CFP: Special issue, Asian Journal of Communication

Asian Journal of Communication

Call for Papers

Special Issue Editors:

Chingching Chang, Ph.D., Department of Advertising, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan
Ven-hwei Lo, Ph.D., Department of Journalism, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan

Title of the Special Issue:
Internet vs. Traditional Media: Influences on Political Attitudes and Behaviors

Exposure to mass media constructs our view of the world and shapes our political attitudes. Early research has demonstrated the influences of traditional media on different aspects of social and political life. As the Internet penetration rate reaches 50% in many Asian countries, and Internet use displaces time for traditional media, it is important to understand the role that Internet use plays in shaping our world views or political attitudes. The special issue will focus on the influences of the Internet use or compare the influences of the Internet and traditional media in political arenas. Manuscripts submitted for the special issue should compare such influences as (but are not limited to):

• political knowledge
• issue learning in elections
• political attitudes
• political participation
• political efficacy, trust, and alienation
• political mobilization
• social capital
• civic engagement
• public opinions
• agenda setting
  

Submission Information:

Deadline for Submission: 31st December, 2006. Submitted manuscripts should follow the format as indicated in the Submission Guidelines on the Journal website (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/rajcauth.asp). The manuscript should be prepared in Microsoft Word format. The names, affiliations, and contact information (i.e., phone, fax, email addresses) of all authors should be provided on the cover page only. The author(s) should not be identified elsewhere in the manuscript. Submitted papers will undergo a double-blind review. Authors may submit completed manuscripts electronically at any time prior to the deadline, 31st December, 2006. Manuscripts and any questions should be directed to:

Chingching Chang, Ph.D.
Department of Advertising
National Chengchi University
e-mail: shenccchang [at] yahoo.com.tw
Tel: + (02) 29393091 ext. 88144
Fax: + (02) 27605662

Ven-hwei Lo, Ph.D.
Department of Journalism
National Chengchi University
e-mail: loven [at] nccu.edu.tw
Tel: + (02) 29393091 ext. 67075
Fax: + (02) 29382063

(Hope some folks from Taiwan will submit manuscripts!)

Dr Pepper update, and a theory about macaroni and shui jiao

Since, judging from comments, my most popular posts are about either donuts or Dr Pepper, I present this update for your examination.

This morning we took Tim Maddog's advice and headed down (over?) to Mei Chen Siang to get ourselves some Dr Pepper (a.k.a. "nectar of the gods").

Mei Chen Siang is a bakery/import store located in one of the older sections of downtown Taichung. You can see some interesting old architecture in that area. Next time I go down there I'm going to go spelunking down some of those old alleys. And I'll bring a camera with me, of course. (The former native Chinese speaker says I must have lived in Taichung in a past life. Maybe I'm looking for "my" old home?)

Anyway, we got the Dr Pepper. I bought only one six-pack as a way to force myself to enjoy each can (and also so I have an excuse to go back again...). Also bought some other goodies like Pop-Tarts and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Every time I see a box of macaroni and cheese I remember something said by a friend from my days at Feng Chia University. I won't mention her name, but her first name starts with an "H". (hee hee) We used to eat shui jiao (水餃) a lot back then at a place near the university. Then one day after she had eaten some macaroni and cheese that she'd bought at Mei Chen Siang, H made an observation to the effect that although shui jiao and macaroni are both delicious, after you eat shui jiao you tend to want to brush your teeth right away. (Anyone who's ever been stuck in a car with me when I've burped after eating shui jiao will agree with that. [ewwwww...].) But, H continued, after you eat macaroni and cheese you don't want to brush your teeth right away because you want to experience that flavor longer.

I don't know if H still holds to that opinion, but I've found that it pretty accurately matches my experience. But I want to test it again soon.

(If I don't post again, it's probably because H has killed me...)

[Update: I am still alive. Just wanted to mention the joy I just had eating some canned ravioli. And don't try to scare me by telling me what's in that stuff. Remember Homer Simpson's reaction to Marge's comment that the dog's food was "mostly snouts and entrails": "Mmmmmm... snouts..."]

"What Your Freshmen Don't Know"

Inside Higher Ed has posted Beloit College's annual list of what first-year college students do and don't know about the world. As a public service to faculty members in Taiwan, I'm posting the ones that seem most relevant to our context. Please add more Taiwan-specific items in the comments.

