Twenty-Year Battle for the Sixth Naphtha Cracker, and the Posthumous Family Inheritance War Born on January 18, 1917, in Xindian, Taipei, Yung-ching Wang dropped out of school at 15 and borrowed money to open a rice shop. He founded Formosa Plastics in 1954. In 1973, he proposed the Sixth Naphtha Cracker (No. 6 Naphtha Cracker Complex) to the government, fighting for nearly two decades before it was finally approved, with full-scale production beginning in 1998 at Mailiao, Yunlin. He died on October 15, 2008, in the United States at the age of 92, leaving behind a family inheritance dispute that spanned over a decade. May 20 👥 People Zhong Lihe: Meinong 1915, the Writer Who Fell in a Pool of Blood Born on December 15, 1915, into a Hakka family in Meinong, Kaohsiung. Went to Northeast China in 1938 and returned to Taiwan in 1946. Representative works: *Lishan Farm* (novel), *The Native* (short story, written in 1959), and *A Couple in Poverty*. Known as 'the writer who fell in a pool of blood,' often called the 'Father of Taiwanese Nativist Literature' (a title that is disputed). Died of hemoptysis on August 4, 1960, at the age of 44. May 20 🏛️ Society Shovel Supermen and Island Synchronicity: How Taiwan's Disaster Volunteer Culture Shapes National Identity Starting from the 'shovel supermen' of the 2025 Mataian flood, this article looks back at Taiwan's accumulated disaster volunteer culture since the 1999 921 Chi-Chi earthquake, the flood creation myth and community resilience of the Fata'an (Mataian) tribe, the Tzu Chi model versus the three competing command posts within 500 meters of Guangfu Station, and the moment when Chen Chien-nian's song 'We Are Compatriots' became concrete action in the floodwaters. May 20 🏛️ Society Taiwan Judicial Reform and Preventive Detention From its introduction in 1997 to its expanded application in April 2026 to include drunk driving and child sexual exploitation, preventive detention has been part of Taiwan's legal system for 29 years. While expanding protections for victims, the baseline of the presumption of innocence has been retreating — is this progress, or a form of structural compromise? May 20 🏛️ Society Taiwan and Lithuania: A Partnership Negotiating Between Democratic Values and Geopolitical Realities From the breakthrough of establishing a representative office in 2021 to the Lithuanian new government's 2026 reflection on a "strategic mistake," Taiwan–Lithuania relations have shifted from a warm value-based alliance to pragmatic interest-based negotiation. A "disunity between the presidency and the cabinet" has emerged in Lithuania over the renaming dispute, while Taiwan, through deepening semiconductor and laser cooperation, seeks to sustain this landmark international friendship amid political pressure and economic commitments. May 20 🏛️ Society Rural Education in Taiwan: What Children Need Isn't an Inspiring Story — It's a Support System That Doesn't Collapse Rural education is not as simple as 'the school is farther away in the mountains.' From teacher turnover, multi-grade classrooms, transportation and housing to family support, community connections, and society's single-track definition of success — the real difficulty is that when a child steps out of the classroom, the entire support system often unravels layer by layer. May 20 🏛️ Society Thinking Taiwan Forum: 14 Years from a Post-Election Loss Touchstone to a Cross-Party Democratic Dialogue Container On May 2, 2026, former People First Party Chairman James Soong, Taiwan Statebuilding Party Chair Wang Yu-ther, Social Democratic Party legislator Miao Poya, and veterinarian/founder of Fresh Milk Farm Gong Jianjia all appeared on the contributor list for "30 Years, 30 People, 30 Perspectives." This online forum, founded by Tsai Ing-wen after her 2012 presidential election defeat, has accumulated nearly 5,800 articles over 14 years, survived the firewall moment when Jian Chih-chung took over as chairman, and endured nine years of near-stasis during the Tsai administration. In 2026, it is still answering the question that has hung over it since day one: Can a platform called the "Tsai Ing-wen Education Foundation" sustain cross-party democratic dialogue? May 20 📊 Economy Chimei Corporation: Hsu Wen-lung's Acrylic Kingdom and Museum Dream Starting from a small factory in Rende, Tainan in 1960, Hsu Wen-lung spent a lifetime building Asia's largest ABS materials empire and established the Chimei Museum to give back to society. Proof that Taiwanese enterprises can balance commercial success with humanistic care. May 20 📊 Economy Delta Electronics: Taiwan's Power Giant A 13-year-old war refugee turned global power industry legend: how NT$300,000 redefined global energy efficiency — and earned an asteroid named after its founder. May 20 📊 Economy Taiwan Enterprise: ESun Financial Holding — Huang Yung-Jen's Professional Manager Bank ESun Financial Holding traces its origins to ESun Commercial Bank, founded by Huang Yung-Jen in 1992. It stands as a landmark of Taiwan's first wave of new bank liberalization after the lifting of martial law — a bank led by professional financiers rather than a conglomerate or family. In 2008, Huang Nan-Chou became the youngest president in Taiwan's financial holding history at age 43, and in 2023 he succeeded founder Huang Yung-Jen as chairman of the holding company. From its professional-manager governance model to its digital-finance innovations, ESun has charted a unique course over more than three decades. By 2024, its assets reached NT$2.8 trillion, ranking it Taiwan's third-largest private financial holding company. May 20 📊 Economy Mega Financial Holding: Four-Bank Merger, Global Financial Partner for Taiwanese Enterprises, and the 2016 New York Fine Storm Mega Financial Holding was formed in December 2002 through the merger of five public-sector financial institutions: Bank of Communications, International Commercial Bank of China, Chung Hsin Bills Finance, Polaris Securities, and Chung Kuo Insurance. In August 2006, its banking subsidiaries Bank of Communications and ICBC merged again to form Mega International Commercial Bank. Leveraging Bank of Communications' century-old heritage and ICBC's foreign exchange expertise, Mega built the most extensive overseas branch network in Taiwan, serving as a core partner for Taiwanese enterprises expanding globally. In 2016, its New York branch was fined USD 180 million by U.S. authorities for anti-money laundering deficiencies—the largest overseas regulatory penalty in Taiwan's financial history. May 20 📊 Economy Taiwan Cement: The Green Transformation Legend of Taiwan's First Listed Company In 1962, the Taiwan Stock Exchange was established for it, and stock code 1101 symbolizes the origin of the Taiwan stock market. Led by three generations of the Koo family over 76 years, Taiwan Cement witnessed Taiwan's construction miracles through its cement kilns, and has now transformed into a green enterprise to meet the carbon neutrality era. May 20 📊 Economy China Steel: The Iron-Head Minister and the Steel Legend of the Ten Major Construction Projects From Zhao Yaodong's shrewd technology negotiations in Europe and America to the first wisp of white smoke rising over Xiaogang in Kaohsiung, China Steel spent 50 years forging Taiwan's heavy-industry backbone — the brightest jewel among the Ten Major Construction Projects May 20 📊 Economy Taiwan's Energy Transition and Green Energy Industries From reliance on nuclear power to a diversified renewable mix, how Taiwan is reshaping its energy structure on the road to net zero by 2050 May 20 📊 Economy Taiwan Enterprise: Chang Chun Petrochemical From a small Tainan factory in 1949 to a global chemical giant — the hidden champion story of 'never going public, never borrowing money' May 20 📊 Economy Taiwan's Self-Media Creator Economy: The Fragmented Battleground of 23 Million A market less than 1% the size of America's, yet with nearly twice as many platforms — how do Taiwan's creators survive? May 20 📊 Economy Taiwan's SMEs and Hidden Champions: The Economic Miracle Carried by 1.71 Million Seemingly Ordinary Companies The true backbone of Taiwan's economy is not the Sacred Mountain but 1.71 million seemingly ordinary yet hidden-champion companies that create 79% of all employment. From the black-handed craftsmen of the 1960s to today's precision manufacturing kingdoms dominating global niche markets. May 20 📊 Economy Far Eastern Group: From a Shanghai Textile Mill to Taiwan's Most Diversified Business Empire How did a small textile factory in Shanghai 87 years ago evolve into a Taiwanese business empire spanning ten industries with assets exceeding NT$3 trillion? The history of Far Eastern Group traces the complete arc of Taiwanese business — from glory to political risk. May 20 📊 Economy Taiwanese Companies: Realtek Semiconductor The legendary story