Talking Taiwan

The last time that Taipei elected a mayor from the Democratic Progressive Party was Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in 1994. At the time it seemed like some kind of a breakthrough because Taipei is known to be a Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang stronghold. During his tenure as mayor of Taipei, Chen Shui-bian had a very high public approval rating of over 70% to nearly 80%. In spite of this he was not reelected for a second term. Instead, the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) was elected mayor of Taipei. Now nearly 30 years have passed and none of the DPP mayoral candidates have been able to get elected in Taipei since. Will this year's DPP candidate Puma Shen (沈伯洋) be able to break the spell?

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/puma-shen-%e6%b2%88%e4%bc%af%e6%b4%8b-dpp-taipei-mayoral-candidates-vision-for-taipei-city-our-full-interview-ep-361/

In this episode you'll learn about more about who Puma Shen (沈伯洋) is and what his vision for Taipei City is.

Puma is an Associate Professor at National Taipei University's Graduate School of Criminology, Co-Founder of Doublethink Lab, Co-Founder of Kuma Academy, and this year's Taipei City mayoral candidate for Democratic Progressive Party.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/puma-shen-%e6%b2%88%e4%bc%af%e6%b4%8b-dpp-taipei-mayoral-candidates-vision-for-taipei-city-our-full-interview-ep-361/

In July Puma Shen (沈伯洋) who's currently a Legislator in Taiwan's Legislative Yuan came to the U.S. for an eight-day trip. Puma is an Associate Professor at National Taipei University's Graduate School of Criminology, Co-Founder of Doublethink Lab, Co-Founder of Kuma Academy, and this year's Taipei City mayoral candidate for Democratic Progressive Party.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/meet-puma-shen-%e6%b2%88%e4%bc%af%e6%b4%8b-the-democratic-progressive-party-legislator-running-for-taipei-mayor-ep-360/

It's been nearly 30 years since Taipei has elected a DPP mayor and Puma most definitely has an uphill battle because Taipei voters usually vote for politicians from the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang. According to a poll released by Taiwan Brain Trust in May, the incumbent Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) led DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Puma Shen (沈伯洋) by more than 20 points.

Puma gave a talk when he was in New York on July 24th and many people showed up to hear him speak. We were at his talk and wanted to share some translated highlights from it. We recorded Puma's entire talk on July 24th and it's on Talking Taiwan's YouTube channel if you'd like to watch it. Incredibly the video now has over 60,000 views!

More exciting news for us…

I've been following Puma's career since he founded Doublethink Lab in 2019, so I was excited to finally have a chance to sit down with him for an interview just 2 days after he officially registered as the DPP candidate for Taipei Mayor. We will share a short clip from the interview at the end this episode before we release the entire interview soon.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/meet-puma-shen-%e6%b2%88%e4%bc%af%e6%b4%8b-the-democratic-progressive-party-legislator-running-for-taipei-mayor-ep-360/

Earlier this year, in March we met and interviewed 13-year-old artist Ashton Yeh right before the opening of his debut exhibition in New York. Born in Taiwan Ashton moved to Japan to immerse himself in his passion for animation and Japanese Manga. He has already had successful solo shows in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and the Philippines. Ashton's artwork is a vibrant portal of monsters, pop-culture-inspired creatures, and imaginative worlds.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/ashton-yeh-13-year-old-taiwanese-imaginative-artist-does-exhibitions-around-the-world-ep-359/

We had a lot of fun meeting and speaking with Ashton. What a creative and expressive young man he is! Ashton gave us a personal walkthrough of his exhibit, telling us about the stories and ideas behind each of his pieces of artwork, so if you'd like to see and hear even more about Ashton's artwork, be sure to visit Talking Taiwan's YouTube channel where we'll be sharing that video.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/ashton-yeh-13-year-old-taiwanese-imaginative-artist-does-exhibitions-around-the-world-ep-359/

Vincent Hsu (徐崇育) is a Taiwanese bassist, composer and the leader of Vincent Hsu & Soy La Ley Afro-Cuban Jazz band. We sat down to speak a few days before his concert, Spirits from Both Sides. The concert was held on August 15th at Flushing Town Hall with Vincent and Arturo O'Farrill- a six-time GRAMMY Award winner and two-time Latin GRAMMY Award winner. Hsu planned to premiere a big-band arrangement of his Taiwanese Trilogy Music Suite (台灣人三部曲), at the August 15th performance.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/vincent-hsu-%e5%be%90%e5%b4%87%e8%82%b2-award-winning-taiwanese-jazz-bassist-composer-bridges-cultures-through-his-musical-works-ep-358/

We talked about the parallels between Taiwanese folk culture and Afro-Latin spiritual beliefs and how his musical composition, Taiwanese Trilogy Music Suite, draws inspiration from Taiwanese Hakka writer Chao-Cheng Chung (鍾肇政).

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/vincent-hsu-%e5%be%90%e5%b4%87%e8%82%b2-award-winning-taiwanese-jazz-bassist-composer-bridges-cultures-through-his-musical-works-ep-358/

We were invited to help out with book packing for an organization called Books for Taiwan, which was spearheaded by Amy Lin (賴淑娟). In July the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce in New York gave Amy the Community Spirit Award and we are sharing her inspiring story in this episode. The concept behind Books for Taiwan, is pretty straightforward. They collect children's books and ship them to schools, organizations and businesses in Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/books-for-taiwan-founder-amy-lin-changes-lives-one-book-at-a-time-ep-357/

Books for Taiwan collects books that are stored at a warehouse donated to them located in New Jersey and volunteers gather regularly throughout the year to pack up books to be put on pallets and shipped over to Taiwan. Books for Taiwan has been around for over 20 years and they have already shipped over 1.3 million books to Taiwan.

In this episode you'll learn how you can get involved and help out with this meaningful project. We'll list how you can donate to and learn more about Books for Taiwan below in our related links section.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/books-for-taiwan-founder-amy-lin-changes-lives-one-book-at-a-time-ep-357/

This year Taiwanese Waves is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year and will be back at SummerStage in New York City's Central Park's Rumsey Playfield on Sunday August 16th. Doors open at 5:00pm. When Taiwanese Waves debuted in 2016, it set an all-time record for the highest single-day attendance at SummerStage. And since then it's continued to introduce audiences to Taiwanese Music.

This year's lineup includes Golden Melody Award regulars 9m88, YELLOW and ØZI.

You'll also be hearing the psychedelic sounds of Mong Tong and from Taiwanese American singer-song writer Chance Emerson, and finally New York's Chinatown Records will spin tracks from past Taiwanese Waves alumni.

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While we were at last year's Taiwanese American Conference West Coast in July of 2025 which was hosted in San Francisco Silicon Valley, we sat down with Akio Yaita (矢板明夫), the keynote speaker of the conference. As a senior journalist at Sankei Shimbun Akio has covered Beijing and Taipei. He's been a strong advocate for Taiwan. In 2024 Akio obtained citizenship in Taiwan and founded the Indo-Pacific Strategy Thinktank.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/akio-yaita-%e7%9f%a2%e6%9d%bf%e6%98%8e%e5%a4%ab-outspoken-taiwan-advocate-in-taiwan-i-can-make-a-bigger-contribution-ep-355/

As we were working on translating and editing our interview with Akio we were disturbed to learn that on July 6th Akio was assaulted after a speaking engagement in Taichung. While Akio was in the lobby of a hotel, a Chinese man approached him and punched him in the face. The man, surnamed Liao (廖) was later arrested at the Taichung International Airport. Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council described the attack as the "first case of transnational repression" in Taiwan since China's Ethnic Unity and Progress Promotion Law took effect on July 1. After the attack Akio has said that he will not be intimidated.

What timing it's turned out to be for us to be sharing our interview with Akio Yaita now. You'll get know about his backstory and how you can follow him and his work.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Pacific Times.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/akio-yaita-%e7%9f%a2%e6%9d%bf%e6%98%8e%e5%a4%ab-outspoken-taiwan-advocate-in-taiwan-i-can-make-a-bigger-contribution-ep-355/

The Taiwanese American Arts Council is celebrating its 10th anniversary and third year as an organization in residence on Governors Island. Island Reverence is the theme of this year's residency. I recently sat down to interview three of the artists in residence at TAAC's house 17 on Governors Island: Chia-Che Tsou, Dena Paige-Fischer, and Leon Chuang. Chia-Che has a fascinating story about how he ended up becoming an artist. Dena and Leon both coincidentally grew up with parents who are artists. Dena and Leon's artwork are currently on view at TAAC house 17 on Governors Island until August 2.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/celebrating-taacs-10th-anniversary-island-reverence-on-governors-island-house-17-ep-354/

We will be releasing a YouTube video of my interview with Chia-Che, Dena, and Leon for listeners who'd like to see some of the visuals referred to in this episode. You can find it soon on Talking Taiwan's YouTube channel.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/celebrating-taacs-10th-anniversary-island-reverence-on-governors-island-house-17-ep-354/

We were at the dress rehearsal of BIRDY, one Hung Dance's most critically acclaimed productions, which will be premiering in New York at NYU Skirball on July 17 & 18th. BIRDY explores the relationship between freedom, limitation, and identity through a distinctive movement language inspired by Tai Chi, traditional Peking opera and contemporary dance.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/birdy-explores-universal-themes-of-freedom-limitation-and-identity-relevant-to-taiwan-ep-353/

We sat down to speak with Lai Hung-Chung, Choreographer and Artistic Director of Hung Dance about his artistic vision for BIRDY and Wei-Ping Chen the dance company's Operations Director. Lai told us that the themes of freedom, limitation, and identity not only reflect his personal struggles but also relate to Taiwan's situation.

Hung Dance is an award-winning Taiwanese contemporary dance company founded in 2017. The troupe's name comes from the Chinese character 翃 (Hóng), meaning to fly.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/birdy-explores-universal-themes-of-freedom-limitation-and-identity-relevant-to-taiwan-ep-353/

We sat down to speak with Claire Wang (王婉諭), chairwoman of the New Power Party, one of Taiwan political parties, that emerged from the Sunflower Movement. While she never imagined herself going into politics, personal circumstances changed that. She's a powerful example of transforming personal tragedy into action. Wang is a passionate advocate for progressive values and local democracy, from judicial reform and child protection to housing justice. Now she's leading a new chapter for the New Power Party. Last July we brought Talking Taiwan to TAC-WC, the Taiwanese American Conference West Coast hosted in San Francisco/Silicon Valley.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/claire-wang-%e7%8e%8b%e5%a9%89%e8%ab%ad-chairwoman-of-the-new-power-party-talks-about-relaunching-the-party-ep-352/

It was just weeks before the historic July 26th vote to recall 24 Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang lawmakers. At the time it was the largest recall effort attempted by the citizens of a democracy. As a result of what was called the Great Recall Movement, a total of 31 KMT legislators were put up for a recall vote. Another 7 KMT legislators in addition to the first 24 would be up for a recall vote on August 23. Last July Talking Taiwan traveled back to witness the first recall vote on July 26th. To learn more about the Great Recall movement we encourage you to listen to our past episodes 316 with recall campaigners Carol, Acho and Eric, and 317 with Courtney Donovan Smith.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Pacific Times (太平洋時報).

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/claire-wang-%e7%8e%8b%e5%a9%89%e8%ab%ad-chairwoman-of-the-new-power-party-talks-about-relaunching-the-party-ep-352/

Dr. Hsing-Huan Wang is Chairman of the Taiwan Statebuilding party. Last July we sat down to speak with him at TAC-WC, the Taiwanese American Conference West Coast hosted in San Francisco/Silicon Valley. We talked about how he went from studying Buddhist philosophy and aspirations to pursue academic research as a professor, to accidentally becoming a politician. The Taiwan Statebuilding has a clear vision for an independent Taiwan and a Taiwanese Republic. The party also takes a hard line on China as an enemy state.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-hsing-huan-wang-chairman-of-the-taiwan-statebuilding-party-an-unwavering-voice-for-taiwans-independence-ep-351/

This interview was recorded just weeks before the historic July 26th vote in 2025 to recall 24 Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang lawmakers. At the time it was the largest recall effort attempted by the citizens of a democracy. As a result of what was called the Great Recall Movement, a total of 31 KMT legislators were put up for a recall vote. Another 7 KMT legislators in addition to the first 24 would be up for a recall vote on August 23. Last July Talking Taiwan traveled back to witness the first recall vote on July 26th. To learn more about the Great Recall movement we encourage you to listen to our past episodes 316 with recall campaigners Carol, Acho and Eric, and 317 with Courtney Donovan Smith.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Pacific Times (太平洋時報).

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-hsing-huan-wang-chairman-of-the-taiwan-statebuilding-party-an-unwavering-voice-for-taiwans-independence-ep-351/

Happy Pride month! Cony Hsieh is President of the Kaohsiung Pride Parade Association. We recently spoke with Cony about her experience as a lesbian woman serving in Taiwan's military, and how she hopes her research on gender issues in the military can help push for reform in Taiwan's military.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/cony-hsieh-kaohsiung-pride-president-focuses-on-lgbtq-issues-and-reforming-taiwans-military-ep-350/

She's also a podcaster and her podcast 微叛逆ê副駕 (which has been translated as "The Slightly Rebellious Co-pilot") is about LGBTQ+ life experiences and gender issues in the military. She once created 28 days of podcast episodes covering a range of LGBTQ+ experiences for Pride Month!

Cony has a master's degree from the Graduate Institute of Gender Education at National Kaohsiung Normal University.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/cony-hsieh-kaohsiung-pride-president-focuses-on-lgbtq-issues-and-reforming-taiwans-military-ep-350/

This year's Taiwan Pride Float at the New York City Pride March was inspired by Taiwan's Betel Nut Beauty culture. The concept and design was conceived by Nymphia Wind, who was already an established drag queen in Taiwan when she won RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 in 2024.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/nymphia-wind-brings-taiwans-betel-nut-beauty-culture-to-the-new-york-pride-march-ep-349/

Nymphia dedicated her win to Taiwan and that same year Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen congratulated Nymphia and invited her to perform at the presidential office. In 2024 Nymphia also appeared on the Taiwan Pride Float at the New York City Pride March. In 2025 Nymphia performed at the Paris Cultural Olympiad.

Right before the New York City Pride March on Sunday, June 28th, we were invited to an event where Nymphia shared her creative vision behind this year's Taiwan Pride float. We also had a chance to meet the other betel nut beauties Yolanda Mesula and Tina Banana, who would be joining Nymphia on the float. After Nymphia's initial comments, I did have a chance to ask her a question and to get some other soundbites.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/nymphia-wind-brings-taiwans-betel-nut-beauty-culture-to-the-new-york-pride-march-ep-349/

Jotham Hung is a ceramic artist and educator based in Southern California reflecting on his early experiences with art. Late last year I sat down to speak with Jotham about his evolution and journey to becoming a full-time educator artist and he shared the dark moment that led to his creative process which has resulted in pieces that reflect the themes of deconstruction & reconstruction, damage & repair.

If you think you're not creative, don't write yourself off. Jotham believes everyone is an artist and has the potential to be creative.

This episode is sponsored by the Taiwanese United Fund (TUF). TUF is an arts and culture foundation that celebrates the cultural heritages of Taiwanese Americans. Established in 1986, the foundation's mission is to facilitate cultural exchange between the Taiwanese American community and other American cultural communities, hoping to enrich and expand our cultural experiences.

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Late last year, I sat down to speak with John Enger Cheng about the early roots of his creativity in childhood, his creative process as an artist, what it means to him to be Taiwanese American and how that shows up in his art. We also talked about how he maintains a creative practice and believes that inspiration finds you working.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/john-enger-cheng-on-his-creative-process-and-how-inspiration-finds-you-working-tuf-part-2-ep-347/

In this candid conversation, John talks about his artwork that has been inducted into the permanent collection of Taiwanese Art Treasures Preserved Overseas – The Homecoming Exhibition of the Sun Ten Collection at the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, which is located in Taichung

John Enger Cheng is Designer, Co-founder, and Creative Director of the design practice Winnow+Glean, and a visual artist known as @madebyenger on Instagram. You can find his work on madebyenger.com

We will be releasing a YouTube video of my interview with John for listeners who'd like to see some of the visuals referred to in this episode. You can find it soon on Talking Taiwan's YouTube channel.

This episode is sponsored by the Taiwanese United Fund (TUF). TUF is an arts and culture foundation that celebrates the cultural heritages of Taiwanese Americans. Established in 1986, the foundation's mission is to facilitate cultural exchange between the Taiwanese American community and other American cultural communities, hoping to enrich and expand our cultural experiences.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/john-enger-cheng-on-his-creative-process-and-how-inspiration-finds-you-working-tuf-part-2-ep-347/

We sat down to speak with George Yin, Board Chair of the Vincent Price Art Museum Foundation & Political Law Attorney about his interest in supporting the arts, why he thinks it's important to do so, and how so-called "non-artists" can support the arts and more specifically artists in their community.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/george-yin-arts-advocacy-can-be-a-lifelong-passion-tuf-part-1-ep-346/

This episode is sponsored by the Taiwanese United Fund (TUF). TUF is an arts and culture foundation that celebrates the cultural heritages of Taiwanese Americans. Established in 1986, the foundation's mission is to facilitate cultural exchange between the Taiwanese American community and other American cultural communities, hoping to enrich and expand our cultural experiences.

In the spirit of supporting artists in their community, we also spoke with two Taiwanese American artists based in Southern California John Cheng and Jotham Hung. Stay tuned for my interviews with John and Jotham.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/george-yin-arts-advocacy-can-be-a-lifelong-passion-tuf-part-1-ep-346/

We stepped out in the drizzling rain for this year's Passport to Taiwan on Sunday, May 24th in New York City's Union Square Park, and were happy to see that the weather hadn't put much of a damper on the number people that came out for this annual tradition.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/passport-to-taiwan-2026-making-our-rounds-with-taiwanese-community-organizations-fapa-tccny-natma-ep-345/

We made our rounds and spoke to people at some of the booths representing different Taiwanese American community organizations including the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce New York, (TCCNY) and the North American Taiwanese Medical Association (NATMA). And if doing a deep dive into historical facts related to Taiwan is your thing, we recommend you check out @formosa.forever on Instagram.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/passport-to-taiwan-2026-making-our-rounds-with-taiwanese-community-organizations-fapa-tccny-natma-ep-345/

In part two of our interview with Vickie Wang (王宇平), she talked about how the COVID lockdown of 2022 in Shanghai affected her mental health, her thoughts on the Great Recall movement in Taiwan last year, how she questions her Taiwanese-ness i.e. if she's Taiwanese enough, generative propaganda, and how she got into stand-up comedy. Vickie Wang a writer, interpreter, and stand-up comedian born and raised in Taiwan. Now based in New City York she co-produces a monthly stand-up show called Wang's World Comedy.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/vickie-wang-%e7%8e%8b%e5%ae%87%e5%b9%b3-surviving-the-shanghai-covid-lockdown-part-2-ep-344/

Vickie Wang (王宇平) is a writer, interpreter, and stand-up comedian born and raised in Taiwan. She's lived in Shanghai, China for nearly a decade, where she started doing stand-up comedy under censorship. Last year I sat down to interview Vickie. in part one of my interview with Vickie, we talked about the perceptions and attitudes that many Taiwanese have about the Chinese, and on the other end how the Chinese she met in China perceived the Taiwanese and Taiwan.

We also talked what it was like for her to go through the strict COVID lockdown in Shanghai in 2022. Now based in New City York Vickie co-produces a monthly stand-up show called Wang's World Comedy (pronounced WAYNE) and writes a Substack called Happy Medium. Stay tuned for the second part of my interview with Vickie.

She has published two Taiwan op-eds in The New York Times, one on the metoo movement, and one on what another Trump term means for Taiwan's future. She is currently working on a nonfiction book about her experience of COVID and comedy in China.

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Every year we try to dedicate an episode of Talking Taiwan to 228, an important date in Taiwan's history, marking the 228 Massacre. 228 stands for February 28 1947. February 28th is now commemorated as a national holiday in Taiwan known as the 228 Peace Memorial Day.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/kita-foundation-mapping-the-path-of-the-trailblazers-that-paved-the-way-for-taiwans-democracy-and-freedom-ep-342/

However, the 228 Massacre is not confined to this single date in history. There were circumstances leading up what happened on February 28th and there were also subsequent events after February 28th which escalated into bloody violence and massacres leading to what some refer to as the March Massacre.

Under the authoritarian Chiang regime, and Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang, what followed after 228 was 38 years of martial law and the White Terror era. Anyone could be disappeared, executed or worse for just saying or doing the wrong thing, or for what was seemingly wrong in the eyes of the authorities. The people of Taiwan were horrified and terrified. For decades there was denial and suppression of 228 by authorities in Taiwan, and generations dared not speak of 228.

228 was absent from high school textbooks until relatively recently. To learn more about the specifics of 228 I invite you to listen to some of our past episodes on the topic. We recommend episodes 309, 277, 228, and 172.

In an effort to confront its authoritarian past, in recent years Taiwan has taken steps to acknowledge historical sites of injustice such as buildings where military police fired on civilians on February 28, 1947. Around this time of year, around February 28 and leading into March, it's a time to reflect on the past, and what we can learn from it.

