A coffee shop chat about two recent controversies over speech targeting two very different leaders.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/03/01

This article first appeared on the Chinese-language Taiwan edition of The News Lens and can be found here.

“Have you been playing ‘Devotion’?” asks Girl A. “It’s been so popular recently!”

Girl B smiles and shakes her head. “I don’t play video games much, but I have seen it, although I also get motion sickness from the 3D graphics, so I didn’t finish watching the video. I do, however, think that the look and feel of the game is great, very artistic and it captures the atmosphere of the times very elegantly.”

“I don’t really play games either,” says Girl A, “but because I have watched someone play the company’s previous game ‘Detention,’ and thought that it was great, I still went on Steam and bought a copy to help support the company.”

“However,” she continues, “I recently heard that a poster of a cursed talisman appears inside the game, which was discovered to have the words ‘Xi Jinping, Winnie the Pooh’ in the seal stamp, along with words in Taiwanese dialect that roughly translate to ‘(Your) mom’s a moron,’ so it got a lot of negative press and was review bombed by Chinese netizens. There were some game play videos from China before, but I cannot find any of them at all now.”   [FULL  STORY]

Former New Power Party Chairman Huang Kuo-chang believes the party can win more seats in the 2020 legislative election under Chiu’s leadership

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/03/01
By: Sophia Yang, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Newly elected New Power Party (NPP) Chairman Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智), top officials and two spokespersons took office on Friday, March 1, while outgoing Chairman and Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) said he believes the new team can help the party win more seats in the 2020 legislative election.

The young party, founded in early 2015 by civil activists involved in the 2014 Sunflower Movement, won five legislative seats in the 2016 election, three from constituencies and two from proportional representation, to become the third largest party, trailing behind the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Kuomintang (KMT).

The party continued to win 16 seats at local councils across the country in 2018’s local elections.

Huang had been holding the post of chairman since 2015 and surprisingly announced to quit on Jan. 21. Human rights lawyer Chiu was elected as its new leader on Feb. 15.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/03/01
By: Chao Li-yen and Elizabeth Hsu

Taipei, March 1 (CNA) A new termite species has been discovered feeding on living tree trunks in eastern Taiwan, the first termite species in the world to be discovered and named by Taiwanese scientists.

Named after the aboriginal Bulun term “halum” for pangolin, Stylotermes halumicus comes from the ancient and rare termite family Stylotermitidae, said a statement released by National Chung Hsing University (NCHU) on Friday.

Stylotermitidae consists of a single extant genus, Stylotermes, that exist only in East Asia, according to a report on the discovery of the Stylotermitidae family in Taiwan, published in March 2017 in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America.

Stylotermes has distinctive trimerous tarsi and is considered an intermediate between the Rhinotermitidae and Kalotermitidae families. It had never been found in Taiwan until 2014 when NCHU entomology department doctoral student Liang Wei-ren (梁維仁) discovered some in Taitung.    [FULL  STORY]

ON ALERT: Metal baseball bats were used in the two brawls, so club owners have been asked to equip staff with hand-held metal detectors at club doors

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 01, 2019
By: Jason Pan  /  Staff reporter

Taichung police yesterday morning beefed up their presence at several potential hot spots and conducted

checks at nightclubs, after large groups were involved in street brawls two days in a row.

In the early morning, 50 officers from two precincts made rounds at commercial strips in Nantun District (南屯).

They focused on three nightclubs: X-Cube, 18TC and Coolsh, Nantu Police Precinct Chief Chou Ching-pin (周景彬) told reporters.

Police entered the clubs unannounced, turned off the music and checked the identification documents of 1,200 patrons and staff, Chou said.    [FULL  STORY]

‘Contact Prints of Baileng Canal,’ a Taiwanese documentary screening until Mar. 10, is 80 minutes of quiet meditation.

The News Lens
Date: 2019/02/28
By: CJ Sheu

“Contact Prints of Baileng Canal” (Yinyang Bailengzun / 印樣白冷圳) is playing on a loop as part of the “Post-Nature” exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum through Mar. 10.

An art museum may seem like an unusual place to see a film, but then again, this isn’t just another film.