of seven engineers who started a company with NT$2 million and sent the little crab into every computer in the world May 20 📊 Economy The Ecosystem of Peripheral Business Districts Around Taiwan's Tech Parks Why do restaurants around the peripheries of Nangang Software Park, Neihu Technology Park, Hsinchu Science Park, Central Taiwan Science Park, and Southern Taiwan Science Park increasingly only serve lunch while dinner services shut down one after another? This article unpacks the single-peak business district phenomenon along Taiwan's technology corridor through three lenses: commuting patterns, BOT zoning controls, and shifts in overtime culture. It also tracks the structural impact of LaLaport's March 2025 opening on traditional lunch-district eateries along Sanzhong Road and Yuanqu Street. May 20 🏠 Lifestyle History of Taiwan's MRT Development: An Urban Evolution Written in Blood and Money A 209-tonne steel beam that fell and killed 4 people, NTD 1.64 billion in damages, and a Taipei Metro system that still loses money on transit operations alone — the real cost behind Taiwan's MRT network. May 20 🏠 Lifestyle National Highways: From MacArthur Freeway to Hsuehshan Tunnel, Fifty Years of Power and Speed on Taiwan's Expressways In 1964, the MacArthur Freeway was only 23 kilometers long; today Taiwan's national highway network exceeds 1,000 kilometers. From the Chiang Ching-kuo–championed Sun Yat-sen Freeway, the politically mocked Formosa Freeway, the world's most difficult-to-dig Hsuehshan Tunnel, to ETC reshaping every driver's toll-paying habits—each ribbon of asphalt records postwar Taiwan's political will, engineering limits, and civic resistance. May 20 🏠 Lifestyle Taiwan Hairstyles: A Social Ruler from Hair Bans to Memes From the Ministry of Education's buzz-cut mandate in 1969 to Minister Du Zhengsheng's 2005 remark — 'Can hairstyle represent whether someone is good or bad?' — which fully lifted the hair ban, the crowns of Taiwanese men have reflected a societal shift from authoritarian discipline to self-expression. The recent viral 'A-Zhi Cut' meme is merely the latest chapter in this transformation. May 20 👥 People Wang Chi-lin and Lee Yang (The Lin-Yang Duo) From middle school classmates to Olympic gold: The Lin-Yang Duo defeated China in straight sets within 34 minutes, winning Taiwan's first-ever Olympic gold medal in badminton May 19 👥 People Yoga Lin: From a 25/25 'Creep,' to 17 Years Learning He Didn't Need to Be Perfect On July 6, 2007, 20-year-old Yoga Lin scored a perfect 25 out of 25 from judges with Radiohead's 'Creep' to win the first season of 'Super Star Avenue.' He then failed three times to win the Golden Melody Best Male Vocalist award, and from 2018 was stopped by irritable bowel syndrome for six years. Not until 2024's 'Love, Lord' — on which he co-produced with three others — did he finally say: 'The old me was very demanding, always hoping to deliver the best performance.' It took 17 years to learn one thing: stop chasing perfection. May 18 👥 People Lin Chi-er: From Taipei to Low Earth Orbit, the Taiwan-Born Physician Who Played Bagpipes in Space Born in Taipei in 1973, Lin Chi-er (Kjell N. Lindgren) is the first NASA astronaut born in Taiwan. After graduating from the Air Force Academy, a misdiagnosis of asthma derailed his pilot training. Eleven years later, a retest overturned the diagnosis. He was selected as one of nine astronauts in NASA's 20th class from 3,565 applicants, and has spent a cumulative 312 days in orbit. In April 2026, he returned to Taiwan under the 'Freedom 250' banner and told the Presidential Office: 'My NASA astronaut career began in Taiwan.' May 8 👥 People Puma Shen: He Researched China's Cognitive Warfare — Then China Plotted His Coordinates on a Satellite Map In 2021, Puma Shen co-founded Kuma Academy with strategist Ho Cheng-hui; tech billionaire Tsao Hsing-cheng donated NT$600 million in support, with a goal of training three million civil defense volunteers in three years. In February 2024, Shen took a seat in the Legislative Yuan as a DPP at-large legislator. On October 28, 2025, he became the first elected Taiwanese official to be indicted by China under charges of "splitting the nation." CCTV followed with a seven-and-a-half-minute exposé warning: "You're next." On New Year's Day 2026, a Chinese Weibo account published satellite images of his home and workplace in Taipei; on Valentine's Day he was on a plane to France. May 8 👥 People Chang Chih-chi: The 'Information Curator' Seeking Dialogue in a Polarized Age — from Simpleinfo to Shasha77, Seven Years of Daily Updates Known for seven years of daily updates and 1.65 million subscribers on 'Shasha77,' this information designer translates complex social issues into accessible explainers. He continues searching for the possibility of dialogue in a polarized Taiwanese society. May 8 📜 History The 1895 Taiwan Resistance War: 148 Days of the Republic of Formosa In 1895, the Qing court ceded Taiwan to Japan. Officials on the island declared the establishment of Asia's first republic, but the president fled within ten days and the poet within four. Those who truly stayed to fight were a 19-year-old Hakka youth who scattered his family fortune to raise militia fighters. 148 days later, the republic vanished and Japanese rule began. May 4 📜 History Formosa: How Westerners 'Discovered' an Island That Was Already Inhabited In 1704, a Frenchman who had never been to Asia stood before the Royal Society in London and, using a script and religion he had invented himself, convinced an entire room of scholars that he was a 'Formosan.' The deception lasted ten years. But the larger question is this: when Europeans spoke of 'discovering Formosa,' Austronesian peoples had already lived on the island for six thousand years. Whose narrative is 'discovery'? May 4 📜 History Japanese Colonial Era Japan ruled Taiwan for 50 years from 1895 to 1945, bringing comprehensive modernization and institutional management while implementing assimilation policies that profoundly shaped Taiwan's social development May 4 📜 History The Formosa Incident A military trial that was supposed to completely collapse the opposition movement unexpectedly became the most powerful propaganda film for Taiwan's democracy due to its broadcast. May 4 📜 History The KMT Government's Relocation to Taiwan and Postwar Reconstruction Yen Chia-kan came from Fujian and witnessed the history of the KMT government's 1949 relocation to Taiwan. 1.2 million soldiers and civilians, 38 years of martial law, land reform: how did this history reshape Taiwan? May 4 📜 History Qing Dynasty Rule From 1683 to 1895, the Qing dynasty ruled Taiwan for approximately 212 years, transitioning from passive governance to active development, laying the foundation for modern Taiwan's administrative divisions and Han Chinese society. May 4 📜 History The Rover Incident: A Battle 181 Soldiers Couldn't Win, Settled by Tauketok in 45 Minutes In 1867, 181 US soldiers were repelled in the jungles of the Hengchun Peninsula and their commanding officer was killed. Three months later, Tauketok — paramount chief of the Eighteen Paiwan Tribes of Liangqiao — sat down and negotiated the Treaty of South Cape in 45 minutes. The agreement temporarily protected his people from annihilation — but the other party, Charles Le Gendre (李仙得), took the same intelligence to the Japanese Empire seven years later, helping plan the 1874 expedition. May 4 📜 History The Sino-French War in Taiwan: Eight Months at Keelung and Tamsui In the autumn of 1884, the French fleet shelled Keelung harbor and 2,000 marines landed, seizing the port. But they spent the next seven months unable to fight their way out of the hills surrounding Keelung. That same week, 600 French sailors landed at Tamsui — and were driven back to sea within two hours. When the war ended, France took Vietnam and relinquished Taiwan. The Qing dynasty nearly lost everything, yet as a result Taiwan went from a dependency to a province. May 4 📜 History Democratization On March 18, 1980, in a Kaohsiung military courtroom, Shih Ming-teh discarded his sixty-thousand-word defense statement and instead demanded the judge sentence him to death. In the same trial, the young lawyers defending the accused — Chen Shui-bian, Frank Hsieh, Su Tseng-chang — all became presidents or premiers within twenty years. A show trial intended to make an example ended up accidentally producing Taiwan's next generation of political leaders. May 4 📜 History Taiwan's Democratic Transformation — The Authoritarian Regime's Self‑Digged Grave Every crackdown creates more resisters. From the 228 Incident to the Sunflower Movement, how does an island enable a dictatorial system to cultivate the very forces that will bury it? May 4 📜 History Taiwan Island Historiography: How an Island Repeatedly Ruled Invented Its Own Subjectivity