I read less than last year (which was a record), this time at over 34,000 pages – 140 + books. But that was more than in 2023.
As usual, lots of manga and superhero comics. Which is kind of cheating, admittedly. There were rereads of Grant Morrison’s DC and Jim Starlin’s Marvel work, lots of Daredevil in anticipation of the show this year, Chris Claremont’s X-Men through the ages, and Star Wars comics on Marvel Unlimited. And read all of Dandadan. Several high-brow indie comics in there as well.
Science fiction: the last two Expanse books, the Foundation trilogy–because of the show, several Neal Stephensons including Master of Revels the sequel to Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O. Also reread Robert Anton Wilson, and his excellent biography Chapel Perilous.
The biggest feat was definitely the six months of reading War & Peace. Got some more good literary fiction here and there too. My favorite of all might be the brilliant Power Fantasy graphic novel by my new favorite writer Kieron Gillen, and my favorite (nonfiction) audiobook was Black Pill by Elle Reeves.
As a young man in my twenties, I devoured Haruki Murakami. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, Kafka on the Shore, Sputnik Sweetheart, IQ84, and more. Seventeen at last count. The dreamlike fantasies of other worlds, the magical realism, the meticulous prose of the English translations, the lack of plot and the melancholic atmosphere, I found great comfort in reading book after book. And then one day, after the author went past his prime, I started finding them repetitive and I stopped reading. Perhaps my tastes have changed, perhaps they weren’t as sophisticated as I once thought. I like to think my standards have improved, but who knows? In any case, it can’t be denied that Haruki Murakami is among the most successful fiction writers on earth and has had a great impact on literature.
I also happen to be a fan of Japanese manga comics. So therefore, a manga adaptation of Murakami short stories should be right up my alley. I have now finally read Haruki Murakami Manga Stores Volume 1, which adapts the author’s short stories “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo,” “Where I’m Likely to Find It,” “Birthday Girl,” and “The Seventh Man.”
I’m not totally sure these always work, but it’s certainly an interesting idea to adapt these stories into another medium. (There have been several successful film adaptations of his works, in fact.) The term manga in the title, however, does not really lend itself to assumptions about heroic shonen adventures and cutesy anime girls. Perhaps this should be thought of more as artistic indie comics.
The first story, “Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” is a weird tale of a Super-Frog. With a typical Murakami protagonist, a dull businessman/sarariman type having an existential crisis, it’s unclear in the story if the frog is real or just a figment of his imagination. In that way, it’s a good introduction to the vibe of this collection. I also don’t know what to make of it. Is it good literature? Is it just weird for weird’s sake? For more depth, I’d have to read the original prose short story to analyze. The comic version, with decent colorized art, is as confusing as it is anything else.
“Where I’m Likely to Find It” is in black & white, which is more typical for manga, albeit using a bit of color in some scenes in which a mirror seems to show an alternate world. This is what Murakami often writes best, a subtle fantastical mystery without any true resolution. In a sort of neo-noir genre, an amateur investigator explores a staircase to find a missing husband. There’s something of satisfying conclusion, but of course what really happened is never quite explained in the end.
“Birthday Girl” feels different in starring a female character, and probably has the most dynamic art. Maybe it’s clichéd that the main character is a waitress, but it’s suitable for the purposes of the plot. She meets an old man, they have a drink together, and she gets a birthday wish granted which the reader doesn’t get to know. It does inspire imagination, which is ultimately the point of this kind of style.
The final one is “The Seventh Man,” and it is the most haunting of them all. A story-within-a-story, a nameless man speaks about his childhood from a less modern era. There is nothing necessarily supernatural, when he experiences a typhoon and its horrifying aftermath. A childhood friend drowns, which is expressed with sadness and mystification. A good meditation on trauma. Like the rest of the stories, this may not be a good read for everyone. The overlap of Murakami and literary comic readers is rather specific, but for me I’m glad I gave it a try.
