1% Weekly Picks: What Defines Premium Cards? Art Museum Convenience Stores? Mastering Two Paths & Other Lifestyle Insights

Life moves fast—before you know it, another week has passed. Amid the busyness, take a moment to pause, set aside your tasks, enjoy a favorite drink, and explore several thought-provoking articles across different fields to recharge.

This week, 1% Style has curated three cross-disciplinary articles worth your careful attention:

1% Knowledge: What Is a Premium Card? From Black Cards to the World Legend Card—Why High-End Credit Cards Are No Longer Just About Cashback

Today’s top-tier credit cards are no longer competing solely on “how much they return,” but rather on time, scarce resources, and exclusive access unavailable to the general public.

In August 2026, Mastercard unveiled its highest consumer card tier in Taiwan: the “World Legend Mastercard.” While applications are not yet open, and partnering banks, annual fees, and eligibility criteria remain undisclosed, the signal is clear. Consumers in Taiwan may not see the actual card until 2027 at the earliest. In other words, this is a card that has been announced but cannot yet be applied for.

Yet, the market transformation it reveals may be even more significant than the card itself.

The World Legend Card emphasizes privileges such as airport fast-track clearance, gourmet lounges at airports, priority reservations at popular restaurants, early access to overseas concerts, and exclusive ticketing opportunities for international sports events. These benefits are difficult to quantify in simple percentages like cashback, but directly address what affluent groups increasingly value: time, rare seating, convenience in cross-border mobility, and priority access to exclusive venues.

From the “Black Card” culture established by American Express’s Centurion Card to Mastercard’s global platform linking travel, fine dining, and entertainment, premium cards still serve as status symbols—but their value is gradually shifting from “how expensive the card appears” to “how many services and resources it can mobilize behind the scenes.”

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Urban Studies: From Wang Shuihe to the “Art Museum Convenience Store”—How Has Taichung Brought Art Into Daily Life?

From Wang Shuihe’s multidisciplinary work spanning art, design, and architecture, to the Qin Art Museum bringing art into the daily rhythm of Caowu Boulevard, and the relocation of the Taichung Art Fair to the Convention Center alongside the establishment of the Zhongmei Museum, Taichung’s art landscape is transforming. This week, 1% Style explores the city’s unique cultural narrative.

This summer, Taichung’s art scene took several divergent turns.

The 14th Taichung International Art Expo moved out of hotels for the first time and relocated to the Taichung International Convention Center (read more: Urban Studies: Why Taichung?—Behind the Taichung International Art Expo Lies a City’s Culture of Collection and Aesthetic Development).

On the opposite end of Caowu Boulevard, the Qin Art Museum—officially opened at the end of 2024—transformed into a “convenience store” during this year’s Caowu Summer Festival “BOOM ART! Art Without Limits.” Art extended beyond exhibition halls into nearby areas including Qin Puyuan, Jingdian Lüyuandao, PARK2, and surrounding neighborhoods.

One expands into larger venues; the other continues moving deeper into daily life.

Taichung has long cultivated its own path in the art market through galleries, collectors, residences, and architecture. But as new museums, neighborhood cultural spaces, and public venues emerge, are the once-scattered elements of art—previously embedded in collecting, architecture, and lifestyle—beginning to form new connections within the city?

The answer may not yet be clear. Yet, looking back at Taichung’s artistic evolution, the city has actually been doing similar things for quite some time.

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Mastering Two Things at Once: From Piano and Chopin to Medicine—How Li Min-Yi Embraces the Time of Classical Music and Forges His Own Path

Li Min-Yi is a performer constantly advancing between medicine and classical music. He began studying piano under renowned pianist Yeh Lu-Na as a child, and has long participated in domestic and international competitions and performances, winning multiple awards in national piano contests. Now a medical student at National Taiwan University, he maintains a disciplined practice routine and continues performing on stage. He doesn’t yet know who he’ll become in 20 years, but he knows what he must do now—excel at two truly important things, one step at a time, and find his own path.

Li Min-Yi first played Chopin in fourth grade. That year, the required piece for the National Student Music Competition was Chopin’s Étude Op. 25 No. 2. To him then, Chopin wasn’t yet a symbol of Romanticism or a timeless classic—he was simply a piece that had to be mastered, and an unusually difficult one at that: “I remember thinking, why is this so hard?”

In middle school, he began exploring Chopin’s waltzes and slowly found them “actually quite fun.”

But it wasn’t until senior year of high school that he truly fell in love with Chopin. During the most stressful period of college entrance exams, Li Min-Yi listened to classical music during commutes and study breaks: “Mozart lifts my mood. Chopin helps me focus no matter how much pressure I’m under, and gradually calms my mind.”

“Of course,” he added with a smile, “if you’re sleepy, it also helps you fall asleep smoothly.”

So why talk about Chopin again now? The reason lies in Li Min-Yi’s participation in the “Chopin Project.” This series continues New Image Arts’ “Piano Project,” initiated in 2014, co-founded by Fan Man-Nung, Wei Yue-Fu, and Yeh Lu-Na. Each edition focuses on a major composer, using performance, education, and intergenerational musician engagement to reconnect classics with contemporary audiences.

The 2026 theme centers on Chopin, framed around “Walking Through Chopin’s Life with Notes,” with Li Min-Yi performing the Krakowskai Rondo.

While preparing the Krakowskai Rondo, Li Min-Yi especially felt the distance between himself and Chopin. The piece was written when Chopin was very young, yet Li Min-Yi struggled to believe it was composed by someone close to his own age: “When I play it, I don’t feel like he was anywhere near my age when he wrote this.”

Li Min-Yi has visited Kraków and walked its streets. Yet returning to the piano, he couldn’t help but wonder: “Are we even talking about the same place?”

A city can be reached physically, but a composer’s inner world isn’t automatically understood through travel. What performers truly must do is gradually bring their own experiences, emotions, and techniques closer to the work.

Classical music’s legacy lives precisely in this gap. Chopin left behind sheet music; later performers leave their recordings and interpretations. With each new generation, we must ask again: What does this music mean to us today, and how should it be heard now?