http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/09/14/2003453524
LETTER TO EDITOR
THE TAIPEI TIMES
re: "The name game"
Dear EDITOR:
English-language newspapers in Japan have for many years been writing the names of Japanese people following the Western style: given name, surname. In addition, many Japanese businessmen and politicians have English name cards that follow the same Western style. I feel that it is time for Taiwan for start following this trend.
Instead of writing President “Ma Ying-jeou” (馬英九) in the English-language newspapers here in and in New York and London, let’s start writing his name as “Ying-jeou Ma.” As for former presidents, let’s refer to them as “Teng-hui Lee” (李登輝) and “Shui-bian Chen” (陳水扁). After all, the English-language newspapers in Taiwan call Japanese politicians by their first and then last names —“Junichiro Koizumi” and “Yukio Hatoyama” — for example, and those names are well-known in the West.
There’s another reason I suggest writing Taiwanese names in English news stories in the Western style: This style will help differentiate Taiwan from China, and readers in the West will come to understand that “Ying-jeou Ma” must be from Taiwan, since he uses the new system of naming, while Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) must be from China, since he uses the old system.
There is already a small difference between the way names are written in English in China and Taiwan: Notice that it’s “Ma Ying-jeou” with a hyphen between “Ying” and “jeou,” while Chinese do not usually include hyphens when Romanizing their names.
This way, foreigners understand that Hu Jintao is from China, while Ma Ying-jeou (or in the new system “Ying-jeou Ma”) is from Taiwan.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Internet Manifesto...How journalism works today. 17 declarations
Internet Manifesto
How journalism works today. Seventeen declarations.
Deutsche Fassung | Version française | Versión en español | Versione in italiano | Versão em português | Česká verze | Ελληνική έκδοση |Русская версия | Versiunea in limba romana | 日本語版 | ฉบับภาษาไทย
1. The Internet is different.
It produces different public spheres, different terms of trade and different cultural skills. The media must adapt their work methods to today’s technological reality instead of ignoring or challenging it. It is their duty to develop the best possible form of journalism based on the available technology. This includes new journalistic products and methods.
2. The Internet is a pocket-sized media empire.
The web rearranges existing media structures by transcending their former boundaries and oligopolies. The publication and dissemination of media contents are no longer tied to heavy investments. Journalism’s self-conception is—fortunately—being cured of its gatekeeping function. All that remains is the journalistic quality through which journalism distinguishes itself from mere publication.
3. The Internet is our society is the Internet.
Web-based platforms like social networks, Wikipedia or YouTube have become a part of everyday life for the majority of people in the western world. They are as accessible as the telephone or television. If media companies want to continue to exist, they must understand the lifeworld of today’s users and embrace their forms of communication. This includes basic forms of social communication: listening and responding, also known as dialog.
4. The freedom of the Internet is inviolable.
The Internet’s open architecture constitutes the basic IT law of a society which communicates digitally and, consequently, of journalism. It may not be modified for the sake of protecting the special commercial or political interests often hidden behind the pretense of public interest. Regardless of how it is done, blocking access to the Internet endangers the free flow of information and corrupts our fundamental right to a self-determined level of information.
5. The Internet is the victory of information.
Due to inadequate technology, media companies, research centers, public institutions and other organizations compiled and classified the world’s information up to now. Today every citizen can set up her own personal news filter while search engines tap into wealths of information of a magnitude never before known. Individuals can now inform themselves better than ever.
6. The Internet changes improves journalism.
Through the Internet, journalism can fulfill its social-educational role in a new way. This includes presenting information as an ever-changing, continual process; the forfeiture of print media’s inalterability is a benefit. Those who want to survive in this new world of information need a new idealism, new journalistic ideas and a sense of pleasure in exploiting this new potential.
7. The net requires networking.
Links are connections. We know each other through links. Those who do not use them exclude themselves from social discourse. This also holds for the websites of traditional media companies.
8. Links reward, citations adorn.
Search engines and aggregators facilitate quality journalism: they boost the findability of outstanding content over a long-term basis and are thus an integral part of the new, networked public sphere. References through links and citations—especially including those made without any consent or even remuneration of the originator—make the very culture of networked social discourse possible in the first place. They are by all means worthy of protection.
9. The Internet is the new venue for political discourse.
Democracy thrives on participation and freedom of information. Transferring the political discussion from traditional media to the Internet and expanding on this discussion by involving the active participation of the public is one of journalism’s new tasks.
10. Today’s freedom of the press means freedom of opinion.
Article 5 of the German Constitution does not comprise protective rights for professions or technically traditional business models. The Internet overrides the technological boundaries between the amateur and professional. This is why the privilege of freedom of the press must hold for anyone who can contribute to the fulfillment of journalistic duties. Qualitatively speaking, no differentiation should be made between paid and unpaid journalism, but rather, between good and poor journalism.
11. More is more – there is no such thing as too much information.
Once upon a time, institutions such as the church prioritized power over personal awareness and warned of an unsifted flood of information when the letterpress was invented. On the other hand were the pamphleteers, encyclopaedists and journalists who proved that more information leads to more freedom, both for the individual as well as society as a whole. To this day, nothing has changed in this respect.
12. Tradition is not a business model.
Money can be made on the Internet with journalistic content. There are many examples of this today already. Yet because the Internet is fiercely competitive, business models have to be adapted to the structure of the net. No one should try to abscond from this essential adaptation through policy-making geared to preserving the status quo. Journalism needs open competition for the best refinancing solutions on the net, along with the courage to invest in the multifaceted implementation of these solutions.
13. Copyright becomes a civic duty on the Internet.
Copyright is a cornerstone of information organization on the Internet. Originators’ rights to decide on the type and scope of dissemination of their contents are also valid on the net. At the same time, copyright may not be abused as a lever to safeguard obsolete supply mechanisms and shut out new distribution models or license schemes. Ownership entails obligations.
14. The Internet has many currencies.
Journalistic online services financed through adverts offer content in exchange for a pull effect. A reader’s, viewer’s or listener’s time is valuable. In the industry of journalism, this correlation has always been one of the fundamental tenets of financing. Other forms of refinancing which are journalistically justifiable need to be forged and tested.
15. What’s on the net stays on the net.
The Internet is lifting journalism to a new qualitative level. Online, text, sound and images no longer have to be transient. They remain retrievable, thus building an archive of contemporary history. Journalism must take the development of information, its interpretation and errors into account, i.e., it must admit its mistakes and correct them in a transparent manner.