If you’d like to order any of the 4 issues of the anthology comic series Visions of Taiwan, whether in digital eBook format via the Kindle app or paperback, all the information is here…
New life plan: Live until I’m 90, so I can see the world make any progress at all
I’m going to have to be very patient. It’s more than waiting just four years, which will indeed be a long four years. The consequences of the Supreme Court especially will stall any societal progress for 50+ years. So I really will have to wait until the 2070s…
Still trying to make sense of all this. Once upon a time, I had hope. I’m not a naturally optimistic person, but there were rational reasons. Real signs. Basically, there was a narrative that Bernie Sanders was this generation’s Barry Goldwater. Although he lost, he inspired a new generation which would signal a shift in governing philosophy over the coming decades . These things take time. In the past it was Goldwater’s failed 1964 presidential campaign that signalled the end of the Roosevelt era, and solidified in the 1980s when Reagan was triumphant, and then Reaganism basically defined the next 40 years no matter who was in office.
Well, now it’s very clear now that Sanders is not the future, despite polling young voters or whatever. It’s MAGA that is going to set the defining tone for the next four to five decades.
It’s such a shame, because there are serious problems with the world due to neoliberal economic policies. And the only remedy is to bring back what worked in the New Deal era, as democratic socialist countries have already proven themselves around the world to have the highest standard of living, it truly is the only path to fixing anything. Unions, higher wages, environmental regulations, labor rights, minority rights, police brutality, housing costs, education costs, all those issues!
And yet now we are on a path to make every single one of those far, far worse. A second Gilded Age, with even more income inequality than the first. Historians note that rising inequality is a major sign of civilizations falling. So apparently, when these problems worsen it just causes people to become more bitter and aggrieved, blaming marginalized groups for why they can’t afford to live, and whining about niche ‘woke’ issues, and generally pushing the Overton Window further and further to the bigoted right.
Why does it have to be this way? There is an international trend that all over the world incumbent parties have lost due to voters being mad about inflation. Just goes to show how irrational voters are, since right-wing governments with austerity had it worse, but whoever is in charge gets blamed and most don’t look at what’s happening around the world.
It’s so crazy how random history is—he lost in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Then he won in 2024 because of the pandemic-caused inflation.
With all the hindsight over the election and the campaigning, shoulda been more left or shoulda been more centre, nobody really knows what might have been. Biden was a risk in 2020, but it seemed to have paid off that time. Then it turned out not to work well. He probably should have withdrawn earlier and allowed a primary, but then who knows maybe it was inevitable that the opposition party would win. Or maybe it’s simply sexism that doomed America. Debates and ridiculous shitshow of a campaign and a billion dollars wasted, none of it seemed to matter in the end.
(I just wish so much he went away in 2020, and at least it would have been a normal Republican destined to win now. But normal Republicans are essentially extinct.)
Misinformation online also seems to be a huge factor in why the world is getting crazier. Social media completely ruining the very concept of objective reality. It even appears that the youngest generation isn’t getting more progressive, as earlier assumed, but rather are influenced by far right podcast bros. This misogyny is only going to cause more social unrest as young women go in the other direction and resentment will build up even more.
The 21st century, frankly, sucks. The second half of the 20th century, for all its problems, did have quality of life steadily improve with each generation. Now it is going backwards, by every metric from income to lifespans, and it’s going to continue to go backwards. There’s very little reason to have any hope.
And the goddamn climate. We’ve all given up. We are a society gone mad. Leaving the Paris accords, denying reality. Rising temperatures are becoming increasingly obvious, we are all feeling it, and we do nothing but vote in science deniers. Absolute madness.
Sigh, it’s so frustrating. It’s like the world we live in is a badly written story. There’s no Karma. No arcs. All those scandals, all those laws broken, the indictments and felonies and proven sexual assault. It doesn’t matter.I was stupid enough to believe that there was a trend towards justice, that problematic old men get theirs in the end, and the gross far right had kept losing elections since 2018 so that seemed like a rational take. But looks like all that was happening was normalization.
Turns out, #MeToo and Black Lives Matter did not have the biggest impact on history. Old-fashioned bigotry was the future after all. Herein Elon Musk gets to destroy government services, RFK Jr gets to destroy healthcare, all those horrible trolls online get to feel vindicated. Furthermore, expect AI slop to grow even more prevalent on a dead internet devoid of truth, as Zuckerberg said himself.
It’s certainly possible, even extremely likely, that the economy will implode and Democrats will win a trifecta in 2028. But by then, I believe, it will be too late. The opposition party, already corporatized and lame, will be pushed rightwards. There will be no going back. It will be too hard. And no revolution rebooting the system either. The damage will simply be permanent.