So in the vein of reflecting on the past, this year I thought I'd share my interview with Sabrina Liu and Meng Chiang who are part of the team that makes up the KITA Foundation, an organization that was formed as an oral history project to understand who are the trailblazers that paved the way for Taiwan's democracy and freedom.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/kita-foundation-mapping-the-path-of-the-trailblazers-that-paved-the-way-for-taiwans-democracy-and-freedom-ep-342/

Last July, we brought Talking Taiwan to the 2025 Taiwanese American Conference, West Coast. While we were there, I sat down to speak with Dr. Shih-Fen Chen (陳時奮), who's also been known by his pen name Wēngdáruì (翁達瑞). Dr. Chen is Professor Emeritus at Ivey Business School, and a Professor at Western Washington University. He's an outspoken political commentator, self-described as a scholar with a sense of responsibility to reveal the truth.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Pacific Times (太平洋時報)

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Back in April 2021 we covered news about a record breaking 25 Chinese air force aircraft including fighters and nuclear-capable bombers that entered Taiwan's air defense identification zone (ADIZ). At the time 25 seemed like an alarming number. It was the largest incursion by Chinese military planes into Taiwan's ADIZ to date.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/chinas-alarming-gray-zone-tactics-around-taiwan-and-its-neighboring-nations-in-asia-ep-340/

To be clear these sorts of activities had been going on long before this and long before September of 2020 which is about the time that Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense started to publicly report China's incursions.

China's People's Liberation Army has shown no signs of letting up. The PLA's gray zone tactics have also included the use of drones and balloons. Incursions by warplanes and naval ships into the airspace and waters surrounding Taiwan are now a daily occurrence. And they have completely shattered the record 25 aircraft in Taiwan's ADIZ many times over.

Major military exercises have included the Joint Sword-2024A. Three days after Taiwan's President Lai Ching-te's inauguration on May 20 of 2024, China's PLA conducted two days of military exercises in the air and sea space around Taiwan.

More recently, at the end of 2025 on December 29 and 30, People's Republic of China (PRC) military forces carried out a large-scale exercise in the air and ocean areas around Taiwan called "Justice Mission-2025." These two days of PLA military exercises involved at least 200 warplanes.

Unfortunately these types of gray zone tactics by China have become commonplace and while they have been more widely reported on, even more troubling are the other gray zone tactics that the PRC has been levying on Taiwan, which include the presence of Chinese owned and operated oil rigs in Taiwan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and on January 16th the New York Times reported that China quietly mobilized thousands of fishing boats twice already, most recently in the first few weeks of this new year.

Quoting from the New York Times, "By January 11, they had assembled into a rectangle stretching more than 200 miles. Maritime and military experts said the maneuvers suggested that China was strengthening its maritime militia, which is made up of civilian fishing boats trained to join in military operations."

This was not the first time. A month earlier on December 25th the Times reported that "about 2,000 Chinese fishing boats assembled in two long, parallel formations on Christmas Day in the East China Sea. Each stretched 290 miles long, about the distance from New York City to Buffalo, forming a reverse L shape."

According to the New York Times, "The unusual formations were spotted by the chief operating officer of ingeniSPACE, a company that analyzes data, and were independently confirmed by The Times using ship location data provided by Starboard Maritime Intelligence.

About ingeniSPACE:

ingeniSPACE is a geospatial intelligence company integrating remote sensing data across multiple phenomenologies. We are an insight-as-a-service platform delivering all weather day-night multi-temporal understanding around the world. Our intelligence extends the "executive decision making time" that public sector and commercial leaders need to make well-informed decisions.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/chinas-alarming-gray-zone-tactics-around-taiwan-and-its-neighboring-nations-in-asia-ep-340/

At the end of 2024 I sat down with Dr. Meng Chiang, the Executive Director of the 2024 Taiwanese American Conference- East Coast. We had a really wonderful heart-centered conversation about the conference theme Collective Memory and that led to collective trauma as it relates to the Taiwanese and Taiwanese American communities. We talked about the 4 types of trauma responses, the 4 Fs- flight, fight, freeze and fawn and post-traumatic growth.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/collective-memory-collective-trauma-a-conversation-with-meng-chiang-ep-339/

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Sharon Huang, who passed away in December of 2025. She was a dear friend, mother, wife, sister, auntie, a community organizer and a cornerstone of the Taiwanese American community, especially in New York where she resided. Most notably she and her husband Patrick Huang ran the Brooklyn Artists Studio (BAS) and have supported the Taiwanese American Arts Council (TAAC) and Talking Taiwan. Together they have advocated for Taiwan democracy, human rights, and culture. The loss of Sharon is felt by so many who knew and loved her, she leaves behind family in the U.S. and Taiwan.

Mengchun "Meng" Chiang, PhD (she/her/hers), is a member of the Taiwanese American community. She has served in various community leadership roles, most recently as Executive Director of the Taiwanese American Conference East Coast (TACEC) in 2024.

Professionally, Meng is the founder of CHI Executive Consulting, LLC, where she provides leadership coaching and consulting services, specializing in workplace inclusion and organizational wellness. She is passionate about empowering leaders from diverse backgrounds, helping them enhance their communication, negotiation, and inclusive leadership skills. Meng regularly facilitates workshops to help leaders integrate their identities into effective leadership practices that drive business success and personal growth.

Meng is a licensed clinical psychologist with affiliations to Harvard Medical School, Carnegie Mellon University, the Tepper School of Business, and National Taiwan University. Her experience spans education, training, and leadership roles. She pioneered the Leadership and Connection for Asian Women+ Leaders program and served as Assistant Director of Training at Carnegie Mellon University.

In her free time, Meng enjoys traveling, practicing loving-kindness meditation, listening to music, taking walks, and grocery shopping.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/collective-memory-collective-trauma-a-conversation-with-meng-chiang-ep-339/

It's time to reveal the Top 5 episodes of Talking Taiwan in 2025. What's notable about these 5 episodes is that they are among the most popular Talking Taiwan episodes of all time.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwan-top-5-of-2025-award-winner-end-of-year-review-ep-338/

But before revealing the Top 5 episodes of 2025, let's take look back on 2025, which was a busy year for Talking Taiwan! We hosted the inaugural Talking Taiwan Fundraising Gala at the elegant Eichholtz showroom in New York City in April. It was truly a magical memorable night. In April we were also invited to speak at the North American Taiwanese American Women Association's (NATWA) Annual Conference.

For sometime we've been watching what was happening with the Great Recall in Taiwan which ultimately led to 24 legislators being put up for a recall vote on July 26th and another seven on August 23. The world had not seen anything like this happen on a national level in a democracy! And after Felicia interviewed a group of highly dedicated recall campaigners, she learned firsthand about the grassroots mobilization efforts that resulted in over one million signatures being collected in support of the recall vote, and she felt this was a historic moment that Talking Taiwan should be in Taiwan to cover.

Thanks to an anonymous donor who offered to pay for our flights back to Taiwan and others who made generous donations we were able to travel back to Taiwan for a week to cover the first recall in vote on July 26th. We left shortly after returning from the Taiwanese American Conference- West Coast (TAC-WC) which was held in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was the first time we were invited to speak at TAC-WC about our work. While we were at the conference, we also set up an on-location podcasting studio where we interviewed several of the conference's speakers. We look forward to releasing those episodes very soon in the New Year.

It's been an extremely eventful year for Talking Taiwan with many ups and downs. Spending only a week in Taiwan to cover the Recall Vote in July, and trying to conduct interviews, and edit and produce them in that time period proved to be a bit unrealistic and we'll need to pace ourselves better in the future.

It was also crushing to witness the results of the Recall Vote on July 26th with none of the 24 legislators successfully recalled from office. While still recovering from that ordeal in July, we traveled to T.O. Webfest awards in September where Talking Taiwan was nominated in the Best Ensemble Cast category. While we didn't win, it was our second nomination after being shortlisted at the International Women's Podcast Awards in 2024 and winning a Golden Crane Award in 2021.

As we go into the 13th year of Talking Taiwan, I'd like take a moment to especially thank everyone who has supported Talking Taiwan over the years and made a contribution to help fund our trip to return to Taiwan to cover the Great Recall in July.

We also want to thank each and every one of all of our amazing guests for being a part of the Talking Taiwan podcast.

Special thanks to our listeners. We remain committed more than ever to producing content that matters to people who care about Taiwan.

For links to the top 5 episodes of 2025 visit our website TalkingTaiwan.com. Wishing everyone a Happy Healthy New Year 2026! I'm your host Felicia Lin.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwan-top-5-of-2025-award-winner-end-of-year-review-ep-338/

In July of 2024, we brought talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference (TAC), East Coast at Westchester University.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-charm-of-tainan-taiwans-oldest-city-a-talk-with-author-and-historian-jinyu-hsieh-%e8%ac%9d%e9%87%91%e9%ad%9a-ep-337/

Jinyu Hsieh (謝金魚), one of the speakers at TAC is a writer and a historian. I sat down to talk to her about the charm of Tainan, located in southern Taiwan. It is the oldest city in Taiwan and was founded in 1624. In 2024, Tainan was celebrating its 400th anniversary.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-charm-of-tainan-taiwans-oldest-city-a-talk-with-author-and-historian-jinyu-hsieh-%e8%ac%9d%e9%87%91%e9%ad%9a-ep-337/

To commemorate its anniversary on December 10th, we thought this would be a great time to reshare one of our most popular CLASSIC episodes, an interview we did with Taiwan Democracy fighter Dr. Linda Gail Arrigo, Ai Linda (艾琳達) in 2024 about events leading up to the HISTORIC Kaohsiung Incident.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-linda-gail-arrigo-taiwan-democracy-fighter-talks-about-events-leading-up-to-the-kaohsiung-incident-classic-ep-336/

Last year when we were in Taiwan in January for the presidential election, we were privileged to meet Dr. Linda Gail Arrigo, Ai Linda (艾琳達) in Taipei and sat down for a one-on-one interview. Few have experienced such historic events first-hand in the way Linda has, as she speaks from the doorstep of history.

Linda talked about the era and events that precipitated the Kaohsiung incident, also known as the Formosa Incident, which is widely considered the watershed moment in history that led to Taiwan's democratization. The Kaohsiung Incident happened in December of 1979

During this interview Linda talked about how, in 1975 she had been sent to observe a trial that had been stated to be an open trial but when she arrived there, she saw that it wasn't. In the face of intimidation by the Taiwan Garrison Command officers, she chose to speak up about the injustice she saw, and reported it to Amnesty International. To me, Linda's self-directed action was a moment of historic defiant courage.

Thank you Linda Gail Arrigo, Ai Linda (艾琳達) for sharing your story and for advocating for the people of Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-linda-gail-arrigo-taiwan-democracy-fighter-talks-about-events-leading-up-to-the-kaohsiung-incident-classic-ep-336/

Earlier this year, on March 30, at the Taiwan Center in Flushing NY, FAPA (Formosan Association for Public Affairs) hosted a panel discussion, Lessons from the Battlefield: What Taiwan Can Learn From Ukraine. Representatives from the Ukrainian community, Razom for Ukraine and Dignitas Ukraine and FAPA discussed how NGOs can strengthen advocacy, humanitarian aid, and international collaboration.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/what-taiwan-can-learn-from-ukraine-a-panel-hosted-by-fapa-part-2-ep-335/

It was a very substantive discussion that we wanted to record and share with FAPA's permission to our listeners. This episode part two is the second half of the panel discussion. To listen to the first half of the panel discussion listen to the previous episode, episode 334.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/what-taiwan-can-learn-from-ukraine-a-panel-hosted-by-fapa-part-2-ep-335/

Earlier this year, on March 30, at the Taiwan Center in Flushing NY, FAPA (Formosan Association for Public Affairs) hosted a panel discussion, Lessons from the Battlefield: What Taiwan Can Learn From Ukraine. Representatives from the Ukrainian community, Razom for Ukraine and Dignitas Ukraine and FAPA discussed how NGOs can strengthen advocacy, humanitarian aid, and international collaboration.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/what-taiwan-can-learn-from-ukraine-a-panel-discussion-hosted-by-fapa-part-1-ep-334/

It was a very substantive discussion that we wanted to record and share with FAPA's permission to our listeners. This episode part one is the first half of the panel discussion.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/what-taiwan-can-learn-from-ukraine-a-panel-discussion-hosted-by-fapa-part-1-ep-334/

I recently sat down with Dr. Raymond Kuo, Director of RAND's Taiwan Policy Initiative and Catherine Kish, Research Assistant and Chinese Language Specialist at RAND to talk about their War on the Rocks article, "Taiwan's Will to Fight Isn't the Problem."

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/does-taiwan-have-the-will-to-fight-ep-333/

Later on in the interview we also talked about how Taiwan could leverage its diaspora.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/does-taiwan-have-the-will-to-fight-ep-333/

Get Access to the Replay of the Talking Taiwan Gala Make a Donation at Humanitix

We had Peter Lin's AAPI Jazz Collective perform, and food catered by 886 Restaurant, DAE tea and Taiwan Beer. It was a memorable, magical night and if you're wondering what you missed out on it, don't worry, later on in the episode I'll be sharing how you can watch the replay that we made of the event. We'll also share the Humanitix link where you can make a donation to watch the replay of the Talking Taiwan Gala.

At the gala I interviewed comedian Esther Chen, Thomas Duh of DAE Tea, artist Kaarina Chu MacKenzie, and Jonny Lee, President of TAP-NY (Taiwanese American Professionals- NY chapter). And that's what we'll be sharing in this episode.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwans-2025-inaugural-fundraising-gala-ep-332/

Dr. Yang Szu Pang (楊斯棓) is an author and speaker. He has donated 100% of his books royalties to causes and organizations that he cares about. He has been invited to speak at several Taiwanese American conferences and communities across the country.

In July of 2024 he sat down to speak with at the Taiwanese American Conference East Coast which was held at Westchester University. We talked about a broad range of topics from how to be financially prepared to care of aging, ailing parents to his most recent book, It Only Takes One, where the title of the books comes from and how it's related to Hsiao Bi-khim, the current the Vice President of Taiwan.

Special thanks for translation assistance provided by Dr. Lee-Yuan Liu.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/author-and-speaker-dr-yang-szu-pang-%e6%a5%8a%e6%96%af%e6%a3%93-dont-think-youre-too-small-to-make-a-difference-ep-331/

Wang Guo-ren's deer sculpture measures well over 10 feet if you include its antlers. Constructed completely of fallen pieces of wood and tree branches that have been colorfully painted, the deer seems to have magically taken up residence on the lawn outside of the Taiwanese American Arts Council House 17.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/eco-art-on-island-the-deer-god-and-wearable-art-now-at-governors-island-house-17-ep-330/

Inside of the house we spoke with Julia Hsia about her exhibit "Wear Enough" which includes artifacts made with paper and receipts.

In September we ventured over to Governors Island to meet artists in residence Wang Guo-ren and his sculpture entitled the Deer God, and Julia Hsia.

This year's house theme is Eco Art on Island and as you hear at the beginning of the episode we were outside with the lovely sounds of nature like birds, and the more than occasional airplane flying overhead, many of which had to be edited out. Special thanks to Julia Hsia for helping to translate for Guo-ren at the beginning of the episode, before we moved indoors to interview her.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/eco-art-on-island-the-deer-god-and-wearable-art-now-at-governors-island-house-17-ep-330/

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:

Ho Chie Tsai is a founding Board Member who also wears many hats in the Taiwanese American community. As a frequent speaker on the collegiate conference circuit and youth summer camp programs, a past Program Director and current Board Member of the Taiwanese American Foundation, and a founder of the Taiwanese American Professionals chapter in San Francisco, he hopes to inspire a renewed sense of pride in personal identity and to increase activism and involvement within the greater Asian American community.

Ho Chie holds an Electrical Engineering BS degree from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, a Bioengineering MS and an MD degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago. In his spare time, he works as a pediatrician.

In this episode, the husband-and-wife team, gypsy jazz and classical guitarist Antoine Boyer and chromatic harmonica player Yeore Kim shared about their real life "Love in Taipei" story. He's from France and she's from South Korea, so music was their first common language. We also talked about how they navigate their partnership as life partners and as musical partners, and their debut duet album You and I.

If you'd like to know more about Antoine you can check out Kaju's in-depth interview with Antoine on YouTube

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-real-life-love-in-taipei-story-virtuoso-musician-couple-antoine-boyer-and-yeore-kim-ep-329/

On Friday, September 12th at the Dag Hammarskjöld Plaza which is across from the UN Headquarters, in New York representatives from the Taiwan United Nations Alliance or TAIUNA, an NGO from Taiwan, held a press conference urging the UN to include Taiwan in its system. TAIUNA Youth Representatives performed a dance, a white protest of Taiwan's exclusion from the UN.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiunas-white-protest-of-taiwans-exclusion-from-the-un-ep-328/

September is when the UN General Assembly takes place and delegates from TAIUNA have been coming to New York for the past twenty years to call for Taiwan's membership in the UN. This year is the 80th anniversary of the United Nations and the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly. The General Assembly High-level Week runs from September 22-30th.

The following day, Saturday, September 13th was the UN for Taiwan rally and march which has been organized by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York since 1992.

The annual press conference and UN for Taiwan Rally are reminders of Taiwan's long-standing isolation from the international community.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiunas-white-protest-of-taiwans-exclusion-from-the-un-ep-328/

In July of 2024, we brought talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference, east Coast at Westchester University, where I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing Taiwan's, former vice President, Dr. Chen Chen (陳建仁). We talked about how Dr. Chen was trained to be an epidemiologist and was initially reluctant to go into politics, but then fate intervened and changed his mind when SARS hit Taiwan in 2003, and his experience handling the SARS outbreak as Taiwan's Minister of Health played an important role preparing him to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic as Taiwan's Vice President.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-chen-chien-jen-former-vp-of-taiwan-reflects-upon-his-life-in-politics-and-as-a-public-servant/

I asked Dr. Chen why it's important for Taiwan to be a member of the WHO World Health Organization and about the challenges he's faced as the Vice President and Premier of Taiwan. how he overcame them and why he decided not to run as Vice President with Tsai Ing-wen for a second term.

And finally, for some context, at the time of the interview, the Bluebird movement had emerged in Taiwan a month and a half earlier. I touched upon this with Dr. Chen briefly at the end of the interview.

At the time, more than a hundred thousand people in total had taken to the streets of Taiwan in a series of massive protests. It was a very public objection to controversial bills passed by Taiwan's opposition controlled Legislative Yuan. After interviewing Dr. Chen, I was left thinking if only the world had more politicians like him with a public service mindset, the world would be a better place.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-chen-chien-jen-former-vp-of-taiwan-reflects-upon-his-life-in-politics-and-as-a-public-servant/

In this episode of Talking Taiwan we sat down to speak with Eugenie Chao who describes herself as Taiwanese American maker, educator, and musician who works in the intersection of ceramics, sound, and history. Her exhibit at the Taiwanese American Arts Council House 17 on Governors Island aptly named Listening Vessels, features ceramic objects turned musical instruments created by Chao and is on display until September 7th.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/working-in-the-intersection-of-ceramics-sound-and-history-taiwanese-american-maker-eugenie-chao-ep-326/

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

What came first for Eugenie music or working with clay?

What made her combine ceramics with music?

Where did that idea come from?

How did she get interested or start working with clay?

Eugenie's musical training and what instruments she plays?

What was her early artwork like?

How her artwork has evolved over time?

What does it mean to work at the intersection of ceramics, sound, and history?

What is her creative process is like?

How sound affects her artwork?

How she decides the size of the objects she creates?

The challenges involved with making large scale pieces vs pieces that can be made by hand

How does the size of an object affects the sound it makes

The ceramic instruments from ancient cultures that inspire her, how she discovered them and what was their purpose

What inspires you? Where do you get your inspiration?

Eugenie's connection to Taiwan

How Eugenie considers herself a maker and not an artist

What can we expect to see and experience from Eugenie's Listening Vessels exhibit at the TAAC house on Governors Island

The most ambitious or challenging piece of work that Eugenie has made

How Eugenie deals with a creative block

Eugenie's future projects can we expect to see from you?

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/working-in-the-intersection-of-ceramics-sound-and-history-taiwanese-american-maker-eugenie-chao-ep-326/

When we decided to travel back to Taiwan to cover the vote to recall 24 KMT legislators on July 26th we had no idea how things would turn out. The Great Recall (or da ba mian) as it came to be known in Taiwan, was notable not just because it led to a record number of 31 KMT legislators in total being put up for a recall vote. What was most impressive about is that it was a nationwide effort that started at a grassroots level by everyday people.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed-ep-325/

It's been incredible to watch everything leading up to the Great Recall. Going back to last May in 2024 during what came to be known as the Bluebird Movement when tens of thousands of people and upwards of 100,000 took to the streets of Taiwan in a series of protests against controversial bills proposed in the legislative yuan. What happened during the Bluebird Movement protests is said to be what in part galvanized citizens to organize the recall campaigns.

I can't deny that our hopes were high for the results of the July 26th recall vote and after we learned that none of the KMT legislators were successfully recalled, we did our best during the remaining days of our time in Taiwan to try to make sense of the results by talking to a number of our friends and peers.

What you'll hear in this episode are some sound bites from conversations we had on July 30th with Rath Wang, Safe Spaces Senior Policy Fellow and Dennis Chen, Chairman of Wikimedia Taiwan. They shared their observations and thoughts on why the recalls failed, the recall campaigners and what the results of the recall vote could mean for President Lai.

Later that day I also spoke with Morrison Lee a Taiwanese businessman who went to China on what was supposed to be a 48-hour trip and ended up getting detained and stuck there for nearly 4 years. Morrison talked about his personal involvement in the recall effort also shared his thoughts on why the recall votes failed.

As mentioned, recall campaign groups succeeded in putting up a total of 31 KMT legislators for a recall vote. Another 7 legislators will be up for a recall vote on August 23rd.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/3-perspectives-in-taiwan-why-the-great-recall-failed-ep-325/

As part of our great recall coverage in Taiwan, on July 25th the day before the vote to recall 24 Kuomintang (KMT) legislators, we sat down to interview A-Mei the spokesperson for the Shān chú wēi hài (山除薇害) recall group.

