Rooted in Taiwan, Connected with the World

I just finished reading two Russian novels in English translation: The House of the Dead and The Gambler . It was an unusual experience because normally I journal my reading one novel at a time. I purchased the book online years ago, but I was not aware that it was a two-in-one edition ─ containing  two novels in the same book. What a surprising and lovely bonus! The author of both novels was Fyodor Dostoevsky, a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and journalist. He is regarded as one of the greatest novelists in both Russian and world literature. His literary works explore the human condition in the troubled political, social and spiritual atmospheres of 19th-century Russia, and engage with a variety of philosophical and religious themes. These were the second and third of Dostoevsky's novels I read, after Crime and Punishment─ his most acclaimed work, which I read two years ago.   The English translation I read was by Constance Garnett, an English translat...

I just completed my fourteenth trip under "A Day in Town," my multi-year backpacking plan of spending a day in each of the approximately 350 townships in my country. My destination this time was Tainan City, the oldest city and one of the six special municipalities in Taiwan. Along with Chiayi County and Chiayi City, Tainan City was the worst hit by Typhoon Danas, so during the trip I still observed traces left by the storm that had struck Taiwan three weeks earlier. There are 37 districts in Tainan City, and I visited four of them during the trip: Xinying, Yanshuei, Xuejia, and Beimen. On the first day, I took a train to Xinying, the northernmost railway station within Tainan City. From there, I started exploring on foot, visiting nine of the 23 villages administered by Xinying District. The name Xinying literally means "new camp", referring to the site where Koxinga's army camped after arriving in Taiwan in the 17th century. Once an area less developed than it...

I just finished studying my thirteenth Shakespeare play,  The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, also known as Richard II.  Written in 1595, Richard II is a Shakespearean history play about the reign of King Richard II of England (reign 1377–1399). As a dramatised period history of the English monarchy, Richard II chronicles the machinations of the noblemen of the royal court who conspire, precipitate, and realize the downfall and death of the King of England.  Studying Richard II also marked the beginning of my exploration of the Henriad, which refers to a group of William Shakespeare's history plays depicting the rise of the English kings. Some sources and scholars use the term to refer to a group of four plays (a tetralogy), while others use it to refer to eight plays. In the former sense, the Henriad comprises  Richard II; Henry IV, Part 1; Henry IV, Part 2; and Henry V. In the latter case, four more plays are included:  Henry VI, Part 1; Henry VI...

I just completed my thirteenth trip under "A Day in Town," my multi-year backpacking plan of spending a day in each of the approximately 350 townships in my country. My destination this time was Chiayi City, the smallest in area of the 20 sub-national administrative regions in Taiwan, as well as its equal and only neighbour, Chiayi County, which entirely surrounds Chiayi City. With a population of over 260,000, Chiayi City is home to Zhuluosan City Wall, the seat of Zhuluo County─a political division during the Qing Dynasty that ruled the island of Taiwan north of the Yanshui River. During this trip, I visited Dalin and Minxiong─two of the 18 townships under Chiayi County, as well as the West and the East─the two districts that Chiayi City administers. This trip was unusual because it was made in the aftermath of Typhoon Danas, the first typhoon on record to make landfall in Chiayi County. I began by taking a train to Dalin, the northernmost township of Chiayi County, borderi...

I just finished reading The Picture of Dorian Gray , an 1890 philosophical fiction and Gothic horror novel by Oscar Wilde. Set in late 19th-century London, the novel follows the life of Dorian Gray, a young man enthralled by the hedonistic ideals. It stands as a classic exploration of morality and the consequences of unchecked desires and is considered a key work of the Decadent movement.  Born in Dublin in 1854, Oscar Wilde was an Irish author, poet, and playwright. After writing in different literary styles throughout the 1880s, Wilde became very popular and influential in London in the early 1890s, and was regarded by most commentators as the greatest playwright of the Victorian era. Wilde is best remembered for his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray , as well as epigrams, plays, bedtime stories for children, and his criminal conviction in 1895 for gross indecency related to homosexual acts. The novel was published in the July 1890 issue of the American periodical Lippincott'...