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On Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, the New York Knicks' Jeremy Lin (林書豪) officially went and got himself a hefty piece in a 99-92 win against the New Jersey Nets. Having been firmly planted on the bench all season (and all career, for that matter), Lin stepped up and gave an electric performance in front of the Knicks faithful at the Mecca of Basketball, scoring a career-high 25 points (with 12 coming in the 4th quarter) while dishing 7 assists and nabbing 5 rebounds. more ›

Li Guanyi, a 29-year-old Shanghai resident, was hit and killed by a motorcycle while crossing the road in the Taiwanese city of Hualien (花莲) at 10pm on Tuesday. Li was attempting to cross the road to reach his hotel when the accident occurred. Despite efforts at resuscitation, Li was declared midnight before reaching a hospital. The apparent cause of death was initially determined to be intracranial bleeding, though investigations are still ongoing. more ›

BBC's Beijing correspondent Damian Grammaticas is back from a week in Taiwan covering the recent elections. He reflects: more ›

Two days after Ma Ying-jeou's successful re-election, Chinese internet users still can't stop talking about Taiwan's 2012 presidential election. On Sina Weibo, China's largest microblogging platform, the election has remained the top trending topic as Chinese netizens look across the Taiwan straits and ponder over their own democratic future. Here is a selection of some of the most viral posts on Sina Weibo on the Taiwan election: more ›

Ma Ying-jeou (马英九), chairman of the Kuomintang, was re-elected as the president of the Republic of China (Taiwan), winning 51.6% of total votes cast, a comfortable 800,000 vote lead over his top contender, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). James Soong (宋楚瑜) of the People First Party received 2.8% of the vote. more ›

Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou speaking to international reporters in English yesterday morning in Taipei. Another video after the jump... more ›

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Taiwan's pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party has released a new music video urging voters to show up at the polls to vote for Taiwan's future.Lyrics after the jump... more ›

Here's yet another prime example of how Taiwan is light years ahead of the rest of Asia: A court has ruled against an employee of a gay massage parlour who sued his boss for defamation after he used his image in an advertisement placed on a gay magazine. The judge's rationale? The assertion that someone's gay is no longer defamatory today. more ›

The Taiwanese are clearly fed up with the scourge of dog crap that has until now rendered the streets of New Taipei City virtually un-walkable. To combat the odorous problem, the government is granting citizens the opportunity to collect and exchange sacks of crap for lottery tickets, one ticket per "doggy bag." Like any other lottery, each ticket enters into a raffle, but in this rare case, the drawn ticket-holder can win a bar of gold worth Taiwan $60,000 or around $2,000 USD. Literally turning shit into gold! more ›

“I want to see your elections with campaign flags flying all over the place. Taiwan and China are one country. How can you arrest me for illegal entry?” more ›

Peter Enav of the Associated Press writes:

A survey published this week by Taiwan's Commonwealth Magazine appears to confirm that Taiwan's process of demilitarization is rapidly gaining steam. Based on a sample of students aged 12 to 17, it found only 38.7 percent would be ready to see either themselves or a family member fight if a new war broke out, while 44.3 percent would not. The remainder had no opinion. more ›

Wow. If this can happen in Taiwan, what are the chances that it'll happen in China too? more ›

"You know, quite a lot of mainland tourists now, more than 2.6 million, have come to Taiwan. They have done a lot of consumption in Taiwan, and spurred a tourism boom. At the same time, moreover, they have also got a sense of Taiwan’s democracy and freedom. A lot of them didn’t go out during the evening. Instead, they lock themselves up in their hotel rooms, watching the political talk shows to see our people criticizing their president. [laughter] Well, that’s democracy. That’s, you know, freedom of expression. But after a while, they began to ask why they couldn’t do the same when they go home? So, this is a very powerful question, and gradually they will make some changes, not only in our cross-strait relations, but also in their own internal system." more ›

"My definition of the 'status quo' would be 'Taiwan is the ROC [Republic of China], the ROC is Taiwan, and Taiwan is a sovereign and independent country.'" more ›

"He's an artist and should have the freedom to express his artistic views... This is also the core value of Taiwan." more ›

Martin Savidge of CNN reports on the story of Isabel, whose impoverished parents sold her and her baby sister to rich Taiwanese families when she was seven years old. Though Isabel speaks semi-fluent English (her owners eventually brought her to cook and clean for them in Southern California), she is still mostly illiterate and didn't understand how money worked when she first won her freedom, like a modern-day Kaspar Hauser. more ›

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More NMA hilarity here. more ›

Writing in the New York Times, former Harvard Kennedy School fellow Paul V. Kane argues that giving up military support of Taiwan will reduce American debt, make China happy, help Obama win re-election, and generally just make things peachy-effing-keen for all parties involved: more ›

Two videos of an underaged boy performing oral sex on another have been posted to the social networking site Facebook in Taiwan, reports Apple Daily. In the first of the clips, the two boys who appeared to be about 2- or 3-years-old, were engaged in the sexual act which was filmed by a man, who could be heard commenting in the background, "That was too fast, do it again!" In the other video, the younger boy was held on the chest by a man as he received fellatio from the older boy while another adult male filmed the act. During the course of the filming, one of the men could be heard asking the other in Taiwanese if he managed to get it all down on tape. The videos went viral shortly after they were posted to Facebook. more ›

A well-known male-only (read: gay) sauna in Taipei has embarked on a unique marketing programme to lure in patrons. The leisure venue has been marketing its new "Big Bird Night" under which new members with *members* validated by staff to be over 18cm are given a VIP card which grants them free access to the facility on designated nights. more ›

The above pics were uploaded to Taiwan geeksite CK101 under the title "Do all female nerds play WoW like this at home?" The series is an an apparent homage to this picture, already well-circulated elsewhere on the 'nets. more ›

Two elderly gentlemen whose ages add up to 168 have been nabbed in Keelung, Taiwan for stealing. They have been known to strike in crowded lifts where people least expect to be robbed. The older, more experienced, 91-year-old thief was recently apprehended along with his 77-year-old accomplice by fellow lift passengers when he attempted to leave after having successfully stolen a man's wallet. Over the years, he has been caught for stealing for more than 10 times, but his brushes with the law seem to have done nothing to his stealing habit. Watch him do his thing in the video below. more ›

With just three months left to the presidential elections in Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who has never been known to utter the words "Republic of China", has made a startling statement. more ›

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Saturday evening in Taiwan's Taoyuan County (桃園縣), a dad dropped his daughter headfirst onto the seats below while unsuccessfully attempting to catch a foul ball at a baseball game between Taipei's Brother Elephants and Taoyuan's Lamigo Monkeys. more ›