Specialty coffee shops have sprung up on nearly every street corner in recent years. Can they thrive in a traditional tea-drinking culture? Nobody seems quite sure when Taipei’s love affair with specialty coffee shops began. The pioneers have been around for more than a decade: Woolloomooloo, Rufous Coffee, and of course Cama, which has more…
Much of what is now downtown Taipei was once enclosed within city walls, with access through five gates. The area has a lot to tell about the city’s history. The Taipei city wall was completed by the Qing Dynasty in 1884. Although it survived for only 16 years, its influence on modern Taipei is still…
Taiwan offers a wealth of options for helping to improve wellness and mindfulness. In many countries, religious and spiritual retreats have become a counterweight to the relentless march of progress and materialism. The trend is especially evident in Taiwan, which is known for being a beacon of religious freedom and one of the world’s centers…
The classic garment is elegant and evocative of traditional Chinese culture. But do you need the figure of a professional model to carry off wearing one? As a Chinese-American, I have always loved wearing a qipao for special occasions. But after having four kids and living the diplomatic high life in Taiwan for three years,…
Visitors eager to get a glimpse of the Taiwan of yore can easily devote an entire day to Lukang and at least two days to Tainan. Lukang, a small town on the west coast, in its 18th-century heyday was one of the island’s foremost centers of trade, while Tainan was Taiwan’s capital for over 200…
By Steven Crook and Katy Hui-Wen Hung “My father was born in 1926 in Tamsui. My mother was born in 1930 in Tokyo, where my grandfather (who was from Banqiao; my maternal grandmother was from Tainan) worked as a financial advisor until 1946. During the war, both of my parents ate hiromaru lunchboxes, with the…
Katy Hui-wen Hung and Steven Crook discuss their newly published book. Katy Hui-wen Hung: I grew up in Taipei, studied in the U.S. from 1984 to 1986, and have lived in the UK since the late 1980s. Some years ago in the UK, I got to know Marlena Spieler, the acclaimed cookbook writer. Marlena, an…
I spent nearly 20 years of my career in the news business. Sometimes people ask me: What was your most popular story? Which one attracted the most attention? My answer is a bit embarrassing, though it probably shouldn’t be. As a foreign correspondent, I got to cover a lot of big breaking news — presidential…
The government is making a strong effort to preserve Taiwan’s endangered languages so as to maintain a multicultural society. Taiwan has long been a place of linguistic diversity. Besides the Chinese languages of Mandarin, Hokkien (Taiwanese), and Hakka, the various indigenous tribes have each had their own version of an Austronesian language, and many senior…
Entrepreneurs in Taiwan are redefining the term ‘café’ in the era of social media. With the proliferation of cafés in Taiwan in recent years, proprietors have been looking for ways to make their shops stand out from the rest. Besides offering single-origin coffee, more and more cafés are dedicating space to displaying premium, handcrafted goods…