No one is going to save us.
Personally, I never wanted to believe in the Great Man theory of history. It gives individuals too much credit. But it looks undeniable now that it’s his world, that fucker, and we’re just living in it.
So, who knows what exactly will be, but for me it’s going to have to be a lesson in patience. If I am to have any sense of optimism, it will be for the very long-term. I will wait out the next 50 years, see if I can experience some progress in my lifetime, and then at 90-something I’ll allow myself to have hope again…
I am proud to present Visions of Taiwan # 3, the latest issue in the comics anthology:
Featuring stories by talented artists from all over the world, please enjoy the series which is free to download this weekend only! Check out all three issues now, via Amazon for the Kindle
Festivals and holidays, what better way to experience life in Taiwan than through its traditions? This issue of Visions of Taiwan features stories focused on different times throughout the year special to Taiwan.
Eight short comic stories by talented artists from all over the world, each with its own unique vision of life on this special island:
“Tales of the Taoyuan Airport” by Ray Hecht
“A Ph.D in Taiwan” by Daniel Martinez Sierra
“Once in a Dream” by Angela Sauceda
“Feng Pow” by Joel Fremming
“Tomb Sweeping” by Jon Renzella
“The not-so-typical Dragon Boat Festival on the Island of Xiaoliuqiu” by Fabienne Good
It has to be said that is a personal story. While also rooted in the context of tragic current events, ultimately this is simply my own perspective based on my life. That’s all I can ever claim expertise over, in the end. So this essay is not meant to be an argument over what anyone else should do.
Therefore, let me begin at the beginning. I was born in Israel in the 1980s, so I’m told, and I left as a baby. I have no memory of this (which is much of the point, see below). My parents were both immigrants and not native to the region, and they had the idea to immediately go back to my father’s country of America soon after my sister and I came along.
This left me with dual citizenship. Technically. But practically, I’ve only ever been American. I grew up in America, I am an American. That’s how it works. All my formative memories are of Indiana and Ohio, and later of California. Although there’s much I would have preferred to have happened differently in my childhood, geographical speaking I’m generally grateful about where I grew up.
I did take remedial Hebrew school as a child, had a bar mitzvah, along with all those kinds of typical Jewish experiences. While now I don’t feel much of a connection to those rituals as an adult, I am okay with having had these cultural touchstones even if it didn’t have much of a lasting impact. It was fine. I recall the JCC after school, that “aleph bet vet” song, Passover dinners with extended family, and sometimes going to synagogue which was extremely boring. Everybody comes from somewhere, and there certainly is value in being part of a community and holding on to some traditions. As long as it doesn’t harm others, to each their own, and it’s totally acceptable if that’s what my dad and various relatives were into. Today, however, I’m smarter, I’m an adult, and I know I do not need any religion in my life. My ethnicity is Jewish, but my belief system is happily atheist. That’s my thing, secular humanism represents my values for a fair and just society, and I’m good with that.
Way back in the 2000s, as a young man, I went to Israel on more than one occasion. Went on a school trip, visited family, etc. I never had any problem using an American passport. Maybe it’s because the system wasn’t digitized back then, I don’t know. I certainly had no intention of getting drafted into the military, and have always felt absolutely no allegiance to the Israeli government. Why would I? It’s always been a strange place to me and I was only ever a visitor…
Then, it was sometime in the 2010s, when I was on another family visit and they told me at the airport that I was in trouble. The officials at customs said that I had to go to some office and fill out various bureaucratic paperwork, or else they wouldn’t even allow me to leave.
“You’re not American. You’re Israeli.” I remember feeling rather offended by that.
The very last time I had to take one of these trips, it was after COVID, and it had been too long since I’d seen my family who live there today. I gave in this time, and had to go and get the passport beforehand. Just more bureaucracy to do. I didn’t want it. I didn’t like it. But I simply needed it, and it represented no ideology or big statement from me. It was simply a pragmatic solution to a problem.
But I knew I would never live there, and it turned out I would never use this passport again.
