The Land of Conjurors

Time flies! It's been a long time since I've written something on my blog. To be honest, I've been somewhat busy with my work throughout the years, but I'll do my best to keep this site running. The website for this blog, The Land of Conjurors , will most likely change to "https://land-conjurors.blogspot.com" this year. Before upgrading the website, I need to do a bit renovation to The Land of Conjurors . Readers are still welcome to visit here at any time. English blog in this site will still go on, just need some time to plan. Aside from that, I'd like to share a new world with you. In 2024, I plan to establish my own blog on arts and performances. This new blog will be published in my original language, traditional Chinese. Perhaps English is the most worldwide language by far. Still, I believe it is time to revert to my native language (speaking Taiwanese Mandarin, written in traditional Chinese). As I become older, I feel encouraged to do something fo...

Would she think it was easy to feel all right and then continued her way of life? She said goodbye to her co-workers and took her leaves at night. It was not too late that she moved to the next stop as she was quite soon got on the taxi. Took the phone, and examined her image reflected on the screen of the cell-phone, she thought that she had to phone him for the duty. The last message, a decent calling, would be done as things were as easy as she could always deal with, she thought. "... , it's hard to take it, I know, but we should move on, shouldn't we?" But she heard nothing from the other side of the phone. She actually looked gorgeous from the rear-view mirror with her delicate make-up. After the phone had been hanged up, she again saw her image of face. Was this mistaken or not for her tired eyes seemed not to resemble herself. She again tried to look carefully from the screen of her phone. A moment happened as she hardly recognized herself in her blurred eyesi...

One Day with Death opens to cunningly let the paper perform. Death, a paper-made character personified as the god of death, is the soul of figure to whom we easily get much close. As the audiences are watching the play, they are also watching the papers in display, for the paper unmasks what we think of the story can be made in this play. The intrigue part of the play is the paper in performance via the artists' techniques. In terms of the expression of language, one may easily imagine that the usage of the paper is mainly for drawing and writing upon. As to the language, speaking marks the way to conversation. While receiving the words whether in listening or reading, one may directly obtain the messages from the other one. In the play, however, the paper becomes functional as it challenges the audiences' imaginations. These sheets on the table, a message of life that has come to an end of their life, must be gone through by the Death who helps accomplish their final step of...

Inspired by the short stories published in 1972 by Argentine-Italian writer Juan Rodolfo Wilcock, Ensemble KNM Berlin's Stereoscope carves out solitary individuals in Wilcock's book. These individuals become ones playing musical instruments on their own, isolated but not always are the ways they seem. While the individuals are mostly portrayed as lonely ones on the edge of the world, audiences are invited in the Stereoscope for seeking more unexpected dimensions on loneliness during the performance. An adventurous journey unfolds as it allures audiences into the stage. Positively the loneliness can be abundant through interaction during the performance. Through walking around the stage, audiences set out seeking loneliness in quirky ways. Stereoscope  came to the question emerged between seeing and listening during the performance. As audiences did not always see the musicians playing their instruments, they instead paid much attention to the sound-making....

Danger, a word she would call, emerged itself from the very ferocious animal of his mind. Much of his skin became tight with wrinkles, displayed in a way of burning despair. A creature marked a rare disposition to haunt her. Though his mind seemed not to be a whole that kept pestering her for unfolding his unique expression, it was still a kind of needle that penetrated into the translucent danger. Sometimes it became observing while dangled from his way of talk. Other times she could feel that his mouth appeared to be bulged in a dark side of swift moment and almost split in pieces. He, as she recognized, was a soundless bomb that brought disaster for her world. She might question what drew the very line of human and beast. Was it any difference between them? She pondered the question alone, finding out that the danger receiver could be anyone. And she turned herself away saying nothing of him anymore.

Exploring human bodies with life in Nude: Masterpieces from Tate is such a tempting idea. Though body may not be a new topic nowadays, it still flourishes in the artistic fields from the ancient to the modern times. Held in Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts, the exhibition unfolds great vitality that pushes forward the thoughts in a variety of relative issues on human body. From the paintings before the 20th century to the modern style of body portraits implicitly reflects the perspective of artists as well as the turbulent period of history. Under the artists' interpretation, most of the paintings before the 20th century emphasize women's naked bodies as perfection of nature created by God. It appears that human body is not only like a model but also like a motor as artists keep going and never end up imagining delicate and young life from their gazes, for men and women's naked bodies are plump and smooth-skinned as well shaped by artists' visual fantasy. Their b...

