ABSTRACT
THE RISE OF 'LOCAL AUTONOMY' (DIFANG ZHUTIXING) IS THE MOST NOTEWORTHY phenomenon in Taiwan's postwar cultural development," declares an evaluation report entitled "Ideal and Practice of Cultural Development of the Counties and Cities in Taiwan."1 In the preface it is pointed out that the focus of the contemporary cultural policy of Taiwan has shifted "from the center to the local." "Local place" (difang), it says, "is the field where people conduct their real life; thus it ought to be the primary focus of cultural administration." Cultural institutions should be grounded in local places, "cultivating the sense of citizenship (gongmin yishi) and promoting cultural industries;" only then will Taiwan become a "lively, powerful, cultural country (wenhua daguo)."2