16. Quality remains the most important quality.
The Internet debunks homogenous bulk goods. Only those who are outstanding, credible and exceptional will gain a steady following in the long run. Users’ demands have increased. Journalism must fulfill them and abide by its own frequently formulated principles.
17. All for all.
The web constitutes an infrastructure for social exchange superior to that of 20th century mass media: When in doubt, the “generation Wikipedia” is capable of appraising the credibility of a source, tracking news back to its original source, researching it, checking it and assessing it—alone or as part of a group effort. Journalists who snub this and are unwilling to respect these skills are not taken seriously by these Internet users. Rightly so. The Internet makes it possible to communicate directly with those once known as recipients—readers, listeners and viewers—and to take advantage of their knowledge. Not the journalists who know it all are in demand, but those who communicate and investigate.
Internet, 07.09.2009
Markus Beckedahl
Mercedes Bunz
Julius Endert
Johnny Haeusler
Thomas Knüwer
Sascha Lobo
Robin Meyer-Lucht
Wolfgang Michal
Stefan Niggemeier
Kathrin Passig
Janko Röttgers
Peter Schink
Mario Sixtus
Peter Stawowy
Fiete Stegers
Translated from the German by Jenna L. Brinning
Leave a comment on the internet manifesto!
69 comments have been made so far.
How journalism works today. Seventeen declarations.
Deutsche Fassung | Version française | Versión en español | Versione in italiano | Versão em português | Česká verze | Ελληνική έκδοση |Русская версия | Versiunea in limba romana | 日本語版 | ฉบับภาษาไทย
1. The Internet is different.
It produces different public spheres, different terms of trade and different cultural skills. The media must adapt their work methods to today’s technological reality instead of ignoring or challenging it. It is their duty to develop the best possible form of journalism based on the available technology. This includes new journalistic products and methods.
2. The Internet is a pocket-sized media empire.
The web rearranges existing media structures by transcending their former boundaries and oligopolies. The publication and dissemination of media contents are no longer tied to heavy investments. Journalism’s self-conception is—fortunately—being cured of its gatekeeping function. All that remains is the journalistic quality through which journalism distinguishes itself from mere publication.
3. The Internet is our society is the Internet.
Web-based platforms like social networks, Wikipedia or YouTube have become a part of everyday life for the majority of people in the western world. They are as accessible as the telephone or television. If media companies want to continue to exist, they must understand the lifeworld of today’s users and embrace their forms of communication. This includes basic forms of social communication: listening and responding, also known as dialog.
4. The freedom of the Internet is inviolable.
The Internet’s open architecture constitutes the basic IT law of a society which communicates digitally and, consequently, of journalism. It may not be modified for the sake of protecting the special commercial or political interests often hidden behind the pretense of public interest. Regardless of how it is done, blocking access to the Internet endangers the free flow of information and corrupts our fundamental right to a self-determined level of information.
5. The Internet is the victory of information.
Due to inadequate technology, media companies, research centers, public institutions and other organizations compiled and classified the world’s information up to now. Today every citizen can set up her own personal news filter while search engines tap into wealths of information of a magnitude never before known. Individuals can now inform themselves better than ever.
6. The Internet changes improves journalism.
Through the Internet, journalism can fulfill its social-educational role in a new way. This includes presenting information as an ever-changing, continual process; the forfeiture of print media’s inalterability is a benefit. Those who want to survive in this new world of information need a new idealism, new journalistic ideas and a sense of pleasure in exploiting this new potential.
7. The net requires networking.
Links are connections. We know each other through links. Those who do not use them exclude themselves from social discourse. This also holds for the websites of traditional media companies.
8. Links reward, citations adorn.
Search engines and aggregators facilitate quality journalism: they boost the findability of outstanding content over a long-term basis and are thus an integral part of the new, networked public sphere. References through links and citations—especially including those made without any consent or even remuneration of the originator—make the very culture of networked social discourse possible in the first place. They are by all means worthy of protection.
9. The Internet is the new venue for political discourse.
Democracy thrives on participation and freedom of information. Transferring the political discussion from traditional media to the Internet and expanding on this discussion by involving the active participation of the public is one of journalism’s new tasks.
10. Today’s freedom of the press means freedom of opinion.
Article 5 of the German Constitution does not comprise protective rights for professions or technically traditional business models. The Internet overrides the technological boundaries between the amateur and professional. This is why the privilege of freedom of the press must hold for anyone who can contribute to the fulfillment of journalistic duties. Qualitatively speaking, no differentiation should be made between paid and unpaid journalism, but rather, between good and poor journalism.
11. More is more – there is no such thing as too much information.
Once upon a time, institutions such as the church prioritized power over personal awareness and warned of an unsifted flood of information when the letterpress was invented. On the other hand were the pamphleteers, encyclopaedists and journalists who proved that more information leads to more freedom, both for the individual as well as society as a whole. To this day, nothing has changed in this respect.
12. Tradition is not a business model.
Money can be made on the Internet with journalistic content. There are many examples of this today already. Yet because the Internet is fiercely competitive, business models have to be adapted to the structure of the net. No one should try to abscond from this essential adaptation through policy-making geared to preserving the status quo. Journalism needs open competition for the best refinancing solutions on the net, along with the courage to invest in the multifaceted implementation of these solutions.
13. Copyright becomes a civic duty on the Internet.
Copyright is a cornerstone of information organization on the Internet. Originators’ rights to decide on the type and scope of dissemination of their contents are also valid on the net. At the same time, copyright may not be abused as a lever to safeguard obsolete supply mechanisms and shut out new distribution models or license schemes. Ownership entails obligations.
14. The Internet has many currencies.
Journalistic online services financed through adverts offer content in exchange for a pull effect. A reader’s, viewer’s or listener’s time is valuable. In the industry of journalism, this correlation has always been one of the fundamental tenets of financing. Other forms of refinancing which are journalistically justifiable need to be forged and tested.
15. What’s on the net stays on the net.
The Internet is lifting journalism to a new qualitative level. Online, text, sound and images no longer have to be transient. They remain retrievable, thus building an archive of contemporary history. Journalism must take the development of information, its interpretation and errors into account, i.e., it must admit its mistakes and correct them in a transparent manner.