On Anti-Semitism
Anyway, it’s probably necessary in this piece to acknowledge genuine anti-Semitism. I am a progressive, and it goes without saying that I am against racism. It’s a serious problem in the world, as hate crimes for all groups have gotten worse while the digital nature of media today seems to make humanity grow more tribal and more terrible.
And when it comes to criticisms of Zionism, and the endless back and-forth debate (which is, certainly, often in bad faith), there is the issue of whether or not anti-Zionism counts as anti-Semitism. Of course it is definitionally not the same thing. And at the same time, I must concede that there are times when anti-Zionism does overlap with racism. It’s obvious that happens, a lot, especially in certain corners. There are many who get over-the-top when it comes to the subject of Israel, and it doesn’t take long to just glance at the internet and see so much hate disguised as legitimate political debate.
That being said, it’s also a convenient excuse for rightist Zionists and rabid nationalists to dismiss any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. This is simultaneously another thing that happens very often happens. It happens constantly.
Where we are now as a society, is that terms like Zionism and anti-Semitism have become so inflamed as that they mean almost nothing now. What a shame how language is degrading.
Even more confusing, there are also many anti-Semites who support Israel as an ethnostate model for what they want for themselves. They are bigots who don’t believe Jews can’t be real Americans, and they are obsessive Zionists. Christian nationalists, or rather, let’s just call a spade a spade and refer to them as white nationalists. They are an enormous political block in America and this describes what they are perfectly. It’s because of religion and apocalyptic prophecies or something like that, really a bizarre world we find ourselves in the 21st century when grown adults believe in such nonsense and then have real political power.
It may seem incoherent and contradictory, but that’s the mess the world finds itself in now. Note that these kinds of people are also why Islamophobia is on the rise at the same time. White supremacy of all stripes is coming out of the gutter, as extremist right-wing ideology destroys public discourse and hate becomes mainstream. It’s a terrible time in world history, full of bigotry and ignorance, no doubt about that.
But without getting into the state of the entire planet, just speaking for me personally, I can really recall only two experiences of dealing with anti-Semitism in my own life. In both cases, it wasn’t from activists who hate Israel. It was from weird conspiracy theory people. That is, it was from the far right.
What has happened to me more frequently, by the way, is when other Jewish people, those who identify as Israeli nationalists, have called me a self-hating Jew. Again and again. From strangers, and even from family members, it’s been the far more common type of bigoted abuse I’ve ever received. It’s ridiculous, it’s a stupid slur, and doesn’t add anything to mutual understanding. It’s just plain hate, and frankly I am very sick of it.
On Israel
In any case, Israel shouldn’t be the center of the universe. It’s a place with serious flaws, and at the same time sure I admit it is obviously not the root cause of all injustice in the world. That’s a very low bar of an Israel defense, but I’ll concede that. It’s just another messed up country, that’s all, and shouldn’t be considered as special as so many people think it is. Whether it’s loved as God’s eternal holy land, or hated as the ruler of the world conspiracy, those takes are both entirely too much sentiment.
Another thing, I never thought being a Jew is somehow the most interesting thing about me. It’s something I’ve long felt uncomfortable about, how other people who like to wear that identity on their sleeve. Why is nationality/religion/culture something to be so proud of? Nobody earned it, it’s just randomly what people were born into. It’s heritage, it’s a part of how one may have grown up, and no one should ever be made to feel ashamed of this either. But isn’t it better to be proud of things I’ve chosen, of things I’ve done, shouldn’t that be what I base my identity on?
Identifying with this country just isn’t my thing. Even, without getting into the controversial politics, the history and the tragedy, I simply never felt like I fit in there. It was never my home.
Perhaps for the older generation of Jewish people, this is a difficult thing to understand. There really was an existential threat not that long ago. Now, to say the least, things are very different. Israel has been an extremely right-wing country for so many years, a powerful and aggressive force in the region. Netanyahu and the Likud party, the far-right coalition and populism and settler extremism, all of these define Israel today and so very deeply not represent me at all.
More broadly-speaking, the Zionist experiment seems to be a failure. The ancestral homeland promise was supposed to be about safety and peace, that was the pitch, and it didn’t work.
And if the only way to stay safe was to occupy millions of people forever, then it wasn’t worth it. If the result of the formation of this country was endless war, then what was ever the point?
