A festival of one kind or another is going on every day of the year in Taiwan. Some are meticulously organized and heavily promoted. Others – for instance, the raucous rites accompanying the birthdays of minor deities – are entirely local and receive little publicity. To spread the word about Taiwan’s rich and diverse festival…
The story of Taroko Gorge begins hundreds of millions of years ago with the accumulation of sediment and volcanic lava beneath what is now the Pacific Ocean. These materials blended with calcium carbonate from the bones of sea organisms and hardened into limestone. In due course, tectonic pressure compressed the limestone until it metamorphosed into…
Fushan Botanical Garden isn’t easy to get to, but it’s well worth the trip. Fushan Botanical Garden (福山植物園) is located in New Taipei City’s Wulai District, 10 kilometers as the crow flies from the Atayal village of Fushan. There is no road – and no legal access for hikers – from Greater Taipei, so visitors…
Pingtung County’s Donggang Township will be the scene of the King Boat Festival, held every three years, from October 4 to 11 this autumn. For most of its history, Taiwan was a thoroughly pestilential place. In the 1700s, it was said that of every 10 Chinese migrants who reached the island, “Just three remain. Six…
Now that Taiwan is on the map for more visitors, its hotel sector is enjoying an unprecedented boom. Taiwan’s hotel sector is thriving, buoyed by the island’s transformation into an up-and-coming destination for Asian travelers. Since 2008, when the Taiwanese government eased restrictions on Chinese visitors, foreign tourist numbers have jumped from 3.8 million to…
In search of the simple life, I found in Hualien an environment more complex – and fragile – than I had ever imagined. One day in the midsummer of 2011, I found myself directing a 15-ton truck full of the junk of a partial lifetime through narrow and unmarked roads amid the rice fields of…
Taiwan appears to be heading in an interesting slow life direction, emphasizing quality of life, the environment and self-realization. There was a rumble of thunder and the rain started gushing down. There would be no reprieve for an hour or so … that was for sure. But what better place to be stuck than Huashan1914…
Outwardly, the Hakka people are indistinguishable from other Han Chinese. Yet, Hakka culture differs significantly from that of the dominant Hoklo population. The origins of the Hakka are somewhat in dispute among scholars but are believed to be traceable to 33 purely Hakka villages in northern China. The group migrated southward over the centuries, settling…
Taiwan’s “first herb garden” has been reborn. Kunlun has never looked better to visitors in search of a break from the city’s stresses. Photos by Kunlun Health Village and Jules Quartly Far, far away from cubicle land is a magical place that brims with nature and has wide-angle views of both Hsinchu and Taoyuan counties….
Take a ride on the Pingxi Railway Line, with stops at stations along the way, to learn what the scenic Keelung River Valley has to offer. Photos by Chris Stowers The boom days of King Coal and the gold rushes in northeastern Taiwan have drifted off into legend, but modern travelers on the Pingxi Railway…