Taiwan is not the final piece in a continental empire's puzzle, but the first cornerstone of a Pacific maritime network. Beginning from Ts'ao Yung-ho's idea of 'taking place as the frame for history,' this article rethinks the vitality of this island. May 4 📜 History Taiwan Railway History: The Consumptive Railway, Black-Headed Trains, and a Lineage That Lost Its Foreign Names How a wretched line that Japanese observers mocked as the “consumptive railway” became, over more than a century, a high-speed artery carrying 200,000 passengers a day. The German and British engineers hired by Liu Ming-chuan were later discarded and rebuilt over by the Japanese; Hasegawa Kinsuke's trunk line was renamed and renumbered by the postwar Taiwan Railways; each generation pushed the records of the previous one into the footnotes. Foreign names peeled away along the way, leaving only the Taiwanese terms “black-headed trains” and “little fire trains,” then the political slogans of Chu-kuang, Tzu-chiang, and Fu-hsing, until the Puyuma and Taroko generation finally laid Indigenous place names back onto the rails. May 4 📜 History Taiwan Transitional Justice Taiwan vacated nearly six thousand authoritarian-era convictions, yet almost no perpetrators were ever held accountable — that gap is harder to explain than the White Terror itself. May 4 🗺️ Geography Beida Special District: Three Decades of Urban Planning and the University Town Living Experiment From the 1895 Longenpu Battlefield to the 2026 MRT University Town, this is an in-depth encyclopedia about land, aesthetics, and selective identity. May 4 🗺️ Geography Linkou New Town: From "Ghost City" to Northern Taiwan's Emerging Metropolis — Transformation and Challenges In the 1970s, the Taiwanese government planned a "garden city" new town on the Linkou plateau to ease population pressure on Taipei. After decades of development, this once mocked-as-"ghost city" area saw rapid population growth and industrial upgrading following the opening of the Airport MRT in 2017, becoming one of the youngest and most dynamic metropolitan areas in northern Taiwan. But challenges remain — most notably traffic congestion and a damp, chilly climate. May 4 🎭 Culture Penghu Folk Culture Every Lantern Festival, more than two hundred temples across Penghu simultaneously cast divination blocks, and 47,000 jin of rice turtle offerings fill the temple courtyards — this archipelago, battered by the northeast monsoon for four centuries, uses turtle offerings to pray for fishermen's safe return, stone weirs to trap fish left by the retreating tide, and bawdy folk songs to fill a whole winter of solitude. May 4 🎭 Culture Taiwan Variety Shows In 1962, Star Show (群星會) moved the cabaret into the living room, and Taiwan variety television became not just entertainment but a star-making machine, a shared vocabulary generator, and a common subject for family dinner tables. It once swelled, in the cable television era, into a template for the Chinese-speaking world — and in the age of streaming and short video it has been forced to rewrite itself from studio spectacle into a new language for fragmented audiences. May 4 🍜 Food Bubble Tea A casual act at a staff meeting in Taichung in 1987 led to a drink that conquered the world. The origin dispute, cultural politics, and the 500-calorie health debate behind bubble tea. May 4 🎨 Art Contemporary Taiwanese Literature: Wu Ming-yi, Lin Yi-han, and a Quiet Reading Crisis In 2018, Wu Ming-yi was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize with _The Stolen Bicycle_ — the nationality field clearly read 'Taiwan.' Yet in that same era, first-print runs for serious Taiwanese literary fiction had already dropped below 3,000 copies. From Shih Shu-ching's epic trilogy spanning the Qing dynasty to the Japanese colonial period, to Lin Yi-han using a single book to drive legislative change — contemporary Taiwanese literature is touching the most universal questions in the most local voices. The audience, however, keeps shrinking. May 4 🎨 Art Postwar Taiwanese Literature: Learning to Speak the Unspeakable (1945–1987) In August 1945, Yeh Shih-tao was twenty years old, freshly discharged from the Japanese Imperial Army, back in Tainan, staring at a blank sheet of paper — unable to write a single character of Chinese. That blank page would wait forty-two years. In between: aphasia, imprisonment, polemic, and the slow mastery of indirection. In February 1987, he published a 232-page book whose title contained only two words: 'Taiwan.' May 4 🎨 Art Taiwan Comics From the 1970s comic kingdom of Liu Hsing-Chin and Ao Yu-Hsiang, to Cheng Wen's 1991 conquest of Japan as 'Asia's treasure,' to Tsai Chih-Chung using Zhuangzi Speaks to bring classical philosophy to the masses via manga, to the Golden Comic Award in 2010 and CCC Creator's Collection in 2017 — Taiwan comics survived the squeeze from Japanese manga and are finding their own original voice. May 4 🎨 Art Taiwanese Architecture From slate houses to skyscrapers: an island's architectural journey through time May 4 🎨 Art The Perpetual Donation Machine: FAB DAO and the Project % Social Experiment How did a physician who quit his job use a flag made of press-on balls to open up an entirely new vision for Web3 philanthropy in Taiwan. FAB DAO and Project % have redefined the nature of donation: collecting is donating, art is social action. May 4 🎨 Art Wang Lien-Cheng (Shrimp Dad): The Taiwanese Sound Installation Artist Who Made 23 Machines Simultaneously Read the Analects Born in Taipei in 1985, with a CS degree from Dong Hwa University and an MFA in Arts and Technology from TNUA. In 2017 his work *Reading Plan* — 23 automated page-turning machines simultaneously reciting the Analects — won the Lumen Prize Sculpture Award in London, and the following year he won the top prize at the Taipei Art Award. He is a member of Taiwanese sound art collective i/O Lab, co-director of Lacking Sound Festival 2009–2010, one of six artists in FAB DAO's Hundred Peaks Project, and currently an assistant professor of New Media Arts at TNUA. From the five autonomous-operation installations in *Beyond Consciousness* at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in 2022, to *Beyond the Machine* at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in 2025 — using automated platforms featuring Buddhist, Christian, and Taoist icons to interrogate AI ethics — Wang Lien-Cheng is the Taiwanese creator who has written algorithm, mechanism, and sound as a single line through contemporary sound art history. May 4 🎵 Music Taiwanese Independent Music: How a Record Store That Could Not Pay Its Staff Opened an Island's Ears From the gamble of taking over Crystal Records with NT$300,000 in debt to No Party for Cao Dong selling out its first pressing in coffee shops. Thirty-five years of Taiwanese independent music is not an underdog victory story, but a long wager by a group of people determined to let unheard sounds be heard May 4 🎵 Music Little Tigers: Taiwan's First Idol Boy Band Little Tigers, born from a 1988 CTV talent show, comprised of Wu Qi-long, Chen Zhi-peng, and Su You-peng, became Taiwan's first systematically produced male idol group through their sunshine-filled, energetic image and uplifting dance songs — ushering in the era of youth idols in Mandopop, and becoming a shared youthful memory across the Taiwan Strait and Hong Kong. May 4 🎵 Music Loh-Tsui-Kang Commune: Taiwanese, Punk, Farmer Friends, and an Award That Came Thirty Years Late In 1989, a group of students at Affiliated Senior High School of NTNU formed a band for their graduation performance. After Ko Jen-chien (Xiao Ke) from NTU's Law School joined, they renamed themselves Loh-Tsui-Kang Commune. For the next thirty years they sang in Taiwanese about politicians, farmers, desire, and social movements — expelled from NTU, performing in underground venues, never entering the mainstream. In 2020, the year of their dissolution, their album *Interior Decoration* won Best Taiwanese-language Album at the 31st Golden Melody Awards on their very first nomination. At the awards ceremony, the lead singer didn't come — he's now a civil servant at the National Tax Administration. May 4 🎵 Music Mayday In 1997, five Affiliated High School students signed up for a music festival using a BBS username. Thirty years later they sold 320,000 tickets to Taipei Dome in ten minutes, played 30 shows at Beijing's Bird's Nest — and at that same stage said four words that broke Taiwan's heart. May 4 🎵 Music Taiwan's Music Industry and the Streaming Era: The Transformation from Record Stores to Digital Platforms An examination of how Taiwan's music industry moved from the golden age of record stores through the piracy crisis, pioneered KKBOX as the world's first legal streaming platform, and arrived at today's digital music ecosystem alongside Spotify and