Honestly, I think one of the core issues is that it’s a better thing for the human soul to be in the minority. I may be a cis hetero white male, but I do know a bit about not fitting in with the mainstream religion and of being from a slightly different culture than the majority. Historically, Jews in America have thrived in that context and created many positive things. Yes, Europe had a different and darker history, but statistically in America today most Jews have done quite well.
To be the majority in a country, to have power over others and to be in charge, it apparently brings out the worst in humanity. This has happened in the Jewish-majority country as much as it happens in every other country on earth. It’s almost as if Israelis, with the privilege of being the ones in charge this time, now want to do to other minorities what was done to them…
In any case, regardless of the impact of all centuries past, I simply know that theocratic ethnostates are not a good thing. I don’t need to justify anymore than that. I am an American abroad. (And sure, America is also a very flawed and complex place with good and bad elements. All nation-states have blood on their hands, don’t they? That’s the way it is but I still know who I am.) In my entire living memory, I’ve been American. I don’t speak the language, I don’t feel Israeli, and I want to be in control of my identity. That was always reason enough.
On the Gaza War
Why now? Well, these are all issues I’ve thought about for long time. Then October 7 happened, and the Gaza War. And everything, which was always bad, somehow still got so much worse.
It goes without saying that Hamas is terrible in their own right, that is clearly self-evident. I’m not into Islamic fundamentalism either, because duh. Obviously. But ultimately the politics of the Middle East are about power dynamics more than any other factor. It’s not about who’s supposedly most “moral,” it’s about which side has the hi-tech Western modern military and which side is full of people in poverty. Who has the most power is what truly matters in the end.
The way the older generation thinks of Israel as some kind of plucky underdog, how so many Boomers were raised with that postwar context, it just doesn’t fit anymore today. That narrative hasn’t made sense for a very long time, it simply hasn’t been the case for decades and decades and decades. Billions upon billions of dollars in American military support is the complete opposite of underdog. Today, it’s incredibly clear which side has become the oppressor.
This happens again and again in history, and we’d see that if we took the time to study. A people are oppressed, colonized, and suffer horribly. Then they gain power, and use the new position to oppress others. Which in turn causes more suffering, and the cycle continues for generations.
To repeat: October 7 was terrifying, taking hostages is wrong, and there were too many victims. Then, that day was followed up with so many more tens of thousands of casualties, creating far more victims, leading to more abject poverty and no solutions which respect human rights in the future whatsoever. That’s even worse.
In Conclusion
I don’t want to get bogged down by every horrifying news story, but let me get a little specific here. Out of all of them, from the horrible genocidal statements by members of the government, to settlers ransacking food shipments for starving refugees, the ongoing failure to get hostages back in exchange for a ceasefire, the criminal prime minister who has been corrupt for years and years, the authoritarian media clampdown silencing dissenting voices, even this Zeteo documentary footage highlighting how extreme Israeli society has become—not to mention AIPAC’s interference into American politics and how the lobbying group has become a fully right-wing Republican organization, I could just go on and on—it’s the utilizing of AI to maximize the mass killing of human beings that has disturbed me the most.
In case you haven’t read up on that: Source. What an evil, soulless future this is. This is a very bad sign of what is to come for the future of warfare and for the future of humanity, and Israel should be ashamed. I wish I could convince people who support this government to do some serious soul-searching. Probably can’t convince very many people at this point, but I wish.
So, in conclusion, I think Israel is on the path to being just another Middle Eastern dictatorship. Nothing special whatsoever. There’s not much I can do about that awful course that they seem to be choosing. It’s been in the making for a while, with the endless occupation and the far-right government long in control. I can only disassociate, maybe protest a bit, but overall the only thing left is to petition the US government with my vote to stop funding the war machine there.
And also, some might say that terms like genocide and apartheid, however legally they are defined, are too loaded terms. We should or shouldn’t say it, it’s all so inflamed. But in any case, even without those charges which are in fact valid, even still, what was and what is happening there is an absolute affront to my values and it’s easy for me to know I am not on that side.
Yes, I am privileged. I had the ability to do something about how I feel in this situation, and used that privilege to remove myself from it. I don’t want the dual citizenship. I want to control my life. And that’s why I’ve now renounced my Israeli citizenship. I am not, and I cannot be, Israeli.
