Table of contents : Contents Preface part I: Background a history troubled and glorious 1. Taiwan’s History: An Introduction 2. Fowl Play: Chicken-Beheading Rituals and Dispute Resolution in Taiwan 3. Pop in Hell : Representations of Purgatory in Taiwan part III: An Emerging Public Sphere: saying now what could not be said before 4. From Hidden Kingdom to Rainbow Community: The Making of Gay and Lesbian Identity in Taiwan 5. Taiwan’s Mass-Mediated Crisis Discourse: Pop Politics in an Era of Political TV Call-in Shows part IV Economic Life: money and meaning 6. The Other Woman in Your Home: Social and Racial Discourses on “Foreign Maids” in Taiwan 7. Hot and Noisy: Taiwan’s Night Market Culture 8. Disciplined Bodies in Direct Selling: Amway and Alternative Economic Culture in Taiwan part V: Entertainment and the Audience: living for the moment and moments for the living 9. Baseball, History, the Local and the Global in Taiwan 10. Yang-Sucking She-Demons: Penetration, Fear of Castration, and Other Freudian Angst in Modern Chinese Cinema Notes Glossary of Terms and Abbreviations Glossary of Characters References Contributors Index