Apple Music May 4 🎵 Music Taiwanese Traditional Chinese Orchestra Music: Island Sounds Grown on Chinese Instruments The erhu and pipa that crossed the strait in 1949 were performing the Bunun people's eight-part polyphony seventy years later in Taiwan. How Taiwan's guoyue transformed from a symbol of political orthodoxy into a musical species entirely distinct from its mainland counterpart. May 4 💻 Technology The Rise of an AI Island Nation: Taiwan's AI Development and Future Strategy From the shock of AlphaGo to the wave of generative AI, how Taiwan is finding a distinctive position in artificial intelligence through a small-state grand strategy May 4 💻 Technology Taiwan’s Artificial Intelligence Development and Future Strategy: The Hardware Ticket Is in Hand. Where Is the Next Battle? On October 8, 2024, the Nobel Prize in Physics went to Hopfield and Hinton; the next day, the Chemistry prize went to the three AlphaFold researchers. On May 29 of the same year, Jensen Huang ate oyster omelets with Morris Chang at Taipei’s Ningxia Night Market. Taiwan manufactures 90% of the world’s AI servers and 72% of advanced wafers, yet it was absent from the answers to the 42-year history of neural networks and the 50-year protein-folding problem. From PTT founder Ethan Tu’s Taiwan AI Labs to TAIDE, the traditional Chinese LLM model backed by the National Science and Technology Council, is it still enough for this island to be only a contract manufacturer? May 4 💻 Technology Digital ID and Digital Government A chip card that was never issued cost NT$280 million in compensation — Taiwan's digital government story is proof that trust is harder to build than technology May 4 💻 Technology Hsuehshan Tunnel: From "Mission Impossible" to Taiwan's Engineering Miracle of Blood and Tears On December 15, 1997, a catastrophic water inrush nearly claimed 300 lives and turned a billion-dollar tunnel boring machine into scrap metal. Listed in the Encyclopædia Britannica as one of the most difficult engineering projects in the world, this tunnel is more than a transportation artery — it is a miracle of blood and tears carved through quartzite harder than steel, built by 25 fallen workers and countless unsung heroes. May 4 💻 Technology justfont and the Development of Taiwanese Typography: A Short History from DynaComware's 25 Years to JinXuan's 76 Minutes On the afternoon of September 8, 2015, the JinXuan typeface went live on flyingV — and hit its NT$1.5 million goal in 76 minutes, NT$10 million in 11 hours, and NT$20 million in 58 hours, ultimately rewriting Taiwan's crowdfunding record at NT$25,930,099 from 7,667 backers. That same year in June, the default Chinese typeface Apple unveiled at WWDC, "PingFang," was made by DynaComware (formerly DynaLab) in Nangang, Taipei. Taiwan was hardly incapable of producing typefaces — but the workload of "an average of 3.8 hand-drawn Chinese characters per type designer per day" had kept anyone from making a new one for 25 years. May 4 💻 Technology Miin The AI news aggregation platform built by PTT founder Ethan Tu uses algorithms to detect disinformation and coordinated account operations. During Pelosi's Taiwan visit, Miin data showed that one in every four related accounts on Twitter was involved in cognitive operations. But in 2025, the platform was accused of copyright infringement after its AI crawler scraped news articles without authorization, exposing the gray zone between AI aggregation and news copyright. May 4 💻 Technology Mini Taiwan Pulse: How One Data Analyst Turned Taiwan's Traffic Pulse into Breathing 3D Light Trails On February 24, 2026, a data analyst named Migu Cheng opened the mini-taiwan-pulse repository. Six weeks later it had 193 commits and 241 stars: working alone, he wired together open data from FlightRadar24, TDX, SEGIS, and CWA and used Three.js to render Taiwan as a breathing island of 3D light trails. Taiwan's open data infrastructure is among the best in Asia, yet very few people can see that ocean of data. Civic tech has expanded from g0v's collective hackathons into individual weekend projects, and visualization itself is a form of civic participation. May 4 💻 Technology Open Source Community and g0v In February 2020, while the rest of the world was scrambling to buy masks, a group of Taiwanese programmers built a mask-inventory query system covering 13,000 convenience stores in just 72 hours — with no government mandate and no budget, only one belief: use code to change society. This is g0v (gov-zero), a remarkable experiment in 'forking the government.' May 4 💻 Technology PTT Bulletin Board System: Taiwan's Most Stubborn Public Square A BBS built in a dorm room in 1995 still operates with pure text interfaces 30 years later, yet has profoundly shaped Taiwan's internet language, political discourse, and collective memory May 4 💻 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. May 4 💻 Technology Taiwan AI Labs A non-profit AI research organization founded in March 2017 by Ethan Tu, known as the 'Father of PTT.' Open-source models: TAIDE (Traditional Chinese large language model), TAME, and FedGPT, with a corpus of over 60 billion Traditional Chinese tokens. Focus areas: smart healthcare and cognitive warfare defense. COVID-19 social distancing app (decentralized Bluetooth). May 4 💻 Technology Taiwan's Space Industry: A Satellite Powerhouse Without a Rocket Taiwan assembles hundreds of billions in electronics for the world, yet only launched its first sub-meter resolution satellite in 2025 — a story of technological sovereignty, geopolitical reality, and a commercial space dream still in progress. May 4 💻 Technology Legend of Mortal: Two People, 30% Approval, 700,000 Copies In June 2024, two Taiwanese developers with no game-industry background launched a wuxia RPG. Within a week, the Steam approval rating fell below 30% as Chinese players bombed it with negative reviews. Twelve days later it climbed back to 70%; a month later, 94%. Six months in, sales passed 700,000 copies, and Korean and Taiwanese fans organized themselves to translate it into Japanese. The protagonist is "an outsider disciple with no main-character aura" — and so is the team that built him. May 4 💻 Technology Tamsui River Bridge: A Colossal Landmark on the River-Mouth Horizon, Built for 'Transparency' The Tamsui River Bridge is scheduled to open on May 12, 2026. Designed by the team of the late Dame Zaha Hadid, this single-pylon asymmetric cable-stayed bridge took thirty years of planning. Caught between the competing demands of preserving the famous Tamsui sunset and relieving traffic congestion, it redefines Taiwan's river-mouth landscape with fluid, sweeping lines. May 4 🌿 Nature Endemic Species Taiwan's rich endemic species: a product of island geography, vertical climate zones, and long-term isolation-driven evolution, and an important field site for global biodiversity research May 4 🌿 Nature Formosan Rock Macaque: Survival Games at NSYSU, Matrilineal Power, and the Truth About Taiwan's Ten-Thousand-Year Settlers From the absurd daily routine at NSYSU — students collecting food deliveries while armed — to Robert Swinhoe's 1862 introduction of the island's primates to Western science, the Formosan Rock Macaque is often branded a "thug." Behind the label is a strict matrilineal society that settled on Mount Chai (柴山) tens of thousands of years ago, forced to evolve a survival culture under campus expansion and human feeding. May 4 🌿 Nature Taiwan's Mountains and Hiking Culture 268 peaks above 3,000 meters are packed onto a single island, yet it took Taiwanese people half a century before they were allowed to freely climb their own mountains. May 4 👥 People Abao (Aljenljeng Tjaluvie): The Future Pop Singer Who Sent the Paiwan Language to the Golden Melody Album of the Year The 2020 Golden Melody 31 Album of the Year went to the all-Paiwan electronic album 'kinakaian — Mother Tongue.' Abao (Aljenljeng Tjaluvie, b. 1981, Jinfeng, Taitung) debuted as one half of the R&B duo Abao & Brandy, worked as a nurse for a decade, then in 2019 collaborated with Dizparity to make indigenous-language future pop — rewriting the equation that 'indigenous music = preservation.' May 4 👥 People Our Shame (Ao and Mountain): Two Tech Workers Who Said in Synthesizers What They Couldn't Say at the Office Our Shame (凹與山) is a Taiwanese folktronica duo. Members Estelle H (lead vocals, synthesizer, producer) and Isan (drums, pad) met in high school music club and, as an unplugged folk duo during college, won the Golden Reed Award's composition division in 2015. After graduation both entered the tech industry as full-time workers. In the winter of 2018 they renamed their project from 'Wei Xiao-ao' to 'Our Shame,' with Estelle picking up synthesizers and Isan switching to pads, pivoting toward folktronica. In 2022 Estelle's closest friend died and she quit her