#taiwan 台灣

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

Photo : 站在武嶺往西南可眺台14甲線橫亙合歡山腹 by Chu Lan

Wuling 武嶺，舊名/日語：佐久間峠 Sakuma tōge or 南嶺，��台灣中央山脈北段高峰合歡東峰、合歡主峰��嶺線的鞍部，海拔3,275公尺，是台灣公路最高點，位於台14甲線31.5公里處，在太魯閣國家公園西境，為合歡山森林遊樂區一處景點，行政區劃屬南投縣仁愛鄉大同村。

在武嶺建有一座觀景台，供遊客眺望遠近風景。由於地處偏僻，少有光害，也是夜間觀星的良好地點。

formerly known as Sakuma Pass (佐久間峠, Sakuma-tōge), It's a mountain pass located in Ren'ai, Nantou, Taiwan, transversing the Central Mountain Range near the peak of Hehuanshan within Taroko National Park. It is the highest paved road in elevation in Taiwan.

Many races are held to ride to Wuling, most notably the Taiwan KOM Challenge, a non-UCI sanctioned race beginning in Qixingtan Beach and takes the eastern route. The 107 km race is regarded as an intense climb within the cycling community, with Grand Tour winner Vincenzo Nibali commenting: "I've never ridden such a long and hard climb before in my entire life." Wuling is also a popular stargazing and bird-watching location. Common birds include the Taiwan rosefinch, white-whiskered laughingthrush, and collared bush robin.

and

2023 Taiwan KOM Challenge Race Teaser video 臺灣自行車登山王挑戰

當我沒有目的地，當我並沒有要抵達任何特定的地方，而只為了與山同行而出發時，山就完全地展現了他自己，就像一個人拜訪一位朋友，除了與他在一起之外，沒有其他任何意圖。

The mountain gives itself most completely when I have no destination, when I reach nowhere in particular, but have gone out merely to be with the mountain as one visits a friend with no intention but to be with him.

— Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain. 💕

[shihlun]

浅井恵倫

- 水社の女

ca. 1940

[atlasandacamera]

Jingtong, Taiwan

[yuchenghong-art]

【Bubble Tea】

I tried to reinterpret the characters I previously designed using a LOFI art style. This time, I chose not to focus on detailed rendering or material expression. I've always wanted to explore a style that I hadn't tried before, especially outside of my usual work.

[floweringpear]

missing my fall semester study setup, missing taiwanese vegan desserts, missing taipei

[thistransient]

[chiuroad]

2024台灣國家教育研究院 / 龍年電子賀卡及紅包繪製

[goodayclassmate]

偷吃被抓包【日安同學漫畫】

這都能被你看出來？！

角色 / #日安同學 #黎朵

[happilybriefcreator]

真心约炮的加我 在读大学生，可以视频，可以看学生证.伴读伴工的我想赚生活费用有诚意需要服务的哥哥弟弟加我： line：7k45

[newestcool]

Hyunji Shin for Vogue Taiwan March 2024 ''Asia's Next Top Model'' Editor-in-Chief Leslie Sun Photographer Cho Gi-Seok Fashion Editor/Stylist Chen Yu Makeup Artist Oh Seong Seok Hair Stylist Lee Hyun Woo Set Designer Yesol Kim Newest Cool

[nathan-osterhaus]

Taipei, Taiwan, September 10, 2017

https://www.instagram.com/nathan.osterhaus/

[beyourselfchulanmaria]

細節，未完成。Details, unfinished. 🙏🏼🫶 Lan~*

[shihlun]

Buddha's birthday procession in Taichung, date unknown.

台中市浴佛節遊行，余如季攝，年代不詳。

[atlasandacamera]

Jingtong, Taiwan

[gaybd1]

BREAKING UPDATE [Tuesday Night 5/28] : Taiwan's Controversial Legislative Reform Bill PASSED

A democracy-threatening bill passed in an undemocratic way.

Here is what this means and what happens next...

(For full context on this, please refer to this post)

What specifically passed?

The president will be "invited" to give a state of the nation address every year and must answer questions on the spot

People can be summoned to answer questions to lawmakers, no "reverse questioning" allowed (the meaning of this term has still not been specified)

If people being questioned refuse to answer or do anything in "contempt of the Legislature" they can get a huge fine

The legislature can conduct investigative hearings and can request documents from the government, military, companies or actually anybody. If you don't provide them, you get fined.

Hearings will be public unless they need to be secret for national security/trade secret/etc reasons

If you don't show up for your hearing, you get a big fine

If you lie you get fined

For other details, please refer to this article.

Separately, "Contempt of Legislature" was added to the Criminal Code.

How did it pass so fast?

Interestingly enough, it did take three days to get through the second reading of the bill, and that was WITH undemocratic show-of-hands votes and only allowing the DPP to speak for three minutes at a time, one speaker per article.

Today's third reading took less than an hour.

Furthermore, some legislators allege that there were changes made to the wording of the bill before they even had time to read it. They were voting on something they hadn't read.

What does the KMT want to do with these new powers?

A big part of this is about political theatre, which is a huge part of Taiwanese politics, and humiliation. It's also important to note the discussion that has been going on about how it will not be necessary to have a lawyer present to answer questions.

KMT leadership has already announced plans to establish a "special investigative unit" to deal with fraud from the DPP, basically punishing their enemies. First on their list will be officials from the most recent presidential administration, but the extent of their aims is unclear since they frequently use "fraud" as an explanation for things they don't like. They claimed, for example, that the tens of thousands of protestors showing up in front of the legislature lately were hired by the DPP.

The KMT has also tonight called for the abolishment of the Control Yuan, one of the five branches of government in Taiwan, demonstrating their willingness to dismantle the system of checks and balances keeping Taiwan's democracy in place.

The president can't veto, so what happens next?

For now it seems that the protests will continue. 30,000 protestors showed up outside the legislature last Tuesday, 100,000 last Friday, and 70,000 today. This coincides with growing actions in many other cities around the country.

This bill has been publicly condemned by over one hundred legal scholars and also the Control Yuan.

The next options now are:

The Executive Yuan has ten days to basically send the bill back to the legislature. At that point the LY could vote to uphold the bill within 15 days and then it pretty much would have to be law.

More feasible at present would be to go in the constitutional direction. The Constitutional Court could review the law, suspending it in the process before their decision is announced.

A referendum could be held to repeal the law. This would be time- and resource-consuming but it would be an option. It's hard to say if it would pass because the people would overall vote to repeal but the KMT has a lot of influence with powerful families and gangsters, so it's not for sure what the votes would say.

The point is there are still options! The Bluebird Movement now is going to start focusing on more local actions, and we'll have to see what those will be.

Why don't we just occupy the Legislative Yuan? It worked for the Sunflower Movement in 2014.

While it seems direct action may now be necessary, that wouldn't work again. A huge reason the LY occupation was successful in Sunflower was because the people in charge of the LY didn't let police in. Under current leadership that... almost certainly wouldn't happen. Think back to the attempt to occupy the Executive Yuan in that same movement and how it brought out the most devastating use of police force sense the martial law period.

Any occupation likely to take place would probably just be the continued presence of protestors outside of the legislature like we've been seeing.

We'll have to see what action is called for in the future. There's still hope for now!

This is a developing story, but one thing I urge as the Bluebird Movement continues to gather steam and garner more international attention: Be careful of misinformation! Try to read sources from inside Taiwan!

Further Reading for Now

Taiwan's legislature passes major reforms amidst controversy (TVBS)

[thistransient]

台灣夢 - 藝術家李文政