When Nymphia Wind became the first East Asian contestant to win “America’s Next Drag Superstar” on RuPaul’s Drag Race in April, celebrations erupted across her homeland.
Prominent gay bars from north to south held crowded screenings to cheer on their representative from afar, and the accolades were well received – and not just among the LGBTQ+ community.
On the show, Nymphia often talked about her heritage and drew on her background to create costumes and masks inspired by the traditional culture of Taiwan.
The 28-year old drag performer, known offstage as Leo Tsao, inspired millions from RuPaul’s vaunted international stage, announcing “Taiwan, this is for you”. In May, Nymphia returned to where she was raised – she was born in the United States, but moved to Taiwan at the age of six.
There was an unprecedented performance at the presidential office for Taiwan’s then leader, Tsai Ing-wen, just before the inauguration of William Lai Ching-te.
Nymphia headlined the show, joined by several other local drag queens, making the occasion a significant milestone in LGBTQ+ visibility on the island.
Drag queens in the audience at the Taipei International Drag Fest “You Better Werq” at Hanaspace in Taipei on May 25, 2024. Photo: Brian Wiemer
Nymphia followed this stately occasion with her first public performance since winning RuPaul’s Drag Race, at the second annual Taipei International Drag Fest “You Better Werq!” on May 25.
The event featured other American contestants from RuPaul’s Drag Race, Plane Jane and Mirage, Jade So from Drag Race Philippines, and 50 other local and international drag queens dancing and lip-synching to popular songs.
Held at the Hanaspace venue in Taipei, there was a both matinee and evening show with over 2,000 attendees in total. The audience was full of people wearing yellow and sporting banana iconography, marking them as fans of Nymphia’s signature style.
Other drag queens in the show came from all over the world. One who stood out at nearly two metres (6ft 6 inches) in height (in heels), was Popcorn, 34, from New Zealand.
Popcorn has been in Taiwan for seven years, and spoke about what it meant to be in the show.
“I’m very honoured,” said Popcorn. “I saw Nymphia’s very first performance, back when she was a baby drag queen. To see how she’s developed, her progress over the years, and seeing her work so hard, I think the overwhelming feeling is pride.
“She’s really representing Taiwan so well and so eloquently.”
Drag queen Bagel RimRim lip-synching at Café Dalida in Ximending, Taipei. Photo: Brian Wiemer
Tinus “Bouncy Babs” Stander, 46, is from South Africa and hosted the “You Better Werq!” evening show. Babs has lived in Taiwan for 10 years, and often hosts shows in Taipei and Kaohsiung.
“I just know how I want the shows to pan out and to flow and how to get the audience involved,” he said of his hosting duties. “It’s really important for the audience to have a great time.”
Babs also shared his optimism about being part of the current movement: “We are the ones who are going to change LGBTQ rights and equality in Asia.”
Another drag queen, American Elja Heights, 34, is also optimistic about the future of the art form. Drag is “constantly moving in this direction of more people knowing about it, more people slowly – especially outside the LGBT community – are starting to understand that it is an art form”, she says.
“Everything has been really positive, which I’ve been happy to see. There have been a few online that are negative. Whatever, there’s always going to be people who do not understand what we’re doing; there’s always going to be a little resistance to progress.
“Everything has been really positive, which I’ve been happy to see. There have been a few online that are negative. Whatever, there’s always going to be people who do not understand what we’re doing; there’s always going to be a little resistance to progress.
Taiwanese Drag queen Nymphia Wind talks to media before the Second Taipei International Drag Festival in Taipei in May. Photo: CHIBA / AFP
Drag existed in some bars and nightclubs in Taiwan in the 1990s, such as at Paradise Party, which was the first gay club in Taipei, having opened in 1995.
In the early 2000s, the popular comedian Da Bing brought drag to Taiwanese television with his impersonations of female celebrities. Da Bing died in 2012.
The television series RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered in America in 2009 and had a big impact throughout the 2010s. Many drag queens around the globe have described how the show was a major influence for them.
Social media also helped the culture grow, which led to brand sponsorship for some of the bigger stars, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to more popularity.
