An abandoned Japanese-era theater has a curious connection to the global film industry.

The News Lens
Date: 2018/03/04
By: James Baron

Credit: Jhen Chen

By Taiwanese standards, the small town of Xiluo (西螺) in Yunlin County (雲林縣) is brimful of attractions.

Bestriding the Zhuoshui River (濁水溪), Taiwan’s longest waterway, there’s the Xiluo Bridge, which was second only to the Golden Gate Bridge in length when completed in 1953.

Then there’s the soy sauce. Towns across Taiwan lay feeble claims to being the center of some bog-standard foodstuff, and foodstuffs in Taiwan don’t come much more bog-standard than soy sauce. Yet, Xiluo has a genuine claim to being the preeminent soy town. Interestingly, while the history of the condiment dates back millennia in China, it wasn’t really a thing in Taiwan until Koxinga brought it over when he sent the Dutch packing in 1662 – or so the story goes.    [FULL  STORY]