full-time job; the band released their debut album 'Modern Problem,' which received double nominations at the 13th Golden Indie Music Awards for Best Alternative Pop and Best New Artist. On August 4, 2025, they released their second album 'Hidden Album,' bringing in Grammy-winning British mixer Jay Reynolds, Grammy-winning American engineer Brian Elgin (credits include Dua Lipa and Lana Del Rey), Japan's ASOBOiSM, and other international collaborators. The album's themes shifted from 'tech anxiety' (Modern Problem) to 'human shadows concealed by technology' — self-harm, forbidden love, cryptocurrency scams, and female embodied experiences — including a track 'Miffy' in tribute to activist Chen Mei-hui. May 4 👥 People Chang Yu-sheng: From Idol to Prophet, a Musical Experiment That Crossed Generations In 1989, the son of an army entertainment troupe leader debuted with 'Miss You Every Day' selling 350,000 copies and became an idol; in 1994, he responded to the market with a 73-minute live band recording that sold dismally but was later called prophetic. Chang Yu-sheng spent nine years grinding between his idol identity and his creative conscience — four days after 'Mouth Says No, Heart Says Yes' went on sale, he crashed his car in the Tamsui pre-dawn hours and never woke up. May 4 👥 People Charles Le Gendre: The Treaty-Maker and the Traitor Were the Same Man In 1867, the American merchant ship Rover wrecked off the Hengchun Peninsula, and 14 crew members were killed by the Paiwan people. U.S. Consul Le Gendre made eight trips to Taiwan, negotiating a treaty with indigenous chief Tauketok without any involvement from the Qing government. He then took his encyclopedic knowledge of Formosa and defected to the Japanese government. Five years later, Japan used his intelligence to launch a military expedition against Taiwan. May 4 👥 People Chen Cheng-po He conquered Tokyo's Imperial Art Exhibition with oil paintings, yet was shot dead in front of Chiayi Railway Station — and what made the world know him was often his death, not those paintings. May 4 👥 People Chen Chien-chi: From Accounting Major to Three-Gold-Winning Producer, the Man Who Tore Down the 'Weird Voice' Red Line in Mandarin Pop Music Born in 1973 and a graduate of Tamkang University's accounting department, Chen Chien-chi is a rare 'absent author' in the history of Mandarin pop music: you have heard the songs he produced for Waa Wei, Lala Hsu, Hebe Tien, and Julia Peng, but you probably do not know who he is. Winner of the 2021 32nd Golden Melody Award for Best Album Producer, the 2023 Golden Horse Award for Best Original Film Song, and the 2025 Golden Bell Award for Drama Original Song — a three-Gold-winning producer who walked into pop music from the theater piano bench. May 4 👥 People Chen Shui-bian Taiwan's 10th and 11th president and the architect of the 2000 democratic power transition. From the son of a Tainan tenant farmer to the first DPP president, then the first former president ever imprisoned — his trajectory encapsulates the most complex tensions of Taiwan's democratic transition era: an inspiring rise, legislative groundwork, political storms, and a social rupture that has yet to fully heal. May 4 👥 People Enno Cheng: Writing the Most Honest Songs in the Most Unfamiliar Language — Seven Years from Coming Out in 2016 to Winning Two Taiwanese Awards at the 2023 Golden Melody Awards Born in 1987, Enno Cheng (鄭宜農) is the daughter of New Cinema director Cheng Wen-tang. She debuted as an actress in 2007 with a Golden Horse nomination, came out on Facebook in January 2016 and divorced that same month, released her first all-Taiwanese-language album 'Mercury Retrograde' in 2022, and won both Best Taiwanese Female Singer and Best Taiwanese Album at the 34th Golden Melody Awards in July 2023. She said: 'I decided to use a language I was not that familiar with, to make things difficult for myself.' May 4 👥 People Chiang Kai-shek His bronze statues are being removed, but the foundations he laid — whether you call them construction or shackles — still support every road, every school, and every election on this island. May 4 👥 People Chiang Wei-shui: The Physician Who Diagnosed a Colonial Society with a 'Clinical Report' In 1921, physician Chiang Wei-shui published a 'Clinical Report' that personified Taiwan as 'a feeble-minded child of world civilization,' diagnosing the disease as malnutrition of the intellect. He founded the Taiwan Cultural Association and the first legal political party, the Taiwan People's Party; he was imprisoned over ten times in his lifetime; and between his clinic at Da'an Hospital and the Spring Breeze Teahouse, he wove a network of awakening — leaving behind the enduring practical legacy of 'Compatriots must unite; united we are truly powerful.' May 4 👥 People Paul Ching-Wu Chu: Co-discoverer of High-Temperature Superconductivity at Tc=93K, Breaking Through the Liquid-Nitrogen Temperature in 1987 Born in Hunan in 1941, Paul Ching-Wu Chu is a Taiwanese American physicist. In January 1987, he and Maw-Kuen Wu jointly discovered yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) with Tc=93K, crossing the liquid-nitrogen temperature threshold and opening the era of high-temperature superconductivity. From 2001 to 2009 he served as president of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In March 2026, he published a new Tc=151K breakthrough in PNAS and remains active in research at age 85. May 4 👥 People Chuang Chu Yu-nu: From Free Meals for Dock Workers to a Ten-Dollar Buffet That Sold Seven Houses In 1951, Chuang Chu Yu-nu set up a stove by Kaohsiung Harbor to feed impoverished dock workers for free. Hailed as the "guardian of the poor," she ran an all-you-can-eat buffet at NT$10 for over fifty years, selling seven houses to keep it running and turning "letting people eat their fill" into a lifelong faith. May 4 👥 People Constant and Change: Ten Years of 'A Band Doesn't Run on Persistence — If It's Not Fun, It Falls Apart' A four-piece independent band formed in Taipei in 2013, whose name fuses the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus's 'panta rhei' with the changeup pitch in baseball. Lead vocalist ARNY was born in the Philippines, once played bass in Fire EX, and has 20 years in music; drummer Xiaomi has rheumatoid arthritis that left her thumb unable to bend, and still plays; bassist Jinmao says 'a band doesn't run on persistence — if it's not fun, it falls apart.' They went from playing Legacy to two audience members to 5,000 people at Taipei Music Center in 2023, with no viral moment and no breakout single — only ten years of steady evolution. May 4 👥 People Henry Lee Built a forensic legend from a handful of bone fragments — yet a 'bloodstain' on a towel sent two men to prison for thirty wrongful years May 4 👥 People Huang Shao-yong: Dropping Out of a Biochemistry PhD to Bring Mother Tongue Music to the Golden Melody Album of the Year Backstage at the 33rd Golden Melody Awards in 2022, Huang Shao-yong won Best Arranger and pulled a recorder from his jacket to play a passage. The son of Examination Yuan President Huang Jung-tsun, the producer who terminated his NTU biochemistry doctoral program around age 30 founded Dark Paradise Records a decade ago and co-produced Abao's *kinakaian 母親的舌頭*, which won the 2020 Golden Melody Album of the Year. His work has always been one thing: arranging a path to the mainstream for the most marginalized voices. May 4 👥 People Jensen Huang From a Kentucky reform school to history's first $5 trillion company — how a toilet-scrubbing boy from Tainan bet on a future that took a decade to arrive May 4 👥 People Ke Zhi-Tang (Kowen Ko): The Taiwanese Indie Folk Singer Who Traded Seven Years of Silence for an Album Born in Taiwan in 1990, he won the Hai Xian Award (海弦獎) in 2013 with his Coldplay covers, and that same year became the voice behind Kingston's 'Memory Platform' advertisement theme 'It Was May,' accumulating 5 million views. His 2015 debut album You Don't Really Want to Wander (produced by Chen Chien-Chi) earned double nominations at the 27th Golden Melody Awards; his 2018 second album Songs of the Bards again earned a nomination at the 30th Golden Melody Awards. Then he went silent for seven years, retreating to his room. In November 2024 he released his third album My Nova — a comeback written at a piano he had rediscovered. In 2025 he won the 60th Golden Bell Award for Best Drama Original Song with 'God's Reply' from Stars Beneath the Black Tide Island. His cousins are Wei Ru-Xuan and Wei Ru-Yun. His voice is low, weathered, and textured; he says it is not an old-man voice, just a little weathered. May 4 👥 People Kuo Hsing-chun: From the Injury of a 141-Kilogram Barbell to Three Olympic Weightlifting Podiums Taiwanese weightlifter, three-time Olympic medalist (2016 bronze, 2021 gold, 2024 bronze), world-record