Some of the other big names that came up at the same time on the island as Nymphia are Yolanda Masula, Chiang Weii, and Feilibing.
“I’m very happy because Nymphia won. Different people see drag as art. But the environment is still very hard for drag queens” Tseng Chih-wei, director of the Mommy Drag documentary
Drag queens have been around in Taiwan for decades and often performed in smaller venues, fostering their tight-knit community.
There is, for example, a bar in the Ximending shopping district where Elja had met Nymphia before the trappings of fame.
“I’ve known Nymphia for a long time,” she says “We’d see each other a lot at Café Dalida, an outdoor bar in Taipei that’s had drag performances for a long while.
“I jokingly call it the public gay square, because if you go to Dalida, you will run into people you know.”
Café Dalida has hosted frequent drag shows, featuring lip-synching performances with glamorous costumes and make-up, as well as other events important to the community.
On May 11, the documentary Mommy Drag (2020), which features Nymphia, was screened there. The director, Tseng Chih-wei, 32, attended and gave his perspective on the challenges that he feels still remain.
Tseng Chih-wei, director of Mommy Drag, at Café Dalida in Ximending, Taipei. Photo: Brian Wiemer
“I’m very happy because Nymphia won,” said Tseng. “Different people see drag as art. But the environment is still very hard for drag queens [in Taiwan]. They don’t get paid well.
“During the pandemic, the government had funding to help people, but when drag queens applied for funding as artists, they got refused. I wish drag queens were more recognised as artists.”
The owner of Café Dalida is Alvin Chang. He also organised “You Better Werq!” The 53-year-old is from Taipei; he opened his bar in 2006, and “the opening day had drag shows”.
Chang also knew Nymphia before she gained international fame by winning RuPaul’s Drag Race; she had hosted several of his events since 2019.
“Nymphia in person used to be very quiet,” Chang recalls, but since RuPaul’s Drag Race, he says he feels “everything has changed”.
As Nymphia harnessed the attention, so has Taiwan’s drag culture in general. “Before,” Chang says, “drag shows were underground, nobody cared. Now, everyone is focusing on it”.
US drag queen Elja Heights posing at Hanaspace in Taipei, before performing at the Taipei International Drag Fest. Photo: Brian Wiemer
When asked about organising “You Better Werq!”, Chang says: “This was the grandest in our eight years of organising large-scale events. Our past experiences were insufficient for this event, especially with so many media and distinguished guests attending. It was a whole new level for us.”
For example, Taipei City counsellor Miao Poya, one of the few openly gay politicians in government, came to check it out. Taiwan’s Minister of Culture, novelist Li Yuan, attended and gave a speech during the matinee show.
“The Taipei International Drag Fest is a shining example of how diverse cultures and expressions can thrive in Taiwan,” he said. “It is wonderful to see such a vibrant celebration of creativity and inclusivity.”
Originally, the plan was to only have an evening show, but there was much more interest than anticipated and an afternoon matinee was added.
“On the day after Nymphia won the crown, the evening show, which had been on sale for a month with little progress, sold out within a day,” says Chang.
“The next day, many in the media suddenly contacted us wanting to film the event, and many friends couldn’t get tickets. So, after discussing with Nymphia and her fellow queens, we decided to add the afternoon show.
“Major media outlets, both domestic and international, reported on it, and the unexpected visit by the Minister of Culture was an unprecedented achievement.
“This event involved over 100 people, including performers and staff, working together to accomplish this difficult task!”
Nymphia Wind dedicated her Drag Race win to Taiwan. Photo: Instagram/@66wind99
In late October, Taipei will host the Taiwan Pride parade, the largest gay pride event in East Asia.
On October 26, as part of the festivities, Chang will organise another large drag queen party featuring Nymphia Wind, along with others from RuPaul’s Drag Race. The other attendees will include Kim Chi, the first Korean-American contestant on the show, as well as Filipino-American Manila Luzon.
Taipei’s Popcorn will perform on June 28 with the drag troupe The Haus of Dimensions during a screening of the 1927 Chinese horror film The Cave of the Silken Web, and will collaborate with the Yilan Traditional Arts Centre on October 5.
“With this experience, we are more confident in organising larger events in the future so that more people can personally experience the charm of drag queen performances.”
