Reminiscing about Taiwan. Care to join?

That reminds me to remind you to please support me on Patreon! :money_mouth_face: lol

Regarding AI: screw those thieving pirates! We need more, not fewer, authentic voices in our lives, now perhaps more than ever.

Guy

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I think that didn’t start happening until the 2010s.

In 2009, China allowed 33 Taiwanese TV programs to be broadcasted in China. Then they tighted their grip. By 2013, only 3 TV programs produced in Taiwan were allowed to be shown in China. Btw, Ma and the KMT were still in power in 2013, so China doesn’t care who is in charge.

Prior to 2013, even though Taiwanese celebrities were starting to make money in China, they mostly go to China for events, and produced TV shows in Taiwan. Taiwan was popular cultural center of the Mandarin speaking world. Most Mandarin popular music, idol romantic comedies, variety shows, and movies were made right here in Taiwan.

When China clamped down on allowing Taiwanese shows to be shown in China, most of the shows in Taiwan stopped and reproduced the same shows in China, often with many of the original Taiwanese hosts.

Then in 2018, celebrties from Taiwan are banned from hosting new shows. So only a few celebrities that were already hosting existing shows from the 2010s gets to keep their careers in China alive.

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I would agree to a certain extent . There was Jay Chou, SHE then Wang lee Hong phenomenon later on etc. They ended up spending more and more time in China as we moved thru the 2000s so eventually they would barely appear on Taiwanese tv at all.
But I think Taiwanese actors and directors started going over in the 2000s. And of course business and Taiwanese managers flocked there en masse.

2013 was when Winnie the Pooh came to power. China tightened its grip on a lot of things. Prior to that, it was actually liberalizing slightly.

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Oh? But what if nobody wanted to wastch them anymore was the case vs banning

Bec ken chu still goes to west taiwan to sing

I agree with your general description of the phenomenon, just think your timeline is not accurate. For example, Jay Chow was hosting his own variety show in Taiwan in the 2010s. When he became a coach on the Voice of China, that’s when he shifted all his TV apperences to China. That didn’t happen until 2018.

Really ? I’m surprised about that …didn’t notice him much in the 2010s here. A lot of them were spending most of their time in China by then. They wouldn’t sing at the new years eve parties here for instance. Anyway, I guess this is getting away from the purpose of the thread.

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From what I can find, the first New Year’s eve concert in China that Jay Chow participated in was the one in Nanjing in 2015, after 2013.

Back to being nostalgic, here’s a list of performers for the 2009’s Taipei New Years concert.

Sodagreen, A-mei, Mayday, S.H.E, M.C. Hotdog, Fish Leong, Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰), 陳綺貞, 叮噹, 盧廣仲, 參劈 強辯, 大嘴巴, 頑童.

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Goodbye Dragon Inn was an odd film, but it was dramatic in its non action.

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back in the 60s in Taiwan mom would take me and a few of my friends to see movies in hsimenting. That was always a treat. Even if it was just me and mom and my sister. Sibling rivalry was real in those days. ha.And usually followed with me sleeping in the taxi on the way home. My sister even took me to a few movies on her own (she being 8 years older than me) but I would often fall asleep in the movie itself. One I can remember was Is Paris Burning? Then often my buds and I would look at the newspaper to see what was playing? Remember those days? You actually looked at the movie page in local papers to see what was playing and where and the movie times. NO Fandango in those days.

Later in the 70s I remember going to movies with a GF and they were about 65nt for students (the student id card was gold), later going up to 80nt. Remember the long lines to buy a ticket for popular movies? They went on sale as soon as the last showing started for the next showing. So the trick was to get tickets then go off to a cafe or wander around hsimenting until time for the movie to start. I often bought a 50nt pack of beef jerky from HsinTungYang (the best) and some caramel popcorn and a coke each for me and my girl in the theater itself. Prices were cheap like 15nt for a can of coke and same for popcorn. All in that was still less than 200nt.

set lunches in many cafes were 60 nt or so and usually included a soup, and/or salad and the main course and a piece of watermelon or a cake and a demitasse of coffee. Dinner sets ran 100 to 130nt ish. And were more substantial. Taxi rides for most rides were less than 30nt. A long ride would be 60nt. Those were the days.

Let me see if I can dig up some old pics and post them here. standby

these are 70s prices, the 80s the prices went up but were still very reasonable really.

this may actually be the last time sis took me to a movie since I was bad company and just slept all the way thru the movie. I remember the movie starting and then nothing until she woke me up when it was over. Did anyone see this film? Should I find it somewhere and see it if available?

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I remember all the hsu chi pics back in the good old days…

U know before all the surgeries

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711 tea eggs. that smell WAS Taiwan when i first arrived. When was the last time you noticed it in a convenience store?

it’s not often, but when it hits, it’s like being in the quad room at Formosa hostel again. memories flood back in.

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Military police with rifles standing guard on the bridges between Taipei City and Taipei County, and also riding around the city in unmarked dark sedans, four to a car, in full uniform with their shiny chrome helmets, looking for…what? Communist spies? The giant characters in front of the Presidential Office optimistically declaring, “retake the mainland,” signs of the thriving underground economy everywhere, like door after door with no handle and shady touts out front waiting to buzz the right people in for gambling and other illegal pleasures, and that distinctive smell that I noticed every time after returning from overseas but quickly adjusted to…a heady mix of raw sewage, two-stroke fumes and betel nut juice, splattered on the sidewalks like fresh crime scenes…

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What happened to this anyway?

The characters got retook.

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Them was the good old days !!
Taiwan and the world has lost a lot of character to become today’s world where every major city becomes more the same and the people more of the same

Everyone carrying a cellphone and the cars are much sameness (except now America doesn’t have all those great Chinese electric cars).

I imagine people from 100 years ago had even greater differences between countries and cultures tho.

Maybe in a hundred years we humans will become even more of a sameness and all speak the same language even ….Chinese !

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Imagine a buncha us forumosans launched into space and frozen then coming back in a hundred years like Dr Evil and finding out ‘western’ Movie actors and actresses all spoke fluent mandarin as their native language and English was taught in schools as a language akin to Latin ?

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Does it now seem like we were living in a movie set ? Those of us that were young in the 70s and 80s? A lot of our experiences could be a movie ?

Picture (pun intended) young Tommy in 1980 after having his first trip out of Taiwan to the USA in 79 and itching for more foreign travel running into an American guy in his fave cafe in Taipei playing PacMan and cussing in Taiwanese

Becoming fast friends and talked into a ‘monkey run’ joining Malaysian runners doing the circuit….smuggling luxury goods into Korea ….did it once won’t do it again ….details later gotta go to work

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