We talked about why she got involved in the recall effort, how she got doxed by the Kuomintang (KMT) and how the recall effort was supported by overseas Taiwanese in over 38 cities from over 20 different countries. We previously interviewed three recall campaigners from this group- Carol, Eric and Acho in episode 316. We were also with A-Mei and the recall group on the day of the recall vote July 26th to watch the results of the recall vote.

Special thanks to Mei-Ling Lin for her translation assistance.

Related Links:

This is a part of our continued coverage of Taiwan's Great Recall. On July 26th, the people of Taiwan voted on whether or not to recall 24 Kuomintang KMT legislators from all across the island. None of the 24 KMT legislators were recalled. This was a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party that could have benefited from a rebalancing of the legislative yuan since it only has 51 of the 113 seats in the legislative yuan or congress.

Among the concerns that motivated these civil society recall groups to take action were the unchecked visits of KMT legislators with high level officials in China. In April of 2024 KMT caucus convener Fu Kun-chi led a delegation of 17 KMT legislators to China where they met with the head of China's United Front. When asked the delegation has not been transparent about what was discussed in the meetings with Chinese officials.

Two days after the recall vote, on July 28th , I sat down with Jiho Chang, Keelung City Councilor who shared how he faced a retaliatory recall by the KMT. He discussed his thoughts on the outcome of the July 26th recall vote and what this means for the DPP.

On August 23 another 7 KMT legislators will be put up for a recall vote.

Related Links:

On July 27th the day after Taiwan's island wide historic recall vote of 24 Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) legislators, I sat down with Linda Gail Arrigo, Ai Linda (艾琳達) to reflect on the results of the recall vote, and the impact of the civic mobilization behind the recall effort.

Related Links:

On July 26th the day of the historic vote to recall 24 Kuomintang (KMT) legislators we were with the Shān chú wēi hài (山除薇害) recall group in Taipei at Rongxing Garden (榮星花園) Rongxing garden, which is more like a park, for a sort of watch party with about a hundred volunteer recall campaigners. The recall vote results were being televised live on a series of oversized screens that had been set up in the park.

When we finally learned the results of the recall vote It was a shock. 0 of 24 legislators had been recalled. What a sad, disappointing day. I could see it in the faces of the recall volunteers and at the same time it was touching to see how they consoled each other as some could help but burst into tears. The leaders of the recall group asked everyone to join hands and to form a circle in a sign of solidarity and encouragement Carol and Eric shared their initial thoughts with us.

Related Links:

On our first day in Taiwan July 25th we went into the streets of Taipei where recall campaigners from the the Shān chú wēi hài (山除薇害) recall group were doing a last minute push asking people to get out and vote for the recall of 24 KMT legislators on July 26th.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/first-day-in-taipei-day-before-the-great-recall-ep-320/

We previously interviewed 3 recall campaigners from this group- Carol, Eric and Acho in episode 316. Eric explaining the meaning behind the recall group's name.

Later that day we sat down to interview A-Mei the recall group's spokesperson who was doxed by the Kuomintang.

We will be releasing our full interview with A-Mei at a later date so stay tuned for that.

We ended the night at a recall campaign rally so spirited that you'd never guess that we were all standing in the pouring rain getting soaked.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/first-day-in-taipei-day-before-the-great-recall-ep-320/

Summer is upon us and I'm sure that a lot of our listeners especially those in New York will be happy to know that Taiwanese Waves will be returning to Central Park's Summer Stage on August 3 at the Rumsey Playfield. Doors open at 5:00pm

Since 2016 Taiwanese Waves has introduced Taiwanese music to audiences at Central Park's Summer Stage. If you're not familiar with Taiwanese Waves you're in for a treat. In this episode I sat down with Mia, the main organizer of Taiwanese Waves and we are about to walk through and give you a taste of all of the acts that have performed at Summer Stage in the past nine years. You'll also get to hear a preview of what to expect at this year's concert.

Related Links:

In late June, we met up with YouTuber Bā Jiǒng (八炯) when he was in New York. If you're not familiar with Bā Jiǒng you might want to check out 2 of his most popular videos which expose China's United Front's tactics to target the Taiwanese and to recruit Taiwanese influencers to attack and spread disinformation about Taiwan. Then you'll know why he's had death threats.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/meet-taiwanese-youtuber-ba-jiong-%e5%85%ab%e7%82%af/

Bā Jiǒng is among those spearheading the recall of Fu Kun-chi, the KMT legislator known as "The King of Hualien." Fu Kun-chi is 1 of 24 Kuomintang KMT legislators who will be up for the mass recall vote in Taiwan on July 26th. To get up to speed on the Great Recall Effort that's been happening in Taiwan checkout our past 2 episodes 316 and 317.

Talking Taiwan is getting ready to head back to Taiwan to cover this historic mass recall vote of 24 KMT legislators, in fact we might already be there by the time you hear this episode. We look forward to having Bā Jiǒng on Talking Taiwan to talk about the recall efforts in Hualien and his videos exposing how the United Front works with Taiwanese influencers

Special thanks to Winston Liao for connecting us with Bā Jiǒng.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/meet-taiwanese-youtuber-ba-jiong-%e5%85%ab%e7%82%af/

In Taiwan recall bids have been filed against 35 of the 39 Chinese Nationalist Party (the Kuomintang or KMT lawmakers who were directly elected to the legislative yuan in January, 2024. Recall campaigners have said that they want to restore order to Taiwan's legislative yuan, by removing pro-China KMT legislators who have passed amendments to expand the legislature's powers, undermined Taiwan's constitutional order by paralyzing the constitutional court, cut budgets and made Taiwan vulnerable to infiltration by the Chinese Communist Party.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-great-recall-explained-by-courtney-donovan-smith-ep-317/

Just a few days ago we learned that a total of 31 KMT legislators will be up for a vote to be recalled from office. 24 on July 26 and another 7 on August 23.

Since my interview with 3 recall campaigners in episode 316, I thought it would be good to follow up with an explainer video with political commentator and analyst Courtney Donovan Smith about how the recall mechanism in Taiwan works and what led to this mass recall effort.

And in a few days from now our two-person team will be heading back to Taiwan to witness and cover the July 26th recall vote. History is being made in the only way it can be in a vibrant democracy like Taiwan!

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

How the recall mechanism works in Taiwan

Past cases of politicians who have faced a recall vote

Factors leading to the Bluebird Movement and Recall Efforts

The expanded powers of the legislative yuan that were ruled unconstitutional

What happened to paralyze Taiwan's constitutional court

What has motivated the people campaigning to recall KMT legislators

Why the KMT's recall efforts against DPP legislators have failed

How Ko Wen-je's supporters have reacted to his detainment due to corruption charges

DPP involvement with recall efforts

How some of the Kuomintang KMT have shifted from being anti-Communist China to pro-Communist China (PRC)

The historical significance of Taiwan's mass recall votes of legislators

If the DPP is behind the recalls of KMT legislators

What happens next after the recall vote

The impact of the Sunflower Movement

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-great-recall-explained-by-courtney-donovan-smith-ep-317/

Have you heard about the great recall movement that's happening in Taiwan? What's it all about?

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-great-recall-movement-effort-in-taiwan-boots-on-the-ground-ep-316/

24 lawmakers, or legislators from the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang KMT party are being put up for a recall vote.

I don't think the world has ever seen anything like this happen on a national level in a democracy- 24 lawmakers being recalled from office, and that number is likely to be even higher at the time that this episode gets released. It's truly unprecedented!

This recall vote certainly didn't happen overnight. It was through dedicated grassroots efforts, of the everyday people of Taiwan. Questions have been raised as to whether the recall efforts are a partisan politically motivated effort on the part of the Democratic Progressive Party to oust KMT legislators.

That's what I wanted to get to the bottom of in this episode as I talked to some of the volunteers who have been boots on the ground in Taiwan's recall effort.

As you'll hear in this episode, what's happening in Taiwan is a historic demonstration of the will of the people to exercise their rights in a democracy.

The island-wide effort in Taiwan to recall lawmakers has been going on since last year and I sat down to speak to three volunteers Carol, Acho and Eric about how this mass movement has successfully gone through two stages, first signatures from1% of eligible voters in a legislator's district must be collected to initiate a recall. Then in the second stage signatures from 10% of eligible voters in a legislator's district must collect to in order for a recall vote to proceed. The hard part is that the signatures on the 1% and 10% petitions cannot be the same.

On July 26 Taiwan's Central Election Commission (CEC) will hold recall votes for now possibly even more than 24 KMT lawmakers.

Special thanks to Julien Oeuillet the Founding Editor of IPON (the Indo-Pacific Open News) for his help in making this interview possible.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

What the recall movement that's happening in Taiwan is about

Why and how Acho, Carol and Eric volunteer their time and energy in the effort to recall legislators

How the recall efforts are targeting pro-CCP Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang KMT legislators

How the recall is necessary so that Taiwan's parliament/legislature can function normally

How the first volunteers for the recall met through a LINE group

How what happened after the Bluebird Movement protests motivated people to attempt to recall KMT legislators

How the Sunflower Movement compares to the recall movement

How they vetted volunteers from outside of Taiwan who wanted to help with the recall effort in Taiwan

How they dealt with people trying to infiltrate the recall volunteer groups

How the recall effort got started with 10 volunteers and has grown to 500 volunteers globally

How A-Mei one of the lead recall movement volunteers was targeted by the KMT who accused her and revealed her personal information and identity

How the Taiwanese people feel they are at risk of losing their country to pro-CCP KMT legislators

How the KMT has smeared and sued recall movement volunteers including Carol

How the KMT has broken up recall movement volunteer groups

How Carol has put her job on hold to be dedicated to being a leader of her recall movement volunteer group full-time

What Carol does as leader of her recall movement group

How Acho volunteers for the recall effort by editing and creating videos

How Eric volunteers for the recall effort by dealing with the media

The types of videos they produce to promote and create awareness of the recall effort

How the majority of recall volunteers are women (60% women, 40% men)

How over 100 recall volunteers are dedicated full-time to the effort

How the women recall volunteers have been confronted by people who don't support the recall

The standard for collecting signatures for the recall

Why the KMT's efforts to recall DPP have failed due to forgery or signatures of the deceased on their recall petitions

How the KMT is trying to paint the picture that the DPP are orchestrating the recall of KMT legislators

How the recall effort is a grassroots effort not about conflict between the DPP and KMT political parties

How there could be more than 24 KMT legislators put up for a recall vote

The demographics of the districts that Carol, Eric and Acho are volunteers in for the recall

How Acho and Eric balance volunteering for the recall effort with their day jobs

How KMT legislators have not offered any explanation of what was discussed in a closed door meeting in 2024 with Chinese officials

How public reaction to volunteers of the recall effort has changed over time

How the recall volunteers now need to focus on encouraging the public to vote on July 26

How Carol encouraged creativity and idea of the recall volunteers that she manages

How the sentiment of the recall volunteers is that we are all in this together

How if eight to 10 KMT legislators are recalled there will be a better balance in the legislative yuan

How Carol, Eric and Acho feel they are working selflessly for a common goal and that they are taking care of each other

How this experience with the recall effort has helped Acho to see how the people of Taiwan can be so united

How Carol has seen many recall volunteers evolving

How what is happening in Taiwan is important for Asia and other democracies in the world

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-great-recall-movement-effort-in-taiwan-boots-on-the-ground-ep-316/

Julien Oeuillet is an independent journalist, who has produced content for Radio Taiwan International and TaiwanPlus.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/julien-oeuillet-the-voice-of-south-taiwan-shines-a-spotlight-on-kaohsiung-ep-315/

Back in November of 2024 we interviewed Julien about a broad number of topics including:

How he is very much at home in Kaohsiung

How he got his start in broadcasting and media

What he thinks makes a good and bad journalist especially in Taiwan

How he focuses on putting a spotlight on Kaohsiung and southern Taiwan through his Radio Taiwan International show, The Voice of South Taiwan

His documentary Taiwan's Little Big Friend about Luthania and its relationship with Taiwan

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Julien's upbringing

How Julien got started in broadcasting and media

How Julien was taken under the wing of veteran journalist and documentary filmmaker Philippe Dutilleul

How Julien sees himself as a Kaohsiung resident

How Julien has seen Kaohsiung transform

How Julien thinks that Kaohsiung should receive more international attention

Julien's Radio Taiwan International show, the Voice of South Taiwan

What Julien thinks makes someone a good or bad journalist especially pertaining to Taiwan

Julien's thoughts on English and education in Taiwan

Julien's observations on the Taoist nature of people in Taiwan

What is Taiwanese identity

Julien's connection to Lithuania

Parallels between Lithuania and Taiwan

Julien's documentary, Taiwan's Little Big Friend

If Lithuania will keep its Taiwan Representative Office

Julien's thoughts on China's fear mongering

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/julien-oeuillet-the-voice-of-south-taiwan-shines-a-spotlight-on-kaohsiung-ep-315/

We recently sat down with Wen-Jen Deng one of the artists in residence at the Taiwanese American Arts Council's House 17 on Governors Island and Ming Turner, curator of Wen-Jen's art exhibit :The Embedded Stitch- Contemporary Fiber Art, which is currently showing at Tenri Cultural Institute until June 28th

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/a-conversation-with-wen-jen-deng-taiwanese-fiber-artist-and-curator-ming-turner-ep-314/

According to Deng's curator Ming Turner, "Deng is a core member of the influential Taiwanese artist collective, Hantoo Art Group. Her early works were primarily oil paintings which incorporated embroidery and collage using traditional Taiwanese floral fabrics. Deng often draws inspiration from Taiwanese food culture— her earlier pieces explored the island's distinctive betel nut culture, while more recent works have focused on everyday culinary traditions and the cultural heritage of the Sirayu Pingpu people."

Special thanks to Ming Turner for translation assistance during this interview.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Wen-Jen's upbringing in Taiwan and how she knew she wanted to be an artist

What Wen-Jen thinks an artist's role in the world is

Why Wen-Jen studied art in France and how she was inspired by Marc Chagall

How Wen-Jen started off doing oil painting as an artist

How Wen-Jen switched from using oil paint as her medium to fiber and textiles

How Wen-Jen worked in a textile shop making Chinese dresses while she was a student in France

Why her early source of inspiration was food

Her series of work that focused on lotus shoes and pig's hooves (pigs feet), betel nuts, and other everyday Taiwanese cuisine

How Wen-Jen discovered her mother's was from the Siraya tribe during her 2017 residency at Soulangh Cultural Park in Tainan, and that inspired her to move her focus from food to indigenous culture

How Wen-Jen learned indigenous weaving techniques

How Wen-Jen's mother was a seamstress but Wen-jen did not pick out any of those skills from her mother

How Wen-Jen taught herself to embroider when she was working in the textile shop in France

How all of the embroidery and sewing on Wen-Jen's works are done by hand

How in the process of weaving and embroidering Wen-Jen gets in a focused state of meditation

The field work that Wen-Jen does related to her artwork

Ming shared some of her thoughts on the significance of Wen-Jen's artwork

Wen-Jen's artwork "Oyster Noodles" which will be on display at the TAAC Governors Island House 17

How Taiwan's transition from authoritarianism to democracy has impacted artists in Taiwan

How artists in Taiwan get funded

How Wen-Jen's sculptural piece which is shaped like the island of Taiwan and shows its topography will be displayed at the TAAC House 17 on June 21

This past Sunday, May 26th we stopped by the annual Passport to Taiwan that's held in New York City's Union Square Park. The first Passport to Taiwan was held in 2002 and it's become the largest outdoor Taiwanese American event in the entire United States.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/passport-to-taiwan-2025-ben-hedges-a-laowais-view-of-china-and-ambassador-lee-of-teco-ep-313/

While there I spoke with the Taiwanese American Arts Council's (TAAC's) Executive Director Luchia Meihua Lee, Ambassador Tom Lee of TECO-NY, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, and Ben Hedges, host of Lao Wai Kan Zhongguo also known as the A Laowai's View of China & Taiwan YouTube channel.

Passport to Taiwan is a celebration of Taiwanese art, culture, music, community, and of course food.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· The Taiwanese American Arts Council's (TAAC's) house on Governors Island, House 17 is twice the size of last year's house

· The theme of the Taiwanese American Arts Council's (TAAC's) House 17 on Governors Island is Eco Art on Island

· How the Taiwanese American Arts Council's (TAAC's) House 17 on Governors Island will be open from May 17 to November 2

· Ambassador Tom Lee mentioned this is the first time that TECO-NY (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York) has had a booth at Passport to Taiwan

· Ben Hedges, host of the YouTube channel, Lao Wai Kan Zhongguo has emceed Hello Taiwan events

· How 7-11 stores in Taiwan sponsored travel videos on Lao Wai Kan Zhongguo's YouTube channel

· How Ben will be relaunching the Lao Wai Kan Zhongguo's YouTube channel

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/passport-to-taiwan-2025-ben-hedges-a-laowais-view-of-china-and-ambassador-lee-of-teco-ep-313/

Since May is both Mental Health Awareness Month and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we think it's fitting to reshare this episode with Jane W. Wang.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/jane-w-wang-navigates-a-multicultural-heros-journey-classic-ep-312/

What we really appreciate about this interview with Jane back in 2021 is how she spoke so openly about how she dealt with her bouts of depression. She also shared how getting back in touch with her roots in Taiwan had a part in leading her to start her coaching practice. While she no longer offers the Multicultural Hero's Journey course that she refers to in this episode, she is still actively coaching clients.

It's our hope that Jane's personal story can help destigmatize mental health and create more understanding about the coaching profession.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Jane's connection to Taiwan

How being a third culture kid (TCK) has shaped her identity and life purpose

Her career path before becoming a coach

Why she wanted to become a coach

Her personal journey, the struggles and depression that she dealt with along the way before she became a coach

Why she decided not to get a degree in counseling from Columbia University and instead got certified in coaching

What is coaching and how it differs from counseling or psychotherapy

Jane's own experiences with coaching, being the person being coached by someone else

Jane's advice on how to pick a coach to work with

The challenges Jane faced in becoming a coach

The depression and imposter syndrome she experienced in the process of becoming a coach

How Jane dealt with her self-judgment and learned to love herself

How Jane dealt with three bouts of depression

What she learned from going through depression

How someone can identify whether or not they themselves or someone they know is experiencing depression

How Jane created her Multicultural Hero's Journey coaching program

Who would benefit the most by going through the Multicultural Hero's Journey coaching program

Jane's advice for people who are interested in becoming a coach

What it takes to be a good coach

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/jane-w-wang-navigates-a-multicultural-heros-journey-classic-ep-312/

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and since 1999, Congressman David Wu (OR) and the co-chairs of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus have supported the celebration of Taiwanese American Heritage Week starting from Mother's Day Weekend, so we thought this would be a good time to reshare one of our most popular episodes, an interview we did with Dr. Jerome Keating in 2020 about the history of Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/understanding-the-history-of-taiwan-through-dr-jerome-keating-classic-ep-311/

Few contemporaries are more qualified than Dr. Jerome Keating on understanding the history of Taiwan. He has been living in Taiwan for over 30 years. Initially he came over to Taiwan to work on the MRT. He has written several books about Taiwan. We invited him on to the podcast to talk about this latest book, Taiwan The Struggle Gains Focus. Dr. Keating also reflected on how Taiwan has changed in the past 30 years, and we discussed things past and present including Taiwan's complicated international status, amendment of the constitution, changing the official name of Taiwan (which is the Republic of China) and redesigning the passport and flag of Taiwan.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

What motivated Dr. Keating to write his latest book, Taiwan The Struggle Gains Focus

Who the book was intended for and who Dr. Keating writes for

How Taiwan has changed in the last 30 years

The semi-martial-like atmosphere of Taiwan when Dr. Keating arrived in 1988

Keating's first book Island in the Stream and what motivated him to write it

What intrigues Dr. Keating about Taiwan as a subject matter

How the San Francisco Peace Treaty (signed in 1951) left Taiwan in a limbo status

How the US position on Taiwan 75 years after World War II is still undecided

The circumstances surrounding "Taiwan" aka the Republic of China losing its seat in the United Nations in 1971, which included a proposal to have 2 Chinas in the United Nations

The Republic of China and People's Republic of China's claims on China

How Taiwan has never had a seat in the United Nations

The Republic of China framework and constitution that Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang brought to Taiwan

Keating's thoughts on amending Taiwan's constitution

Changing the official name and flag that represent Taiwan

Submissions for the new Taiwan passport cover design

The Taiwan Civil Government wanting to make Taiwan the 51st state of the United States

How Dr. Keating sees Taiwan's future

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/understanding-the-history-of-taiwan-through-dr-jerome-keating-classic-ep-311/

Last year I came across an article in the Gothamist titled, A Taiwanese food crawl in the East Village with NYC writer Cathy Erway. I have of course heard of Cathy Erway and her cookbook and thought to myself, Why haven't I had her on Talking Taiwan as a guest yet? For those of you who aren't familiar with Cathy's work, she is a James Beard Award-winning food writer and author based in New York City. Her cookbooks include The Food of Taiwan: Recipes From the Beautiful Island and Win Son Presents: A Taiwanese American Cookbook.

Her cookbook, The Food of Taiwan which was published in 2015 is the first cookbook from a major U.S. publisher to explore the food culture of Taiwan from home-style dishes to authentic street food. We talked about how publishers rejected the cookbook at first and how it eventually got published.

She also has a Facebook page called The Food of Taiwan, and if you're a Taiwanese food lover, I highly recommend liking and following it. On the page, Cathy shares news about Taiwanese food like where to get the best Taiwanese food in and out of Taiwan, and new Taiwanese restaurant openings.

Cathy Erway's journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Food & Wine, Eater, Grub Street, T: The New York Times Style Magazine and more. She is a columnist at TASTE, and received the James Beard Award for Home Cooking journalism in 2019. In 2021, she received the IACP Culinary Award for her column.

