1 Minnan is a sinitic vernacular language mostly spoken in Taiwan and Fujian Province of China. It is now one of the most popular languages in Taiwan.

2 Chen Yu-jen (陳玉箴),台灣菜的文化史：食物消費中的國家體現 (The Cultural History of Taiwan Cuisine: National Embodiment in Food Consumption) (Taipei: Linking Publishing, 2020), pp. 126–37; Tseng Pin-Tsang (曾品滄), ‘Banzhuo: Banquets and Han Society in Qing Taiwan’, New History, 21, 4 (2010), pp. 1–55; Huang Wang-ling (黃婉玲), 總舖師辦桌：再現老台菜的美味記憶 (Chef Pān-toh to Represent Delicious Memories of Old Taiwan Cuisine) (Taipei: Chienhsing Books, 2012).

3 Participants usually help each other, sharing ingredients, tables, chairs and utensils. When the party ends, the chef collects all the leftovers and makes them into the famous tshài-bué (菜尾), a stewed medley soup. All pots and bowls are filled with tshài-bué as a gift when returned to their owners.

4 According to the Regulations for the Use of Outdoor Spaces by the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Administration, events held in the hall mainly focus on government policy advocacy, artistic and cultural exhibitions, and public-welfare activities. Activities such as carnivals, vendors or excessive noise, or those that may damage the historical site and its facilities, are not permitted to be held here. More details at www.cksmh.gov.tw/information_197_97239.html (accessed 1 January 2023).

5 I borrow the term ‘reparative’ from Eve Sedgwick's theorization of reparative reading. She has pointed out that mainstream queer criticism has long approached texts and activism through what she calls as a paranoid reading. While recognizing the traumatic histories and negative affects/emotions experienced by minority communities, the paranoid reading nonetheless leads to a defensive, protectionist perspective that hinders the reparation of the wounded subject. Sedgwick therefore proposes the notion of a reparative reading, which views paranoia as a shared experience among minority communities and values various negative affects as triggers for possible solidarity. See Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

6 In the years following 2019, the production of pān-toh performances significantly decreased due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

7 Taiwanese names in the essay follow the Taiwanese standard order of family name first, except for those who have Western given names. To meet the requirements of international indexing, the author's name listed before the beginning of the essay and after the reference section is arranged in Western order. All translations from the script and interview are the author's, unless noted otherwise.

8 The film title Zone Pro Site means ‘pān-toh head chef’ in Minnan.

9 Without a strictly consistent definition, the Taiwanization movement generally aims to decolonize the island, with a strong focus on the local history and culture of Taiwan. Starting during the time of Taiwan being under Japanese rule, the movements accelerated after the lifting of martial law in 1987.

10 The film's title, Pan Zhog, is the Hakka pronunciation of pān-toh.

11 The White Terror, which spanned from 1949 to 1991, refers to the period of political repression inflicted upon Taiwanese civilians by the government under the rule of the Kuomintang.

12 These countries include the Dominican Republic, Burkina Faso and the Republic of El Salvador.

13 According to the Constitution of the PRC, there is only one sovereign state under the name ‘China’, with the PRC serving as the sole legitimate government of that China, and Taiwan is a part of China.

14 These demonstrations were part of the Anti-extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement.

15 Also founded in 2013, the Coalition for the Happiness of Our Next Generation is an organization that advocates against same-sex marriage and boycotts the advancement of gender equality education.

16 Ya-Ching, Wang, Shiow-Ru, Chang and Nae-Fang, Miao, ‘Suicide Attempts among Taiwanese Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Adults during the 2018 Taiwan Referendum on Same-Sex Issues’, Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 54, 3 (2022), pp. 388–95Google Scholar.

17 According to the playwright and director Fan Chung-chi, each individual performance had an audience of 100 people onstage, with an additional 1,000 to 2,000 viewers in the offstage audience.

18 In Minnan, kua-á means ‘ballad’ and tsheh means ‘book’. I italicize Gather Theatre Group's work and put the ancient kua-á-tsheh in quote marks for clarity's sake.