1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union. [Do schools in Taiwan even have student unions?]
2. They have known only two presidents. [But that could be said about almost any generation of college freshmen in Taiwan...]
3. There has always been only one Germany.
4. They are wireless, yet always connected.
5. They grew up with and have outgrown faxing as a means of communication.
6. "Google" has always been a verb. [This one is a stretch... but I liked it.]
7. Text messaging is their e-mail. [IM is, too.]
8. Young women's fashions have never been concerned with where the waist is. [Actually, I'm not sure about this one...]
9. They have rarely mailed anything using a stamp.
10. Being techno-savvy has always been inversely proportional to age.
11. They have always been able to watch wars and revolutions live on television. [Except that TV news here seems mainly concerned with the scandals of entertainers and presidential families.]
12. They have always had access to their own credit cards. [Possibly. And cell phones, too!]
13. Acura, Lexus, and Infiniti have always been luxury cars of choice. [At least Lexus.]
14. ...

I await your additions (either English or Chinese are fine) with gleeful anticipation.

Things and memories and memories and things

I've been moving to a new office lately, in the process (almost literally) unearthing various pictures, notes, papers that students never came to pick up (ahem!), cards given or sent to me on Teacher's Day or Christmas. I even found one huge card that students gave me on my birthday 11 years ago. (I'm not sure how they knew when my birthday was--it's not like department stores hold sales on that day or anything.)

I don't seem to be willing to throw anything away, for fear of forgetting people or forgetting the feelings associated with those things. I remember when I moved to the US I had to throw away a pair of shoes that one of my FENM classes gave me for Christmas in 1993 (that had to be about the oddest gift I've ever received from students). They bought the shoes after asking me about my shoe size (I figured they were just curious, since I have big "foreigner feet"). Unfortunately, the shoes didn't fit very well and were uncomfortable to wear, so I didn't get much use out of them. I kept them for almost 6 years, though, as if I expected to be able to wear them some day, or as if I were afraid some day I'd run into one of those students and they'd ask about the shoes. Or that by throwing something away, I'd be throwing someone away. (The shoes thing proves it--I don't remember any of those students' names.)

I seem to have inherited this from my parents--my mother, at least. She has boxes and boxes of letters, Christmas cards, birthday cards, etc. that she has saved over the years. Now that my parents are at an age where they're thinking about what they'll leave behind to my brother and me, my mother mentioned that she was thinking of throwing away all those letters. My brother's and my responses (not surprisingly) were "Don't!" So one of these days (if the world doesn't end first) I'll have even more things and memories on my hands.

My research also relies on memories, and things, and memories of things. Using archival documents and interviewing people about events that happened to them 30, 40, 50 years ago involve a lot of work with memories. I'm constantly presenting to someone something they wrote long ago, hoping to get a glimpse of what they remember about how and why they wrote it. I always get answers that are helpful, even when the person says, "I wrote that?!"

But working with those people and materials (whether they're archival documents or the letters my mother has kept) also gives me a sad feeling sometimes--kind of an awareness of mortality and of how lives can go in completely different directions from what people expected when they were younger and perhaps more idealistic. To quote one of my interviewees, "The worst part about time isn't growing old, it's the increasing distance from experiences and emotions that have been so important in shaping one's life. The power and intensity fade, and you're left with so little you can put your finger on." Maybe that's another reason I keep all those old things from my own past. They connect me with that other me.

Hole-y draft! (Or drafty ...)

Just sent my diss. advisor 60 pages of Swiss Cheese. Time for bed.

Guess I'll have to stop drinking Pepsi for a while...

...at least until they get these pictures of Rain off the cans. I'm afraid my 渴望 isn't 突破ed by his presence. (Bleah!)


Where'd all the Dr. Pepper in this town go, by the way? Someone at Finga's told me they couldn't import it anymore...

Going crazy...

For the past two weeks, workers in the apartment downstairs have been knocking out walls, drilling into concrete, and doing whatever else they can do to make as much noise as possible. It's not only driving me absolutely insane, but it's also got me worried that some day we're going to wake up in the morning and find ourselves in the basement. Grrrrr...

Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the chemicals they're spraying down there. Paint? Paint remover? I don't know... For some reason, though, it reminds me of "The Cloud Minders" from Star Trek...

[Update, Sep. 5: They're still doing work--hammering, sawing, drilling, shouting, smoking, all as loudly as they can. I hear they'll only be doing it for 10 more days, though...]

New ICC course blog stimulates thoughts and a request for help

I never took a course is newswriting, so pardon my headline.

I've been working on moving my Intercultural Communication course's website/blog/whatchamacallit to its new home here. In addition, I've been working on lining up new online exchange partners, since my previous partner has moved on. I've ordered the new textbook, Communication Between Cultures, and am working out the course schedule.

In light of recent events in the world, though, I've been having some dark Apocalyptic thoughts that question what possible good a little course like ICC can do in the world. I'm going to resist being overwhelmed by those kinds of thoughts, but suffice it to say that this semester's course will be a darker, leaner ICC--sort of a Spider-Man 3 of ICC courses. (Hmmm... that'll have people scratching their heads...)

Anyway, I'm somewhat happy with the new site (and a prospective student has already pronounced it "more fabulous", so it can't be that bad). But I have been working, in my own low-tech way, on putting the posts on the ICC blog into categories, and I have a couple of questions. I'm not particularly confident with the way in which I'm tagging the posts--the descriptor choices, the number of categories I'm putting each post into, the (growing) total number of categories... So my question is, when you're tagging posts to put them into categories, how do you decide these things (descriptors, number of categories, number of total categories)? Or, is there some sort of website someone can direct me to, kind of a "Tagging for Dummies" that would give me some pointers? Thanks...

A new book in the former native speaker's library

To get my mind off Mei-mei, let me mention a new book that I just received the other day.

• The Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters, by Frances Stonor Saunders (NY: New Press, 1999).
  This was originally published in the UK as Who Paid the Piper? I just started reading it, and so far it's pretty interesting. It traces the history of the CIA's involvement in the ideological war against the Communists during the Cold War. Its focus appears to be mainly on the Cold War in Europe.
  

[books] [Cold War] [Frances Stonor Saunders]

Just had to post this...

I was up late last night looking through our pictures of Mei-mei. Every once in a while I'd let out a laugh and tell Mei-mei's "mom" to stop in and check out a particularly funny one.

Here's one from 2004 that we thought was cute--Mei-mei's either giving me a kiss or trying to tell me a secret. (Or maybe she's trying to help me clean my ears.)


I was up until about 3:00 trying to post it, but our Internet connection wasn't being very cooperative. But here it is, finally.

[Update: A friend says this picture reminds her of "Beauty and the Beast", but she's not sure which is which...]

Mei-mei (妹妹), 1994-2006

Some more pictures of Mei-mei

Mei-mei passed away today at about 3:00 p.m. after complications from diabetes. She taught us a lot about living and dying, and we're sure she's in a better place now.

愛情故事

Tomorrow is Chinese Lovers' Day, so it seems appropriate to resurrect a story that I wrote--with lots of help from the former native Chinese speaker--for a Chinese class that I took during the summer of 1996. My teacher asked us to write some sentences using Chinese idiomatic phrases (成語) that we had learned in the course, but I decided to write a story instead. Any mistakes in grammar or usage are mine!

每年一到七夕，人們成雙成對上街，情人濃情密意地赴約會，卿卿我我。而我每年七夕有自己的習慣：身上穿著黑衣服，臉上帶著憔悴的表情，晚上七點睡覺。

今年七夕也不例外：電視新聞的播報員一開始眉開眼笑地報告有關台灣貪官污吏搜刮人民財產的事情，我就生氣的關了電視、關了燈，並上床睡覺。可是，我在床上輾轉反側，無法入眠；千頭萬緒，環繞我心。

想起我的老母常常苦口婆心地對我說：「兒子，我以我這輩子最寶貴的經驗告訴你，你如果覺得煩惱，無法接受世界快速變遷的話，你就去夜市走走，因為，夜市反映了人生百態。千萬記得，可別光說不練！」