Baileng Canal, a manmade tributary of the Dajia River in Taichung County, Taiwan, was built by the Japanese colonial government in 1927 in what was a huge undertaking at the time. This 80-minute documentary, written, directed, shot, and edited by Huang Hsin-yao (黃信堯) (known in the West for “The Great Buddha+” (Dafo Pulasi / 大佛普拉斯 2017), follows the Dajia, the canal, and the terminal uses of the canal’s water using a mostly unbroken series of static shots (and the occasional pan), sans score or exposition. The largely voiceless film is meditative and beautiful. Only one scene, of four women harvesting cultivated mushrooms, has the sound of human voice; in another we hear a barking dog.

The film starts off in the mountain mists, before presenting the first of eight postcard-length poems addressed to the eponymous waterway; the title of each section hints at an underlying thematic organization, but some (1. Departure, 2. Chance Encounter, 5. Expedition, 8. Long After) are more explicable than others (3. Rest, 4. Confusion, 6. Unfinished, 7. Reunion). The film’s title, ‘Contact Prints’, refers to these postcard intertitles, but can also be taken as a pun: The photons of each idyllic shot are imprinted onto the (digital) film, and when reflected off the projection screen form prints on our retinas, too.    [FULL  STORY]

The cause of the fire in Tainan’s North District is still under investigation

Taiwan News
Date: 2019/02/28
By: Duncan Deaeth, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – A 24 hour hypermarket in Tainan’s North District caught fire early in the morning Thursday, Feb. 28, gutting the entire structure.

The fire began around 5:30 a.m., and the few employees on sight quickly evacuated when they realized the danger. There have been no reported injuries.

According to witnesses the fire spread very quickly. A man operating a breakfast stall across the street said that, at 5:30 a.m., he noticed staff fleeing the hypermarket, before realizing there was smoke coming from the market.

Within five minutes, flames were visible throughout the structure.    [FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/28
By: Matt Yu and Chung Yu-chen

Taipei, Feb. 28 (CNA) President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) quoted Pope Francis on Thursday, the 72nd anniversary of the 228 Incident, when she said the most effective antidote to violence is dialogue.

Tsai made the remark when receiving Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Pope Francis’ special envoy, adding that Catholics in Taiwan would very much welcome a visit from the Pope.

The Vatican is Taiwan’s only diplomatic ally in Europe.

During the meeting, Tsai said democratic Taiwan believes in dialogue, and will work with the Holy See to contribute to humanitarian efforts around the world.    [FULL  STORY]

SOLIDARITY: The Taipei mayor said that Israelis are united because of the incident, which they treat as an important opportunity for ‘international education’

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 01, 2019
By: Shen Pei-ya, Kuo An-chia and Sherry Hsiao  /  Staff reporters, with staff writer

Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) has found himself at the center of another controversy after saying that

the murder of 6 million Jews by Nazi Germany was the “greatest publicity” for Jews internationally.

He made the remark on Wednesday while speaking to reporters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport after returning from an official four-day visit to Israel, where he visited Yad Vashem — Israel’s official Holocaust memorial.

He had been invited by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to attend the 33rd International Mayors’ Conference there.

Before embarking on a one-day bicycle journey from Taipei to Kaohsiung yesterday, Ko was asked by reporters if he believed he had misspoken.    [FULL  STORY]

Wang has earlier indicated he would throw his hat into the ring

Taiwan News 
Date: 2019/02/27
By: George Liao, Taiwan News, Staff Writer

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Former Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-ping (王金平), currently a legislator of

Kuomintung (KMT), made it clear Wednesday that he will announce his presidential bid at a press conference at Taipei International Convention Center on Mar. 7, seeking the party’s presidential nomination, Central News Agency (CNA) reported on Wednesday.

Wang has earlier indicated he would throw his hat into the ring. On Wednesday afternoon, offices of KMT legislators began to receive calls from Wang’s office, inviting the party’s legislators to attend the Mar. 7 press conference, CNA reported.
[FULL  STORY]

Focus Taiwan
Date: 2019/02/27
By: Matt Yu and William Yen

Taipei, Feb. 27 (CNA) More than 1,000 people who were wrongly convicted during a brutal crackdown following an islandwide anti-government uprising in 1947 were absolved of any crime on Wednesday, according to the Transitional Justice Commission (TJC).

A total of 1,056 names were included on the latest list of exonerations published on the TJC website. Among them, 70 were provided by the 228 Memorial Foundation and are eligible for government compensation.

The exonerations come one day prior the 72nd anniversary of the 228 Incident that occurred in 1947.

The 228 Incident refers to a brutal crackdown by the then-Kuomintang government, headed by former President Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), after the anti-government uprising.    [FULL  STORY]