This episode is part of the trailblazing Taiwanese women's series sponsored by NATWA the North America Taiwanese Women's Association, which was founded in 1988. To learn more about NATWA visit their website, www.natwa.com.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

How Cathy started off writing a blog called Not Eating Out in New York, which led to her first book, The Art of Eating In

Cathy's cookbook The Food of Taiwan

The article in the Gothamist about Taiwanese restaurants in the East Village

Cathy's Facebook page The Food of Taiwan

How Cathy has had a Google alert set on the term Taiwanese food for 20 years

How things have changed in the 10 years since The Food of Taiwan was published

How the owners of Taiwanese restaurants in New York City (Win Son, 886, and Ho Foods) are all friends

How Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry has contributed to the interest in Taiwanese cuisine

How Cathy learned to cook and her parents' cooking styles

How Cathy's family is foodies

Cathy's connection to Taiwan

What went into creating The Food of Taiwan

How the photography of The Food of Taiwan was an important part of the cookbook

How The Food of Taiwan got rejected by several publishers

How The Food of Taiwan is a snapshot of all the foods in Taiwan including home-style foods and street food, up to 2015, the year it was published

How The Food of Taiwan includes foods that are unique to Taiwan

How the recipes in The Food of Taiwan suggests substitutions for certain ingredients that might be hard to find

How Cathy met Josh Ku and Trigg Brown of Win Son

How Cathy collaborated with Josh Ku and Trigg Brown of Win Son on Win Son Presents a Taiwanese American Cookbook

How hard it was to convince the editor to publish The Food of Taiwan

Other Taiwanese cookbooks that have been written by Clarissa Wei, Frankie Gaw, Tiffy Chen, and George Lee

How Cathy is working on an article about the frozen dumpling business for Taste

Topics that Cathy writes about like how tamari is a different product in Japan vs. the U.S.

Té Company tea house in the West Village, Yumpling restaurant in Long Island City, Ho Food restaurant in the East Village

Cathy's favorite Taiwanese dish is sān bēi jī (three cup chicken)

How Taiwanese breakfast foods are now available at Win Son Bakery and Ho Foods

Related Links:

It's about a month after 228, an important date in Taiwan's history, marking the 228 Massacre. 228 stands for February 28 1947. February 28th is now commemorated as a national holiday in Taiwan known as the 228 Peace Memorial Day.

For this year's 228 episode, we wanted to release my interview with Nâ Sū Phok (藍士博), the Executive Director of the 228 Memorial Foundation in Taiwan. Last July 2024, I sat down with him at the Taiwanese American Conference at West Chester University about his work for the 228 Memorial Foundation. You may be wondering why we are sharing this episode a month later.

Since Sū Phok spoke in Taiwanese Hokkien during the interview, it required translation from Taiwanese into English, and that took a bit longer than anticipated. Secondly, 228 is not a single date in history, subsequent events after February 28th lasted beyond and into March leading to what some refer to as the March Massacre.

Here's a brief summary for those unfamiliar with the 228 Massacre.

The first thing to know is that like most significant events in history, they do not just take place on a single date. There are usually circumstances and other happenings that lead up to the date in history. Two years before the 228 Massacre in 1945, at the end of World War II, the Chinese Nationalists (aka the Kuomintang/KMT) had fled from China to Taiwan bringing with them the Republic of China framework. Since then, tensions had been mounting for quite some time.

In the case of the 228 Massacre, there were conflicts and protests that began much earlier, leading up to what happened on the night of February 27th, 1947 when Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agents tried to confiscate contraband cigarettes from a 40-year-old woman and brutally knocked her out. When an angry crowd gathered in protest, one of the agents fired a shot into the crowd killing a bystander. Within 24 hours, by the next day, February 28th, the incident had escalated into bloody violence and massacres. More killings happened in March of 1947, which have led some Taiwanese dissidents to call it the March Massacre.

Under the authoritarian Chiang regime, what followed after 228 was 38 years of martial law and the White Terror era. Anyone could be disappeared, executed or worse for just saying or doing the wrong thing, or for what was seemingly wrong in the eyes of the authorities. The people of Taiwan were horrified and terrified. Generations dared not speak of 228.

228 was absent from high school textbooks until relatively recently. Denial, distrust, suppression, and the passage of time have made it hard for many to come to terms with 228.

If you'd like to learn more, I invite you to listen to our past episodes about 228 that are listed in the Related Links section below.

Special thanks to Mei-Ling Lin for her translation assistance for this episode.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

What does 228 refer to and what is its historical significance

Sū Phok's background and upbringing

How Sū Phok first learned about or heard about 228

If Sū Phok has any family members/relatives that have been impacted by or victimized by 228

Why/How did Sū Phok got involved with the 228 Memorial Foundation

Where does Sū Phok's interest in history comes from

Why it's important to preserve history

What the 228 Memorial Foundation does

How what the 228 Memorial Foundation does is different from what the Transitional Justice Commission does

What Sū Phok's responsibilities are as the Executive Director of the 228 Memorial Foundation

What kind of work Sū Phok was doing before working for the 228 Memorial Foundation

How the work of the 228 Memorial Foundation has changed since it was founded in1995

Some of the milestones/major accomplishments of the 228 Memorial Foundation

News from early 2024 about how Taiwan's Transitional Justice Commission identified 42 historical sites

The 228 Memorial Foundation's opinions on historical sites of injustice related to 228

Current initiatives/projects of the 228 Memorial Foundation?

What Sū Phok has learned about 228 since working for the 228 Memorial Foundation that he didn't know before

What's on display at the National 228 Memorial Museum

Future initiatives/projects of the 228 Memorial Foundation

What Sū Phok would like us to consider about 228 and how it might be relevant to the present

Related Links:

If you've been following our social media, you might already know that Talking Taiwan is participating in the Podcasthon which is a global movement calling on as many podcasts as possible to dedicate one episode of their show to a cause of their choice. The idea is to release these episodes simultaneously, from March 15-21, 2025 and by doing so this will create a massive and international wave of inspiring audio content.

We are proud to represent Taiwan in the Podcasthon and to dedicate this episode to FAPA, The Formosan Association for Public Affairs.

FAPA was established in 1982, during Taiwan's 33rd year of martial law.

In this episode you'll soon learn about all of the important, hard work that FAPA does in order to advocate for Taiwan in the U.S. For many Taiwanese Americans, friends of Taiwan and supporters of democracy, FAPA's work will probably resonate with you.

Here's something that will hit home especially for Taiwanese who have immigrated to the United States. Did you know that before 1994 Taiwanese Americans were forced to list "China" as their place of birth on U.S. passports? I'm old enough to remember this happening to my parents and some of my relatives.

This misrepresentation fueled a policy campaign by FAPA advocating to correct this oversight and affirm the rightful identity of Taiwanese Americans. As a result, Taiwan was allowed to be listed and recognized as a place of birth on U.S. passports. This is just one of FAPA's lasting achievements and an example of how FAPA is a leading voice for Taiwan in America.

If this is the first time you are hearing about FAPA you might be wondering about FAPA's name and where it comes from.

Once upon a time, Taiwan was known as Formosa. The name goes back to the Portuguese who named Taiwan "Iha Formosa!" which means Beautiful Island when they discovered it in the 16th century, back when Portugal was known for its exploration prowess.

But even knowing this, I still wondered why Formosa or Formosan was used instead of Taiwan or Taiwanese, so I asked around and FAPA's current President Dr. Su-Mei Kao shared some stories that Taiwanese Hokkien speakers who are listening to this episode are going to be able to appreciate.

The early founders did try to come up with a name that used Taiwan, the Taiwanese Association on Public Affairs, but the acronym, TAOPA or when pronounced in Taiwanese Hokkien "TAOPA" sounds like "help hit" and then a shorter alternative, TAPA, "TAPA" sounds like the word for a Spanish appetizer.

It turns out, the acronym for The Formosan Association for Public Affairs, FAPA when pronounced in Taiwanese Hokkien "huapa" sounds like "calling to hit or attack." The name has stuck and has served the organization well.

Last July while we were at the Taiwanese American Conference, we sat down to interview FAPA's Executive Director, Anny Hsiao, President Dr. Su-Mei Kao, and Vice-President Chia-chun Chung.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Dr. Su-Mei Kao, Vice President Chia-chun Chung's connection to Taiwan

How and why Executive Director, Anny Hsiao, President Su-Mei Kao, Vice President Chia-chun Chung each got involved in FAPA

The 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis and Taiwan's first direct presidential election

FAPA's major accomplishments and achievements

FAPA's Passport Place of Birth Campaign (1992-1994) that allowed the Taiwanese to list Taiwan as their place of birth on U.S. passports

How has FAPA's work changed since it was founded in 1982

How U.S.-Taiwan relations have changed since FAPA was founded

FAPA's programs and initiatives

Why it's important to change the name of TECRO (Economic and Cultural Representative Office)

Why Taiwan should not have to compete at the Olympics under the name "Chinese Taipei"

How Taiwan should be allowed to compete in the Olympics using the flag and anthem of its choice

FAPA's mission

FAPA's Song Yea Lee Memorial Fund

FAPA's most famous intern is Hsiao Bi-Khim, Taiwan's current Vice President

What happens during FAPA's annual national advocacy training

How overseas Taiwanese are in a unique position to advocate for Taiwan

Anny, Su-Mei and Chia-chun's hope and vision for the Taiwan American community

How to get involved with FAPA or to donate

Related Links:

If you've listened to our most recent episode of Talking Taiwan, you'll know that the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women or CSW69 is now taking place at United Nations Headquarters in New York. It began on March 10th and runs until March 21st.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-on-the-margins-of-csw-69-celebrating-womens-resilience-progress-at-taiwan-main-stage-ep-307/

On March 12th the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York (TECO-NY) hosted an event called "Taiwan Main Stage: Celebrating Women's Resilience & Progress on the margins of CSW 69." This smartly worded event title is undoubtedly a soft reference

the fact that Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, and therefore on the margins of CSW69.

We were there at TECO-NY's fully packed event on the 12th where we heard from Po-Chun Sophiyah Liu and Chia-Hui Lu. Sophiyah is Ambassador-at-Large for Sports Diplomacy of Taiwan, and she is Taiwan's first female umpire. Chia-Hui Lu is a classical musician, cross disciplinary artist and an associate professor at National Taiwan University of Arts.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations

· Sophiyah Liu's remarks at TECO-NY's event called "Taiwan Main Stage: Celebrating Women's Resilience & Progress on the margins of CSW 69"

· How the Global Sports Mentoring Program that set Sophiyah on the path to sports diplomacy

· How when Sophiyah won the IOC and UN Women: Women and Sport World trophy in 2019, a special arrangement was made for her to enter the UN building to receive the award

· When Sophiyah was invited to attend the UN Global Sport Program working group which met in a conference room in the United Nations building but when it came time to attend the meeting, she was told she couldn't enter the UN building because she has a passport from Taiwan

· Sophiyah's thoughts on the controversy over questions about the gender eligibility of female boxer Lin Yu-ting at the Paris Olympics

· Sophiyah's thoughts on gender eligibility testing in sports

· Chia-Hui Lu's remarks at TECO-NY's event called "Taiwan Main Stage: Celebrating Women's Resilience & Progress on the margins of CSW 69

· The technology, AI training and experimentation involved in creating the real-time music recognition system that captures melodies from Chia-Hui's piano playing and transforms it into a surreal visual story

· The mission and past projects of the Egret Cultural and Education Foundation

· How the Egret Cultural and Education Foundation's cross art productions combine theater, music, dance, technology, culture, and history

· How the Egret Cultural and Education Foundation was published books about Taiwan's history, nature, music, and art

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-on-the-margins-of-csw-69-celebrating-womens-resilience-progress-at-taiwan-main-stage-ep-307/

March is Women's History Month and in this episode of Talking Taiwan I'll be speaking with the Angela Feng, the organizer of the Empowering Women Through Education and Community Action panel, a UN CSW69 Parallel Event that's going to be held here in New York City on Friday, March 14th from 4:30pm-6:00pm. CSW69 stands for the 69th Session of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. Also with me in this interview are the other two panelists Cindy Wu who's been a previous guest on Talking Taiwan and Dr. Remi Duyile.

There are quite a few acronyms tossed around in this conversation so I thought I'd mention them upfront here like SDG goals, which stands for Sustainable Development Goals which were adopted by United Nations Member States. There are 17 SDGs because ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.

The other acronym you'll hear is BPW which stands for Business and Professional Women.

The theme of the panel is how education and community initiatives equal empowerment. The session will dive into how education and grassroots programs can transform lives.

Angela, Cindy and Dr. Remi not only talked about the panel, and work of their respective organizations, but I ask each of the women who were their earliest role models who helped to shape who they are today, and to share about challenges that they've had to overcome in their careers thus far.

If you'd like to know how you can attend the Empowering Women Through Education and Community Action panel visit TalkingTaiwan.com where we'll share a link to register for it on Eventbrite.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Angela Feng, Cindy Wu, and Dr. Remi Duyile are the organizers and panelists for the Empowering Women Through Education and Community Action Panel.

· The panel's theme is "How Education and Community Initiatives Equal Empowerment."

· The session will explore how education and grassroots programs can significantly transform lives, particularly for women and girls.

· Angela Feng is the president of Soroptimist Taipei International, Girls Power, a female non-profit organization recognized by the UN and Taiwan.

· Cindy Wu is a trilingual financial management professional, singer-songwriter, and motivational speaker, involved with the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW).

· Dr. Remi Duyile is a Nigerian-American, a UN ambassador of peace, and the founder of Legacy Premier Foundation, a global developmental non-profit.

· The discussion will delve into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how these goals relate to women's empowerment

· Angela, Cindy and Dr. Remi the work that they have done with each of their respective organizations

· Angela, Cindy and Dr. Remi talked about their early role models and the challenges they have overcome in their careers.

· The panel aims to provide practical insights and inspire action, moving beyond abstract concepts of women's empowerment.

· The women want to provide action steps, and resources to the audience

· Soroptimist International of Taipei Girls Power focuses on education for young women, from elementary school through college.

· The Legacy Premier Foundation focuses on financial literacy, and providing access to resources to underserved communities, and teaches skills that are needed in the market place.

· The International Federation of Business and Professional Women works to create opportunities for women through promoting employment, and protecting rights.

Related Links:

In July of 2024, we brought Talking Taiwan to the Taiwanese American Conference at West Chester University and I sat down to interview Sherry Chou, the Director of Dr. Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-sherry-chou-remembers-dr-chen-wen-chen-and-circumstances-surrounding-his-mysterious-death-ep-305/

Dr. Chen Wen-chen was an assistant professor of statistics at Carnegie Mellon University when he and his family returned to his native Taiwan for a vacation in the summer of 1981. Dr. Chen's permit to leave the country to return to the U.S. was rejected and so the Taiwan Garrison Command called in Dr. Chen for questioning regarding his political beliefs and activities in the United States. They questioned him on June 30th and July 2nd, but then on July 3, 1981, Chen's body was found on the campus of National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei. At the time the autopsy reported that his death was due to a fall. Chen's mysterious death shed light on how the work of Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang spies on U.S. campuses led to Chen's interrogation by the Garrison Command.

Sherry and I talked about how and why it took 10 years to establish the Dr. Chen Wen-chen Incident Memorial Square at National Taiwan University (NTU), and the Rainbow Taiwan Independence Flag. Sherry also shared some memories of the Sunflower Movement, which you'll hear Sherry refer to as sān yī ba, which is three one eight in mandarin Chinese, and a reference to March 18, 2014, the date that activists and students occupied Taiwan's legislative yuan which became known as the Sunflower Movement.

Dr. Chen Wen-chen's memory was honored at Taiwanese American Conference's 2024 memorial concert.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Who Dr. Chen Wen-chen was

The events leading up to the mysterious death of Dr. Chen

Dr. Chen's body was found on July 3, 1981, on the ground at National Taiwan University

Initial autopsy reported his death as a fall, but circumstances were suspicious

His death shed light on the activities of Kuomintang (KMT) spies on U.S. campuses

Why it took 10 years to establish the Dr. Chen Wen-chen Incident Memorial Square at National Taiwan University

Sherry also talked about the Rainbow Taiwan independence flag project

Sherry discussed her memories of the Sunflower Movement

Dr. Chen Wen-chen was honored at the Taiwanese American Conference's 2024 Memorial Concert

Dr. Chen fundraised for Formosa Magazine, which drew the attention of KMT agents

Formosa Magazine is linked to the Formosa Incident, also known as the Kaohsiung Incident

Recent findings by the Transitional Justice Commission revealed that Dr. Chen had been under surveillance since 1979

Forensic evidence confirmed that Dr. Chen died before falling from a building

The Lin family murders occurred on February 28, 1980; Lin Yi-hsiung's mother and his twin daughters were stabbed and killed and his oldest daughter survived

The death of Chen Wen-chen angered both local and overseas Taiwanese people

Sherry talked about a photo of protestors in the 1980s wearing paper bags over their heads to disguise their identities

The idea for the memorial started in 2011 with professors and students co-signing a petition

The initial proposal was just to place a sign on campus, not a square, but the university didn't want even a sign

The social atmosphere in 2011 was different, with Taiwan moving closer to China under President Ma Ying-jeou

There were many ridiculous objections to the sign

The turning point came in 2014 when Dr. Yang Pan-chyr, a more progressive president, agreed to set up the memorial square

There was uncertainty about whether the university would change its stance after Dr. Yang left and Kuan Chung-ming became president

Kuan Chung-ming was unpopular, especially among the DPP and progressive community, due to his conservative views and ties to China

Dr. Yang tried to push for the sign before he left

After Kuan Chung-ming became president, he withdrew support for funding, and the Dr. Chen Wen-chen Foundation covered the costs

The public contributed to fundraising efforts through social media

Around 2016, there was a surge in advocacy for gender equality in Taiwan and its connection to Taiwanese sovereignty and identity

In 2016, Taiwan's marriage equality movement gained attention with people protesting on the streets

On May 24, 2017, Taiwan's Constitutional Court ruled that same-sex couples had the right to marry

Someone used photoshop to combine the rainbow flag and Taiwanese independence flags

Funds were raised through social media and distributed 1300 flags at events

The flags allowed people to express support for both marriage equality and national issues

2016 marked the beginning of more people expressing concern for both gender equality and national issues

LGBTQ individuals were more actively engaged in the Bluebird Movement, possibly due to increased mobilization since 2016

Sherry was previously the marketing director for Watchout, a media company

Watchout started at the end of 2013, around the time of the Sunflower Movement, capturing many photos from then

The company shifted focus to issues related to Taiwan's independence and civil defense

Watchout published two books: Civil Defense Guide (covering disasters and war) and Active Civil Defense Guide (focused on war)

How Sherry got interest in feminism

She admires figures like Professor Fan Yun and Liu Wen for their feminist contributions

Sherry emphasized the importance of efforts from both Taiwanese communities in Taiwan and those outside of Taiwan in order to make significant change happen

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-sherry-chou-remembers-dr-chen-wen-chen-and-circumstances-surrounding-his-mysterious-death-ep-305/

Grace Loh Prasad's debut memoir, is The Translator's Daughter. I spoke with her about how she started off writing it and how it evolved over the two decades it took to write it.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/a-conversation-on-the-translators-daughter-a-debut-memoir-by-author-grace-loh-prasad-ep-304/

A lot can happen in two decades. One by one Grace started losing her family members- her brother, mother and father. Her memoir is very much about loss, not just the loss that Grace experienced of her family members, but also her lost connection to Taiwan. When Grace was just two years old her family left Taiwan and moved to the U.S. and then Hong Kong. Her parents didn't return to Taiwan until Grace was in college in California.

I found the book moving and appreciated how Grace was able to take her grief and personal experiences and put them into this beautifully written book. If you'd like to hear Grace reading an excerpt from The Translator's Daughter, check out the episode right before this one, episode 303.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· What motivated Grace to start writing her memoir

· How the memoir evolved and changed over the twenty years it took to write and complete it

· What changed in her life during those two decades

· How Grace lost her brother to cancer, her mother to Alzheimer's and father to Parkinson's

· The challenge of maintaining a connection with Taiwan and relatives there due to language barriers

· The unconventional style of the book which is a mix of narrative chapters and essays

· Grace's writing process and how she put the book together

· What Grace learned in the process of writing the book

· How her family's migrations due to her father's work affected Grace and her brother Ted

· How to find belonging in a place that you don't intend to stay

· How Grace feels about being a third culture kid

· How much of the writing in the book comes from Grace's diary entries

· What Grace left out of the book

· People who have reached out to Grace about her book because they knew her father and his work translating the Bible

· Grace reflects on her father's education and career compared to her own

· How Grace's family's story doesn't fit the typical immigrant or model minority story

· The op ed Grace wrote about Taiwan's 2000 presidential election

· How important Taiwanese Americans have been in highlighting issues in Taiwan

· How Taiwan is excluded from international organizations and events like the UN, WHO, Olympics

· The authors and books that have influenced Grace

· How her book touches on mythology, film, music, and art

· Her family's connection to the Thornberries and Milo Thornberry who wrote Fireproof Moth: A Missionary in Taiwan's White Terror

· Grace's advice for someone struggling with writing their first book

· Feedback and reactions that Grace has gotten to the book

· How it's worthwhile to make the effort to pass on specific things from one's culture or family to children or the next generation

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/a-conversation-on-the-translators-daughter-a-debut-memoir-by-author-grace-loh-prasad-ep-304/

For the first episode of 2025, we've decided to share an excerpt from The Translator's Daughter, a personal memoir written by Grace Loh Prasad.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/an-excerpt-from-the-translators-daughter-by-grace-loh-prasad-ep-303/

The book opens on the eve of the Lunar New Year in February of 2000 and so it seems like the right time of year to be sharing this as we approach another Lunar New, the Year of the Snake. Here's a taste of The Translator's Daughter read by its author, Grace Loh Prasad, to pique your interest before we release our interview with Grace in the next episode of Talking Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/an-excerpt-from-the-translators-daughter-by-grace-loh-prasad-ep-303/

Here's our 2024 Top 5 Award Winners. 2024 was an eventful year!