16. Quality remains the most important quality.
The Internet debunks homogenous bulk goods. Only those who are outstanding, credible and exceptional will gain a steady following in the long run. Users’ demands have increased. Journalism must fulfill them and abide by its own frequently formulated principles.
17. All for all.
The web constitutes an infrastructure for social exchange superior to that of 20th century mass media: When in doubt, the “generation Wikipedia” is capable of appraising the credibility of a source, tracking news back to its original source, researching it, checking it and assessing it—alone or as part of a group effort. Journalists who snub this and are unwilling to respect these skills are not taken seriously by these Internet users. Rightly so. The Internet makes it possible to communicate directly with those once known as recipients—readers, listeners and viewers—and to take advantage of their knowledge. Not the journalists who know it all are in demand, but those who communicate and investigate.
Internet, 07.09.2009
Markus Beckedahl
Mercedes Bunz
Julius Endert
Johnny Haeusler
Thomas Knüwer
Sascha Lobo
Robin Meyer-Lucht
Wolfgang Michal
Stefan Niggemeier
Kathrin Passig
Janko Röttgers
Peter Schink
Mario Sixtus
Peter Stawowy
Fiete Stegers
Translated from the German by Jenna L. Brinning
Leave a comment on the internet manifesto!
69 comments have been made so far.
IDEA: Write names of Taiwanese people in English newspapers and name cards in Western style, First Name then Last Name, so ''Ying-Jeou Ma''...
Hi,
RE:
IDEA: Write names of Taiwanese people in English newspapers and name cards in Western style, First Name then Last Name, so ''Ying-Jeou Ma''...
For me, I always use the
Western style when I need to express my name.
After reading your email, I linked to Taipei Times and also BBC news.
Oh, they really use ``family name first'' style for Taiwanese, while
Western style is used for Japanese.
Yes, I support your opinion. Actually, I think Taiwan should learn
more things from Japan, especially how they've been ``westernized,''
to make our own a moderner nation. Also, if Taiwanese want to be more
internationalized, it's reasonable to follow the Western way to let
people who know English have no problem to identify our names.
I have no idea how many Taiwanese will support this idea, but I think
it's a nice one.
Hiankun
=========================
Dan,
Actually a lot of people here in Taiwan already write their names on
their business cards with the surname last, in Western style,.....
Many years ago, when Ma Ying-jeou was between government posts and
doing university teaching, I tried to contact him for an interview,
couldn't reach him, and left a message. The next day he called back
and said "This is Ying-jeou Ma." It took me a few seconds to figure
out who was on the line -- rather embarrassing.
XXXXX, an american businessman in Taipei, longtime expat
RE:
IDEA: Write names of Taiwanese people in English newspapers and name cards in Western style, First Name then Last Name, so ''Ying-Jeou Ma''...
For me, I always use the
Western style when I need to express my name.
After reading your email, I linked to Taipei Times and also BBC news.
Oh, they really use ``family name first'' style for Taiwanese, while
Western style is used for Japanese.
Yes, I support your opinion. Actually, I think Taiwan should learn
more things from Japan, especially how they've been ``westernized,''
to make our own a moderner nation. Also, if Taiwanese want to be more
internationalized, it's reasonable to follow the Western way to let
people who know English have no problem to identify our names.
I have no idea how many Taiwanese will support this idea, but I think
it's a nice one.
Hiankun
=========================
Dan,
Actually a lot of people here in Taiwan already write their names on
their business cards with the surname last, in Western style,.....
Many years ago, when Ma Ying-jeou was between government posts and
doing university teaching, I tried to contact him for an interview,
couldn't reach him, and left a message. The next day he called back
and said "This is Ying-jeou Ma." It took me a few seconds to figure
out who was on the line -- rather embarrassing.
XXXXX, an american businessman in Taipei, longtime expat
Distant Echoes under the Plum Tree..... by New York Times reporter Roger Cohen, writing from Cherence, France
Was the New York Times fibbing here or telling the whole truth?
by Danny Bloom
Did you know that a part of the deceased body of Master Li Tien-lu, the great puppetmaster of Taiwan, is buried in France under a plum tree outside the home of Daniel Rousel and Claire Illouz, who are friends and neighbors of New York Times storyteller (and respected veteran reporter) Roger Cohen?
Yes, and not just a part of Master Li's body; apparently a bone from the finger from Master Li's late son is also buried in Claire's garden. Shipped from Taiwan to France. Usually, Buddhists don't go in for this kind of thing after death. Or do they? Seems to me the New York Times told a fib here. Read on:
You see, Claire, a French artist, once studied with Master Li in Taiwan and loved him like a father or grandfather or deeply respected teacher and when he died, she apparently arranged for the Taiwanese undertakers to exhume his body and take a bone from one of his fingers and airfreight it over to France so she could bury it in her garden and tell all of her friends this wonderful story. Roger Cohen fell for it, too, and even wrote up the story in the pages of the New York Times. Which, of course, never tells a lie. Fibs, maybe. Roger won't own up to this. I asked him. He basically told me to "get lost".
So, according to the New York Times, the finger bones of the two Li bodies are buried in Claire's backyard in France, unbeknownst to anyone in Taiwan, because of course maybe this never really happened, but the New York Times likes to tell fanciful stories sometimes, especially when there is no editor looking over the reporter's shoulder, as likely happened in this case. Roger Cohen is a very good man and a very good reporter. But in this case, he dropped the ball I believe.
Li pere and Li fils. As you know, the old man -- one of Taiwan's national treasures! -- died in 1998 and his finger bone was buried under Claire's tree, and when his son died in 2009, his finger bone was buried there, too. Ask Roger Cohen. Read his article in the New York Times. Ask Claire in France. She has an email address and she loves hearing from readers in Taiwan, since she loves Taiwan, too, even though she only spent a few months here in 1975 or so.
You can read all about this amazing trans-Atlantic/Pacific global village burial story in one of Roger's recent Times columns. September 8, 2009 was the publication date and it appeared in Taiwan in the United Daily News supplement for the New York Times weekly English edition.
Roger's story is pretty amazing stuff. It's one of the those "East meets West" pieces, where a finger bone fragment of the master puppeteer of China -- er, make that Taiwan, but Roger really thinks Taiwan is in China -- is buried beneath a plum tree in a remote village an hour away from Paris.