母親的啟示讓我怦然心動，所以我就到了夜市。到了夜市之後，我遇到了一位和尚，他手上拿著一個缽。我丟了一個十塊錢的銅板進去。和尚對我說：「祝您多子多孫多福壽，生意昌隆。」我問他這句話有甚麼涵義，他說，就是祝我能有很多的子孫。我告訴他說，世界那麼亂，社會形態瞬息萬變，我不想有孩子。和尚說，我的話是大逆不道的，生孩子就是一件理所當然的事。古人說：「不孝有三，無後為大。」然後，我罵他是個墨守成規的老頭子。之後，我們就吵得天翻地覆，不可開交。最後，我把我的十塊錢從他的缽中拿回來。

其實，我是想用那十塊錢去買隔壁攤子的木瓜牛奶。我問賣木瓜牛奶的小姐說：「妳認識那位和尚嗎？」她說：「認識。他常常來夜市跟市民講道。他非常關心世界大問題，尤其是政府勞民傷財的情況。」我跟她說，他好像要以增加人口數量來救世濟民。她說：「他是個言行合一的人，已經有好幾個孩子了！」

我常常回去夜市幫那位賣木瓜牛奶的小姐，我們分工合作：她賣木瓜，我賣牛奶。雖然生意不是很好，但是我們兩個很談得來。不久之後，我們便結婚了。

P.S. The former native Chinese speaker wants everyone to know that she never sold papaya milkshakes at the night market. ;-)

Something of an update

Still working on the diss. Have been working on a chapter that I intended to send to my advisor this weekend. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to (in the words of my high school classmate Dwight) "aggregate my fecal matter". (Dwight is, I imagine, a high-powered lawyer by now. He'll probably sue me for quoting him here.) So the chapter will take a little longer to get together. I can probably focus more on it during this typhoon that will hit us this week.

Saying goodbye to friends

Just saw off my friend and colleague Michael Jacques at the bus station. Didn't get mushy or anything, but I hope he and Karen (and Henry!) know that I'll miss them a lot. Although it's easy to stay in touch through e-mail, Skype, etc., their leaving Tunghai/Taiwan still feels so ... permanent.

Best of luck in your new lives (back) in the States! (And by the way, Karen's got a book of translations of Zhang Ailing novellas coming out in October. You can preorder at Amazon ;) ...)

Bilis coming for a visit... and a weird dream...

Here's how it looks as of midnight 7/13...


Click here for a more up-to-date satellite image from the Central Weather Bureau.

In other news, I had a disturbing dream last night: Our department received official notification that because of an oversupply of university graduates and a worsening economy, English majors who graduated in the bottom third of their class were to be executed on the athletic field immediately following the graduation ceremony. The most frightening thing about the dream was how calmly everybody (including the graduating students) was taking the news. Students just said, "Wow--I hope it's not me..."

Open Call for Proposals: Writing Research Across Borders

Hoping we can get some representatives from Taiwan to go...

Open Call for Proposals: Writing Research Across Borders
February 22-24, 2008
University of California Santa Barbara

Conference website; http://education.ucsb.edu/netshare/wrconf08/

Proposal Deadline: May 1, 2007
Email: writing@education.ucsb.edu

Recent decades have seen the growth of writing studies in many nations, focused on all levels of education, and all uses of writing in society, using the resources of many different disciplines. This increased research attention to writing reflects an increased recognition of the importance of writing in modern societies. Yet to a large extent the many emerging traditions of writing research have neither connected fully nor shared their work.

This conference brings together the many writing researchers from around the world, drawing on all disciplines, and focused on all aspects of writing at all levels of development and in all segments of society. This will be an opportunity to learn from different research traditions, share our findings, seek common agendas, and lay the groundwork for future communication and alliances.

As a first step to building this important conversation we have invited some of the leading writing researchers, and those listed at the bottom of this call have already committed to participating.

We are now issuing an open call for proposals for panels, roundtables, individual presentations, and poster presentations addressing

* current research on writing,
* methodological issues
* reflections on ongoing research programs
* considerations of national or disciplinary trajectories of research
* agendas for further research

We anticipate a program of up to two hundred and fifty presentations.

Proposals to present current research should specify research questions, methods, data corpus, and findings, as well as the scope and duration of the research project. Proposals to provide overviews of and reflections on research traditions and agendas should identify clearly the relevant literatures to be considered.

Proposals for individual and poster presentations should be from 250 to 500 words in length and panel and roundtable proposals, 500 to 1000 words. Please indicate your preferred format.

