Not Your Model Colony: a guest essay by Esther Kim

Plus, cultural and human rights events in Taiwan

Dear all,

We have a special treat for you this week: a guest essay by Esther Kim, a writer who moved to Taiwan last year. Her funny and wise piece looks closely at something that bewilders many visitors here: Taiwanese nostalgia for Japanese colonialism. From the scrupulous preservation of Japanese architecture to women who dress in kimonos, the experience is particularly alienating for people of Korean descent. (In sharp contrast, the Koreans took a literal wrecking ball to a government building built by the Japanese.) If you’re new to Esther’s work, we also recommend checking out her beautiful essay on the “compulsion to grow something, a new life, even a sprout, in the face of death,” as well as her meditation on Younghill Kang and her newsletter about events in Asia. We’re delighted to share her work here.

Also, Michelle recently wrote a piece for the Paris Review Daily about the re-release of City of Sadness, a film that describes the inherent worth of preserving a free mind amid …