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwan-2024-top-5-award-winners-end-of-year-end-of-year-review-ep-302/

In January we headed to Taiwan to cover the Presidential election, thanks to the generous support of donors. While we were there, we covered the election from Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. We were also able to hold two in-person podcast events where we met several of our Taiwan-based podcast guests in person for the very first time.

In May we were shortlisted in the International Women's Podcast Awards Moment of Visionary Leadership category.

Then in July we brought Talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference East Coast (TAC-EC) where we created an on-location podcast studio and conducted 12 interviews in 3 days. We are grateful to have interviewed many of TAC-EC's wonderful speakers. And it we had the honor of interviewing Taiwan's former Vice President Dr. Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) who is best known for his excellent handling of the COVID pandemic in Taiwan. After speaking with him I came away thinking that the world would be a much better place if we had more politicians like Dr. Chen. We'll be giving first listening access to this and other select interviews to anyone donating $50 or more to Talking Taiwan.

We never know what episodes are going to make the top 5 of the year and in this episode you'll hear the story behind number 1 episode of 2024.

2024 marked a big change in the way we do things. Previously nearly all of our interviews were done remotely, but in 2024, we did a number of interviews in person, most notably the one with Dr. Linda Gail Arrigo that got shortlisted in the International Women's Podcast Awards Moment of Visionary Leadership category.

We will be incorporating more in person interviews in 2025, and Talking Taiwan will be embarking on a North American Tour taking the podcast to communities on the East Coast, West Coast and Canada. In July we will be returning to the Taiwanese American Conference East Coast, and then heading to the Taiwanese American Conference on the West Coast in San Francisco. Later on in the year we will also head north to Taiwanfest in Toronto, Canada.

Your donation can help make all of this happen. Right now It's a great time to make a contribution because all contributions made will be doubled. The first $11k we raise will be doubled thanks to our generous matching donors. To support Talking Taiwan you can make donation by PayPal or Zelle using our email address talkingtaiwanpodcast@gmail.com or Venmo @talkingtaiwan. You can also send us a check at our PO box that you'll find on our website talkingtaiwan.com/support.

Thank you for listening. Wishing you a Happy New Year in 2025 and beyond!

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwan-2024-top-5-award-winners-end-of-year-end-of-year-review-ep-302/

In this episode of Talking Taiwan, I started off speaking with Taiwanese American documentary filmmaker Hsuan Yu Pan about how she got interested in documentary filmmaking. As we talked about her films, we covered a broad range of topics from the COVID-19 pandemic to parallels between the 2017 travel bans that barred people from seven Muslim majority countries from entering the U.S. and internment of Japanese Americans in the1940s. Time and time again entire groups of people have been targeted and blamed groups.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/documentary-films-on-the-pandemic-immigration-and-human-rights-issues-our-talk-with-taiwanese-american-filmmaker-hsuan-yu-pan-ep-301/

This led us back to the pandemic and recalling the high incidence of Asian hate that happened at that time. Her current film project Hear, Eat, Home touches on many of these topics including the Syrian Revolution and Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After speaking to Hsuan Yu I get the sense that through her documentary filmmaking she wishes to create understanding so that history doesn't repeat itself and to foster more empathy in the world.

Below in the Related Links section is a link where you can support and watch a work in progress version of Hsuan Yu's film Hear, Eat, Home.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Hsuan Yu's upbringing and how she initially had aspirations to be a visual artist

How Hsuan Yu got interested in documentary filmmaking

How Hsuan Yu's early experiences editing wedding videos taught her how to use video footage to tell a story

How her work at Bric TV taught her how to find stories

How she came up with the concept for her documentary film Alone Together that was shot during the pandemic

How footage for Alone Together was gathered and planned

How Alone Together featured footage from 11 different countries

What Hsuan Yu learned from making the film Alone Together

Hsuan Yu views her filmmaking as being about telling people's stories

How she met the Taiwanese puppeteer, Mr. Tsai who is the subject of her documentary film project I, Puppet

How Hsuan Yu was able to encourage Mr. Tsai to do some impromptu puppetry in New York's Washington Square Park

How Mr. Tsai attended a Puppet Slam event in Coney Island, NY and brought the puppet slam concept back to his puppet museum in Taipei, Taiwan

The relationship between Mr. Tsai and his father who is also a puppeteer

How and why Mr. Tsai's parents didn't want him to become a puppeteer

What Hsuan Yu loves about making documentaries

Her documentary film project Hear, Eat, Home

How two of the subjects of the film Hear, Eat, Home, Kinan Azmeh and Kevork Mourad are members of Yo-yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble

How the internment of Japanese Americans and the travel bans of 2017 (aka Muslim bans) are examples of how the U.S. government has labeled certain groups of people as a threat and discriminated against them

How Kinan Azmeh was affected by the travel bans of 2017 (aka Muslim bans)

How different groups have been blamed such as the Japanese Americans, Muslim Americans and Asian American

How as a documentary filmmaker Hsuan Yu feels that sne should document history so that people can learn from history

Kevork Mourad's background and family story

What the film Hear, Eat, Home is about

Hear Eat Home tells the story of Syrians, Japanese Americans and Ukrainians

What Hsuan Yu believes makes a good documentary

How Hsuan Yu was trying to finish working on Hear, Eat, Home in 2020, but she wasn't satified with it

When the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened in 2022 Hsuan Yu felt that she should include stories of her Ukrainian friends in to the film Hear, Eat, Home

Hsuan Yu plans to complete Hear, Eat, Home me next year

Hear Eat Home is available for view as a work in progress until January 5th

Anyone wishing to support the completion of Hsuan Yu's film Hear, Eat, Home can make a donation on the link provided on TalkingTaiwan.com for this episode

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/documentary-films-on-the-pandemic-immigration-and-human-rights-issues-our-talk-with-taiwanese-american-filmmaker-hsuan-yu-pan-ep-301/

NATWA (the North America Taiwanese Women's Association) has been around since 1988 and for this episode about NATWA I interviewed Elena Ling, one of NATWA's founding members, Hui-Na Lin, a past NATWA national president, Susan Liao, two-time president of NATWA's Toronto chapter, and Sue Kuo NATWA's current vice president and president elect for 2025. It is impossible to properly acknowledge the unique contributions of each NATWA national president, or all of NATWA's board and committee members, NATWA's supporters, donors, and countless others who have made NATWA what it is.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-history-of-natwa-unique-contributions-by-three-national-presidents-ep-300/

As I reflect on this, I'd like to share a poetic analogy that Hui-Na Lin, 2022-2023 NATWA national president shared with me to describe the essence of NATWA. It's from a short story she wrote "Fly Together Over Mountains" which she told me was inspired by the Canadian geese's migration down south for the winter each year. A single goose could not make the trip as efficiently alone. Several geese fly together as a group in a V formation. There is one bird that leads the group initially, but when the lead bird gets tired, it moves to the back for a rest, and another bird takes the lead. The birds all take turns leading the group to their final destination. Like the Canadian geese NATWA's members work together to support each other in turn. It's not about one single leader.

As you listen to this episode you'll learn more about how NATWA meets its five point mission statement which is:

1. to evoke a sense of self-esteem and enhance women's dignity,

2. to oppose gender discrimination and promote gender equality,

3. to fully develop women's potential and encourage their participation in public affairs,

4. to contribute to the advancement of human rights and democratic development in Taiwan,

5. to reach out and work with women's organizations worldwide to promote peace for all.

Special Thanks to Elena Ling and Alvina Ling for providing useful details about NATWA's formation and history for this episode. And a very special thank you to NATWA and its members for all of the encouragement and support that you've given to our two-person team here at Talking Taiwan. Thank you for making our work possible.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

How and why NATWA (the North America Taiwanese Women's Association) was founded

Annette Lu's (former Vice President of Taiwan) connection to NATWA

How Annette Lu was one of the Kaohsiung Eight (one of eight people arrested as a result of the Kaohsiung aka Formosa incident)

The first meeting with the 30 founding members of NATWA

How NATWA has a President-elect who serves as Vice President the year before becoming President

How NATWA started off as a national organization

The early formation of NATWA

How progressive it was at the time to form NATWA

How NATWA has grown from 30 to 1,000 members

How NATWA became a 501(c)(3) organization

How NATWA has 2 major events a year, an annual convention (in April) and a mid-year leadership meeting (in October)

The impact that NATWA has made in the lives of its members

How Hui-Na Lin and Susan Liao got involved in NATWA initially and later took on leadership roles in the organization

NATWA's early struggles in attracting members due to pressure from Taiwan's Kuomintang (KMT) government at the time

NATWA's early successful fundraising efforts

Why NATWA avoided accepting any government funding

NATWA's early successful projects

NATWA's charitable fundraising efforts

How NATWA's members are aging

How NATWA's membership and programs grew during the pandemic

What made NATWA's WebEx programs during the pandemic successful

What types of WebEx programs NATWA offered during the pandemic

Major activities organized by NATWA Toronto

The first NATWA event that Felicia Lin, the host of Talking Taiwan was invited to attend

How Hui-Na and her team got NATWA's members to attend the first in-person mid-year meeting and annual conventions that took place after restrictions on COVID were eased

How NATWA addresses women's issues and promotes women's dignity

The formation of NATWA II an organization for second generation Taiwanese American women

Questions about the future direction of NATWA

What Elena, Hui-Na and Susan have each gotten out of their involvement with NATWA

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-history-of-natwa-unique-contributions-by-three-national-presidents-ep-300/

After hearing about Team Taiwan's historic gold medal baseball win at the Premier 12 on November 24th I reached out to Richard Wang who I previously interviewed in 2020 about how Taiwan was the only place on the planet where professional baseball was being played during the COVID pandemic and since the entire world was watching, it led to English broadcasts of Taiwan's baseball games.

Related Link:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/team-taiwans-historic-gold-medal-baseball-win-our-conversation-with-richard-wang-ep-299/

Well, it turns out that Richard was at the Tokyo Dome for Premier 12 and even had the honor of calling out all the names of Team Taiwan's players as they were awarded their gold medals.

In the spirit of Giving Tuesday, which was on December 3rd, I thought it would be fun to celebrate Team Taiwan's win by inviting others to be "in the audience" during my online interview with Richard, so I put out the word on social media. Special thanks to all those who attended the online event on such short notice.

Related Link:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/team-taiwans-historic-gold-medal-baseball-win-our-conversation-with-richard-wang-ep-299/

In July we brought Talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference, East Coast (aka TAC-EC) at West Chester University where we set up an on-location podcast studio and I interviewed 12 people in 3 days. It was pretty nonstop but it was well worth it. One thing we strive to do with Talking Taiwan is to record oral histories, so it was my pleasure to sit down with several of TAC-EC's past organizers to talk about the conference's history.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/oral-histories-by-three-tac-ec-past-organizers-talking-with-terry-tsao-sue-mei-kao-and-powen-wang-ep-298/

First, I spoke with Powen Wang aka Ong Po-bun (王博文), who told me about how TAC started out as a summer retreat for Christian families in 1970 and later evolved into a conference for the entire Taiwanese American community. At the time Taiwan was under Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalists authoritarian regime, and Pok-wen recounts how the Chinese Nationalists (KMT) tried to interfere with TAC in those early years.

I also spoke with past TAC organizers Su-Mei Kao, and Shih-Chieh or Terry Tsao.

TAC is a conference with a 50 year plus long history and its programs have covered diverse issues impacting Taiwanese Americans, including human rights in Taiwan, and momentous social, historical, political events related to Taiwan and their implications.

About TAC-EC:

The first Taiwanese American Conference East Coast (TACEC) was held in 1970 in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. It was a summer retreat for the area's Christian families but has turned into an event for the entire Taiwanese American community. Over the years, the conference has expanded its programs to encompass diverse issues impacting Taiwanese Americans, including human rights in Taiwan, and momentous social, historical, political events and their implications. TACEC invites Taiwanese and Taiwanese Americans from diverse professional backgrounds to share their experiences. The number of participants has steadily grown, numbering over 2,000 in the late 80s and 90s.

TAC-EC is hosted by Taiwanese Communities in four different regions: New York, New Jersey, Washington and Philadelphia (including south Jersey and Delaware). Each region is currently on a four-year rotation and takes turns chairing the TACEC board that oversees the operation of TAC-EC.

The conference today draws about 600 - 800 participants annually, with the majority being first generation Taiwanese Americans. Many second generation Taiwanese Americans who now have children have eagerly expressed interests in developing TAC-EC programs for their children and re-engage their peers who were past participants.

TAC-EC's MISSION:

To stimulate public interest in the cultural, religious, educational, socioeconomic and other activities of Taiwanese/Taiwanese Americans

To pass down Taiwanese cultural and religious heritage in the Taiwanese Americans community

To facilitate exchanges among Taiwanese Americans organizations, and to foster exchange, mutual support and collaboration between Taiwanese American organizations and Taiwanese or other ethnic groups' organizations

To organize an annual conference or workshops of various topics about current affairs and future development of the United States and Taiwan

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Powen Wang aka Ong Po-bun (王博文), an early participant and organizer of TAC-EC talks about how he got involved in TAC-EC, the formation of TAC-EC, and its early years

How the conference started as a Christian summer camp and then the Formosan Club (aka Taiwanese Association) joined

What caused a split between the Christians and Formosan Club

The year Powen Wang aka Ong Po-bun (王博文) organized the conference (1989)

How TAC-EC has evolved from the 1970s to 2013

The formation of TANG (Taiwanese American Next Generation)

Su-Mei Kao, organizer of TAC-EC in 2015 talked about her experiences organizing the conferences and how changes were made to create more interaction and shared events between TAC-EC and TANG attendees

The speakers and topics covered at TAC-EC 2015

How Su-Mei Kao had attended TAC in the southern region before TAC on the East Coast and how the conferences in these regions differ

Shih-Chieh (Terry) Tsao, organizer of TAC-EC 2023 talked about how he got involved in TAC-EC

Shih-Chieh (Terry) talked about the theme of TAC-EC

How China reacted to Nancy Pelosi's (former speaker of the United States House of Representatives) visit to Taiwan in August of 2022

Some of the most memorable speakers that were invited to speak at TAC-EC 2023

How FAPA (Formosan Association for Public Affairs and GTI (Global Taiwan Institute) and WUFI (World United Formosans for Independence) were instrumental in helping to organize TAC-EC 2023

How Shih-Chieh (Terry) hopes that TAC-EC can welcome more participants with a wider spectrum of political leanings on Taiwan

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/oral-histories-by-three-tac-ec-past-organizers-talking-with-terry-tsao-sue-mei-kao-and-powen-wang-ep-298/

Last year in August of 2023 I interviewed Dr. Jung Tsai about the medical mission to Ukraine that he had organized. If you haven't already had a chance to hear my first interview with Dr. Tsai about his medical mission to Ukraine, check out Episode 251: Dr. Jung Tsai: On His Courageous Medical Mission to Ukraine for Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/aftermath-of-his-medical-mission-to-ukraine-one-year-later-dr-jung-tsai-ep-297/

This past July we took Talking Taiwan on the road to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference, East Coast that was held at Westchester University. And we set up an on-location podcast studio there. Dr. Tsai was one of the speakers at TAC, so nearly a year after his return, we sat down with him to hear how his medical mission went.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/aftermath-of-his-medical-mission-to-ukraine-one-year-later-dr-jung-tsai-ep-297/

Since 2020 Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense has been reporting the number of incursions China makes by sea and air into Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone. These incursions now happen on a daily basis and already the tally for this year alone has surpassed the total number of occurrences that took place last year in 2023.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/psychological-defense-and-practices-to-manage-stress-for-the-people-of-taiwan-a-talk-with-dr-hsiao-wen-lo-ep-296/

Recently, on October 14th, just days after President Lai Ching-te's Double Ten Day speech, China's military initiated the "Joint Sword-2024B" drills, a simulated blockade which took place in the Taiwan Strait and areas to the north, south and east of Taiwan. According to Taiwan's MND, a record number of 153 Chinese military aircraft were detected around Taiwan within a 25-hour period.

We've previously discussed China's gray zone military tactics and civil defense preparedness, on this podcast, but just as important is something called psychological defense.

In July we brought Talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference, East Coast that was held at West Chester University. I sat down with Dr. Hsiao-Wen Lo (駱筱雯) who spoke at the conference about Psychological Defense for the People of Taiwan.

We also got into a discussion about the related topics of trauma and

practices to manage stress and maintain good mental health.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How Dr. Lo got interested in psychological defense

· What is psychological defense

· The importance of the mind-body connection

· Types of trauma: psychological trauma, generational trauma, collective trauma

· What is psychological warfare

· The Chinese People's Liberation Army's psychological warfare tactics

· The impact of long-term stress

· Post traumatic growth

· Fight or Flight states

· Strategies to deal with stress

· The erasure of Taiwan by China

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/psychological-defense-and-practices-to-manage-stress-for-the-people-of-taiwan-a-talk-with-dr-hsiao-wen-lo-ep-296/

In July we took the show on the road bringing Talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference, East Coast that was held at West Chester University. I sat down and spoke with New Taipei City Councilor Chen Nai-Yu (陳乃瑜市議員). We spoke about how she went from being a journalist to a politician, working on Lai Ching-te's presidential campaign, and the controversial bills that got passed in Taiwan's legislature in May and that led to massive protests and the Bluebird Movement.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/counselor-chen-of-new-taipei-city-talks-about-her-political-career-and-the-controversial-bills-passed-by-taiwans-legislature-ep-295/

Special thanks to Bill Wu who sat in on the interview to provide translation assistance to City Councilor Chen, and to Anmy Lee for additional research and translation assistance.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How Naiyu went from working as a journalist for 14 years to becoming a politician

· Issues she's focused on as a City Councilor

· Anti-Han Kuo-yu rally in Kaohsiung

· Naiyu's work as a journalist

· How her experience as a journalist prepared her to be a politician

· The challenges she faced in working on Lai Ching-te's presidential campaign

· Cases of state-owned land on which people built personal mansions

· The different communication styles and approaches to social media use of Lai Ching-te and Ko Wen-je

· What Naiyu has to say about President Lai Ching-te's personality and character

· What could happen with the controversial bills that led to the Bluebird movement protests in Taiwan in May

· Cases of ill-gotten assets and how the handling of ill-gotten assets could be reversed

· Naiyu's observations of the Bluebird movement

· The most rewarding thing about being a City Councilor

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/counselor-chen-of-new-taipei-city-talks-about-her-political-career-and-the-controversial-bills-passed-by-taiwans-legislature-ep-295/

I recently spoke with Michael Fahey about some developments on human rights related issues in Taiwan, including the anticipated ruling by Taiwan's constitutional court on the Death Penalty.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/recently-debated-human-rights-issues-in-taiwan-a-conversation-with-michael-fahey-ep-294/

We spoke on September 16th and Taiwan's constitutional court made its ruling on September 20th. At the time I had spoken to Michael about a campaign and online petition to expand access to dual nationality for long-term foreign permanent residents of Taiwan. To learn more about that check out episode 293.

Michael is an American lawyer and resident of Taipei since 1988. He is foreign counsel at Formosa Transnational (萬國) and also founder of Forward Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/recently-debated-human-rights-issues-in-taiwan-a-conversation-with-michael-fahey-ep-294/

Did you know that there is a campaign underway in Taiwan that is calling for foreign permanent residents to be able to apply for dual nationality, effectively allowing them to obtain Taiwanese citizenship after 5 years without giving up their original passport?

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dual-nationality-for-long-term-permanent-residents-of-taiwan-discussion-with-michael-fahey-ep-293/

An online petition for this proposal was launched on August 19th and they are trying to collect 5,000 signatures to support it by October 19th: https://join.gov.tw/idea/detail/951c745d-4484-4923-953f-4cdaefe7f344

I recently spoke with Michael Fahey, about this campaign which was initiated by Crossroads and Forward Taiwan. We talked about many of the most common concerns raised by a proposal like this, given the sensitive position that Taiwan is in due to the threats it faces from the PRC (People's Republic of China).

Michael is an American lawyer and resident of Taipei since 1988. He is foreign counsel at Formosa Transnational (萬國) and also founder of Forward Taiwan.

If you'd like to sign the online petition to expand access to dual nationality for long-term foreign permanent residents of Taiwan, please note a few things:

1) In order to be able to sign the petition you must be a citizen of Taiwan or holder of an A(P)RC (Alien Permanent Resident Certificate) and have a Taiwan mobile number.

2) When filling out the petition form it's best to use a computer not a smart phone but have your phone nearby and have patience when going through the process.