Roger knows, because he was at the burial ceremony. Drinking wine. Lots of wine, maybe. too much wine, perhaps? Claire knows, too. She studied in China, er, Taiwan, with Master Li long ago. He visited her home in Cherence, France many times over the years, about 50 times in all. Well, maybe twice. Claire and Roger like to make things up. Roger likes to tell stories. He's good at it. He's a pro.
"We met under the plum tree," Cohen the storyteller says at the end of his story. "Or rather India and China met, and France too. As the bells chimed from the 12th century steeple of technologoy. Marrying East and West, past and future, life and death, the global village lives."
When I asked Mr Cohen by email if he really thought that Master Li's bone fragments were really buried in France (contrary to Taiwan law and Buddhist tradition) and if he really thought that Taiwan was in China, he wrote back: "Sorry, Danny, you're wrong about the remains. As for the rest, people can reasonably disagree."
Cohen explained in his original Times story -- and it might be true, and it might be a nice story and not true at all! -- that Claire, a painter, has a small shrine to Master Li in her French backyard.
"Back in 1975, Claire studied puppetry in Taiwan with one of the great glove pupppeteers, Li Tein-lu. They became friends and, in later years, Li often visited. Such was his attachment to Cherence, France and such peace he found in this French village, that when Li died in 1998, he requested that part of his anatomy find its final resting place here. At a ceremony in 1999, a piece of bone -- believed to be a fragment of the great man's finger -- [Ed. Note: from Mater Li's left hand? right hand? index finger? ring finger? Timesman Cohen did not specify, and when I asked him he refused to say...] -- was buried under the plum tree in France....This year, Li's son died. Naturally, he wanted to be close to his father. So arrangements were made ...as father and son, or tather tiny fragments of each, were united beneath the plum tree."
UPDATE: When I asked the editor of the New York Times Weekly Edition, which appears in English in the United Daily News in Taiwan, and where Cohen's column first appeared on September 8, 2009, if the claims that Cohen made about Master Li's finger bone fragments really being shipped from Taiwan to France and buried there, Tom Brady replied from his office in New York: "I've talked to Roger Cohen and the Standards Editor here at the New York Times, and all I can say at this point is that we stand by the column."
NOTE: If you'd like to conduct your own research into this "story", Roger Cohen can be emailed at rocohen@nytimes.com. He will tell you that he believes Taiwan is in China and that he stands by his "story". Claire might write to you too, if you email her in France. I did, but she refused to reply. Maybe because this "story" is not true at all, just a nice story. And hey, nothing wrong with stories. I like stories. But for the New York Times to report this as a "news story" -- which means it should be based on facts and that the facts should be fact-checked by independent editors -- is something that I wanted to look in to. I did. I am sure now that Roger Cohen made this story up out of whole cloth, based on a nice wine-soaked afternoon with his friend Claire in France. He should admit the truth now. But he won't.
This is Ying-jeou Ma
Dan,
Actually a lot of people here in Taiwan already write their names on
their business cards with the surname last, in Western style,..... such as
SHUI-BIAN CHEN.....etc
Many years ago, when Ma Ying-jeou was between government posts and
doing university teaching, I tried to contact him for an interview,
couldn't reach him, and left a message. The next day he called back
and said "This is Ying-jeou Ma." It took me a few seconds to figure
out who was on the line -- rather embarrassing.
XXXXX, an american businessman in Taipei, longtime expat
--
Actually a lot of people here in Taiwan already write their names on
their business cards with the surname last, in Western style,..... such as
SHUI-BIAN CHEN.....etc
Many years ago, when Ma Ying-jeou was between government posts and
doing university teaching, I tried to contact him for an interview,
couldn't reach him, and left a message. The next day he called back
and said "This is Ying-jeou Ma." It took me a few seconds to figure
out who was on the line -- rather embarrassing.
XXXXX, an american businessman in Taipei, longtime expat
--
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Carrying the Torch for a Cleaner Envionment -- CAPTAIN AIR ROCKS TAIPEI!
PRESS RELEASE:
for immediate release
For more information contact:
bikolang@gmail.com
Captain Air tel number available upon request to media outlets: CNN, TVBS, etc.
Carrying the Torch for a Cleaner Envionment
CAPTAIN AIR ROCKS TAIPEI!
Captain Air, aka Torch Pratt, wants to help give Taipei (and all
Taiwan) a better -- and cleaner -- environment.
As such, he has an idea, and it's a good one: using creativity to
inspire people to protect the environment. His goal: to get "scooter
poolooters" in Taiwan's capital city to cut down on the amount of
pollution they release into the air every day by turning off their motors
at long red light stops and also be asking the city government to limit the
length of the red light stop times so they don't go on too long.
He has a home-made "superhero" costume consisting of a cut-up,
hand-painted light blue raincoat, a helmet painted with Taiwan's half
of the globe, cut-off black dishwashing gloves, and an orange
megaphone. He recently had some business cards printed up, containing
his message. When he is actively engaging "scooter pollooters", he sings his
"Lang Fei Chi You" song. In Chinese!
Recently, Captain Air read about a UK environmental group
that was working with some local Taiwanese college students to discuss
the next generation of climate change activists. He went to the event,
met with the organizer, and he agreed to let him do a 15 minute
"presentation" as Captain Air. A world premiere!
One of Captain Air's happiest memories, he recalls, was the event leader
laughing continuously through the whole show. The kids loved it, too,
and he did it in English and quasi-proficient Chinese.
How did Captain Air get into this business of trying to wake people up about
air pollution in Taipei? He has been doing stand-up comedy at the Comedy Club near Shi Da every
Wednesday, and his Captain Air "presentation" is an outgrowth of that
show, he told this blog.
Sometimes, he takes his "supersuit" to the show, tells the audience
about his goal to get people to turn off their scooters at long lights,
when they're talking on the phone, or waiting for their friends/kids.
He then intersperses descriptions of these wasteful scooter poollooters with verses
from the song (to keep it funny). Also, I'm a guitar player who writes
and sings comedy-oriented songs (a-la Adam Sandler), and one song I
sing is called "Share the Air."
"Now that I've got
everything I need ready for a "Captain Air Day of Action," I'm going
to try to recruit people to take to the streets with me on an
upcoming Sunday to sing the song, conduct surveys, shout out the
seconds on the pedestrian countdown clock, interface with the public,
and gather footage on my video camera that could be put together for
an iReport for CNN or otherwise be posted online," he said. "Promoting awareness of air pollution from scooters right now is super-important, I feel."
