As I travel outside Taipei, I am collecting even more bird stories and images. While in Nantou province in Taiwan’s central mountains to give a lecture at Chi-Nan University, I visited a sculpture park dedicated to self-taught stone-carver Yuan Lin.
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Traditional ceramic roof ornaments at the Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial in Taipei
Look Up — Mid October 2018
One of the first sights to catch my eye in Taipei was the classic Chinese roof ornament or “roof charm” showing a man sitting on a bird, usually a chicken or phoenix, which was traditionally the first in a series of ceramic “walking beasts” on the roof ridge of important buildings.
Read MoreRiding on a Bird — Late September 2018
I made an immediate start on my Fulbright bird-figure research in Taiwan, discovering in my first weeks many examples of human-bird connections in traditional art and popular culture in Taipei.
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