Nomad Papaya Books

This is a small parody publication containing the internal dialogs between our members in Germany & Taiwan. About how papayas in Germany and papaya birds in Taiwan meet in this small booklet. It explores the ecology and projection of distance & Nostalgia, with three-line poems and Phtographs.

”The Iconography of Tropical Plants of Taiwan Vol.VII“ traces back a Tropical plant photo book published between 1929-1943 in Taiwan, during the Japanese Colonial period.

The publication serve as a "shadow" of the original copy and explores the question on traces - the traces of antiquarian books(bibliology), the traces of time(color and stains), and the traces of colonialism in east asia - with the ambiguous love towards plants and nature, and the colonized places.

"Kinderszenen:how to slack off during piano practice" is a sheet music version of zhaoyuefan’s 13 acts performance, recreating the artist childhood memory of practicing piano. The tension between the piano (a large, heavy European classical instrument) and the performer (a small Asian woman) throughout the performance indicated multi-layers of patriarchal power structure in the society, reflecting western classical music education from a feminist and postcolonial perspective.

Mahjong is a board game that encapsulates the rich history and cultural traditions of East Asia. Due to the cultural and geographical isolation in the process of Mahjong’s transmission, different countries and regions have their own diverse mahjong rules (e.g. the rules in Taiwan, Hong Kong, various regions of China, Japan, Korea, Malaysia and Singapore etc.), but because all the different rules are relatively easy to interchange, people who know Mahjong - though having different language, cultural and ideological backgrounds - could sit down and play mahjong together: in this case those conflicts, nationalities, political positions, problems, ideologies, struggles - found a common ground. Mahjong thus becomes the situation/place where people meet, communicate, exchange, and make friends.

In the wish to further extend and promote this precious situation, we decided to form a collective „Mahjong Friends“ and started the project with people from different regions. We hope to use mahjong as a means to help more people understand the intricate history and delicate, tense current political situation in East Asia, as the game itself is full of political metaphors. As the first publication of Mahjong Friends, Mahjong: an International Manual introduced the basic Mahjong rules as well as the culture/stories behind the patterns of Mahjong tiles through witty descriptions and vivid illustrations, accomplished with a poster full of Mahjong archive & history, as well as a piece of tiny Mahjong cheating paper, this *very cool and deep* Mahjong Manual book aims to bring peace to the world.