BACKGROUND INFO
A letter to the president of Taiwan from CAPTAIN AIR:
Dear President Ma Ying-jeou,
During your presidential campaign, you promised to clean up Taiwan’s environment and create jobs. I have a simple plan that will cut our carbon dioxide emissions and clean up our filthy intersections, especially in Taipei. Thank you for taking a few minutes to read through my ideas.
The focus of my frustration, and your opportunity, is scooter commuters. There are many street corners in Taipei where scooter drivers have to wait more than a minute for the light to change. Their scooters are idling during this time, filling the air with all kinds of harmful pollution and nasty chemicals. It’s almost as disgusting as street-level pollution in Hong Kong.
Economists and scientists believe that Earth’s oil supply may have hit its peak, and that gas prices can only go up in the long term. Taiwanese drivers should not, therefore, take a single drop of gasoline for granted. And everyone, everywhere, needs to re-examine convenience-oriented lifestyles and change wasteful habits.
I propose a NT$1 “sin tax” on every liter of gas. The money gathered would be used to fund alternative energy sources and grassroots environmental movements. Though a higher price for gas may elicit protests, it will also encourage motorists to think twice when wasting gasoline.
When I ride my motorcycle, I turn it off whenever I’m not moving, and the savings add up remarkably quickly, a habit that would offset the sin tax. To create better air quality in Taipei, all drivers should do the same. The simple answer is to turn your engine off while idling at intersections — an action that will not damage a scooter that has been running for 10 minutes.
Also, scooters that emit white smoke or don’t start when they are supposed to should be taken to the nearest shop for repairs.
To make this plan sustainable, I suggest that you put the following objectives into action: Find a spokesperson for the movement, who would receive a salary from the sin tax fund. This person should recruit unemployed college graduates to build awareness by developing a Web site so that stakeholders can communicate. These new employees would be responsible for recruiting street-level activists, thereby creating more jobs, who would remind scooter polluters that leaving engines running at intersections is wrong in so many ways.
To make the process transparent, all finances and transactions from the sin tax should be published on the Web, including payments to all involved and other expenses.
This plan doesn’t require a complex network of politicians. It requires real people, living in Taiwan, who want to share the air. Let’s make this happen for a cleaner and greener tomorrow.
I’m hoping that you, President Ma, will turn this idea into a reality. In the face of climate change, failing to take action on this issue is like saying that we don’t care. Immediate action for progressive change will help our environment immediately.
TORCH PRATT
Yonghe, Taipei County
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Woodstock era memories, short version, NOT FOR PUBLICATION. LONGER VERSION BELOW, ALSO NOT FOR PUBLICATION
Some 40 years ago, 'Woodstock' changed the U.S. and world -- and maybe Taiwan
By [___] [______]
Contributing Reporter
Despite the cultural differences
between what life was like in Taiwan in 1969 and how the U.S. was
transformed by that year's Woodstock musical festival, Taiwanese
filmgoers and book readers will soon be able to see what
the fuss was all about.
In those days in Taipei, the central government used the
local newspapers to characterize Woodstock as "a hippie
invasion" and most young people here had no idea what was really going
on there.
Even Ang Lee (李安), who would grow up to become one of Taiwan's most
famous film directors and make a name for himself in Hollywood and
Cannes, did not know what Woodstock was really all about at that time.
Now he does. Lee's humorous movie about some Woodstock shenanigans --
titled "Taking Woodstock" [胡士托風波] -- opens
in the U.S. this month and will open here on October 9,
according to film industry sources.
"Taking Woodstock" was a book before it came Ang Lee's latest movie. Elliot
Tiber, now in his 70s, wrote the memoir a few years ago, and it was
translated into Mandarin this year
by Josephine Liao and published locally by Yuan-Liou Publishing
Company in Taipei.
The book is subtitled in English on the psychedellic-art
Mandarin-language cover: "A True
Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life."
The book's English title, "Taking Woodstock'" -- and by extension, the movie's
title, too -- means two
things, according to the book's U.S. publisher.
"It means taking stock of your life and, in a sense, taking control of
your
destiny," Rudy Shur said in a recent email. "Anthony Pomes, our
marketing director,
came up with the title, and Ang Lee used it for his movie as well."
When a reporter asked several expats here if Woodstock was a part of
their lives and how it impacted them, the responses were like trips down memory lane.
"I was six years old in the summer of 1969, so I guess I was mostly
grubbing around on the floor and in the back lot of the apartment
complex in St. Louis where we lived," said Paul Cox in Taipei. "I was
entirely unaware of
Woodstock."
He added: "While I don't listen directly to a lot of music from those days
anymore, a lot of the music I do listen to was influenced to a certain
extent by the music of those days (Hendrix, Santana, Dylan, as well
as blues and jazz musicians who were the inspirations for those
guys -- Buddy Guy, Albert King and John Coltrane, among others). I do still
enjoy the Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Santana."
"Maybe a bit of the Woodstock spirit lives on in the rock and other
kinds of music festivals around the world, including the annual ones in
Taiwan such as Ho Hai Yan, Formoz, Migrant Music Fest, and Peace
Fest," Cox added.
For Jerome Keating, Woodstock was close but "too far away" as well, he
said, noting: "That summer, I was just starting my doctoral program at
Syracuse University, so the concert was not too far away from where I
was, but I could not spare the time to go there."
"I still like the songs of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez," Keating, the author of three books about Taiwan, said. "The
songs expressed a philosophy of protest and need for change in
priority of values. The Sixties included the civil rights movment and
the Vietnam War protests, of course."
When asked if he felt that the philosophy of
hippie life had any
impact in Taiwan, Keating -- who worked as a university professor here and was former manager of technology transfer for Taipei's MRT systems -- noted: "Hippie life and freedom was more a
symbollic challenge to re-examine people's and the government's
priorities; it did not advocate permanency of a new structure. How it
affected Taiwan? That's hard to say. Taiwan at that time was under
martial law and the Kaohsiung Incident was still a decade away. Was
there a ripple effect? Perhaps."
For Gerrit van der Wees of Holland, who now works for the Formosan
Association for Public Affairs in Washington, the summer of 1969
brings back old memories. "Woodstock was a statement against
the establishment of those days, and it questioned authority,
especially in regards to the Vietnam War. Many of the songs at
Woodstock were anti-war
songs."
