Potpourri: A Terrible Law, Taiwanese Comics and Children's Books, and a Parade in Dadaocheng

Plus: Book club details on Andrea Lee's Red Island House.

Hello dear friends, dear readers,

Once again, we’re sorry for being out of touch. (We’ve paused payments for four months, as we feel guilty taking money from paid subscribers, but we’ll continue to be in touch every other week.) We’ve been really overwhelmed. Almost immediately after no-longer-a-baby P. recovered from the enterovirus, a series of typhoon days were preemptively called by the Taipei city government due to Typhoon Krathon, which was categorized as a “super typhoon,” whipping up winds of up to 245 kph. The typhoon made landfall in the south of the island on a Wednesday, but it had a mind of its own and slowed to a crawl. The cities in the south all called days off, leaving mayors in northern cities in something of a pickle: should they call a typhoon day or not? The northern mayors decided to call a typhoon day early, even though the storm’s eye was still far off. Across the island, parents with school-age children collectively groaned, as we lost another week of childcare.