3) Whether or not you are personally able to sign the petition, please consider also sharing this with friends, family or colleagues who would and are able to support it.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How the proposal to expand access to dual nationality for long-term foreign permanent residents of Taiwan came about

· The case of Michael Boyden, a British citizen and permanent resident of Taiwan

· How Taiwan's nationality law was drafted in the 1920s and how it compares with other countries laws on nationality

· How Taiwan's nationality law is not symmetrical for native-born Taiwanese and naturalizing foreign citizens

· How expanding access to dual nationality for long-term foreign permanent residents of Taiwan could make Taiwan more resilient

· How immigration could be a way to deal with Taiwan becoming a super-aged society

· Concerns about whether this proposal will make it easier PRC (People's Republic of China) citizens to immigrate to Taiwan and become citizens

· PRC (People's Republic of China) citizens are governed by a different law; the act for the relations between peoples of the mainland and the Taiwan region

· The proposal is to change the nationality law not the act for the relations between peoples of the mainland and the Taiwan region

· How to handle concerns about PRC citizens who've naturalized in third countries using their foreign citizenship to come and naturalize in Taiwan

· How the fear that crime would go up is unfounded because foreign nationals in Taiwan commit crimes at a rate of 50 percent of the native population

· What exactly is being proposed

· The procedure for foreign permanent residents in Taiwan to obtain dual Taiwanese citizenship

· The types of people and special cases that have been granted dual Taiwanese citizenship

· The standards required for foreign permanent residents in Taiwan to be granted dual Taiwanese citizenship

· Cases of foreign permanent residents in Taiwan that applied and failed to attain dual Taiwanese citizenship

· How the process to get the nationality law amended could actually be a very long process that could take 5-20 years

· Arguments for and against the proposal

· How people who wish to sign the online petition must be citizens of Taiwan and have a Taiwan mobile number

· When filling out the petition it's best to do so on a computer and not on a smart phone, but to keep your mobile phone nearby

· Have patience in filling out the online petition form because the interface is a bit difficult to use

· How foreign permanent residents can't get household registration and how that limits them

· Reasons people would like to get dual Taiwanese citizenship

· How to deal with individuals who have dual nationalities

· How male citizens of Taiwan under the age of 36 are required to serve in the military

· How Taiwan could take steps to ensure that people serve in the military

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dual-nationality-for-long-term-permanent-residents-of-taiwan-discussion-with-michael-fahey-ep-293/

In September the UN General Assembly takes place at the United Nations headquarters in New York City. This year, the 79th session of the UN General Assembly opened on Tuesday, September 10th and will conclude on Monday, September 30th. The theme of the General Debate is "Leaving no one behind: acting together for the advancement of peace, sustainable development and human dignity for present and future generations."

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/un-membership-for-taiwan-a-nyc-press-conference-peace-truck-and-a-rally-ep-292/

Since 1992, the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York has promoted UN membership for Taiwan and organized the UN for Taiwan rally and march to coincide with the UN General Assembly. This year the UN for Taiwan rally and march was held on Saturday, September 14th.

Delegates from the Taiwan United Nations Alliance or TAIUNA, an NGO from Taiwan have been coming to New York for the past twenty years to call for Taiwan's membership in the UN.

On Friday, September 13th representatives from TAIUNA held a press conference in Ralph Bunche Park, which is across from the United Nations Headquarters. The open letter from TAIUNA Chairman Yet-Min Lin addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was read. The full letter will be posted in the Relate Links section of Talking Taiwan website for this episode. The letter urged the UN to hold a formal hearing to clarify the interpretation of UNGA Resolution 2758.

China's distortion of Resolution 2758 has been used to block Taiwan from being included in the UN.

TAIUNA (The Taiwan United Nations Alliance) was founded on October 24, 2003:

1. To realize UN's purposes and to foster justice, peace and security for Taiwan and the world.

2. To promote Taiwanese understanding of and education on the UN and its related organizations.

3. To elevate the global perspectives of the Taiwanese people and to participate in such international activities as human rights protection, humanitarian assistance, and environmental protection.

4. To campaign for Taiwan's membership in the UN and to make Taiwan a Normal State both in name and in fact in the world community.

Talking Taiwan covered TAIUNA's press conference in Ralph Bunche Park on Friday, September 13th. On Saturday, September 14th we stopped by the "Peace Pop-up Truck" organized by the Taipei Economic Cultural Office of New York (TECONY) with the theme being "UNity through Peace: Chip in with Taiwan." Afterward we also participated in the UN for Taiwan rally and march.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/un-membership-for-taiwan-a-nyc-press-conference-peace-truck-and-a-rally-ep-292/

Earlier this summer, in June, I spoke with John Groot the author of An Emergency Preparedness Guide for Expats in Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/an-emergency-preparedness-guide-for-expats-in-taiwan-our-discussion-with-survivalist-author-john-groot-ep-291/

John has made the book is available for free on his website and you download a copy of it by >> clicking herehttps://thecultureshack.blog/2023/12/04/emergency-preparedness-guide-for-expats-in-taiwan/

Taiwan is of course no stranger to natural disasters since it often experiences earthquakes and typhoons. What's raised eyebrows about John's book is that it has a section that specifically addresses what to do in case of a military attack by China.

Since 2020 China has upped its grey zone tactics by sending planes into Taiwan's ADIZ on a daily basis. Concerns about civil defense preparedness in Taiwan peaked in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, and then there was the PLA's military actions in August of 2022 in response to Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. House Speaker at the time visiting Taiwan.

John and I talked about the research involved in writing the guide, how people can be prepared in case of and emergency or disaster and why he felt it was necessary to include a section in the guide to address dealing with a possible invasion of Taiwan by China.

John Groot is a long-time Canadian expat in Taiwan. He is an independent writer-researcher and has done one book and many articles about Taiwan's history, culture, and geography. Recently he has focused more on the security situation with regards to Chinese aggression toward Taiwan. One of his major recent projects was a 68 page PDF e-book called "Resilience Roadmap: An Emergency Preparedness Guide for Expats in Taiwan."

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· John's background and upbringing

· How John got interested in civil defense and emergency preparedness

· How Russia's invasion in Ukraine in 2022 heightened interested in civil defense in Taiwan

· How John learned about the NGO Open Knowledge aka OK Taiwan

· Documentary filmmaker Tobie Openshaw

· The PLA's military actions in response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022

· The civil defense handbook that was issued by Taiwan's government and how it showed the difference between uniforms of Taiwan's military and China's PLA

· How many expats there are in Taiwan, and the different types of expats

· Issues with the path for expats to apply for nationality in Taiwan

· The research John did for the book

· Tobie Openshaw's experience with the 921 Earthquake in Taiwan

· Sweden's defense system

· Israel's military service system

· How France supports its citizens abroad

· How long it took John to write the book

· How the book is organized

· The earthquake in Taiwan that caused a crane to fall from Taipei 101

· John's experience with natural disasters in Taiwan

· The acronyms in the book

· The origin of the term "bug out"

· How people can be prepared for emergencies or disasters

· Having a communication plan in case of emergency or disaster

· What students learn about dealing with natural disasters and emergencies

· Liability issues in Taiwan when it comes to medically intervening to help someone

· Why John felt that the book should address what to do in case of threat of war i.e. an attack on Taiwan by China

· Meetings amongst the American communities in Taipei after U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August 2022

· The response John's received to the book

· Whether or not it is advisable to go to a government evacuation center

· How in times of need it's important to consider the needs of others

· How families can prepare their children for dealing with disasters

· How Taiwan and the U.S. do not want war with China

· What John would like people to take away from the book

· How John hopes that people can be prepared for emergencies or disasters

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/an-emergency-preparedness-guide-for-expats-in-taiwan-our-discussion-with-survivalist-author-john-groot-ep-291/

The recent Paris Olympics has just passed and may already be fading into memory. This year Team Taiwan won 2 gold medals and 5 bronze at the Olympics.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/my-conversation-with-mike-chinoy-award-winning-journalist-on-his-new-film-decathalon-ep-290/

Do you know when and who won Taiwan's first Olympic medal?

It happened at the 1960 Rome Olympics, which was the first Summer Olympics that was televised in North America. The man who was known as the "Iron Man of Asia," C.K. Yang won a silver medal in the decathlon. C.K. was of the Amis indigenous tribe from southeastern Taiwan. His Amis name was Maysang Kalimud, but then Japan colonized Taiwan he had a Japanese name when, and then after the Chinese Nationalists the Kuomintang lost the civil war in China to the Chinese Communist and fled to Taiwan, his father gave him a Chinese name, Yang Chuan-kwang.

Like many Amis, he used his athletic prowess to gain status and success that might otherwise have eluded him. But not much is known about how heavily he identified as Amis.

The gold medal winner at the Rome Olympics was Rafer Johnson, an African American.

Rafer and C.K. trained together under the same coach at UCLA and then competed against each other in the decathlon at the Rome Olympics. They were not only rivals but also the best of friends.

Their extraordinary and unlikely friendship inspired the making of a documentary film and I sat down recently to speak with Mike Chinoy, the co-creator, co-writer, and co-producer of that film which is called "Decathlon: The CK Yang and Rafer Johnson Story,"

Mike Chinoy is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California's US-China Institute and is based in Taipei. Previously, he spent 24 years as a foreign correspondent for CNN, serving as the network's first Beijing bureau chief and as Senior Asia Correspondent.

"Decathlon: The CK Yang and Rafer Johnson Story" is currently streaming on the Taiwan Plus Docs YouTube channel.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Team Taiwan's performance during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris

· How flags and signs in the shape of Taiwan or with the word Taiwan on them were confiscated from fans during the men's doubles badminton finals at the Paris Olympics

· How China's state-run broadcaster CCTV cut the feed during parts of the men's badminton doubles match and did not broadcast the medal ceremony

· Why Taiwan has to compete under the name "Chinese Taipei" at the Olympics

· The "Iron Man of Asia"

· The man that won Taiwan's first Olympic medal

· C.K. Yang was Amis and had three names, an Amis name (Maysang Kalimud), a Japanese name and a Chinese name (Yang Chuan-kwang, 楊傳廣)

· How C.K. first met Rafer Johnson at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956

· How C.K. and Rafer were trained by the same coach at UCLA and became close friends

· The International Olympic Committee (I.O.C) told the government of Chiang Kai-shek that the team sent to participate at the 1960 Rome Olympics could not be called the Republic of China

· Chiang Kai-shek almost boycotted the Olympics but didn't because he realized that C.K. Yang could possibly win a medal and bring glory to Taiwan

· How Taiwan competed under the name Formosa during the 1960 Rome Olympics

· C.K. Yang was the first person with a Chinese surname to win an Olympic medal

· At the opening ceremony of the 1960 Rome Olympics Rafer Johnson was the first African American to carry the American flag at the Olympics

· At the opening ceremony of the 1960 Rome Olympics, the Taiwan team marched in carrying a placard that said under protest, which was the first overt political protest by a team in Olympics history

· Where the idea for "Decathlon: The CK Yang and Rafer Johnson Story" came from

· How Mike's co-creator, co-writer, and co-producer, John Krich sought out, befriended and interviewed C.K. Yang in 2006

· How Mike met and befriended Rafer Johnson and C.K.'s widow Daisy in Los Angeles

· Taiwanese Canadian film director of "Decathlon: The CK Yang and Rafer Johnson Story," Frank W. Chen also directed "Late Life: The Chien-Ming Wang Story"

· How C.K. Yang, Rafer Johnson and athletes have become political symbols

· How C.K. Yang and Rafer Johnson were intense athletic rivals and close friends

· The close personal friendship between C.K. Yang and Rafer Johnson

· How C.K. Yang and Rafer Johnson had the same coach, Ducky Drake at UCLA

· How C.K. Yang and Rafer Johnson joked that they were the "Two-Man United Nations"

· How C.K. Yang's story tells the story of Taiwan in an unconventional way

· Why C.K. was sent to UCLA to train for the Olympics

· The 1958 Kinmen Matsu Crisis (aka The 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis)

· How C.K. Yang and Rafer Johnson's coach, Ducky Drake showed no favoritism

· When U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, Rafer was next to him, Rafer grabbed the assassin, tackled him and grabbed the gun

· Rafer's involvement in the Special Olympics

· What happened to C.K. at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

· C.K. later became the coach of the Taiwan track team for the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, Canada

· Why the team from Taiwan was barred from participating in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal

· Rafer Johnson lit the flame at the 1984 Olympic games in L.A.

· How C.K. went into politics briefly in Taiwan, switching from one party to another

· The Iron Man house that the government of Taiwan built for C.K.

· How statues of C.K. are in a locked fourth floor room of the National Sports Training Center in Kaohsiung

· There cover of Sports Illustrated magazine in 1963 with the headline " C.K. Yang, the world's greatest athlete."

· The tremendous sportsmanship and loyalty that C.K. and Rafer exemplify

· C.K.'s performance at 1954 Asian Games in Manilla

· The use of animation in "Decathlon: The CK Yang and Rafer Johnson Story,"

· The National Sports Training Center in Kaohsiung

· How the film addresses the Taiwan, China conflict, and the fight for social justice and equality in the United States; 64 years later the world is still wrestling with these issues

· Mike's future projects

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/my-conversation-with-mike-chinoy-award-winning-journalist-on-his-new-film-decathalon-ep-290/

This is the second part of our interview with Dr. Linda Gail Arrigo, Ai Linda (艾琳達). Earlier this year when we were in Taiwan in January for the presidential election, we sat down to interview Linda about the era and events that precipitated the Kaohsiung incident also known as the Formosa Incident, which is widely considered the watershed moment in history that led to Taiwan's democratization. The Kaohsiung Incident happened in December of 1979.

If you haven't had a chance to listen to the first part of this interview, you can go back to episode 287 and give it a listen. By the way, that episode of Talking Taiwan, episode 287 got us shortlisted in the top 15 podcasts selected in the category of "Moment of Visionary Leadership" for the 2024 International Women's Podcast Awards. This year the IWPA had 700 submissions from over 33 different countries. Results were announced in London on Wednesday, June 19th.

While we were not selected as the winning podcast in this category, we are deeply honored to have our work recognized. Any increased visibility for Talking Taiwan also means greater visibility for Taiwan. In case you didn't know, Talking Taiwan is also on YouTube, and we did video record my interview with Linda, so we do plan on releasing it on our YouTube channel, but please be patient with us since we are only a two-person team. We do have some interesting content on YouTube that's different from our podcast episodes, so if you haven't already, we encourage you to look for Talking Taiwan on YouTube and to subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/@talkingtaiwan Issues of Formosa Magazine

Photo Credit: Linda Gail Arrigo The Kaohsiung Eight (from left to right): Chang Chun-hung (張俊宏), Huang Hsin-chieh (黃信介), Chen Chu (陳菊), Yao Chia- wen (姚嘉文), Shih Ming-teh (施明德), Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), Lin Hung-hsuan (林弘宣 ), and Lin Yi-hsiung (林義雄)- not pictured

Photo Credit: Screenshot from Formosa Incident, Explained YouTube video from Taiwan Explained by TaiwanPlus: https://youtu.be/2eaxPhA9RN8?si=_YF0brrtyjOwlu6D International Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Taiwan (ICDHRT)- Lynn Miles' organization

Photo Credit: Linda Gail Arrigo

Linda Gail Arrigo (艾琳達) wearing the three-colored sash, and the three-colored banners and signs of the dangwai (黨外) i.e. outside party or opposition.

Related Links:

Early last year I spoke with Boba Guys co-founders Andrew Chau and Bin Chen. At the time Andrew had just gotten back from visiting Taiwan and other parts of Asia, so it was interesting to hear his observations. Andrew and Bin shared so many great nuggets. We talked about how they got started with a pop-up shop while working fulltime and how they continued to so even after they opened their first few stores.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-boba-guys-andrew-chau-and-bin-chen-bubble-tea-entrepreneurs-bridging-cultures-for-11-years/

Other topics covered include how Boba Guys weathered the pandemic, Andrew and Bin's book called The Boba Book, and how they see boba as a way to bridge cultures. What has Boba Guys been up to since we spoke? Lots of interesting collabs with other brands, and the release of a loyalty program called "Passport" which gamifies the experience through loot boxes instead of linearly earning points to redeem for a drink.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How Andrew and Bin first met when they both worked at Timbuktu

· How they decided to start a bubble tea business

· Andrew's recent trip to Taiwan and the other Taiwanese Americans he met up with while there

· Andrew's thoughts on Taiwan's bubble tea scene

· How they started with a pop-up shop

· How they have not taken any VC (venture capital) money

· The social costs and risks of being an entrepreneur

· How other Taiwanese American entrepreneurs like Steve Chen and Kevin Lin mentored them

· How Andrew does advising for the small business council and testified in Washington D.C. on behalf of small businesses

· How they were working on Boba Guys Japan when the pandemic hit

· How Boba Guys dealt with the pandemic

· The biggest challenges they've experienced

· The third wave of boba

· The meaning of the word boba and how Andrew's mom reacted to the name Boba Guys

· How Boba Guys name their drinks

· Their book, The Boba Book and how they choose their co-author Richard Parks

· What happened when they went to Taiwan and tried to determine which tea shop invented bubble tea

· The Boba Guys' merchandise and aardvark mascot

· The Boba Home Kit and how they created a boba kit that was on Williams Sonoma

· How they teach people how to make boba online

· How they have mentored other entrepreneurs

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/the-boba-guys-andrew-chau-and-bin-chen-bubble-tea-entrepreneurs-bridging-cultures-for-11-years/

Earlier this year when we were in Taiwan in January for the presidential election, I sat down to interview Dr. Linda Gail Arrigo, Ai Linda (艾琳達).

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-linda-gail-arrigo-taiwan-democracy-fighter-talks-about-events-leading-up-to-the-kaohsiung-incident-ep-287/

She talked about the era and events that precipitated the Kaohsiung incident aka Formosa Incident (on December 10, 1979) which is widely considered the watershed moment in history that led to Taiwan's democratization. This is part one of a two-part interview.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-linda-gail-arrigo-taiwan-democracy-fighter-talks-about-events-leading-up-to-the-kaohsiung-incident-ep-287/

After fights broke out in Taiwan's legislative yuan on May 17th sending several legislators to the hospital, the public gathered in protest outside of the legislative yuan. There have been over 30,000, 100,000 and 70,000 people gathered at three of the major protests which are being called the Bluebird movement. The name is a play on the name of the road nearby the legislative yean where protests began (青島東路).

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/bluebird-movement-3-experts-discuss-the-controversial-bills-leading-to-protests-at-the-legislative-yuan-ep-286/

I spoke with Taipei Times columnist Michael Turton and his son Sebastian on May 27th about the controversial bills that have caused such widespread dissent. Sebastian shared what he saw at the protests in Taipei on Tuesday, May 22 and Friday, May 24.

I also spoke with Sean Su after a set of the controversial legislative reform bills passed on May 28th.

There have been protests all over Taiwan in 15 different cities, and even globally. The New York Bluebird, a group of politically conscious New York City-based Taiwanese have worked with Keep Taiwan Free to raise funds for a billboard in New York's Times Square to promote awareness of the Bluebird movement. The billboard will appear on Tuesday, June 4 at 6:00pm.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/bluebird-movement-3-experts-discuss-the-controversial-bills-leading-to-protests-at-the-legislative-yuan-ep-286/

On May 26th we stopped by the annual Passport to Taiwan in New York City's Union Square Park and I caught up with a few of our past guests, Taiwanese hip hop and rap artist, Dwagie who performed at this year's Passport to Taiwan, and Lisa Cheng Smith who was also there with her Yun Hai co-founder Lillian Lin her co-founder. Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry 雲海 offers a selection of premium ingredients for Taiwanese and Chinese cooking online and at their shop located in Brooklyn.

I spoke Dwagie about his thoughts on the protests that have been happening around the legislative yuan in Taipei. Stay tuned for our next episode which will cover the protests around the legislative yuan that started around May 17th.

I also spoke to Lillian and Lisa, co-founders of Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry about what it was like to have President Tsai Ing-wen visit their shop in Brooklyn, and a few of their products including their qq dragon T-shirt and dried mango.

To learn more about Dwagie check out episode 50 of Talking Taiwan and to learn more about Yun Hai check out episode 135.

Related Links:

Vanessa Hope is the director of Invisible Nation, a documentary film that takes a look at the presidency of Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's first female president and events that happened during her tenure. We talked about what first brought Vanessa to Taiwan which meant that she was there in 1996 during the inauguration of Lee Teng-hui, Taiwan's first directly elected president. Then in 2016 after Vanessa came to Taiwan with an international delegation to observe Taiwan's presidential elections and witnessed the election of Tsai Ing-wen, she came up with the idea for a film about Tsai Ing-wen's presidency.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/invisible-nation-director-vanessa-hope-discusses-her-documentary-about-tsai-ing-wens-presidency-ep-284/

Vanessa's first feature length documentary, All Eyes And Ears examined relations between the U.S. and China through the stories of U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, his adopted Chinese daughter Gracie Mei, and blind legal advocate Chen Guangcheng.

When I asked Vanessa about her experience making a documentary film in China, she recounted a story that explained why she personally related to the backlash and pressure from China that Chou Tzu-yu, a Taiwanese member of a K-pop band has faced.