"In the summer of 1969, I was just on my way back to The Netherlands
from spending a year in Houston, where I worked on the Apollo
program," he recalled.
"After finishing my work there, I drove through the U.S. for a few
weeks, travelling
from Texas, through New Mexico, Arizona, and up to Wyoming and Montana.
In fact, during that trip, I met quite a number of folks who were on
their way to
Woodstock, driving beat-up Volkswagen bugs and even old buses."
"In 1970, a year later, I went to a Woodstock-like event in Rotterdam,
in my native Holland, where we listened to
the Byrds and other bands," he said. "But after a while, the hippie
movement drifted too far
in the direction of 'anything goes' and it lost its original purpose, I think."
When asked if Woodstock had any impact on Taiwan, van der Wees said:
"I really don't know if or how it affected Taiwan, since I didn't get
to
Taiwan until 1977, and I didn't really get into Taiwan life until 1979, just
before the Kaohsiung Incident."
Don Shapiro, editor-in-chief of Taiwan Business Topics magazine now,
was spending the summer of 1969 doing a fourth-year Chinese-language
course at Columbia University, preparing to head to Taiwan that fall.
"I remember reading and hearing about Woodstock when it was going on
-- particularly wondering how a New York state farm could be big
enough to accommodate the huge crowds that reportedly turned up," he
said. "I did like the music of the Woodstock groups, particularly Joan
Baez, but my tastes now run more to classical and jazz."
"Woodstock was part of a whole trend in the Sixties to break down
cultural barriers and to question what had been the conventional
wisdom," Shapiro added. "It had a big impact on the U.S. and then
gradually on the rest of the world, including Taiwan. Without that
change in mindset, the U.S. wouldn't have equality for women or the
widespread acceptance of homosexuality that exists today. And America
certainly wouldn't have an African-American as president today."
Louise Bystrom, who is from Sweden and edits Taiwan This Month
magazine, says she was in her middle teens that summer of 1969. "I
just turned fifteen at the time and was still living with my parents,
of course. I didn't understand the real impact on what was going on at
Woodstock. In addition, at that age and that time, I was very
conservative, much more than what I am now, so all those strange
clothes and flowers and people walking around naked that I saw on
television, it was nothing I could relate to, personally. But, of
course, I was curious about all that. Later, the influence of
Woodstock filtered into Europe and Sweden, and it began to have a
greater impact on my life, but not in any big way. However, I still
listen to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and I enjoy them, but I don't have
their CDs at home here."
When asked how Woodstock might have influenced Taiwan, Bystrom said:
"From what I can see, it hasn't had much impact on Taiwan at all.
Taiwan's society is still very conservative and traditional. Here,
young couples are just beginning to hold hands in public, and it's
still unusual to see people expressing their real emotions in public
or in private."
For Syd Goldsmith, who served as director of the AIT branch office in Kaohsiung from 1985 to 1989, first came to Taiwan in 1968, he said. "I barely had heard of Woodstock at the time," he added.
"The songs of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were good, and I liked them, but
I can't remember when I last had a chance to listen to them,"
said Goldsmith, who is the author of a prize-winning novel about Taiwan
titled "Jade Phoenix."
Don Silver, an editor for Taiwan Review magazine in Taipei, was just
seven years old in the summer of 1969, he said, so he was "too young
for Woodstock to have any impact."
He added: "My parents are pretty conservative, so I can't even recall
any conversation about it at home. The summer of 1969, the thing I
remember is the moon walk -- the first time I'd ever stayed up so late
to watch TV -- 11pm, waiting for the moon monsters to attack the
astronauts."
Silver said he "still listens to Neil Young on occasion, as well as
Dylan's new stuff -- his last CD was pretty good."
When asked about Woodstock's impact on Taiwan, if any, Silver said:
"If the US was in the 1960s at the time, Taiwan was in the 1950s, and
probably stayed that way until the late 1980s. I do think that young
people in Taiwan today are kind of Woodstockish --looking around at
the area near the Red House in Ximending shows me that they're much
more individualistic, more free-spirited than their parents. Not much
tie dye, though..."
For Bo Tedards, Woodstock happened before he was born, but he says: "My mother always says she blames me for 'missing the culutral event of
my generation,' because she was eight months pregnant with me at the
time."
When asked how the Woodstock era and the 1960s might have influenced
Taiwan, Tedards, who is a longitme social activist here, said: "It's hard to say how or whether
Woodstock had any direct effect on Taiwan or the Taiwanese people,
since those days were the depth of the White Terror period here.
However, at least one group of Taiwanese activists living overseas was
inspired by the events of 1968 -- not Woodstock per se, but the more
militant, political 1960s movements in the U.S. and Europe -- to take
matters into their hands, and that's the group who attempted to
assassinate Chiang Ching-kuo in New York."
Tedards went on: "It might be true -- but also pure speculation on my
part -- that the hippie, or at least the progressive culture and
counterculture of the 1960s influenced the emergence of social
movements here in Taiwan in the late 1970s, with a bit of a lag time,
of course. Michael Hsiao has written how these social movements in
Taiwan began with the literary and cultural movements first, so the
news about Woodstock in 1969 might have been an entry point for such
ideas here in Taiwan, but again, I'm just speculating."
"But there were also indirect effects, I think, such as when Taiwan
absorbed later waves of U.S. popular culture, which themselves were
influenced by Woodstock and the Sixes," Tedards said.
David Reid, who hails from Australia where he was born in 1973, said
that he still listens to music from the Woodstock days -- "Neil Young
(he was with Crosby, Stills & Nash), Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin."
Reid, who is a blogger and a master's/post-graduate student at
National Chengchi University here, notes: "At the time of Woodstock,
Taiwan was still under the
dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek. White Terror and and the lack of
freedom associated with it were hardly the conditions for a
counter-cultural movement to flourish."
For Brian Chiu, Woodstock happened before he was born, but he does
have some thoughts to impart. "I was minus three years old in 1969 and
an accident waiting to happen," Chiu said in a recent email. "But my
parents were the Taiwanese equivalents of 'hippies', and they may have
heard of the concert in America. My folks used to play the Byrds, some
CSN, and lots of Beatles/Lennon on Sunday mornings. I still like the
Byrds and CSN -- in fact, folk and bluegrass, in general."