Proposals should be sent by May 1, 2007 via email to writing@education.ucsb.edu. Please include complete contact information.

For further information please visit our conference website:
http://education.ucsb.edu/netshare/wrconf08/
If you have any questions contact us at writing@education.ucsb.edu

INVITED SPEAKERS already committed to participating:

Paula Carlino, Argentina, University of Buenos Aires
Caroline Channock, Australia, Latrobe
Rosemary Clerehan, Australia, Monash University
Luuk van Waes, Belgium, University of Antwerp
Angela Dionisio, Brazil, UFP, Recife
Angela Kleiman, Brazil, Unicamp-Sao Paulo
Marilyn Chapman, Canada, University of British Columbia
Graham Smart, Canada, Carleton University
Denis Alamargot, France, University of Poitiers
Michel Fayol, France, University Blaise Pascal
Frederic Francoise, France, Universit� de Paris V
Annie Piolat, France, University de Provence
Sylvie Plane, France, IUF de Paris
Yves Reuter, France, Universit� Lille
Joachim Grabowski, Germany, University of Education, Heidelberg, Germany
Pietro Boscolo, Italy, University of Padua
Emilia Ferreiro, Mexico, National Polytechnic Institute
Gert Rijlarsdam, Netherlands, University of Amsterdam
Lisa Emerson, New Zealand, Massey University
Olga Dysthe, Norway, University of Bergen
Rochelle Kapp, South Africa, University of Cape Town
Liliana Tolchinsky, Spain, University of Barcelona
Linda Allal, Switzerland, Universite de Geneve
Otto Kruse, Switzerland, University of Applied Sciences Erfurt, Switzerland
David Galbraith, UK, University of Staffordshire
Ken Hyland, UK, University of London
Roz Ivanic, UK, Lancaster University
Theresa Lillis, UK, Open University
Brian Street, UK, Kings College- London
Mark Torrance, UK, University of Staffordshire
Arnetha Ball, USA, Stanford University
Charles Bazerman, USA, University of California Santa Barbara
Anne Beaufort, USA, SUNY Stony Brook
Carol Berkenkotter, USA, University of Minnesota
Virginia Berninger, USA, University of Washington
Sheridan Blau, USA, University of California Santa Barbara
Ulla Connor, USA, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
Christiane Donahue, USA, University of Maine, Farmington
Ann Dyson, USA, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Jill Fitzgerald, USA, University North Carolina Chapel Hill
Steve Graham, USA, Vanderbilt
Kris Gutierrez, USA, University of California Los Angeles
Christina Haas, USA, Kent State University
Richard Haswell, USA, TAMU Corpus Christi
John R. Hayes, USA, Carnegie Mellon University
George Hillocks, USA, University of Chicago
Tom Huckin, USA, University of Utah
Susan Jarratt, USA, University of California Irvine
Ilona Leki, USA, University of Tennessee
Paul LeMahieu, USA, University of California Berkeley
Andrea Lunsford, USA, Stanford University
Karen Lunsford, USA, University of California Santa Barbara
Charles MacArthur, USA, University of Delaware
Paul Matsuda, USA, University of New Hampshire
Debra McCutcheon, USA, University of Washington
Heidi McKee, USA, Miami University
Sandy Murphy, USA, UC Davis
Bill Nagy, USA, Seattle Pacific University
Sondra Perl, USA, CUNY Graduate Center
Jim Porter, USA, Michigan State University
Paul Prior, USA, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
David Russell, USA, State University
Rebecca Rickly, USA, Texas Technological University
Tony Silva, USA, Purdue University
Peter Smagorinsky, USA, University of Georgia
Melanie Sperling, USA, University of California Riverside
Clay Spinuzzi, USA, University of Texas Austin
John Swales, USA, University of Michigan
Chris Thaiss, USA, University of California Davis
Gary Troia, USA, Michigan State University
Kathleen Blake Yancey, USA, Florida State University

Summer vacation begins

Just turned in my final grades, so that means the get back to the Big D on a fulltime basis season begins. Big D also means "Big Deadline" looming, so there'll be at most about 2 posts coming out of here this summer (probably around the end of July, if anyone cares). I'll still check my e-mail, but only once or so a day. Wish me luck!

[Update: OK, so I lied about the "2 posts". There might be a few more than that.]