In 1929, socialite Bernadine Szold Fritz left America at the age of 33 to move to Shanghai. She stayed there for the better part of the following decade, until war with Japan forced so many to leave. The world Bernadine inhabited and thrived in was alien in many ways, but also surprisingly familiar to anyone who has also made the trek from the West to East Asia in the 21st century.
It was a time of great change, when Shanghai was a cosmopolitan city yet split apart by a complex network of colonial powers. It was the early days of the Republic of China, before the culmination of the second World War and when civil war would force the KMT to flee to Taiwan.
The stories and places described in the book Bernardine’s Shanghai Salon: The Story of the Doyenne of Old China are told through the eyes of a remarkable person, who achieved much in a time when women in either China or America had few rights compared to today.
Susan Blumberg-Kason, the author of her own memoir Good Chinese Wife about life and marriage in 1990s Hong Kong, did extensive research when writing this biography. It is a deep character study, listing a plethora of facts and figures, but also speculating on the deeper motivations and feelings Bernadine must have felt when going through the various personal challenges of her life abroad.
Bernadine was a journalist, writing most prestigiously for the New Yorker among other outlets, but unfortunately during this era she was forced into marriage as a way to support herself and her daughter. Indeed, she originally moved to Shanghai because of a proposal and often throughout the book she is held back by her marriage to businessman Chester Fritz. (It was her fourth marriage, in fact. Bernadine lived quite the life.)
The book is very much not romantic. Her husband, and previous ex-husbands, were products of the misogyny of the time, and tried to control and limit her in many ways. Despite that, Bernadine went as far as to help found the International Arts Theatre which produced many successful plays, ballets, and operas. The Soul of the Ch’in was the largest ballet ever performed in Shanghai until then, and the adaptation Lady Precious Stream was ahead of its time by being the first English-language production to have an all Chinese cast, a positive revolutionary moment considering previous versions of the play always utilized white actors in yellowface.
Throughout her years, Bernadine met many other famous writers and artists and the book namedrops quite the list of 1930s celebrities. She was good friends with author Lin Yutang, wrote letters to Hollywood actress Anna May Wong, and even knew the politically-connected Soong sisters who had such an impact on the history of China and Taiwan, such as Soong Mei-ling—the future wife of dictator Chiang Kai-shek.
With the expat perspective, Western readers who have lived in places like modern Shanghai, Hong Kong, or Taipei as well will be struck by how similar the sentiment is today. One disgruntled quote from a visiting friend of hers describes it well: “Thirty years—sometimes more—without troubling to learn the language, and these ‘Old China Hands’ pickled in alcohol considered themselves supreme authorities on the country and the people. They prided themselves on never mixing with the ‘natives.’ Was it due to the climate? They were inveterate grumblers.” Personally, I have met of those exact kinds of people in 2024.
Another interesting aspect of the book is Bernadine’s evolving Jewish identity. Perhaps that was why she felt like an outsider in her own homeland, and was able to move so far away. She says in one discussion, “I don’t know what to think anymore. I’ve gone through all the phases of hating it, of hating all Jews, of being proud of it and hating lots of Jews, of not minding one way or the other and having a few friends who are Jews, or deciding always to take the bull by the horns and in the most obvious way possible tell people right off.” Although she was never religious, as the years went by and horrors of Nazi Germany became more apparent, she participated in Jewish causes in order to aid refugees during the war.
Politics are ever present in the background of the book, but the most fascinating sections are focused on her own private life. Sexuality within her failed marriage is explored, there’s a breast cancer scare, among other issues with her career and family. The saddest aspect of all was her relationship with her daughter Rosemary who she chose to send to boarding school thousands of miles away in America, something hard to understand today, and that story ultimately ends in tragedy.
Bernadine Szold Fritz may not be well-known today, but she very much deserved to have a book written about her and Susan Blumberg -Kason is proven to be up to the task. Fans of history and of women’s issues will appreciate this ambitious book which gives a human angle to such a tumultuous time in the world. I certainly learned a lot, and enjoyed the read.
Trip from Taiwan to South Africa An amazing time going to Johannesburg and Pretoria, then flying to Umhlanga, Durban. Staying at the beautiful Champagne Castle the Drakensberg mountains. And lots of animals
Ray-Comics 