"From what I've heard, freedom was kind of illegal in the 1970s in
Taiwan," Chiu went on. "My uncle got free room and board at a
political prison on Green Island for wanting freedom and love and
fields of flowers -- and he sadly lost his mind in there. A few of my
dad's friends lost their lives in those times of martial law and white
terror. For any aspiring hippies in Taiwan back then, I'm afraid it
was a more grim affair than "free love" -- any extra-state body (such
as a free-love hippie commune would have been seen by the authorites
as sedition."
"Music in the park? The closest we came to music in the
park back then was probably that old catchy patriotic tune about the
superiority of the Chinese race (down to the very controlling-preoccupation
with hair color and eye color) that they taught me to sing in school
when I was 'young and impressionable' in Taiwan. "
"However, I think
that the Woodstock 'philosophy' did guide my parents to react to my
singing those patriotic songs in horror and move us all the hell out
of Taiwan. So we came to America. One Woodstocky memory I have as a
kid in California was in high school in San Diego, being dragged by my
parents to boring evening gatherings where political speeches had
acoustic guitar accompaniment."
How the Mandarin translation of the Woodstock book by Elliot Tiber -- and the movie by Ang Lee -- will be received by Taiwanese readers and moviegoers in Taipei will be interesting
to see.
"Woodstock is not really very well understood by most
people in Taiwan, but the movie, and now this book, will help to serve
as a kind of cross-cultural guide about what hippie and
'counterculture' life was like in
those days," said a Taipei publishing industry source.
By [___] [______]
Contributing Reporter
Despite the cultural differences
between what life was like in Taiwan in 1969 and how the U.S. was
transformed by that year's Woodstock musical festival, Taiwanese
filmgoers and book readers will soon be able to see what
the fuss was all about.
In those days in Taipei, the central government used the
local newspapers to characterize Woodstock as "a hippie
invasion" and most young people here had no idea what was really going
on there.
Even Ang Lee (李安), who would grow up to become one of Taiwan's most
famous film directors and make a name for himself in Hollywood and
Cannes, did not know what Woodstock was really all about at that time.
Now he does. Lee's humorous movie about some Woodstock shenanigans --
titled "Taking Woodstock" [胡士托風波] -- opens
in the U.S. this month and will open here on October 9,
according to film industry sources.
"Taking Woodstock" was a book before it came Ang Lee's latest movie. Elliot
Tiber, now in his 70s, wrote the memoir a few years ago, and it was
translated into Mandarin this year
by Josephine Liao and published locally by Yuan-Liou Publishing
Company in Taipei.
The book is subtitled in English on the psychedellic-art
Mandarin-language cover: "A True
Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life."
The book's English title, "Taking Woodstock'" -- and by extension, the movie's
title, too -- means two
things, according to the book's U.S. publisher.
"It means taking stock of your life and, in a sense, taking control of
your
destiny," Rudy Shur said in a recent email. "Anthony Pomes, our
marketing director,
came up with the title, and Ang Lee used it for his movie as well."
When a reporter asked several expats here if Woodstock was a part of
their lives and how it impacted them, the responses were like trips down memory lane.
"I was six years old in the summer of 1969, so I guess I was mostly
grubbing around on the floor and in the back lot of the apartment
complex in St. Louis where we lived," said Paul Cox in Taipei. "I was
entirely unaware of
Woodstock."
He added: "While I don't listen directly to a lot of music from those days
anymore, a lot of the music I do listen to was influenced to a certain
extent by the music of those days (Hendrix, Santana, Dylan, as well
as blues and jazz musicians who were the inspirations for those
guys -- Buddy Guy, Albert King and John Coltrane, among others). I do still
enjoy the Grateful Dead, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Santana."
"Maybe a bit of the Woodstock spirit lives on in the rock and other
kinds of music festivals around the world, including the annual ones in
Taiwan such as Ho Hai Yan, Formoz, Migrant Music Fest, and Peace
Fest," Cox added.
For Jerome Keating, Woodstock was close but "too far away" as well, he
said, noting: "That summer, I was just starting my doctoral program at
Syracuse University, so the concert was not too far away from where I
was, but I could not spare the time to go there."
"I still like the songs of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez," Keating, the author of three books about Taiwan, said. "The
songs expressed a philosophy of protest and need for change in
priority of values. The Sixties included the civil rights movment and
the Vietnam War protests, of course."
When asked if he felt that the philosophy of
hippie life had any
impact in Taiwan, Keating -- who worked as a university professor here and was former manager of technology transfer for Taipei's MRT systems -- noted: "Hippie life and freedom was more a
symbollic challenge to re-examine people's and the government's
priorities; it did not advocate permanency of a new structure. How it
affected Taiwan? That's hard to say. Taiwan at that time was under
martial law and the Kaohsiung Incident was still a decade away. Was
there a ripple effect? Perhaps."
For Gerrit van der Wees of Holland, who now works for the Formosan
Association for Public Affairs in Washington, the summer of 1969
brings back old memories. "Woodstock was a statement against
the establishment of those days, and it questioned authority,
especially in regards to the Vietnam War. Many of the songs at
Woodstock were anti-war
songs."
"In the summer of 1969, I was just on my way back to The Netherlands
from spending a year in Houston, where I worked on the Apollo
program," he recalled.
"After finishing my work there, I drove through the U.S. for a few
weeks, travelling
from Texas, through New Mexico, Arizona, and up to Wyoming and Montana.
In fact, during that trip, I met quite a number of folks who were on
their way to
Woodstock, driving beat-up Volkswagen bugs and even old buses."
"In 1970, a year later, I went to a Woodstock-like event in Rotterdam,
in my native Holland, where we listened to
the Byrds and other bands," he said. "But after a while, the hippie
movement drifted too far
in the direction of 'anything goes' and it lost its original purpose, I think."
When asked if Woodstock had any impact on Taiwan, van der Wees said:
"I really don't know if or how it affected Taiwan, since I didn't get
to
Taiwan until 1977, and I didn't really get into Taiwan life until 1979, just
before the Kaohsiung Incident."
Don Shapiro, editor-in-chief of Taiwan Business Topics magazine now,
was spending the summer of 1969 doing a fourth-year Chinese-language
course at Columbia University, preparing to head to Taiwan that fall.
"I remember reading and hearing about Woodstock when it was going on
-- particularly wondering how a New York state farm could be big
enough to accommodate the huge crowds that reportedly turned up," he
said. "I did like the music of the Woodstock groups, particularly Joan
Baez, but my tastes now run more to classical and jazz."
