Grace Wang (汪麗琴) runs a small bookshop in Taipei. Her 40-square-meter business is a quaint charming bookstore selling books on design and architecture and other accessories such as notebooks and envelopes.

When people with deformed faces can emerge from the shadow of their past and live and work among ordinary people with renewed self-confidence, basking in the sunshine again, a dream or two will have been fulfilled, said Ching-hsien Shu (舒靜嫻), CEO of Sunshine Social Welfare Foundation (陽光社會福利基金會).

From northern Taoyuan County to southern Kaohsiung City, you can regularly spot a shinny and a colorful van almost every once or twice week at remote rural villages around the country.

Kabamanchu Owla (卡巴曼楚. 歐巫獵) of the Taipei Rabbit Society Association (TRSA, 台北市愛兔協會) explains his mixed feelings toward his first house-rabbit.

Posthumous donations of organs for transplant is a question of whether you want to help those whose lives could be saved.

“When I first heard about this assignment, I was very hesitant,” says the Rev. Nilo, “Taipei is near, just a two-hour flight from the Philippines.”

You may not have heard the name Ming-cheng Huang (黃明正), but you must have seen his photographs which show him doing handstands in weird and dangerous places around the country.

Arelis Yoh Gabot (蕾妮絲) is not your average Taiwanese lady: In addition to the exceptional hospitality and vitality unexpected of her small stature, Gabot shines with exotic beauty — she was a Dominican citizen, and is the first non-native citizen to have entered public office in Taiwan.

Consumers of fashion in Taiwan generally like to follow trends, but are less concerned with their origins. They know what is “in” from what other people are wearing, what is selling in stores and playing on a loop in commercials. If they are older, they might see a re-emergence of certain looks and styles and point them out wistfully.

Elaine Lai, a senior at the University of Washington in Seattle, is savoring her first taste of the “sweet fruits of success,” thanks to two different sets of values ingrained in her. A microbiology major, Lai hopes she will one day make her home country proud and shine as brightly as her fellow countryman, champion golfer Yani Tseng.