We also talked about the challenges in making Invisible Nation over a seven year period, Vanessa's personal motivations for making the film and where Invisible Nation is going to be screened in the near future.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· What brought Vanessa to Taiwan and got her interested in Taiwan

· What Vanessa observed when she was in Taiwan for the inauguration of Lee Teng-hui, the first directly elected president of Taiwan

· The first time she dabbled in filmmaking

· How Vanessa wrote and recorded the podcast, Love Is a Crime, which tells the story of her family's connection to film

· The state of the film industry which Vanessa's husband Ted Hope writes about on Substack

· How Vanessa came up with the idea for the film, Invisible Nation

· Vanessa worked at the Council on Foreign Relations

· Vanessa came to Taiwan with an international delegation to observe Taiwan's presidential elections in 2016 and witnessed the election of Tsai Ing-wen

· How Vanessa secured a grant focused on women, peace and security

· How film producer Sylvia Feng helped Vanessa with submitting a proposal to President Tsai's office regarding her idea for a documentary film

· How they filmed an interview with Chen Chu before hearing an answer from President Tsai's office about the documentary film proposal

· How Vanessa originally envisioned working a film about Taiwan's first female president

· The backlash President Tsai received from China initially

· The discrimination that Taiwan faces internationally

· How Taiwan has been excluded from international organizations like the WHO, the United Nations, the Olympics and others

· How Russia's invasion of Ukraine highlighted concerns about the threat Taiwan faces from China

· How Xi Jinping has said that he will not renounce the use of force against Taiwan

· Where the name of the film, Invisible Nation came from

· The film Vanessa produced, Who We Are: A Chronicle of Racism in America, about

· If President Tsai had any say in the film Invisible Nation

· What personally motivated Vanessa to make the film, Invisible Nation

· How the interview and scene with Chen Chu in the film came about

· How Chen Chu wrote her will when she was in prison and dedicated her life to the people of Taiwan

· What it was like meeting former President Ma Ying-jeou

· How Vanessa's mentor at the Council on Foreign Relations, Jerome Cohen had been a professor at Harvard Law School to Ma Ying-jeou and Annette Lu

· What Vanessa learned from working at the Council on Foreign Relations

· What fascinated Vanessa about how the singer Chou Tzu-yu was forced to apologize for waving a flag that represented Taiwan

· Wen Liu's comments about President Tsai that didn't make it into the film Invisible Nation

· How it was decided that historical facts to keep in the film or not

· How part of the editing process for the film Invisible Nation was to test it on audiences

· How Vanessa has had to edit down Invisible Nation from 85 minutes to 55 minutes for television

· Who is the target audience of the film, Invisible Nation

· Why some of the Taiwanese who worked on Invisible Nation had to use pseudonyms

· China's 3 T's that you are not supposed to talk about, Taiwan, Tibet, and Tiananmen

· The difference in working on documentary films in China vs. Taiwan

· What happened to Vanessa when she was in Tibet and tried to board a train with U.S.

Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman, who she was filming for her first documentary film, All Eyes and Ears

· Why Vanessa could relate to what happened to the singer Chou Tzu-yu

· Scenes that had to be cut from the film, Invisible Nation

· The challenge in making Invisible Nation

· Feedback that Vanessa has received at screenings of Invisible Nation

· What Vanessa hopes that people take away from the film Invisible Nation

· If Vanessa has gotten any negative feedback or threats from pro-China media or parties

· Where Invisible Nation is going to be screened

· Vanessa's future film projects

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/invisible-nation-director-vanessa-hope-discusses-her-documentary-about-tsai-ing-wens-presidency-ep-284/

Last year I spoke with Robin, Jerry and Peng-Hsuan about the U.S. Taiwan Watch after they organized a hackathon at the Taiwanese American Conference- East Coast that's held annually around July 4th.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/us-taiwan-watch-think-tank-focused-on-the-relationship-between-the-united-states-and-taiwan-ep-283/

U.S. Taiwan Watch was founded in 2017 to synthesize data on Taiwan-related bills in Congress. Later, they expanded their work to include analysis on U.S. foreign policy and podcasts discussing U.S.-Taiwan relations.

Jerry Hsu is Co-founder and President of US Taiwan Watch

Robin Liao is Co-founder of US Taiwan Watch

Peng-Hsuan Chen is Project Manager of the Hackathon Project, Program and Policy Specialist of US Taiwan Watch

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How the U.S. Taiwan Watch got started

· How the U.S. Taiwan Watch educates people in Taiwan about the U.S.'s Taiwan-related bills, U.S. Congress, how bills are passed

· Taiwan's ban of pork from the U.S. containing ractopamine

· Taiwanese people's perceptions of the U.S.

· Misinformation from Chinese language media in Taiwan

· Taiwan-related bills for messaging vs. passage

· How they synthesize data on the U.S's Taiwan-related bills

· How the U.S. Taiwan Watch has changed over time

· The U.S. Taiwan Watch's connection to American Citizens for Taiwan

· How the U.S. Taiwan Watch started as a civil tech project

· How the U.S. Taiwan Watch deals with anti-American sentiments from their audience

· U.S. Taiwan Watch publishes articles, and produces a podcast

· How in 1979 the U.S. switched recognition from the Republic of China to the People's Republic of China

· U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken's visit to China in June 2023 and his statement that the U.S. does not support the independence of Taiwan

· U.S. President Joe Biden's remarks on the U.S.'s willingness to help defend Taiwan

· Former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan in August of 2022

· The controversy over expansion of the A.I.T office in Neihu, Taiwan

· How the U.S. Taiwan Watch deals with disinformation

· How the pro-China media in Taiwan is anti-American

· U.S. Taiwan Watch's podcast covers its articles. Taiwan-related bills and U.S. news

· The U.S. Taiwan Watch's most popular podcast episodes

· How WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accused Taiwan of slandering him

· The U.S. Taiwan Watch hackathon at TAC-EC 2023 (Taiwanese American Conference- East Coast)

· How the U.S. Taiwan Watch concept came out of a hackathon at the 2017 TAC-EC

· Projects created at the U.S. Taiwan Watch hackathon at TAC-EC 2023

· How the U.S. Taiwan Watch hackathon at TAC-EC 2023 was run

· What is so meaningful about the work that U.S. Taiwan Watch does

· How people have volunteered to wok for U.S. Taiwan Watch

· How Peng-Hsuan got involved with U.S. Taiwan Watch

· How Jerry got involved with U.S. Taiwan Watch

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/us-taiwan-watch-think-tank-focused-on-the-relationship-between-the-united-states-and-taiwan-ep-283/

Isa Ho is a photographer based in Taiwan. Last year I spoke with her about her photography and the Westbeth project, which consists of a series of photos and videos of artists who live at Westbeth Artists Housing, which is located in New York City's West Village.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/isa-ho-talks-about-her-career-as-a-photographer-and-her-westbeth-exhibit-in-nyc-ep-282/

Westbeth is so named because it sits at the corner of West and Bethune Streets, and was conceived in the 1960's as a partial solution to the acute need to provide affordable housing and studios for artists and their families.

The abandoned 13-building complex that was constructed between the 1860s and the 1930s, was formerly used by Bell Telephone Labs, and was turned into affordable permanent housing and workspace for hundreds of artists, as well as space for arts and cultural organizations. Westbeth was the first subsidized housing for artists in the United States. In 2009 it was added to the National Registrar of Historic Places. And in 2011 the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously designated Westbeth Artists Housing a New York City landmark.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Isa's exhibit at the Westbeth gallery that features her photos and videos of artists who reside at Westbeth

· How Isa is working on a documentary about the residents of Westbeth

· How Isa arrived for a residency at Westbeth in 2013 after Hurricane Sandy

· The residency project that brought Isa to Westbeth was initially about multicultural New York but as she got to know many of the people who lived at Westbeth, it became the Westbeth project

· Isa's connection to Taiwan

· How Isa is fascinated by people

· Isa has interviewed over 50 people and what was on display at the Westbeth gallery is only a third of her work

· The personal stories of several of the artist who live at Westbeth

· How the photos and videos were displayed at the Westbeth gallery

· How the Westbeth project has been exhibited in Israel, Italy, Germany and Taiwan

· How people have reacted to the Westbeth project

· How one of the pieces of the Westbeth project won an award in Italy

· How Isa got interested in photography

· How Isa creates a collage of photos that serve to tell a person's story

· How Isa does her photography full-time

· Isa's advice to those interested in pursuing photography

· Isa's video comparing the movements of Kunqu opera dancer and K-POP dancer

· Why Isa is planning to go to Ukraine

· How Isa felt useless as an artist during the pandemic but realized that when facing tragedy or if feeling like there is nothing that we can do, art can connect us with humanity

· How there aren't many housing communities like Westbeth in the world

· The wait list of people who want to live at Westbeth

· How one of the Westbeth residents George Cominskie has advocated for artists

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/isa-ho-talks-about-her-career-as-a-photographer-and-her-westbeth-exhibit-in-nyc-ep-282/

On April 3, 2024 at 7:58am (in Taiwan) an earthquake that's been reported as measuring 7.2 and 7.4 hit Hualien which is located on Taiwan's east coast. The last major earthquake of similar magnitude was 25 years ago on September 21st, 1999 in Nantou, which is located in central Taiwan. The earthquake also referred to as the 921 earthquake killed over 2,400 people, and left over 100,000 people homeless.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/th-schee-survivor-of-taiwans-most-powerful-earthquakes-gives-a-lesson-on-preparing-for-natural-disasters-ep-281/

In this episode I'm bringing back one of our previous guests onto this podcast, T.H. Schee, who I interviewed about civil defense in Taiwan. In that interview T.H. mentioned that it was his firsthand experience with the 921 earthquake that made him concerned about disaster preparedness and civil defense. I asked T.H. to share his recollection of the 921 earthquake and thoughts on how Taiwan's disaster response has improved since then. By most reports the death toll from the Hualien earthquake was around 13 at the time of this interview.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Where T.H. was during the Hualien earthquake on April 3, 2024 and during the earthquake on September 21, 1999 in Nantou

· The situation in Puli, after the earthquake on September 21, 1999 in Nantou

· How around 5,000 buildings collapsed and another 5,000 buildings were damaged in Nantou

· How people in the mountainous area of Nantou were stuck there for a month

· How a volunteer guard patrol group was formed to protect people who were camped outside

· How the damage in Puli was so extensive that navigation assistance needed to be provided to volunteer assistance groups

· How a state of emergency was declared on the fourth day of the earthquake

· Most of the deaths from the Hualien earthquake have been due to landslides and rockfalls rather than building collapses whereas most of the deaths in 1999 were due to building collapses

· How there were around 10,000 aftershocks within a month after the 921 earthquake

· Why people needed to camp outside after the 1999 earthquake in Nantou

· How police station and schools collapsed (in Nantou) and students had to relocate to another building as a temporary school

· How T.H. witnessed the death of three of his neighbors in Nantou

· How it took three years for buildings to be rebuild in Nantou

· Lessons from the 921 earthquake included a change in building codes, changes in laws regarding disaster response

· How businesses including TSMC in the Hsinchu Science park had to be shut down for five days in 1999

· How the stock market had to be shut down in 1999

· How Tai Power had to make improvements to the power grid to make it more resilient in case of natural disasters

· How Taiwan has offered humanitarian assistance to others e.g. the earthquake in Turkey in 2023

· How medics who went to Nantou were poorly prepared because they did plan on bringing enough food for themselves

· How ATMs didn't work in Nantou after the earthquake

· The first response to the Hualien earthquake

· How the train between Yilan and Hualien was repaired within a day

· How notifications after the Hualien earthquake were not sent to people in New Taipei

· How well prepared people in Taiwan are for earthquakes

· How the Tzu Chi foundation has been providing support to those affected by the earthquake in Hualien

· Do's and don'ts after an earthquake

· How it is important to get buildings checked after an earthquake

· How aftershocks can cause landslides and it not advisable to go into the mountains

· The earthquake that happened in New York on April 5th and comparing the notification system in New York with the notification system for earthquakes in Taiwan

· How to be prepared for an earthquake (have a flashlight, whistle and bottled water)

· Do's and Don'ts during an earthquake and aftershocks

· How Taiwan's government used to be a strong party state system in 1999, but after the 921 earthquake they learned the value of working with civil society and there were legal reforms

· A few months after the 1999 there was a change in government when people voted for Chen Shui-bian in 2000

· How TSMC resumed 80% of its capacity within a day after the Hualien earthquake

· T.H.'s gym 4SC Crossfit and the training and workshops the support and offer related to disaster preparedness and civil defense

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/th-schee-survivor-of-taiwans-most-powerful-earthquakes-gives-a-lesson-on-preparing-for-natural-disasters-ep-281/

Earlier this year when we were in Taiwan, we traveled down to Kaohsiung where we met with Wan-jen Lin the architect who worked on Weiwuying (衛武營國家藝術文化中心), Kaohsiung's performing arts center and the Echo Across the Harbor, which up to now is the largest public art project in Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/wan-jen-lin-architect-for-echo-across-the-harbor-largest-public-art-project-in-taiwan-ep-280/

She shared how the design of the Echo Across the Harbor was inspired by the history of Kaohsiung harbor. We will have Wan-jen back on for a more in-depth interview at a future date.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/wan-jen-lin-architect-for-echo-across-the-harbor-largest-public-art-project-in-taiwan-ep-280/

Last September we had the pleasure of interviewing actor, writer and director Michelle Krusiec. Her IMDB page displays an impressive list of acting roles dating back to 1992.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/michelle-krusiec-acclaimed-actor-writer-and-director-talks-about-dealing-with-institutional-racism-and-her-sources-of-inspiration-ep-279/

We talked about the different phases of her career starting with her one-woman show, Made in Taiwan, which earned her much critical acclaim. She wrote, directed and acted in it in her 20s. Then there was her first main character role in a feature film, Saving Face, a film that put her on my radar and so many others' in 2004. In 2020 she portrayed the legendary Anna May Wong in the Netflix series Hollywood. Stepping into that role helped her to rethink the institutionalized racism that she's experienced as an actor. Michelle also talked about her directorial projects, and expressed her thoughts on the SAG-AFTRA strike, and so much more.

March is Women's History Month and so we thought this would be the perfect time to release the first episode of the Trailblazing Taiwanese Women's series sponsored by NATWA, the North America Taiwanese Women's Association, which was founded in 1988. To learn more about NATWA visit their website: www.natwa.com

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How she got on the path of acting

· The stereotypical Asian roles she took on early in her career

· The struggles she's faced in her acting career

· How playing the role of Anna May Wong helped her to rethink the institutional racism that she's faced as an actor

· Her first leading role in a feature film (Saving Face)

· How she grew up she didn't see many people who looked like her on television and longed to change that

· How Michelle prepared for her role in Saving Face by going to Taiwan to learn Mandarin

· How Michelle prepared for her role as Anna May Wong in the Netflix series Hollywood

· Michelle's directing projects

· Michelle's one woman show Made in Taiwan and how it opened doors for her and got her a deal with ABC TV

· How anti-Asian hate became more prevalent during the pandemic but was around long before

· Her upbringing and how it impacted her early career

· Michelle's Washington Post op ed piece

· How a fortune teller impacted Michelle's adoption

· The connection between Made in Taiwan and Michelle's short film, Bite

· Michelle's short film Nian

· Michelle's thoughts on motherhood and parenthood

· The writing/directing projects that Michelle is working on

· Michelle's thoughts on the SAG-AFTRA strike

· Michelle's support for SB 805, a bill that supported funding for nonprofit theaters

· How Michelle was affected by the BLM (Black Lives Matter) demonstrations that arose during the pandemic

· Michelle's advice to others who want to pursue acting or directing

· Michelle's connection to Taiwan

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/michelle-krusiec-acclaimed-actor-writer-and-director-talks-about-dealing-with-institutional-racism-and-her-sources-of-inspiration-ep-279/

Ten years ago, on the night of March 18, 2014 students and activists broke into Taiwan's Legislative Yuan in an effort to block the passage of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement, a trade agreement between Taiwan and China. The day before, on March 17, the Kuomintang (KMT) had attempted to force through passage of the trade agreement in the Legislative Yuan, without giving it a clause-by-clause review. The occupation of the Legislative Yuan lasted over 20 days, until April 10 th and Fire EX.'s song Island's Sunrise became the anthem of the movement, which came to known as the Sunflower Movement.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/fireex-10th-anniversary-sunflower-movement-sam-yang-tells-how-island-sunrise-became-its-anthem-ep-278/

To commemorate the tenth anniversary of the Sunflower Movement, I sat down and spoke with Sam Yang, the lead singer of the band Fire EX. about how the opportunity to write the song Island's Sunrise came about. As it turns out there's a New York connection to the story and an exhibit and event to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the Sunflower Movement be taking place in New York on March 15 and running until April 15. Sam and I also spoke about where he gets his musical inspiration and how the band nearly broke up in 2015, the same year that Island's Sunrise was named Song of the Year at the Golden Melody Awards.

Fire EX. now has its own music production company and since 2017 they have been organizing something called Fireball Fest. The band is now on a North American tour and most notably will be performing at this year's South by Southwest in Austin Texas. We'll share their tour dates below. This interview was a real treat for me because I happened to be in Taiwan in 2014 when the Sunflower Movement happened. I remember all of the events that unfolded and being so moved when I heard the song Island's Sunrise. Special thanks to Katie Wei for her translation and May Wu for her help in making this interview possible.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

 How Sam got interested in music  How Fire EX. got started and where its name comes from  Fire EX.'s musical influences  Sam's path to becoming a full-time musician  Sam's advice for young aspiring musicians  How the opportunity for Fire EX. to write a song for the Sunflower Movement happened  The New York connection to the story of how Fire EX. was asked to write a song for the Sunflower Movement

 How there will be a month-long exhibit in New York to commemorate the 10- year anniversary of the Sunflower Movement from March 15-April 15 at the Tenri Cultural Institute in New York City  March 18, 2014 the night students and activists broke into and occupied the Legislative Yuan  The March 23, 2014 attempt to occupy the Executive Yuan  The rallies that happened worldwide on March 30, 2014 in support of the students and activists' actions to block the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement  How students who occupied the Legislative Yuan often listened to Fire EX.'s song Good Night Formosa before falling asleep  Why students of the Taipei National University of the Arts approached Sam to writ a song for the Sunflower Movement  Sam's approach to writing the song Island's Sunrise  How Sam decides to write songs in Holo Taiwanese or Mandarin Chinese  Sam's thoughts on the differences and challenges of the twenty-somethings who were involved in the Sunflower Movement vs. the twenty-somethings who just voted in Taiwan's recent election (January 13, 2024)  How Sam's sense of social activism was influenced by his roommate Wu Zhining (吳志寧) whose father Wu Sheng (吳晟) is a famous Taiwanese poet  How Fire EX. almost broke up in 2015  The Fireball Festival  How Fire EX. will be touring in North American in March and performing at South by Southwest in Austin, TX  One of the most touching things that Sam has heard from one of the band's fans  What we can expect from Fire EX. in the future, a concert in Taipei on June 15 and Fireball Festival at the end of November

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/fireex-10th-anniversary-sunflower-movement-sam-yang-tells-how-island-sunrise-became-its-anthem-ep-278/

Remembering 228.

On this day, we remember February 28, 1947, a sad tragic date in Taiwan's history that marks the murder of tens of thousands. Some estimates put the number as high as 28 30 thousand. Two years earlier, in 1945, the Chinese Nationalists or Kuomintang had fled from China to Taiwan. After Japan's occupation of Taiwan had ended and since the arrival of the KMT, discontent had been brewing for some time.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/remembering-228-tragic-stories-and-the-march-massacres-ep-277/

So on the night of February 27, 1947 when Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agents tried to confiscate contraband cigarettes from a 40-year-old woman and brutally knocked her out, an angry crowd gathered in protest. Then one of the agents fired a shot into the crowd killing a bystander. What followed was a bloody crackdown by authorities, widespread violence and what some have called the March Massacres since most of the killings actually happened in March.

In this episode, is an account that James Shau, chairperson of the Taiwanese American Association of New York shared at last year's 228 commemoration at the New York Taiwan Center.

Mr. Shau's account is a reminder of how widespread the violence was at that time. And while we now know that intellectuals and community leaders were among those who were specifically targeted, there were many unknown, unnamed who also senselessly lost their lives.

228 led to 38 years of martial law and an even longer period of White Terror in Taiwan. Let us also remember those who suffered during those subsequent periods of time.

In more recent news related to 228, Taiwan's Transitional Justice Commission has identified 42 historical sites where injustice related to 228 have happened.

On Monday, February 26 just a few days ago, the Executive Yuan compound was designated as a historical site of injustice. 77 years ago, it was the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Executive Office when the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang KMT military police fired indiscriminately on protestors on February 28, 1947.

Other historical sites of injustice that have been unveiled include the Jing-mei White Terror Memorial Park which used to be the Taiwan Garrison Command's detention center and military court, the Ankang Reception House, and the Tang Te-chang Memorial Park in Tainan.

Special thanks to Meiling Lin for her translation assistance for this episode.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/remembering-228-tragic-stories-and-the-march-massacres-ep-277/

On January 25th we held the second in-person event during the Talking Taiwan Election Tour at the PicCollage office in Taipei thanks to John Fan, who was a guest on episode 179 of Taking Taiwan. Many of our past guests, friends and supporters were in attendance at the event, and what made the event extra special for us of course was the chance to meet some of our past guests in-person for the very first time.

In this episode you'll hear me speaking with our previous podcast guests and a few people from the audience also came up and spoke with me at our impromptu on-stage podcasting booth. Previous guests featured in this episode include: Eric Chang (episodes 121, 127 and 231), Jane W. Wang (episode 150), Karen Chung, (episodes 217 and 219), Elias Ek (episode 59), Brian Foden (episodes 184 and 185), Richard Wang (episode 77), Jerome Keating (episodes 97, 98 and 186).

This episode bookends the Talking Taiwan Election Tour episodes, but we do have some other interviews that we recorded while in Taiwan. Those will be released at a later date.

We are extremely grateful to our supporters and donors who made the Talking Taiwan Election Tour possible.

