2025 / 1 189 pageviews

Healing Travel, Taiwan Style:

People-Centered Medical Tourism

Abusinessman from Hong Kong who was suffering from both Parkinson’s disease and cancer came to Taiwan, and after being treated with a combination of Chinese and Western medicine, is today back on the golf course leading the good life. Meanwhile, Taiwanese doctors treated a Vietnamese girl with......

2024 / 11 248 pageviews

Misua Noodles for Best Wishes:

The Many Uses of Taiwanese Vermicelli

Is there any food in your culture which can be used in myriad ways and is not only for eating, but also conveys the meaning “best wishes” as well as being closely connected to major life events like birth and death?......

2024 / 6 332 pageviews

Peanut Powder? Lima Beans? Sprout Noodles?

What’s in Your Family’s Popiah?

“On a spring day, slender vegetables on a spring plate / Bring to mind the plums blossoming in the two capitals.”—Du Fu, The First Day of Spring “Popiah are like a non-verbal lineage documenting the secrets of your life. No need to ask a fortune teller who you are or where you’re from. A bite ......

2024 / 5 167 pageviews

Building Bridges with Books:

Taiwanese Texts Travel the World

Taiwan is the publishing hub of the Chinese-speaking cultural sphere, and ranks second in the world in the number of titles published. Where do we go from here? How about even further abroad? Taiwan caught the interest of the international community during the Covid pandemic. As the pandemic w......

2024 / 4 276 pageviews

Innovation and Fusion:

The “Exotics” of Taiwanese Cuisine

In The History of Eating in Taiwan (2021), Ang Kaim and Tsao Ming-chung list Wenzhou wontons, Sichuan beef noodles, and Mongolian barbecue among authentically Taiwanese dishes that appear to have come from abroad. Cooked in unfamiliar ways, and evoking overseas places in their names, they are ......

2024 / 3 459 pageviews

Sweetness from Beyond the Sea

Southeast-Asian Pastries and Sugars

Human beings instinctively enjoy sweetness. Sweets and pastries, moreover, have the power to awaken memories of sweet moments in our lives. In recent years, various sweets from Southeast Asia have been appearing in department stores and markets. For most Taiwanese, these are unexplored territo......