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Baseball: Love at First Strike!

Late in April (2025) I had my first experience of attending a baseball game in Taiwan in a stadium — at the glamorous Taipei Dome, no less. It was a matchup between two of Taiwan’s strongest professional baseball clubs: the Wei Chuan Dragons and the Chinatrust Brothers. It has already been some five days out from that event, but I still feel awed by the encounter. This was actually only the second time in my life I have ever attended a stadium game. My first took place when I was maybe 10 years old and my best friend’s dad took me along with their family to see a game at the now-demolished Shea Stadium. That one time was enough to make me a lifelong fan of the New York Mets. But baseball fandom is a variant expression of love, and love adopts many forms that embrace different people differently. And thanks to the friend who gifted me the ticket to last week’s game in Taipei, I am now a dedicated fan of yet another team. Well, two other teams. OK, maybe three other teams in addition...
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"Invisible Nation" and the Indivisibility Difference

Invisible Nation will probably disappoint Taiwan audiences, largely because the documentary was produced for is intended for international audiences, though the film is pragmatically “for Taiwan.” Completed in 2023 and made available to the global documentary film circuit last year, Invisible Nation finally found its way to movie screens throughout Taiwan on June 13, 2025 — a Friday the 13 th release, to be precise.  Produced and directed by Vanessa Hope , Invisible Nation was filmed with the cooperation and encouragement of Taiwan’s first democratically elected female president, Tsai Ying-wen (whose Administration of the Republic of China spanned two terms, 2016-2024). Hope could easily be understood as something of a “China hand,” though she would probably not be comfortable with the label. Prior to becoming a filmmaker, Hope had been a scholar of international studies for the Council on Foreign Relations in her hometown of New York City. She also earned a doctorate from C...
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Trauma, Silence, and "Woman Islands"

Here’s a selection of excerpts from the 2011 English translation (by C.J. Anderson-Wu) of Chung Wenyin’s 1998 novel, Woman Islands ( 女島紀行 ). I provide it here in the hope that it might entice students and scholars, especially those with an interest in Women’s Studies and Feminist Literature, to consider taking up this book as a subject for literary criticism. I have straightened up the grammatical style of the original translation that had attempted to portray the “untranslatable” style of the Chinese text and the author’s insistence upon “maintaining the awkwardness of her writing instead of smoothing it out for English readers.”  Although I can appreciate that desire, I chose instead to alter some of the sentence constructions that might come across as more a result of poor proofreading than of conscious choice by the translator. I’m going to hope this won’t be a problem, and I apologize in advance if anyone is offended by my editing choices. But then again, if you want to see...
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Self Isolation is All I Can Do to Help

Once we figured out how to order vegetables, fruit, and other supplies using online delivery services, life under self-imposed “isolation” has become far less anxious. Indeed, I have long been partial to staying at home and avoiding public spaces, though I confess that I miss the bookstore. Just yesterday I was wishing I could go out to see if any new titles have come in. It actually feels good to avoid going out (shopping, or even strolling the neighborhood) because I can tell myself I’m contributing to the nation’s struggle against the ongoing pandemic. Even though I am just one person, I’ve removed myself from any possible chains of transmission. Meanwhile, the days continue to fly by. The government this week extended the “Level 3” pandemic containment measures to July 12, meaning we must wear a mask when outdoors, restaurants cannot offer indoor seating, movie theaters and other recreational places are closed, and there are limits on the number of people who can enter supermar...
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