In Taiwan, Chinese customs dictate a ceremonious funeral for the deceased to cross smoothly into the afterlife. BBC recently offered a fascinating look at the life of a professional mourner who makes her living from crying and grieving at these funerals. Liu Jun-Lin, whose grandmother and mother were both professional mourners, was pulled into the family trade at the young age of 11. Explaining the demand for her services, Liu said, ‘When a loved one dies, you grieve so much that when it finally comes time for the funeral, you don’t have any tears left.’ Her performance fee goes up to US$600 and includes wailing lines like ‘My dear father, your daughter misses you so much! Please, please come back!’ Sounds like a tough job.

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The Mirage Theater is an interactive performance piece telling a story of the death and rebirth of a historical landmark: The Lin’s Mansion in Wufeng, Taiwan. Fourteen years after it was heavily damaged during the earthquake in 1999, The Lin’s Mansion was rebuilt as a local theater. The Mirage Theater was shown in December 2012 and consisted of dancing, music and 3D projections with eighteen projectors.

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Taiwan has a rich cabaret culture since the 70s, and the truck theatre — essentially an operationally-ready and lavishly-decorated stage on wheels which transports cabaret artists all over the country for performances — features heavily in it. Photojournalist Shen Chao-Liang has been capturing this fascinatingly colourful part of Taiwanese culture with his photographic project, Stage, since 2005. These snapshots, devoid of the people in them, take on a triumphantly still, ethereal quality.

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Taiwan’s infamous red lantern city of Jiufen is just a rickety, slightly sickly, one-hour bus ride out of Taipei City. There’s a fare bit of hype around the lanterns. Yes, very narrow streets are particularly cute when sheltered by glowing red paper lamps. But it’s hardly enough to make the God awful trek worthwhile.  

What’s seriously under hyped is Jiufen’s incredible, breathtaking, lots-of-positive-adjectives view. It’s so incredible it’s a touch scary. In the same way you might be scared at the top of the stairs to heaven; overwhelmed by the craziness of earth from such an angle. From Jiufen, you can see down towards Taipei city and then beyond Taiwan’s mainland to its surrounding islands, grasping true perspective of how hilly the place is. There’s an intricately detailed Chinese temple sitting on the side of Jiufen that appears to be marveling down at the view as much as the tourists are, and it glows something spectacular at sunset.

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On the off chance you’re planning a trip to Taiwan, make sure you put the vibing Songshan Cultural & Creative Park on your TO DO list. Originally a tobacco factory, the large cement warehouses are now a symbol of Taiwan’s growing creative scene. One of the galleries is currently hosting lego artist Natahn Sawaya’s international The Art of the Brick exhibition. Another of the buildings is home to a collection of modern art, bursting with colour and interactive installations. Despite being hip and modern, many of the pieces at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park manage to embody Taiwanese and Asian culture; giving tourists a taste of something they wouldn’t get back home. Check out the hand knitted bicycle tuk tuk. It’s as fabulous as it is impractical.

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Taiwanese artist Chen Chun Hao mastered this delicate art form. He puts tens of thousands of nails into place to recreate famous Chinese watercolour landscape pieces. The nails are set into canvas-covered wood. Placing the nails is a tremendously taxing work that requires real labour on top of the precise craftsmanship. What dedication.

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Beitou is bewitching – quite literally. The northern Taiwanese Ketagalan Aboriginal group historically referred to the region’s flurry of volcanic activity as ‘patauw,’ which translates to ‘witch.’ There are more than 30 hot springs in Beitou, which is located along two faultlines that meet at the dormant Datun Volcano Group.

Sulfurous hot-water springs from jade-colored pools in the form of ghostly fumes that, by all appearances, are highly restorative, even if the sulfur characteristically ruins silver. It’s something Japanese occupiers realized back in 1913, when they built a bathhouse along a series of creeks in Beitou. In 1994, an elementary-school field trip unearthed the deserted baths, and they’re now part of the Beitou Hot Springs Museum. There’s still a working public bathhouse, and Taipei’s northernmost district also features Taiwan’s first certified “green” building. A team of eco-friendly local architects built the three-story Beitou Public Library, which opened in 2007, from recyclable materials, with natural lighting and electricity-generating solar panels. It’s just another piece of ‘green’ to add to the already lush, natural, scenery of the Beitou District in Taipei City, Taiwan.

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One of the great riddles of life is how the hell nature stays so damn colourful when the rest of the world gets grayer by the day. These stunning bird photos taken in Taiwan are a gentle reminder of the oft-neglected beauty that flitters all about us.

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A college student in Taiwan designed this amazing chair. It’s called Flexible Love. The chair can be turned into a sofa, a two or three seater, an s-shape. Basically, you can turn it into any seating device your imagination can come up with it seems. I have no clue how comfortable this piece of art is, but it’s surely fun to experiment with it.

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First there were Crayon Rings, now we have their polar opposite: Concrete Rings. And word on the street is that concrete can actually look fashionable. 22 Design Studio in Taiwan have crafted these neat rings from only concrete and stainless steel materials.

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Taiwan-born, London-based illustrator Page Tsou has a storybook quality to her work, whether it’s ink drawings or her steampunk-ish collages.

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Beijing architecture firm MAD Ltd. recently completed a design for the new Taichung Convention Center in Taiwan. The impressive building strives to be a ‘continuous weave’ with the local landscape with its fluid lines and airy ‘outer-skin’ which doubles as a solar power generator that greatly reduces the building’s overall energy demands.

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This bizarre looking building in Sanjhih is actually an abandoned resort project but is referred to by Taiwanese locals as the UFO house because of it’s somewhat extra-terrestrial design.

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