Vacation

I won't be posting here for a while. I also intend (with help) to cut back drastically on my other online activities. I have some offline priorities that I need to make priorities again.

Have a good summer if you're in the northern hemisphere or winter if you're in the south! Be good to yourself!

Land of a million Britneys

Sorry, but my reference here is to how Britney drove around with her baby in her lap instead of in a safety seat.

In Taiwan, as Michael Turton illustrates (literally), we have thousands--possibly millions?--of parents who neglect their children's safety by carrying them "unhelmeted" around town on motorcycles or scooters. Michael's next project should be to photograph parents who don't put their kids in child safety seats. I don't know how many kids I've seen bouncing around in the front seats of cars or sticking their heads out of the sun roofs of Benzes...

Update: Taiwanonymous, coincidentally, also blogs about traffic problems in Taiwan: "Road Rage Scooter Style".

Five new books in the former native speaker's library

(Warning: mixed romanization follows. Proceed with caution.)

After our interesting non-vegetarian meal, the former native Chinese speaker and I wandered up to the 18th floor of Sogo, where there was in progress a large book sale benefitting the Cheng Feng Hsi Cultural and Educational Fund (鄭豐喜文化教育基金會). The fund is named after Cheng Feng Hsi, a famous writer who was born with severely handicapped legs. Despite the hardships of being disabled and poor, he graduated from National Chung Hsing University and returned to his native village to teach. He also wrote a best-selling book, A Boat on the Boundless Ocean (汪洋中的一條船). After Cheng succumbed to liver cancer at the age of 31 in 1975, his widow Wu Chi-chao (吳繼釗) started a foundation for helping the disabled and poor. (The book sale at Sogo goes until June 11, by the way. Books were donated by area bookstores and are on sale for half the cover price.)

OK--the books I bought are:

• Photographs of Taiwan During the 1960's (六十年代台灣攝影圖像), by Ellen Johnston Laing (藝術家出版社, 2002).
  This book has a nice bilingual introduction in which Laing describes her life in Taiwan during the early 1960s. She had received a Fulbright to study Chinese language and art in Taiwan, and she lived in Taipei and Taichung. While in Taichung, she and her husband Richard lived in an old Japanese-style house on a lane off Minquan Road and she took the bus to Tunghai to study Chinese. She also went to the pre-Taipei National Palace Museum, which she describes as "a few unpretentious buildings nestled below the foothills outside Wu-feng and guarded by military police" (26-7). This book has some wonderful pictures of her house and 1960s Taichung. By the way, its "intended" English title seems to be Photographs of Bygone Taiwan: Taiwan in the 1960s, but it's also (mysteriously) titled Photography of Taiwan During the 1960s on the National Library stamp in the back of the book.
  
  
• 台灣五大家族 (Taiwan's Rich and Powerful Families: The Old Monies), by Sima Xiaoqing (司馬嘨青) (玉山社, 2000).
  This book introduces the Yans of Keelung, the Lins of Banqiao, the Lins of Wufeng, the Gus of Lugang, and the Chens of Kaohsiung.
  
  
• 阿樺:台灣建國烈士詹益樺紀念專書 (Ah-Hua: A Book Commemorating Chan Yi-hua, Martyr for the Cause of Building the Taiwanese Nation), ed. Zeng Xinyi (曾心儀) (editor, 1989)
  Chan Yi-hua committed suicide by self-immolation on May 19, 1989, during a funeral procession for Cheng Nan-jung, a pro-independence journalist who also committed self-immolation when police tried to arrest him for sedition. (More information on this is available in this issue (PDF) of the pro-independence Taiwan Communique. There's also an article available here.)
  
  
• 台灣歷史年表:終戰篇 I (1945-1965) (A Chronology of Taiwan History: 1945-1965), chief ed. Xue Huayuan (薛化元) (Institute for National Policy Research, 1993)
• 台灣歷史年表:終戰篇 II (1966-1978) chief ed. Xue Huayuan (薛化元) (Institute for National Policy Research, 1994)
  These two volumes list major political, economic, social, and international events that affected Taiwan. They also cite contemporary newspaper and magazine articles that covered those events.

All in all, the five books cost me less than the cover price of the last two books. Not a bad deal.

[books] [Taiwan] [Taiwan history]