Spend a week in Taiwan, and you are likely to have the chance to see a festival of some kind. Some are traditional yet raucous expressions of the folk beliefs that, combining Buddhism and Taoism, give the island a uniquely colorful religious landscape. Others are of much more recent origin, and have been organized to…
If you are the kind of person who prefers to focus on a smaller area but get to know it in real detail, Taiwan can be an exceptionally rewarding destination. If you have only a few days in Taiwan and want to see as many of its gorgeous temples, engrossing museums, and breathtaking mountains as…
After the excitement of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year, many residents of Western countries find the first month or two of each year a little sluggish. In Taiwan, however, this is an extremely buoyant period. The Lunar New Year kicks off sometime between late January and mid-February (in 2015, it began on February 18), and…
Taiwan’s diverse society fuses ancient traditions with cutting-edge modernity, and nothing underscores this duality better than the calendars seen in homes and offices. Like their counterparts in the West, Taiwan’s workers, civil servants, and students generally refer to the Gregorian calendar when making appointments and meeting deadlines. The Chinese lunar calendar, however, is used to…
Taiwan’s stunning landscape is the result of constant geological activity over millions of years. Because of the continuing collision between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Asian Continental Plate, the island’s already impressive mountains are rising approximately four centimeters per year. Like other places located where tectonic plates push against one another, Taiwan occasionally suffers…