Part I: Is That You H enjoys watching her loose. Camouflage, his best trick in seeing, a way he takes snapshots as noose cut in the facets of her in peeling. His heart, frozen by the stone, flutters without his visible lens, caught in a picture that keeps his eyes moving along ─

The sense of anxiety never fades when I become happy. One achieves something and then begins to worry about the next thing that has not done yet. Anxiety loves to tickle me, and I believe I am not the only one, especially in the aspect of society. Thinking about the age, the social experiences and the future, one's lifetime is such a blink as one keeps dealing with trouble made by others or self. Busy or not, the question that always flickers in my mind is the place where I can go. Still have no clue though. To have a high-paying job, to get married and to have a child...etc. Are these really the ultimate goals in my life? Having these can be happier than having none. However, it's like one turns out a sinner if he or she does not get married and furthermore has a family. It's also like one becomes wrong if having a sense of confusion along the way, not to mention one's anxiety. Society is hardly the one to be blamed, for it only pushes people to go forward by enteri...

We are others, we are the others. There is no way out as we strenuously seek it out. None of them can easily be found. We call it out, now we call the way that may give us sounds ─ An echo of the lingered inhale, exhale hardly can be spewed by the telltale as we are forced to fail, to expel from the world of yours, hell ─ Some say we've been changed, "the ones better or worse?" Perhaps better, otherwise neither. Is there a way out? ─ One strenuously seeks it out ─ You, the others, without making any noise, taken from the loop of our mind whomping in every circle of its swerves ─ beating against the sill ─ you call it out, now you call ─ But none of them can be heard. You, the others, or others become in you?

Woman’s Room, an oil painting of her dressing room by P. K. Page In P. K. Page’s painting, Woman’s Room , a viewer may find it hard to situate his or her eyes when concentrating on a certain image. Instead of merely portraying what the room is, the room in the painting is displayed by the three-way mirror. It arouses the question of where the painter stands inside or outside the room interrelated when she is painting, which characterizes the speaker’s dilemma of her location with the tapestry in Page’s poem “Arras.” In the poem “Arras,” for example, the peacock-image is a process created by  complicating the self of speaker from the personal self to the impersonal self. In this poem, the speaker claims that she is not only the “observer” who sees things surrounding her but also the “other” by whom is seen (Page, “Arras” 12). A reader may further notice  that  the tapestry in this poem  w ill not be treated as the subject matter but turn out to be  the par...

In Gish Jen’s   The Love Wife , Bailey, who is the biological child from Blondie and Carnegie, refracts Blondie and Carnegie’s racial senses of identification. Both Carnegie and Blondie gain their sense of identification as they see the appearance of their son Bailey. Though Bailey is a half-breed child, he does not look like “soup du jour” (156), suggesting the multiethnic heritage. Since Bailey, who resembles his mother as embodied with blue eyes and blond hair, is much more like the white, Blondie not only sees her son whose appearance is similar to her but also takes him as a sense of belonging which she can wholeheartedly devote herself to Bailey. As Blondie mentions that the more she looks at Bailey, she sees more bits of the image of her white family (156), which Bailey becomes their inheritance henceforth. Although Blondie considers that Bailey has “Carnegie’s tilt eyes, and bridgeless nose, and perfect ears” (156), she constantly claims her dominance by saying t...

In Part One of Gish Jen’s   The Love Wife , the difference between Lan and Blondie is quite subtle. Blondie, who is the white as well as the Carnegie’s wife, is earnestly about getting involved in the Chinese family. Blondie knows some of Chinese. Besides, as Blondie mentions the two types of visitors, forks and chopsticks, she used to be a fork but now attempts to prove that she will finally and truly be the chopsticks (Jen 112). Blondie considers that she had undergone the process from the Western culture to the Chinese culture after getting married in the Wong’s family by bravely making a great effort to try such as eating snake, eel or rabbit’s ears that the eating habit mostly seen in Chinese culture. When Mama Wong is needed to be looked after in the nursing home, Blondie constantly ripples as to Mama Wong’s capricious temper with her Alzheimer’s disease. As Mama Wong nods for having some wontons, Blondie feels surprisingly elated (Jen 170). But, as...

In “Reclaiming the Southwest,” the term southwest is more than what we imagine. The southwest is not merely confined to the concept of space since the significance of the term southwest can break away from the linear time of Japanese American Interment narrative as it reconfigures the Southwest as a traumatic place. For instance, the sign is a way to broach the metaphorical meaning as a fixed concept. When we think of a sign, the idea of signifier is often to direct us a certain metaphorical significance or symbol derived from the cultural context or historical background. Accordingly, the term Southwest may conventionally signifies an isolated space from other traumatic events for some ethnic groups. Or the Southwest is limitedly viewed through the gazes from the tourists as well as under the gaze of hegemonic power. However, the article mentions that “arrowhead,” the ancient object remained by the Indian warrior, can be a portal of the association with the Indian groups. In Yosh...

In the tenth chapter of John Okada’s No-No Boy , Ichiro seems to need a gaze from Christians, who make him feel that he is really moving on for his own mind at the end of his forgiving thought should be clearly examined. As Tommy and Ichiro initially come to the church, they are not welcomed by the public in the church. Subsequently, Tommy and Ichiro join a smaller church. Compared with the former one, they appear to be much delighted for the friendliness from the church members while they are quite accepted by the congregation there. Ichiro unexpectedly finds that there is white-haired Negro comes who stands in the back of them. Nevertheless, no one would like to converse with the Negro even though  everyone seems to know of this colored man’s presence. The Negro  in their back is not only  the one who is alienated but also is like an “intruder” ( Okada  231) as he enters into the small church. The Negro, who appears to reflect Tommy and Ichiro’s predicament of not ...