holder in the 59 kg class, and descendant of the Amis Malan community May 4 👥 People Lee Yang The young man who gritted his teeth through Division A, now gritting his teeth to fight institutional corruption in sports: two Olympic gold medals in men's doubles badminton, Taiwan's youngest-ever cabinet minister, NT$34.01 million in savings, NT$36.38 million in debt, and a NT$10 million bonus donated entirely to charity. May 4 👥 People Liu An-ting In 2008 she left Taichung Girls' Senior High School for Princeton. In 2013, at 23, she quit her New York consulting job to return to Taiwan and found TFT — Teach for Taiwan. In 2016 she asked a graduating class at National Cheng Kung University: 'What do you do with your luck?' That line became a collective mantra for an entire generation. But the other line she says most often is: 'Don't believe in me as an individual.' After TFT's tenth anniversary in 2024, she passed the chairmanship to Lin Yen-hsi and became a board director. Her best work is not TFT itself — it is making TFT able to exist without her. May 4 👥 People Mavis Fan: From 'Health Song' Little Witch to 100% Band Frontwoman — Thirty Years of Refusing to Be Defined by Any Single Era In 1996, 19-year-old Mavis Fan became everyone's Little Witch with 'Health Song.' In 1998 she shaved her head and released Darling to announce 'I'm making my own music'; in 2001 she turned to jazz with Cabaret; in 2007 she formed the 100% Band. In 2025 at 48, Visitor is her new album with the band after 16 years apart — across thirty years she has dismantled, piece by piece, 'the dream others gave her.' May 4 👥 People No Party for Cao Dong: Twelve Years from a Yangmingshan Street Corner to Two Golden Melody Best Band Awards At the 28th Golden Melody Awards in 2017, a four-piece band that self-pressed 2,000 CDs swept three trophies, decisively defeating Mayday. They vanished for seven years — a span that crossed drummer Fan Fan's death in a quarantine hotel in 2021 and two years of silence. In 2023 they returned with *Whe·Re*, and at the 35th Golden Melody Awards in 2024 they claimed a triple crown: Album of the Year, Best Mandarin Album, and Best Band. Their manager accepted on their behalf: 'No Party for Cao Dong has never been only the 4 people standing on stage.' May 4 👥 People Robert Swinhoe: When a Diplomat Became a Naturalist In 1856, a 19-year-old British interpreter recorded the first bird he spotted on the western coast of Formosa. Four years later, 52 academic papers introduced the world to what lived on this island for the first time. He died in London at 41, but the species he named live on today in Taiwan's mountains and forests. May 4 👥 People Stanley Yen: From the Mailroom to Taiwan's Godfather of Tourism — Then He Gave It All Up High school diploma. Mailroom clerk at 23. General manager at 28. President of Asia's finest boutique hotel at 32 — where he invented a system that greeted every guest by name before they stepped out of the car. 600,000 copies of a bestseller. Then at 62, he quit to build schools in rural Taitung. Then cancer. Then an art center on the Pacific coast. May 4 👥 People Stefanie Sun: Beat Jay Chou by One Vote, AI Cloned 1,000 Songs, She Said 'Being Yourself Is Enough' On June 9, 2000, a Singaporean woman debuted in Taiwan with 'Rainy Day,' and her first album sold 330,000 copies to top the year's chart. The following year at the Golden Melody Awards, she beat Jay Chou for Best New Artist by a single vote; four years later, with Stefanie, she became the first artist in Golden Melody history to win both Best New Artist and Best Female Vocalist. In 2023, AI used her voice to sing over 1,000 songs. Her answer was: 'Being yourself is enough.' May 4 👥 People Sun Yun-suan: The Engineer-Premier Who Lit Up Taiwan from the Dark From the five-month miracle of restoring electricity in postwar ruins, to the visionary bet on the semiconductor industry, Sun Yun-suan laid the foundations of modern Taiwan with engineering pragmatism and incorruptible character. May 4 👥 People Tai Tzu-ying Record holder for 214 weeks as world number one, Taiwan's badminton queen — from Kaohsiung's Qianzhen District to an Olympic silver medal May 4 👥 People Wu Ta-you: The Academia Sinica President Who Recommended Yang and Lee to the US, and His Eleven Years Laying Taiwan's Scientific Foundations Theoretical physicist and president of Academia Sinica; mentor to Nobel laureates Yang Chen-ning and Lee Tsung-dao; the foundational figure who built Taiwan's scientific enterprise May 4 👥 People Teresa Teng: A White Headband in Happy Valley, a Plastic Bag of Kinmen Air, a Five-Minute Gap in Chiang Mai On May 27, 1989 — eight days before the Tiananmen crackdown — Teresa Teng walked onto a Hong Kong racetrack stage wearing a white headband reading "Democracy Lives" and a hand-written placard reading "Oppose Military Rule." She sang a song she had never sung before. She never set foot on the Chinese mainland again. From a Yunlin military village to five frontline tours of Kinmen, from three consecutive Japan Cable Grand Prix titles to a Chiang Mai presidential suite, the woman the Chinese-speaking world called its "love-song queen" spent 42 years turning tenderness into a political stance. May 4 👥 People Tony Hsiao: From Game Product Manager to INSIDE Founder, the Mayor of Taiwan's Internet Scene In 2009, six internet people launched a collaborative blog, and INSIDE — Taiwan's pioneering tech commentary media — was born. Tony Hsiao (fOx) simultaneously co-founded iCook, Taiwan's largest recipe platform. Both of Taiwan's most recognized internet properties became his work — and both sold to the same buyer. May 4 👥 People Tsao Hsing-cheng: From Wafer-Foundry Tycoon to Taiwan's "Eight-Nots" Defender Against China In 1984 he proposed wafer foundry to Morris Chang and was brushed off. In 1995 he challenged TSMC with a "joint-venture model." Once the UMC founder who pushed for a "unification referendum," after setbacks in China and the upheaval in Hong Kong, he donated NT$3 billion to defense in 2022 — completing one of Taiwan's most dramatic personal pivots, from tech overlord to anti-CCP general. May 4 👥 People Tzuyu A Tainan girl who never talked politics. An 8-second flag on Korean TV. An election-eve apology video. And ten years later, she stood at the Dome and read from a handwritten letter: 'I didn't leave — not because I was obedient, but because I truly wanted and longed to stay.' May 4 👥 People VH (Vast & Hazy): Fifteen Years of Directional Calibration for an 'Exit-System Band' Formed at the Tamkang University Golden Bell Award in 2011, went on hiatus in 2014, returned as a duo in 2017, and was nominated three times for Golden Melody Best Vocal Group. In an era when the Taiwan indie scene favored noise, Vast & Hazy chose to be a shelter for nameless anxiety — and fans spontaneously named them an 'exit-system band.' In April 2026, after Yi-chi announced his move to behind-the-scenes work, Ka-ka carries the name forward. May 4 👥 People Fish Stick: A Name Like a Street Snack, a Sound That Hits Like Post-Hardcore On December 31, 2019, Fish Stick released their first full-length album Antidote on the last day of the year. Three classmates from Taipei Municipal Zhongzheng Senior High School, playing together from late 2011 to 2019, shrank from five members to three, placed fourth at the 2016 Ditu Spring Wave Awards, received an invitation to perform in Shanghai — and say they're 'not preachy,' yet every song they sing is more direct than any manifesto. May 4 🏛️ Society Becoming a Teacher: Forty Years of Reform and Collapse in Taiwan's Teacher Training System In February 1994, the Legislative Yuan passed the Teacher Education Act, transforming the monopoly of normal schools into an open, pluralistic system — hailed at the time as a milestone in Taiwan's educational history. Thirty years later, the numbers are sobering: the original nine education universities were merged down to just three; in the 2020 academic year, enrollment shortfalls across teacher training institutions hit an all-time high; the teacher certification pass rate dropped to 52% in recent years; nearly half of teacher candidates treat teacher training as a backup plan; and 42% quit before obtaining their teaching certificates. May 4 🏛️ Society Cognitive Warfare: Taiwan's Information Battlefield Enters the AI-Industrialization Phase In December 2024, the "China United Front Documentary" broke 2 million views. In Q4 2025, 1,076 CCP state-media accounts on Douyin posted 560,000 videos and identified 57 Taiwanese figures via facial recognition. In October 2025, Puma Shen was placed under criminal investigation by Chongqing police for "secession." Cognitive warfare has entered a new phase of AI industrialization and "using Taiwanese to attack Taiwan" — but the very term "cognitive warfare" is itself under tension as it gets