Has anyone seen the free-zine put out by Taipei City Government? It is very interesting and informative I find. Looks like the city wants to eek into the crowded English publishing business here in Taiwan.
Anyone know if this is still being printed and if so where to pick one up?
Once in a while, I stumble about it in MRT stations. There is a November-December 2002 issue, so it’s still in print.
Topics:
The Ideal City Seminars
A Liveable City - Public Security and Environmental Protection in Taipei
Australia at the zoo
Taiwan’s North Coast - Coasting along the Pristine Coast
I especially like their pieces on historical architecture.
HTH
Iris
Here: www.doi.taipei.gov.tw/enews/pub/contents.asp
I find the magazine sometimes interesting but just as often painful to read. Even looking at it can be unpleasant, because it suffers from some particularly horrible typography.
That piece in the latest issue on the Japanese architectural presence in Taipei was – here’s a word I fortunately don’t get to use very often – twee. I think the author must have been poisoned by writing too many articles for children’s English magazines. Who on earth do the editors of Discover Taipei think their target audience is? Middle-school Taiwanese? Take out the repetition and cutesy-wutesy fluff and very, very little is left of that piece. That’s true of too many things in that issue.
And I haven’t even started on the copyediting…
Sorry, can’t answer your question. But on on similar line, I am curious about the target readership of Sinorama and Taipei Review. I like to support local English-language publications but I’m finding less and less of interest in those magazines. I remember slagging Taichung’s Compass magazine to one of the editors, particularly a column called Kathy’s Corner, and he came back with the argument that 95% of the readers were Taiwanese.
It’s clear the target audience of the English language newspapers is the local audience, so perhaps this is another example of that ?
Just one small problem with the target audience being locals: they can’t understand the English well enough. From my experience of Taiwanese co-workers (that is fellow English teachers) I can say that the vast majority can’t understand English-language newspapers and magazines to a level that would make it worthwhile. (Of course Sinorama is a bilingual mag, so I’m not using it as an example)
[quote=“cranky laowai”]
I find the magazine sometimes interesting but just as often painful to read. Even looking at it can be unpleasant, because it suffers from some particularly horrible typography.
That piece in the latest issue on the Japanese architectural presence in Taipei was – here’s a word I fortunately don’t get to use very often – twee. [/quote]
Now that you mention it, I was wondering what “twee” meant or rather if the term existed at all.
But more often than not, I’m too lazy to read through all the text and simply scan the articles for info, like on interesting buildings I don’t know yet etc.
Btw, you can subscribe for 180 NT$/year.
Iris
Well, a lot of the local staff at one of my previous employers (a bank) bought the English papers, and the tiny amount of foreign readers wouldn’t support three English dailies.
Hexuan,
I know some Taiwanese buy English-language papers. However, there’s a big difference between buying something, and reading and understanding it.
The Taiwanese don’t buy English language newsapapers to “understand” them. They buy them to be seen reading them. Neither I nor any of the editors of such newspapers care whether they understand them. What matters is that they buy them.
Thanks iris and cranky for the replies and the link!!!
From the website:
“TIn a high-pressure society, people eat outside more often and as the economic recession forces labors to work harder and longer, more and more people have fat problem.”
Is the magazine Chinglish too?