19 Tseng Pin-Tsang, ‘從歌仔冊《最新十二碗菜歌》看台灣早期飲食’ (Cuisine in Early Taiwan through Kua-á-tsheh The Updated Twelve Dishes Ballad), Taiwan Folkway, 52, 3 (2002), pp. 9–18.

20 Yu-jun, Yang (楊玉君), ‘The Theme and Rhetoric of Food in Kua-á’, Journal of Chinese Literature of National Cheng Kung University, 45 (2014), pp. 339–71Google Scholar.

21 十二碗菜歌 (Twelve Dishes Ballad), in Folk Literature: Materials in the Collection of the Institute of History and Philology, 365 (2004), pp. 13–25.

22 Hisn-hsin, Tsai (蔡欣欣), ‘On the Foundation of Improvisation in Taiwanese Koa-á Opera: “Genuine Koa-á,” Shanbo and Yintai’, Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre and Folklore, 131 (2013), pp. 97–166Google Scholar. Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese legend of a tragic romance and has been adapted into diverse Chinese performance genres, including Huangmei opera and Yue opera.

23 The Kōminka movement, which literally means ‘to make people subjects of the emperor’, was proposed by Seizō Kobayashi in 1936.

24 Hsiao-mei, Hsieh (謝筱玫), ‘“Opera”: Its Definition and Historical Development’, Chungwai, 31, 1 (2002), pp. 157–74Google Scholar.

25 Fan Chung-chi, unpaginated script of Twelve Dishes Ballad, made available by courtesy of Gather Theatre Group.

26 Lin Min-tsan is currently one of the most renowned pān-toh chefs in Taiwan. His father Lin Tien-sheng (1934–2010) was also a representative Taiwan cuisine chef.

27 Unless otherwise indicated, comments are from my interviews with anonymous participants and the discussion following the performance at Liberty Square, 14 November 2020.

28 Fan Chung-chi, personal interview, 20 October 2021.

29 Chen Shu-ying (陳淑英), Lin Shao-an (林韶安) and Chang Chen-chou (張震洲), ‘做夥鬧熱來辦桌搬演古早味與人情味’ (Pān-toh to Perform Nostalgia and Renqingwei), PAR, 323 (2019), pp. 68–71.

30 ‘人情味’ (Taste of Human Affect) (2021), Ministry of Education Mandarin Chinese Dictionary, at https://dict.concised.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=36122&la=0&powerMode=0 (accessed 1 January 2023).

31 Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, trans. Steven Rendall (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985).

32 Right after the magazine issue came out, the New Weekly also published the traditional Chinese version of it in book format. New Weekly (新週刊) team, ‘最美的風景是人’ (The Most Beautiful Scenery Is People), New Weekly, 375 (2012), p. 27.

33 Lee Tuo-tzu (李拓梓), ‘什麼？台灣最美的風景是人？’ (Seriously? The Most Beautiful Scenery in Taiwan Is People?) (14 December 2012), Thinking-Taiwan, at www.thinkingtaiwan.com/content/364 (accessed 1 January 2023); Eric Chen (陳仁豪), ‘台灣最美的風景是人？還是因為台灣沒太多觀光價值, 只好拚命用人情味來炒作？’ (The Most Beautiful Scenery in Taiwan Is People? Or Is It because Taiwan Lacks Tourist Attractions and renqingwei Becomes a Gimmick?) (13 March 2015), News Lens, at www.thenewslens.com/article/13767 (accessed 1 January 2023); Yixian, ‘「台灣最美麗的風景是人」，這句話其實是非常狹隘的世界觀’ (The Saying ‘The Most Beautiful Scenery in Taiwan Is People’ Is Actually a Narrow World View) (13 September 2015), News Lens, at www.thenewslens.com/article/24066 (accessed 1 January 2023); Yeh Ryh-wu (葉日武), ‘台灣最美麗的風景是人？您說笑了’ (The Most Beautiful Scenery in Taiwan Is People? Give Me a Break) (9 September 2021), Storm Media, at www.storm.mg/article/3923429?page=1 (accessed 1 January 2023).