overused inside Taiwan. May 4 🏛️ Society The Democratic System: From the 1987 Lifting of Martial Law to Lai Ching-te in 2024 — Coordinates of Taiwan's 37 Years of Democracy Taiwan endured 38 years of authoritarian rule under martial law beginning in 1949. Martial law was lifted on July 15, 1987, and the first direct presidential election was held in 1996 (Lee Teng-hui). The first party rotation occurred in 2000 (Chen Shui-bian). On May 17, 2019, Taiwan became the first region in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. On January 13, 2024, Lai Ching-te was elected the 16th president with 40.05% of the vote (5.58 million votes), marking the first time the Democratic Progressive Party won three consecutive presidential elections; the Kuomintang reclaimed its position as the largest party in the Legislative Yuan (52 seats), with the DPP at 51 seats and the Taiwan People's Party at 8 seats — no party held a majority. May 4 🏛️ Society Education System and Admissions Culture From the Joint Entrance Examination system to 12-year Basic Education, how Taiwanese education seeks balance between competition and pluralism May 4 🏛️ Society Learning Poverty: Sitting in the Classroom Without Learning Anything In 2019, the World Bank introduced the term 'Learning Poverty' to describe something harder to see than being out of school: a 10-year-old child who arrives at school on time every day, sits quietly, and hands in all their assignments — yet cannot read a simple age-appropriate story. The World Bank's February 2023 update maintained the global learning poverty rate at 70%. Taiwan ranked in the global top five in PISA 2022, and the math scores of the most disadvantaged 20% of students caught up with the OECD average — on the surface, a major turnaround. But the same PISA report shows urban students scoring 571 versus rural students at 517, a gap of 54 points; a 2019 survey by the Boyo Foundation across 13 rural middle schools found that in 6 of them, 70% of students scored C in English, and in 5 of them, 70% scored C in math. Taiwan's version of learning poverty hides in this gap, still unmeasured. May 4 🏛️ Society Mainlanders in Taiwan: From Kidnapped Youths to Taiwanese Identified with the Land Beneath Their Feet In 1949, more than one million people carrying trauma and homesickness crossed the sea to Taiwan. They were both a high-risk group for being treated as “political prisoners” by an authoritarian government that distrusted them, and “war refugees” who had been forcibly seized and cut off from their homelands. This article reveals how the mainlander community, through four psychological traumas, completed a spiritual migration from “exiles” to “settlers.” May 4 🏛️ Society The Remote Area Schools Education Development Act: NT$17.5 Billion Spent, and Demographic Gravity Still Wins On November 21, 2016, the Legislative Yuan passed the Remote Area Schools Education Development Act — 21 articles that amounted to the state's formal admission of its own institutional failures. Eight years later, the government has poured NT$17.5 billion into rural school infrastructure, yet 2024–25 saw 18 primary schools close — the most in Taiwan's educational history. The law rescued the legal framework, but couldn't stop demographic gravity. May 4 🏛️ Society The Sunflower Student Movement — Twelve Years After Those Thirty Seconds A legislator lay on the floor and read for thirty seconds using a lapel microphone, triggering a twenty-four-day occupation of the legislature, a political awakening for a generation, and the starting point of Taiwan's economic shift away from China. Twelve years later, the laws the students demanded were not passed, but they won a war they didn't know they were fighting. May 4 🏛️ Society Taiwan's Animal Drug Controversy: Where an Island Treats Pets as Family but Pet Medicines as Commodities On July 1, 2026, a new Taiwan regulation on human drugs used for companion animals is set to take effect. Of 701 approved drugs, only 144 have been registered. Medical oxygen: zero. 100,000+ pet owners have signed a petition to delay it. This is a ten-year legal gap traced back to a 2012 counterfeit drug case, a Pandora's box opened in 2022 by a legislator, and a first-ever conviction in 2024. May 4 🏛️ Society Taiwan Indigenous Education and Language Revival: Elementary Schools Hold the Line, Middle Schools Fail to Catch In 2012, Paiwan teacher Camake Valaule at Taimali Elementary School in Pingtung used a voice recorder to collect ancient songs from elders and led children to the Golden Melody Awards. In 2017, the Indigenous Peoples Language Development Act elevated indigenous languages to national language status. In 2019, the Indigenous Peoples Education Act inscribed a ten-year target for teacher ratio requirements. The number of indigenous experimental schools at the elementary level grew from 25 to 38. But once students reach middle school, the entire system collapses: there are only 6 indigenous experimental middle schools across Taiwan, the gross enrollment rate for indigenous college students is 56.3%, 35.3 percentage points below the general population. Camake passed away in 2021 at age 42. Elementary schools hold the line; middle schools fail to catch. The gap remains. May 4 🏛️ Society Taiwan's Zoos: The Oldest Isn't in Muzha, and the Largest Is More Than Just a Zoo From Yuan Zai to overnight stays at the National Museum of Marine Biology, Taiwan's zoos are not a simple list of family attractions — they are an island itinerary shaped by cities, tourism, and ocean education growing together. May 4 📊 Economy Startup Ecosystem The development of Taiwan’s startup ecosystem, from early challenges to today’s accelerators, venture capital environment, and pursuit of unicorns May 4 📊 Economy Taiwan’s Stock Market and Capital Market: From the 1990 Collapse at 10,000 Points to the World’s Sixth Largest in 2026, an Island with 44% of Its Net Worth Staked on One Stock On April 28, 2026, Bloomberg flashed the headline “Taiwan Overtakes Canada.” An island whose 1990 collapse from the 10,000-point level wiped out the retirement savings of 160,000 people climbed, thirty-six years later, to become the world’s sixth-largest stock market — but of its US$4.47 trillion in market capitalization, nearly half rested on a single semiconductor company. May 4 📊 Economy Taiwan's TSMC: The Island That Builds the World's Digital Heart Morris Chang left Texas Instruments at 54 and founded TSMC at 56, after fleeing war three times and living in six cities before age 18. Thirty-eight years later, on March 3, 2025, President Trump pointed to Chang's successor C.C. Wei in the White House and said: 'He is the most important man in the room.' In Q1 2026, TSMC posted $35.9 billion in quarterly revenue. An island battered by typhoons and perennially short on water and power built the heart of humanity's digital civilization — but the larger that heart grows, the less clear it becomes whether the island can bear its weight. May 4 📜 History The 19th-Century Camphor Wars: The World's Desired Fragrance, Hidden in Indigenous Mountains In 1864, Robert Swinhoe wrote three numbers at Tamsui: 6, 16, 28. A picul of camphor traveled from its source to Hong Kong and its price almost quintupled. The difference ended up in the magistrate's pockets — and in the mountains belonging to indigenous peoples. May 3 📜 History The February 28 Incident How a widow's contraband cigarette stand ignited 38 years of silence on an island — the ten days in 1947 that changed Taiwan's fate, and the wounds still healing 78 years later May 3 📜 History Alishan: The Empire's Forest and Uong'e Yata'uyungana's Mountain On April 17, 1954, Tsou intellectual Uong'e Yata'uyungana was executed by firing squad at the Anken execution ground. Alishan, celebrated as a scenic destination, is in truth a mountain of memory rewritten by two empires in succession. May 3 📜 History The Dutch, Spanish, and Ming-Zheng Period From the Dutch establishment of Fort Zeelandia in Tainan in 1624 to Shi Lang's landing in Penghu in 1683: sixty years in which Taiwan was written into the map of world trade, and the story of four successive regimes May 3 📜 History The Great Recall Movement In 2025, Taiwan's civil society launched the largest recall action in history, targeting KMT legislators who had pushed controversial bills, attempting to correct the power imbalance in the Legislative Yuan. All three rounds of voting ultimately rejected all recall efforts, making this Taiwan's most significant large-scale exercise and test of direct democracy. May 3 📜 History Two Sides of Shengli Road: Hukou Memories from the Armored Corps Coup to the "Big Parking Lot" On Shengli Road in Hukou, Hsinchu, one side of the camp wall held tanks and political storms, while the other held residences, a commissary, and a vanished movie theater. This is a local history of neighborhood, accident, and social justice. May 3 📜 History Indigenous Peoples' History and Naming Rights Movement From 'barbarians' to 'Indigenous peoples' - a centuries-long struggle for identity recognition and dignity May 3 📜 History Martial Law Era On May 19, 1949, Chen Cheng issued the Taiwan Province martial law decree. 