In this video we talk to different students of Chinese about their experiences learning it, what the hardest aspect of it is, and the aides and help they have found along the way.

Photographer and journalist Hubert Kilian shares his experiences documenting the side of Taipei behind the glitz and the glamour in black and white, a side of Taipei that is often forgotten.

Father Jacques Duraud made this reflection on his own faith in response to the eRenlai focus on faith and god in April this year. How do you conceive of faith and god, or even of a world without belief? Feel free to share with us!

David Flacher, Vice-President of the Organization for Universal Citizenship, talks to us about their Universal Passport, which they have issued to a group of high profile individuals (amongst them former Portuguese president Mario Soares, former French footballer Lilian Thuram and Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen) to raise awareness of their goals to bring freedom of movement and settlement to the people of the world.

For more information on the movement, please click here.

Liz Hingley is a British photographer who holds a first class BA Honours in Photography from Brighton University. Her work has been recognized with many international awards, including the Prix Virginia in 2012. She is currently living in Shanghai and working on her new project in the city. On an interview with her over Skype, we discuss her experiences in Shanghai. 

"...but as the world grew more and more affluent, laws and restrictions multiplied, discrimination increased, and somehow we lost our freedom. Why did this happen?"
Yasutaka Tsutsui, "The Last Smoker"

In Japanese author Yasutaka Tsutsui's 1987 novel "The Last Smoker", he depicts a fictitious Japan in which the anti-smoking movement has become powerful, leading eventually to the extermination of smokers. Even though this piece is classified as science fiction, the descriptions found in the novel, such as the unwillingness to understand smokers, their plight of being loathed, and the general state of discrimination against them are all too present in the real world.

In parallel to the interviews made with different learners of Mandarin Chinese in Taiwan, we decided to ask various teachers about their experience teaching in Taipei but also abroad, such as Mexico and France. Shufan, for example, has been a teacher of Chinese as a Foreign language for more than five years, her favourite experience being teaching to College students. She also lived in Mexico two years where she taught young children. Feajuar is a slightly less experienced teacher who has now switched to teaching English as a second language in Taiwan. Leo, or "professor Zhu" (朱老師) is one of the rare male teachers of Mandarin in Taipei, we met him at the Tianmu branch of the infamous Taipei Language Institute. Emmanuelle is French and she has been teaching Chinese to junior high school students in France for two years, at Perigueux, she was then in Taiwan for a workshop on teaching Chinese a sa foreign language. 

For our viewers in mainland China, please click here.

An interview with Max Savage

Max Savage is a young French musician living in Taipei. He received us in his little studio, nested at the top of one of those 70s buildings, surrounded by plants and flowers, closer to the sky and the god Ra. He has just finished recording his first EP named "heliogram" and soon to be released free for download. In the meanwhile, discover a radiant artist who will take you far from the roaring city. 

At the end of her six weeks spent in Taiwan animating a workshop about Samoan dance, choregrapher Tupe Lualua reflected back on her trip and her rich experience making connections between Austronesian cultures.

Setareki Ledua, whom we generally just called "Seta", is 22 years old and he is from Fiji. Between 2010 and 2013, he spent two years navigating on "Uto Ni Yalo" ("Heart of Spirit" in Fijian), one of the canoes from the Pacific Voyager fleet that roam throughout the Pacific ocean using traditional navigation methods. During June and July 2013, he was invited to Taiwan by the Taiwan Society for Pacific Studies for a 6-weeks workshop in order to share his knowlegde and his experience as the youngest Chief Officer ever on the Pacific Voyager fleet.

In this first interview, he had just arrived to Taipei and he shyly introduces himself and traditional canoe sailing:

We asked around the office, asking both foreigner and Taiwanese people how the way people hold their chopsticks influences the way they feel they are perceived or the way they perceive others - we got a range of responses, some which contradicted one another, others which seemed to have been fabricated out of thin air.

---- A photo exhibition in Taipei

On August 1st 2013, Radio Taiwan International celebrated its 85th anniversary. For the occasion, Aurélie Kernaleguen and Xavier Mehl, the hosts of the French language programming, presented a series of portraits in black and white, featuring their colleagues from different departments of the organization. In the following video they introduce their two year project.