34 Yang Lie, aged sixty-eight at the time of the performance, is a renowned singer and actor in Taiwan.

35 Chia-chi, Li (黎家齊), ‘「你呷飽未？」’ (Have You Had Enough Food?), PAR, 323 (2019), p. 2Google Scholar. Besides natural disasters, the regulations on rice and other foods promulgated by the government general of Taiwan and the Taiwan provincial government during the 1940s created collective memories.

36 Fan Chung-chi, unpaginated script of Twelve Dishes Ballad.

37 ‘Flirty Chicken’ is a signature dish invented by chef Lin Min-tsan.

38 ‘Braised Pork Liver’ is a renowned local dish that signifies a successful career, as the pronunciation of ‘pork liver’ in Minnan sounds similar to that of ‘to be a government official’.

39 It is a significant custom in Taiwan that the one who is having a birthday eats ‘Pork Knuckle Stew’ to wish for longevity.

40 In Taiwan, after the wedding, the newlywed couple would visit the bride's family and host a guining – literally meaning ‘return home to wish good health’ – party to celebrate with the bride's families, relatives and friends.

41 Brown, Wendy, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism: The Rise of Antidemocratic Politics in the West (New York: Columbia University Press, 2019)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, , States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brown, , Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution (New York: Zone Books, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berlant, Lauren, The Anatomy of National Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday Life (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Berlant, , Cruel Optimism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

42 Josh Gabert-Doyon, ‘Paranoia and the Coronavirus: How Eve Sedgwick's Affect Theory Persists through Quarantine and Self-Isolation’ (17 March 2020), Verso Book Blog, at www.versobooks.com/blogs/4597-paranoia-and-the-coronavirus-how-eve-sedgwick-s-affect-theory-persists-through-quarantine-and-self-isolation (accessed 1 January 2023).

43 Taiwan was partly under colonial rule by the Dutch Republic from 1624 to 1662 and from 1664 to 1668, by the Spanish Empire from 1626 to 1642, by the Qing Dynasty of China from 1683 to 1895, and by Japan from 1895 to 1945.

44 Lin Chuan-kai (林傳凱), The Revolutionary Struggles of the Undergroung[sic] Party in Postwar Taiwan (1945–1955) (Taipei: National Taiwan University, 2018), pp. 144, 167, 185, 256, 386.

45 Liu Jen-peng and Ding Naifei, ‘Reticent Poetics, Queer Politics’, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 6, 1 (2005), pp. 30–55.

46 Cheng Fan-Ting, ‘Visioning a Queer Documentary: Huang Hui-chen's Small Talk’, Continuum, 34, 4 (2020), pp. 530–42.

47 In the story, O Thóo's father was having his fiftieth birthday. In Taiwan, major celebrations accompany every decade starting at fifty, to help bring about longevity and happiness.

48 Anonymous, personal interview, 14 November 2020.

49 Chang Sheng-Ching (張省卿), ‘Transitional Justice in the Spaces of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin and Freedom Square in Taipei’, Sculpture Research Semiyearly, 22 (2019), pp. 1–78.

50 Da zhong zhi zheng was a Chinese term used by classics scholars starting during the Han Dynasty to describe the virtue of a real gentleman mentioned in the Book of Documents.

51 Neo-Confucianism, a moral and ethical philosophy stemming from traditional Confucianism that upholds principles of moderation and duty, was utilized to bolster cultural legitimacy of China through a more rationalist lens. With Taiwan being compelled to function as a military base for the Kuomintang's endeavours to ‘reconquer China’, Neo-Confucianism has been co-opted as the state apparatus that has regulated the island and provided the ideological foundation for official doctrine.

52 J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).

53 The minor transnational is a theoretical framework introduced by Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih, referring to innovative alliances among marginalized groups that extend beyond the traditional binary distinctions of minority versus majority. See Françoise Lionnet and Shu-mei Shih, Minor Transnationalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).

54 Judith Butler, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-political Bind (New York: Verso, 2020).

55 Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity during This Crisis (New York: Verso, 2020).