38 years later, on July 15, 1987, Chiang Ching-kuo announced its lifting. The Kinmen-Matsu region was not lifted until 1992. What did they live through in those five years? May 3 📜 History Prehistoric Era and Indigenous Peoples: From Changbin 20,000–30,000 Years Ago to the Austronesian Dispersal Origin Earliest human activity in Taiwan: Changbin Culture approximately 20,000–30,000 years ago (Paleolithic era, Baxian Cave site). 16 officially recognized indigenous peoples. One possible origin of the Austronesian language family (9 of 10 major Austronesian branches found in Taiwan). 2024 latest research: dispersal from Taiwan accounts for approximately 20%, with an additional dispersal route from Indonesia (P0⚠️). 17th-century Kingdom of Middag as a cross-tribal alliance; Shihsanhang Culture in the Iron Age. May 3 📜 History Psychological Warfare: From Kinmen's Broadcasting Walls to the Paradigm Shift of AI Cognitive Operations From the 1960s' Deng Lijun appeals and 'surrender food' dropped by balloons on Kinmen to the 2026 digital era's information penetration and AI cognitive manipulation, cross-strait psychological warfare has evolved from physical material incentives to digital semantic offense and defense. This article thoroughly梳理s the historical context of Taiwan's psychological warfare against China, specific material lists, and contrasts the challenges of the current AI industrialization stage. May 3 📜 History Social Movements During Japanese Rule in Taiwan Hidden within the Imperial Police's surveillance documents lies a map of how Taiwanese people resisted. In the 1920s, three currents ignited simultaneously — parliamentary petitions, peasant unions, and an underground party — yet burned toward each other. May 3 📜 History Taiwan's Economic Miracle: From an Agricultural Society to an Asian Tiger From the 1960s to the 1990s, Taiwan created an economic miracle that drew worldwide attention, transforming from an agricultural society into an industrialized country and joining South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore as one of the Four Asian Tigers. May 3 📜 History Taiwan Elections and Party Politics From the flames of the Zhongli Incident to 8.17 million votes, how Taiwan spent half a century turning voting from a martial law tool into a civic faith May 3 📜 History Taiwan's Forestry History: A Century's Pivot from Resource Extraction to Land Stewardship From the camphor smoke of the late Qing era, to the ringing of steel rails under Japanese rule, to the great timber-cutting age that shook the mountains in the postwar years. This article traces the global geopolitical logic behind Taiwan's forestry policies and uses data to set the record straight on a century of forestry. May 3 📜 History Taiwan Maritime Trade History Taiwan in the Age of Exploration - from international trade center to pirate kingdom, a legendary rise and fall May 3 📜 History Taiwan's Military Dependents Villages From Burma's Lost Army to bamboo fence kingdoms: how 1.2 million refugees redefined 'home' May 3 📜 History History of Railways in Taiwan How a railway the Japanese called a 'consumptive railroad' became a 300 km/h artery carrying 21 million passengers a day May 3 📜 History Taiwan Strait Crises and Cross-Strait Relations From a Kinmen grandmother's memories of shelling to the 'Buddha-like' daily life of young people in Taipei, how seven decades of Taiwan Strait crises have shaped the collective psychology of the Taiwanese people May 3 📜 History Taiwan's White Terror The 38-year martial law was not maintained by a few thousand secret police officers — it was maintained by a 'joint guarantee' system under which two million families across Taiwan had to vouch for one another in order to hold a job, enroll in school, or get married. Chen Chih-hsiung, Shih Shui-huan, Uyongu Yatauyungana (Kao I-sheng), and Bo Yang — four names, four reasons for arrest, one shared machine. May 3 📜 History Tamkang High School: How One Campus Concentrates Taiwan's Modern Education History What is most worth writing about Tamkang High School is not that it is old enough, but that it packed the tensions between missionary education, women's education, and colonial governance all into the same campus. May 3 📜 History Three Foreigners Witness 1895 Taiwan: A Photographer's Album, a Reporter's Notes, a Pastor's Diary In the Yi-Wei War of 1895 (乙未之役), three foreigners left behind the most important foreign-language eyewitness documents of that conflict — Japanese photographer Endo Makoto's victory album, American journalist James W. Davidson's embedded notes, and Japanese pastor Hosokawa Ryu's diary from Taiwan. The question is not what they saw, but for whom they were watching. May 3 📜 History Withdrawal from the United Nations: The 17 Minutes in 1971 When Taiwan Went from “China” to International Orphan On October 25, 1971, the moment Chou Shu-kai stepped down from the podium in the UN General Assembly hall, the Republic of China went from a founding member of the United Nations to an observer still kept outside its doors. Half a century later, that decision, framed as “the Han and the bandits cannot coexist,” continues to reverberate: in 2025, the United States passed legislation reaffirming that Resolution 2758 never addressed Taiwan’s representation. May 3 🗺️ Geography Taiwan's Climate Annual rainfall 2.5 times the global average, yet ranked among the world's top 20 water-stressed nations — Taiwan's climate is never what you expect May 3 🗺️ Geography Geographic Features and Formation of the Island of Taiwan Explore Taiwan's distinctive island geography, from plate tectonics to terrain structure, and understand the natural mysteries of Formosa May 3 🗺️ Geography How to Read the Taiwan Map: Four Hundred Years from Sweet Potato to Satellite In 1554, a Portuguese cartographer drew a blurry island called 'I. Fremosa' across eight sheets of sheepskin. He never set foot there. Four hundred and seventy years later, what Google Maps shows you for Taiwan depends on which country you are in — this is not a technical question, it is a political one. May 3 🗺️ Geography National Scenic Area System From the Northeast Coast to Kenting, Taiwan's 13 National Scenic Areas showcase a rich tapestry of natural landscapes and cultural heritage May 3 🗺️ Geography Islands and Maritime Culture: From World's Densest Fish Weirs to Flying Fish Season Laws Less than 600 stone fish weirs exist worldwide—Penghu alone has 574+. A fish-catching island people turned taboos into the most precise ocean resource management system on Earth May 3 🗺️ Geography Qingshui Cliff: The Magnificent Scar of Tectonic Collision and the Resilience of Life In 1874, Qing dynasty general Luo Dachun led troops to carve the Suhua Ancient Trail, opening this treacherous eastern coastal route. Qingshui Cliff — a vertical precipice of marble and gneiss — is not only a portrait of eastern Taiwan's geological evolution, but also the birthplace of endemic flora and oceanic literature, while simultaneously facing dual challenges of environment and safety. May 3 🗺️ Geography Sun Moon Lake: Taiwan’s Heart, Submerged and Revealed beneath an 18.18-Meter Rise in Water Level In 2026, Sun Moon Lake is the world’s largest pumped-storage power battery, and also the Thao people’s lost ancestral-spirit homeland. Since the 18.18-meter rise in water level in 1934 transformed its landscape, this lake has stood between tourist destination and energy heart, carrying a century of ethnic migration and electric-power miracles. May 3 🗺️ Geography Tadian Mountain Taiwan's closest mud volcano badland to the coast, a former military fortress now transformed into a natural park with active mud springs and scenic coastal trails. May 3 🗺️ Geography Taipei 101: From 'Watchdog' to 'Golden Snake' — The Political Economy and Feng Shui Gamble of a Landmark Taipei 101 is more than a building. It is the political-economic chess match between Chen Shui-bian and Peng Huan-nan, a feng shui experiment by C. Y. Lee, and the 'final boss' beneath Alex Honnold's feet. From 59 floors to 101, the evolution of this 'treasure basin' reveals the power and mystery behind the icon. May 3 🗺️ Geography Taiwan's Biodiversity Hotspots Exploring how Taiwan, occupying only 0.025% of global land area, nurtures over 50,000 known species in world-class biodiversity May 3 🗺️ Geography Taiwan's Coastal Landscapes and Marine Geology A 1,566-kilometer geological epic written by tectonic collision - from vertical cliffs to coral kingdoms, Taiwan's coastline is Earth's youngest geology textbook May 3