Popular culture – Page 5

How Much Money Could Ghosts Make? A Case Study on the Most Ferocious Female Ghost of Taiwan – Chen Shou Niang

1 September 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Yi-Ping Wu. Staying at home, not going to the beach, or climbing mountains, and not even opening an umbrella indoors are just a few taboos everyone must remember when Ghost Month 鬼月 arrives. Although the origin of the concept of Ghost Month is uncertain, the Taiwanese still emphasize the rituals that must be practised and the taboos that must be prohibited during this period. What attracts our attention most is the colossal amount of money that the Taiwanese pay for the rituals, offerings, and joss paper (paper money) to honour their ancestors because their past loved ones could return to the world of living since the gate of the underworld would open on the first day of July on the lunar calendar. The huge income that the cultural concept of Ghost Month contributes reminds us of an interesting question to think about thoroughly: How much money the “ghosts” could make?

Han-Heterosexual-Male Supremacy across the Pacific? A Critique of The Taiwanese Reminiscence Acrobatic Show

22 June 2023

Written by Mark Hsiang-Yu Feng. Busy as usual was Highway number eighty, but Mother’s Day made downtown San Jose unexpectedly quiet. However, in front of the California Theatre, lively chat sounded out of the silence, marking this celebratory moment for the twentieth anniversary of the Taiwanese American Center of Northern California during Asian and Pacific Islander heritage month. Families came to fill most of the seats, and three languages—Hoklo Taiwanese, Taiwanese Mandarin, and English—were spoken to express the identity of these participants. To honour the culture of Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans, the overall narrative of Taiwanese Reminiscence contextualises a mixture of stunts, acrobatic movements, and dance into a condensed representation of the twentieth history of Taiwan.

Leveraging Cultural Exports for Resilience: Insights from Taiwan and South Korea

19 May 2023 Adrian Chiu

Written by Tommy Hall and Margaret Siu. Global discussions about Taiwan often focus on an invasion scenario, and many observers wonder if Taiwan is adequately preparing for war. These discussions often dissect Taiwan’s hard power—military and economic factors that may dissuade Beijing. However, soft power is crucial in conflicts between imbalanced parties. Current discussion would benefit from diversifying outside hard power calculations and examining Taiwan’s soft power. Taiwan should apply lessons from South Korea’s model to bolster its ability to co-opt global support. Describing Taiwan’s soft power vision and comparing both nations’ top-down cultural promotion efforts is helpful.

Wave Makers on Netflix: A Vision of Taiwanese Politics Not ‘Amid Tensions’

10 May 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Chieh-Ting Yeh. “Wave Makers” (2023; 人選之人-造浪者) is a new drama on Netflix about political staffers trying to win a presidential election in the last few months of the campaign. This may sound like the premise of many television shows in the political intrigue genre, but it is the first of its kind from Taiwan to be available to a worldwide audience. The drama addresses various political issues relevant to contemporary Taiwan, including environmental concerns, energy policies, and workplace sexual harassment, reflecting the ongoing public debates on these topics. But it is glaring in what it is missing: Taiwan-China relations.

Taiwanese Literature Beyond Taiwan

26 April 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Chee-Hann Wu. On 12 March 2023, Taiwan lost to Cuba in a World Baseball Classic qualifier, eliminating the former from the tournament. For most people, Taiwan and Cuba are like two parallel lines with almost nothing in common except their passion for baseball. If you use “Taiwan” and “Cuba” as keywords for a quick Google search, the first ten pages are all about baseball, with a few random advertisements from travel agencies. What if the relationship between the two is more than that? What if the fate of the two countries is intricately intertwined? Huang Chong Kai’s The Formosa Exchange begins with such a premise.

Who are the Allies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)? Neologisms, Netizens, and Nationalisms

29 March 2023 Chee-Hann Wu

Written by Hsin-I Sydney Yueh. Recently, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense rejected a Japanese news report suggesting a widespread tendency among retired Taiwanese military officials to “sell out” their country. Wu Sz-Huai, a retired lieutenant general and incumbent opposition KMT party legislator, was among those who denounced this allegation.

“Are we Chinese spies (共諜)?” Wu angrily asked this rhetorical question during a session of the National Defense Committee at Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan on March 2, 2023. While Wu denied being a Chinese spy, Taiwanese netizens teased him by sharing a photo of Wu and other retired Taiwanese military officials attending a CCP-hosted event, where they had sat attentively and listened respectfully to China’s leader Xi Jinping in 2016. Wu’s use of the term “Chinese spies” reminds us of another similar expression in Mandarin Chinese: “allies of the CCP” (中共同路人). This expression has recently gone viral in Taiwan’s online communities, used for self-mockery and as an attacking label.

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