"Woodstock was part of a whole trend in the Sixties to break down
cultural barriers and to question what had been the conventional
wisdom," Shapiro added. "It had a big impact on the U.S. and then
gradually on the rest of the world, including Taiwan. Without that
change in mindset, the U.S. wouldn't have equality for women or the
widespread acceptance of homosexuality that exists today. And America
certainly wouldn't have an African-American as president today."
Louise Bystrom, who is from Sweden and edits Taiwan This Month
magazine, says she was in her middle teens that summer of 1969. "I
just turned fifteen at the time and was still living with my parents,
of course. I didn't understand the real impact on what was going on at
Woodstock. In addition, at that age and that time, I was very
conservative, much more than what I am now, so all those strange
clothes and flowers and people walking around naked that I saw on
television, it was nothing I could relate to, personally. But, of
course, I was curious about all that. Later, the influence of
Woodstock filtered into Europe and Sweden, and it began to have a
greater impact on my life, but not in any big way. However, I still
listen to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, and I enjoy them, but I don't have
their CDs at home here."
When asked how Woodstock might have influenced Taiwan, Bystrom said:
"From what I can see, it hasn't had much impact on Taiwan at all.
Taiwan's society is still very conservative and traditional. Here,
young couples are just beginning to hold hands in public, and it's
still unusual to see people expressing their real emotions in public
or in private."
For Syd Goldsmith, who served as director of the AIT branch office in Kaohsiung from 1985 to 1989, first came to Taiwan in 1968, he said. "I barely had heard of Woodstock at the time," he added.
"The songs of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez were good, and I liked them, but
I can't remember when I last had a chance to listen to them,"
said Goldsmith, who is the author of a prize-winning novel about Taiwan
titled "Jade Phoenix."
Don Silver, an editor for Taiwan Review magazine in Taipei, was just
seven years old in the summer of 1969, he said, so he was "too young
for Woodstock to have any impact."
He added: "My parents are pretty conservative, so I can't even recall
any conversation about it at home. The summer of 1969, the thing I
remember is the moon walk -- the first time I'd ever stayed up so late
to watch TV -- 11pm, waiting for the moon monsters to attack the
astronauts."
Silver said he "still listens to Neil Young on occasion, as well as
Dylan's new stuff -- his last CD was pretty good."
When asked about Woodstock's impact on Taiwan, if any, Silver said:
"If the US was in the 1960s at the time, Taiwan was in the 1950s, and
probably stayed that way until the late 1980s. I do think that young
people in Taiwan today are kind of Woodstockish --looking around at
the area near the Red House in Ximending shows me that they're much
more individualistic, more free-spirited than their parents. Not much
tie dye, though..."
For Bo Tedards, Woodstock happened before he was born, but he says: "My mother always says she blames me for 'missing the culutral event of
my generation,' because she was eight months pregnant with me at the
time."
When asked how the Woodstock era and the 1960s might have influenced
Taiwan, Tedards, who is a longitme social activist here, said: "It's hard to say how or whether
Woodstock had any direct effect on Taiwan or the Taiwanese people,
since those days were the depth of the White Terror period here.
However, at least one group of Taiwanese activists living overseas was
inspired by the events of 1968 -- not Woodstock per se, but the more
militant, political 1960s movements in the U.S. and Europe -- to take
matters into their hands, and that's the group who attempted to
assassinate Chiang Ching-kuo in New York."
Tedards went on: "It might be true -- but also pure speculation on my
part -- that the hippie, or at least the progressive culture and
counterculture of the 1960s influenced the emergence of social
movements here in Taiwan in the late 1970s, with a bit of a lag time,
of course. Michael Hsiao has written how these social movements in
Taiwan began with the literary and cultural movements first, so the
news about Woodstock in 1969 might have been an entry point for such
ideas here in Taiwan, but again, I'm just speculating."
"But there were also indirect effects, I think, such as when Taiwan
absorbed later waves of U.S. popular culture, which themselves were
influenced by Woodstock and the Sixes," Tedards said.
David Reid, who hails from Australia where he was born in 1973, said
that he still listens to music from the Woodstock days -- "Neil Young
(he was with Crosby, Stills & Nash), Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin."
Reid, who is a blogger and a master's/post-graduate student at
National Chengchi University here, notes: "At the time of Woodstock,
Taiwan was still under the
dictatorship of Chiang Kai-shek. White Terror and and the lack of
freedom associated with it were hardly the conditions for a
counter-cultural movement to flourish."
For Brian Chiu, Woodstock happened before he was born, but he does
have some thoughts to impart. "I was minus three years old in 1969 and
an accident waiting to happen," Chiu said in a recent email. "But my
parents were the Taiwanese equivalents of 'hippies', and they may have
heard of the concert in America. My folks used to play the Byrds, some
CSN, and lots of Beatles/Lennon on Sunday mornings. I still like the
Byrds and CSN -- in fact, folk and bluegrass, in general."
"From what I've heard, freedom was kind of illegal in the 1970s in
Taiwan," Chiu went on. "My uncle got free room and board at a
political prison on Green Island for wanting freedom and love and
fields of flowers -- and he sadly lost his mind in there. A few of my
dad's friends lost their lives in those times of martial law and white
terror. For any aspiring hippies in Taiwan back then, I'm afraid it
was a more grim affair than "free love" -- any extra-state body (such
as a free-love hippie commune would have been seen by the authorites
as sedition."
"Music in the park? The closest we came to music in the
park back then was probably that old catchy patriotic tune about the
superiority of the Chinese race (down to the very controlling-preoccupation
with hair color and eye color) that they taught me to sing in school
when I was 'young and impressionable' in Taiwan. "
"However, I think
that the Woodstock 'philosophy' did guide my parents to react to my
singing those patriotic songs in horror and move us all the hell out
of Taiwan. So we came to America. One Woodstocky memory I have as a
kid in California was in high school in San Diego, being dragged by my
parents to boring evening gatherings where political speeches had
acoustic guitar accompaniment."
How the Mandarin translation of the Woodstock book by Elliot Tiber -- and the movie by Ang Lee -- will be received by Taiwanese readers and moviegoers in Taipei will be interesting
to see.
"Woodstock is not really very well understood by most
people in Taiwan, but the movie, and now this book, will help to serve
as a kind of cross-cultural guide about what hippie and
'counterculture' life was like in
those days," said a Taipei publishing industry source.
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