In John Okada’s No-No Boy , the protagonist Ichiro questions the position of how to be the American. In the novel, to be the American can be well-defined when most characters all serve in the army of America to fight for the country. While most characters take the notion of serving in the army to be the American, they desire to be visible by eagerly proving that they are the Americans despite their efforts to the process of being recognized by the public. For instance, to show that one is an American, Taro has his attempts to join the army despite his young age. Kenji also can be regarded as an American for he contributes his life to  the American army while injured with his wounded leg. Taro and Kenji’s cases instead become visible as if they stood at the position of the “inside” as being an American is called, which Ichiro calls “the inside” ( Okada 160) of the America in Chapter Seven. The distinctive position is also portrayed in the character Mr. Carrick and Ichiro f...

In John Okada’s  No-No Boy , Ichiro Yamada, the protagonist, constantly encounters the suffering from the Japanese-Americans who view him as a traitor. In Okada’s  No-No Boy , as Ichiro struggles with other characters who are eager to participate in the American army, to serve in the army of America becomes the kernel spirit as most people show their loyalty to their country. When Ichiro confronts with his brother Taro, he easily scorns Taro by making a contrast with him and alienating himself from him who is so frighteningly to “get into uniform to prove that [he] is not a part of [Ichiro’s]” (Okada 81). Besides, when Ichiro meets Kenji, who is more America than most American with his injured leg as serving in the military for America, he feels “a strange exhilaration” (Okada 63) as to Kenji’s life. Because Kenji is a veteran of the army of America, he always has right to laugh and love and hope in spite of his injured leg that is consuming him in a few years....

He was about to come in. As he looked around in the room, he thought the way of living in another world. Nothing dazzling, but it was as if being caught in a standstill. That he wished to move forward as much as he could, to be pushed forward, or to be motivated by something was the current plight by which he profoundly reckoned; nonetheless no one seemed to hear his voice afar. The shadows were pining away through his quirky angle, away from others with a certain image in which he once behaved. That was when he shrugged, truly be set aside as assuming that there were some gems within. Not knowing the way he became callous about, he could have saved his energy and then been sent out. How all occasions did against him of everything that gradually loosened made him finally know, as if he had always known that the feeling would have happened in such a way. A thought, twenty percent duty, thirty percent volatility and fifty percent anxiety, he took it for sure in crystals. Looking back and...

Today I rode my motorcycle on the road of Gushan District and suddenly found that I seemed to pause more than proceed on my ride. I sprawled my eyesight and then discovered the major cause. It was the traffic lights which kept detaining me whenever I was proceeding and then had to make a stop for a while... no, in fact it was more than a while... The traffic lights are set in some of the blocks for the safety of the circulation of the cars as well as the pedestrians. Nevertheless, there are too many traffic lights in Gushan be set among the blocks and small lanes which intersect the major road, causing the increase of emissions from the gases and petrol because the drivers and the riders have to stop continuously when the stop light is on. Furthermore, the air pollution can be sensed somehow since many factories are also sited in Gushan. Some of the intersection of the road are definitely in need of the traffic light, especially in schools or some other places that are usually packed w...

Sometimes most of the doctors treat the patients as the persons who know nothing of their illness. Today I went to the clinic and saw a grandma who had visited the clinic several times but still deserved the treatment that was the same. She told the doctor that she seemed not to be cured as having taken the medicine prescribed by the doctor. She seemingly looked older than others; nonetheless, the doctor still responded nothing for the treatment. The doctor just swiftly made a statement of the grandma's physical condition and showed his contempt for the grandma's questions. This situation also happened on the child who was the next one to be diagnosed. The child appeared to be pretty afraid of the medical equipment because the doctor began to conduct with medical tools on his hand. The nurse merely praised the child for the cooperation and finally gave him a candy as a compliment. And the child's mother was quite satisfied with what nurse had done to her child. Yet the doct...

I traced the direction of the light, and thought about how I was being a part of the nature as a gorgeous painting. As I trod into the shadows from the lushes, something excruciating seems to be frozen...gradually is flowing away. I was melted by the time I seemed to be an empty container filled with the hills and abundant trees. I thought of nothing to fight with anything at all, by which the light tells me nothing but merely shines on me in a slight angle that dangles a somewhat of a quirky oblique line. The colour of green pervades. Thick as well as heavy it seemed, matcha-like of the green algae exuberantly crawling on the surface of the lake and grey stones own its inward power of greenish gush. The egrets standing smoothly and steadily at the coconut palms were taking naps, interfered continuously by the lures of the foods given by the humans. Also, the ducks are especially adept in water, quacking sometimes as they were at war with other ducks for the sake of ...