By the way, if you'd like to listen to the episode featuring our first in-person on January 19th at 4SC Crossfit thanks to T.H. Schee, check out episode 273 and if you want the full visual experience, visit Talking Taiwan's YouTube channel where you can watch video footage from both of our in-person events.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Jenny Luo talked about the Taiwan Plus show she's producing called, Anything Goes with JL

· Eric Chang shares his thoughts on the January 13th election in Taiwan, and talked about his work at Taiwan News and enjoying Taiwan's natural beauty

· Jane W. Wang talked about her interest in permaculture and degrowth

· Karen Chung talked about an app she's been working on to improve the listening skills of those learning English called Ear Bug

· Elias Ek talked about how his early career in radio shaped him as an entrepreneur, Dragon's Chamber and his latest business venture Keego

· Brian Foden talked about his podcast, If the Phrase Fits

· Richard Wang shared how he's helping to bring baseball games to the Taipei Dome, that the Yomiuri Giants (Japanese baseball team) will be celebrating their 90th anniversary with games at the Taipei Dome, and starting this year, the local baseball league will have six teams

· John Fan made introduced and explained what PicCollage does

· Jerome Keating shared his thought on the future direction of Taiwan and where Taiwan is headed

· Nancy Baldwin talked about her book, One Thousand Layers of Water and Clouds: The Tale of a Taiwanese Daughter

· Elias Ek shared a few pet peeves that he has about terms and phrases commonly used in Taiwan

· Felicia acknowledged Gus Adapon the original producer of Talking Taiwan who was in the audience

· Dylan Black a Canadian who has lived and taught English in Taiwan for many years talked about how he is now doing so in China, and how life China compares to life in Taiwan so far

Related Links:

While in Taipei, we were able to meet up with Keelung City Councilor Jiho Chang who's been a guest in episodes 149, 156 & 174.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/jiho-chang-his-thoughts-about-new-speaker-legislative-yuan-and-taians-vice-president-elect-ep-275

We spoke about the recent announcement that Daniel Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomintang had become the speaker of the Legislative Yuan and Bi-khim Hsiao's role as vice president of Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/jiho-chang-his-thoughts-about-new-speaker-legislative-yuan-and-taians-vice-president-elect-ep-275/

As part of Talking Taiwan's Election Tour, we spoke with Courtney Donovan Smith a week after Taiwan's presidential and legislative elections. Lai Ching-te of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected president with 40.05% of the vote. Hou Yu-ih the Kuomintang's (KMT) presidential candidate got 33.49% of the vote and Ko Wen-je of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) got 26.46%. It was the first time in Taiwan's history that any political party has been elected for three consecutive four-year terms in office.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/our-post-presidential-election-analysis-2024-with-courtney-donovan-smith-ep-274/

The DPP won an unprecedented third presidential term but lost its majority in the legislature. We talked about how ballot counting in Taiwan is highly transparent and also about how the Taiwan People's Party could have a crucial role in the legislature, and if the TPP will suffer the same fate as Taiwan's other third parties

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Reflections on the 2024 election compared to past elections

· How the election of Lai Ching-te has earned the DPP an unprecedented third term in office

· How Terry Guo had expressed interest in running for president

· The opposition unity ticket deal that fell through

· Taiwan's first direct presidential election in 1996

· How ballots are counted in Taiwan

· How voting is done in Taiwan

· Donovan's thoughts on if the Taiwan People's Party will survive as a third party

· Taiwan's third political parties and what has happened to them

· The 2000 election in which Lien Chan was the KMT presidential candidate and James Soong ran as an independent presidential candidate

· The origin of the terms "Pan Green" and "Pan Blue

· The possibility that Hou You-yi could be recalled as mayor of New Taipei City

· Comparing the recall of Hou You-yi with the recall of Han Kuo-yu

· What the election results tell us about how people feel about the Democratic Progressive Party

· How Ko Wen-je has managed to attract many young voters

· How voting results may have differed if the presidential election were not a three-way race

· What could happen with the Legislative Yuan speaker and deputy speaker positions

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/our-post-presidential-election-analysis-2024-with-courtney-donovan-smith-ep-274/

During the Talking Taiwan Election Tour we planned to host two in-person events for our guests, supporters and friends. The first event was held on January 19th at 4SC CrossFit's Xindian branch in New Taipei, thanks to T.H. Schee who's been a guest on Talking Taiwan several times.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/live-conversations-with-our-past-guests-at-4sc-crossfit-in-new-taipei-city-taiwan-ep-273/

In fact episode 234 with T.H. is one of the Top 5 episodes of 2023. On January 19th we had a chance to meet some of our past guests in-person for the first time in person. We started off talking to JD Chang from episode 80 about Crushing the Myth.

Next up was John Eastwood who talked about legal reforms needed in Taiwan in episode 203. We talked about the election results in Taiwan's legislature that had the KMT with 52 seats, the DPP with 51 seats and the TPP with 8 seats and 2 seats going to Independents

We next spoke with Jerome Keating who talked about understanding the history of Taiwan in episode 97. Jerome explained why he wrote in his recent Taipei Times article that he doesn't expect the TPP, the Taiwan People's Party to survive to the next presidential election in 2028.

And finally at the end of the night Kaju and I talked to TH Schee who's been on Talking Taiwan several times, and who's one of the investors of 4SC Crossfit where we held our January 19th event.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/live-conversations-with-our-past-guests-at-4sc-crossfit-in-new-taipei-city-taiwan-ep-273/

Talking Taiwan is on an Election Tour and we traveled down to Kaohsiung where I cast my vote in Taiwan's 2024 presidential election. Voting booths opened at 8am on January 13th and we spoke with Sean Su, midday on election day. He was also in Kaohsiung to cast his vote. Sean shared some of his observations and we talked about the alarming text message alert many in Taiwan received on January 9th. I remember reading the text about a missile flyover on my phone just as Kaju and I arrived in Kaohsiung on the high-speed rail. Sean is Co-Producer of Taiwan Report. Known for jump starting Keep Taiwan Free. He is also a frequent guest on ICRT.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/sean-su-observations-on-election-day-2024-from-kaohsiung-taiwan-ep-272/

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Sean's observations on election day in Kaohsiung

· How if the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate Lai Ching-te wins it would be the first time in history that an incumbent party after eight years in office is re-elected

· Courtney Donovan Smith's recent article about Taiwan's 2024 presidential election, which mentions that Ko Wen-je's YouTube subscribers have surpassed one million

· The DPP's rally that was held at Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei on January 11

· Ma Ying-jeou's comments that Taiwan has no choice but to trust Chinese leader Xi Jinping

· The text message alert from Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense on January 9th that stated in English that there was a missile flyover Taiwan airspace

· Bilingual 2030

· The case of the two Michaels from Canada that were kidnapped by China

· How China conducted a series of missile tests in the waters surrounding Taiwan, including the Taiwan Strait in 1995 in response to President Lee Teng-hui's visit to Cornell University and in 1996 before Taiwan's first direct presidential election

· What China would need to do in order to successfully invade Taiwan

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/sean-su-observations-on-election-day-2024-from-kaohsiung-taiwan-ep-272/

Talking Taiwan is taking the show on the road back to Taiwan on the Talking Taiwan Election Tour and we traveled down to Taichung on January 7th to meet up in person with political commentator Courtney Donovan Smith, to do some pre-election coverage. We talked about the backgrounds of the three presidential candidates Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) nominee, Lai Ching-te (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the Kuomintang (KMT) nomineeand their running mates, the opposition unity ticket between the Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party that fell apart.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/background-of-taiwan-presidential-candidates-2024-political-analyst-courtney-donovan-smiths-rundown-for-upcoming-election-ep-271/

At one time it looked like Taiwan's 2024 presidential election could have been a four-way race but Terry Gou, the founder of Foxconn who withdrew from the presidential race. To learn more about the candidates and their policies be sure to check out episode 270 with Courtney about the presidential debate. After the election results are in, we will bring Courtney back to share his post-election results analysis with us.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· The background of TPP presidential candidate Ko Wen-je

· How Taiwan has a lot of politicians with medical backgrounds

· The background of DPP presidential candidate Lai-Ching-te

· The DPP campaign video" On the way" featuring Tsai Ing-wen, Lai Ching-te and Bi-khim Hsiao

· The background of KMT presidential candidate Hou You-yi

· Hou You-yi's background as a police officer

· The background of Jaw Shau-kong the KMT vice presidential candidate

· The background of Bi-Khim Hsiao the DPP vice presidential candidate

· The background of Cynthia Wu the TPP vice presidential candidate

· Some of the controversies and allegations involving the presidential candidates

· What happened to Terry Gou founder of Foxconn who withdrew from Taiwan's 2024 presidential election

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/background-of-taiwan-presidential-candidates-2024-political-analyst-courtney-donovan-smiths-rundown-for-upcoming-election-ep-271/

On December 30th there was a debate held between Taiwan's three presidential candidates Lai Ching-te (賴清德), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) nominee Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), the Kuomintang (KMT) nominee and Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) nominee. The three candidates started with eight minutes each to present their candidacy, that was followed by a media question answer session, and then in the second half each candidate had a chance to question each other. I sat down and spoke with political commentator Courtney Donovan Smith who shared his thoughts and observations about the debate.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-presidential-debate-2024-political-analyst-courtney-donovan-smiths-insights-on-the-upcoming-election-ep-270/

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How candidates were doing at the polls at the time of this interview was recorded (December 30, 2023)

· How undecided voters could influence the outcome of the presidential election

· How Courtney calculates the Taiwan News Poll of Polls

· How the presidential candidates performed in the first policy forum in comparison to the presidential debate

· The 60-70% of what was covered during the debate was related to China

· The second issue covered during the debate was properties owned by the three candidates

· Little time was spent on domestic issues like Taiwan's low birth rate, and energy

· Each candidate's position on China and how they would handle relations with China

· Hou You-yi, Ko Wen-je and Lai Ching-te's take on the 1992 Consensus

· How from China's point of view, the 1992 Consenus includes acceptance of the One China principle

· How Hou You-yi wants to bring back the cross strait services pact

· Courtney's opinion of the cross strait services pact

· How Ko Wen-je wants to pass the cross strait oversight bill

· During the debate Ko Wen-je claimed that the Sunflower Movement was a protest against black box political dealings and not a protest of the services trade pact, when it in fact was a protest about both black box political dealings and the services trade pact

· Each of the presidential candidate's position on national defense spending

· Each of the presidential candidate's position on extending or shortening military service

· The candidate's policies on housing, death penalty and energy and nuclear power plants in Taiwan

· How Taiwan's energy reserves are a matter of national security

· If younger voters care more about domestic issues or the China issue

· Courtney's thoughts on watching Taiwan Plus' broadcast of the debate with simultaneous English translation

· How Hou You-yi spoke some Taiwanese during the policy forum, debate

· The Kuomintang's strategy behind picking Jaw--- as the vice presidential candidate

· How the KMT put Han Kuo-yu in the number one slot on their party list, which indicated that he is probably their candidate for the legislative speaker

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-presidential-debate-2024-political-analyst-courtney-donovan-smiths-insights-on-the-upcoming-election-ep-270/

Here we are again… at the end of another year and we're getting ready to reveal the top 5 Talking Taiwan episodes of 2023!

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwan-top-5-episodes-of-2023-end-of-year-review/

We want to take a moment to especially thank all those who have supported and donated to the Talking Taiwan Election Tour. So far we have raised 40% of our overall fundraising goal of $25,000. Because of your support we will be heading to Taiwan in January to cover the presidential election and also producing additional episodes in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung.

We're also grateful to all of our amazing guests and want to thank each and every one for being a part of the Talking Taiwan podcast.

Stay tuned for the first new episode of the New Year featuring political commentator Courtney Donovan Smith sharing his analysis of Taiwan's presidential debate.

Soon Talking Taiwan will be taking the show on the road to Taiwan for the Talking Taiwan Election Tour. We'll be covering Taiwan's 2024 presidential election with pre-election coverage and a post-election discussion. Plus, we'll be traveling to Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung and producing additional episodes related to these 3 major cities.

Wishing you a wonderful rest of 2023 and a Happy New Year!

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/talking-taiwan-top-5-episodes-of-2023-end-of-year-review/

With the presidential election in Taiwan fast approaching (on January 13, 2024). We thought it would be a good time to discuss disinformation related to Taiwan's 2024 presidential election with Summer Chen, the Editor-in-Chief of Taiwan FactCheck Center and Wei-Ping Li, a research fellow at Taiwan FactCheck Center.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-factcheck-center-discussing-the-disinformation-related-to-taiwans-2024-presidential-election-ep-268

We also talked about disinformation that circulated in 2020 around the time of Taiwan's presidential election and the United States' presidential election, TFC's work to combat the spread of disinformation and how the general public can prevent themselves from falling prey to fake news by creating something called a trust circle.

Taiwan FactCheck Foundation (TFC) is a non-profit/non- government organization jointly established by the Association for Quality Journalism and Taiwan Media Watch Foundation in April 2018. In December 2020, TFC legally registered as an independent foundation, Taiwan FactCheck Foundation.

As COVID-19 first broke out in China, TFC was the first fact-checking organization to alert the potential disinformation threat to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in January 2020, which led to the launch of the biggest ever fact-checking project, CoronaVirusFacts Alliance. The alliance unites more than 100 fact-checkers across the globe and has published more than 10,000 fact-checks surrounding the pandemic.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· The difference between the terms disinformation and misinformation

· Disinformation that was spread about Taiwan's government donating US $200 million to Israel

· How Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has joined Facebook's third party fact checking program and what that means

· The difference between a journalist and fact checking organization (or between the media and a fact checking organization)

· How TFC collaborates with tech Facebook, Google and messaging apps like LINE (which is popular in Taiwan)

· TFC is certified by the IFCN (International Fact Checking Network)

· What TFC when disinformation or posts go viral

· How people can file a claim or report to debunk or fact check something they see on social media or a messaging app

· How people in Taiwan have become aware of suspicious information after having experienced disinformation that happened during the elections in 2018, 2020 and 2023

· The Cofacts chatbot that people can use to report disinformation in Taiwan

· Fact checking sites that people in Taiwan can use such at MyGoPen

· Disinformation related to 2020 elections in Taiwan that TFC debunked

· TFC was published a disinformation playbook

· How disinformation that could impact Taiwan's presidential election in January has been spread several months in advance

· The misinformation and disinformation observed during Taiwan's 2020 presidential election

· How disinformation related to Taiwan's 2020 presidential election on Facebook and LINE disappeared around December 25th when Wuhan went under lockdown

· Disinformation about the 2020 U.S. presidential election that floated into Taiwan's LINE and Facebook groups

· How there will be several elections in several different countries around the world in 2024, and the challenge this poses for fact checkers

· How it is difficult to confirm the origin of disinformation

· How misleading information makes it into Taiwan's social media networks, message boards and get picked up by journalists and reported as news

· How Taiwan FactCheck Center has hosted workshops for journalists to educate them about how to do fact checking

· Concerns about AI for fact checkers

· The responsibility of media owners and companies to maintain the quality of journalism

· The role of AI in creating disinformation

· How to debunk AI generated disinformation

· How people can evaluate the trustworthiness of information by having several different sources of information and a circle trusted sources and individuals that they can check in with

· Reliable fact checking sites

· The accuracy and reliability of Wikipedia

Help us Get the Show on the Road by Supporting the Talking Taiwan Election Tour!

Support Talking Taiwan: https://talkingtaiwan.com/support/

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Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-factcheck-center-discussing-the-disinformation-related-to-taiwans-2024-presidential-election-ep-268/

These days Taiwan is known to be the most free and democratic country in Asia, but it wasn't always that way. It's hard to imagine that Taiwan has had a very dark period of history during which there was massive censorship. At one time Taiwan had the longest period of martial law in the world at 38 years. During the martial law period from 1949 to 1987, and the White Terror era that extended beyond the lifting of Taiwan's martial law, there was no freedom of speech, expression or thought, and advocating for the independence of Taiwan was a crime punishable by death. This episode examines how Taiwan's transformation from an authoritarian state to a democracy, has impacted Taiwan's media environment.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-wei-ping-li-how-taiwans-media-environment-changed-from-martial-law-era-to-present/

I spoke with Wei-Ping Li about the laws and mechanisms of the censorship from Taiwan's martial law era and the impact it had on Taiwan's media environment, and how Taiwan's media environment had changed since then.

Wei-Ping is speaking in a personal capacity (as a media scholar who studied Taiwanese media) and the views expressed in this interview were all her own personal opinions.

About Wei-Ping Li

Wei-Ping Li is a research fellow at Taiwan FactCheck Center. She collaborates with fact-checkers to monitor disinformation trends in Taiwan and produces analysis reports for both English and Chinese audiences. Her English analyses are published in Taiwan FactCheck Center's biweekly newsletter "TFC Disinfo Detector."

Li received her Ph.D. degree at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. Her research interests include propaganda, social media content moderation, free speech challenges faced by democratic countries, and privacy issues in the digital era. She has published scholarly articles in academic journals, books, and law reviews.

Before pursuing an academic career, she offered consulting services on digital human rights in Asia. She also worked as a journalist for media outlets in Taiwan for several years. She earned her LL.M. (Master of Laws) degree from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and has been admitted to the practice of law in New York State.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Wei-Ping's previous career in journalism that started in 2001

· How Wei-Ping was one of the speakers in a discussion about America Skepticism Theory organized by GTI (Global Taiwan Institute)

· How Taiwan is currently the most free and democratic country in Asia

· Taiwan has had the second longest period of martial law in world history, and a dark period of extreme censorship and authoritarianism during and after martial law was lifted in 1987

· The restrictions, and laws of Taiwan's martial law era included two tracks one was martial law and the other was called The Period of Mobilization for the Suppression of Communist Rebellion

· The mechanisms that enforced the restrictions, and laws of Taiwan's martial law era, such as publishing laws, Article 100 of the Criminal Code and the Betrayers Punishment Act

· Bans on the media, newspapers, songs, films, books

· Why Mark Twain's book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and the wuxia novels of Jin Yong were previously banned in Taiwan

· Some of the bureaus and departments that enforced censorship laws include: Taiwan Garrison Command, Information Bureau, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Interior, Council for Overseas Communities

· How the Kuomintang extended their censorship to newspapers issued overseas

· How private correspondence was monitored and surveilled

· How the Kuomintang was trying to build a comprehensive mechanism of censorship in the 1950s

· After martial law was lifted in Taiwan the government imposed a National Security Law

· How it took the efforts of many advocates and advocates to break up the barriers and restrictions to gain more freedom

· The Period of Mobilization Law was lifted in 1991by President Lee Teng-hui and the bans on newspapers were lifted in 1988

· How in 1989 (a year after bans on newspapers were lifted) Cheng Nan-jung, the publisher of the Freedom Era Weekly or New Era Weekly barricaded himself in his office and set himself on fire in protest against the restriction of media freedom

· The nature of the bans on newspapers that were lifted

· How Criminal Code Article 100 did not allow people to advocate for Taiwan independence, or criticize high ranking officials or presidents

· The article written by Cheng Nan-jung in 1987 that criticized the authorities' methods of restricting freedom of speech

· Topics that the Freedom Era Weekly addressed included the health of President Chiang Ching-kuo, power struggles inside the intelligence bureaus

· The police that tried to arrest Chen Nan-jung on April 7, 1989 was headed by Hou You-yi, who is the KMT's presidential candidate for Taiwan's 2024 presidential election

· How the Taiwan Independence Association led the repeal of the Betrayers Punishment Act, and amendment of Criminal Code Article 100

· In 1998 Taiwan's constitutional court made a decision that advocating for Taiwan independence is no longer a crime

· How Taiwan's history has affected its media environment

· The trauma of censorship on the Taiwanese

· Taiwan's current media environment

· Taiwan's ranking on the World Press Freedom Index

· Challenges in Taiwan's current media environment

· The self-censorship of businesses with close ties to China

· How disinformation could flow into Taiwan through PTT (Taiwan's bulletin board system)

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-wei-ping-li-how-taiwans-media-environment-changed-from-martial-law-era-to-present/

Our deepest apologies.

Listen to find out why.

And looking ahead to 2024, we are making some changes.

January 13, 2024 is not just the date of Taiwan's presidential election; seats for the Legislative Yuan will also be elected on that day.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-foun-chung-fan-the-quest-to-get-out-the-vote-for-lai-chuing-te-for-the-taiwan-presidential-election-2024/

My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is Dr. Fan, the Coordinator of the Overseas William Lai (Lai Ching-te) for President Committee.

We talked about why he's supporting Lai Ching-te and two grassroots efforts that are being organized get out the vote for Lai Ching-te and his vice presidential running mate Bi-khim Hsiao. The DPP has had a history of coming up with creative, innovative, grassroots campaign tactics for its presidential candidates. Dr. Fan also shared his perspective on the other two presidential candidates and why the election for the Legislative Yuan is just as important as the presidential election.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

·

· Dr. Fan's background and how he got interested and involved in Taiwan's political situation

· How the Kaohsiung incident happened not long after Dr. Fan had gone to the United States

· How he met Trong Chai and Peng Ming-min and came to understand more about Taiwan's situation

· How Dr. Fan started meeting with U.S. senators and congressmen and tried to put pressure on Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo to give the people of Taiwan the right to assemble and to remove the black list

· The presidential election in Taiwan is especially important since China's President, Xi Jinping, is no longer subject to any term limits

· That Taiwan should not fall into the hands of a party friendly with China

· How the Kuomintang (during the presidency of Ma Ying-jeou) advocated for Chinese students to be allowed to come to work in Taiwan, to shorten military service from one year to four months

· How if a comparison of Ma Ying-jeou's presidency with Tsai Ing-wen's, will show that the tock market, economy and national GDP improved under Tsai Ing-wen

· How China is using the 1992 Consensus as the basis for its One China Policy

· How Xi Jinping has said that Taiwan will be unified with China

· Whether called Republic of China, or Taiwan, Xi Jinping considers it Taiwan independence

· Dr. Fan's opinions of William Lai (Lai Ching-te) and Bi-khim Hsiao

· Why Dr. Fan is supporting William Lai (Lai Ching-te) and Bi-khim Hsiao

· How Lai Ching-te served as the mayor of Tainan and got re-elected with 70 percent vote

· The qualifications of William Lai (Lai Ching-te) and Bi-khim Hsiao

· Dr. Fan's thoughts on TTP presidential candidate Ko Wen-je and KMT presidential candidate Hou You-yi:

· How the KMT could support the legislator Ma Wen-chun who leaked national security information related to Taiwan's development of submarines

· Two events being organized to encourage people to get out and vote for Lai Ching-te and Bi-khim Hsiao

· On December 13an event is being organized for people in the U.S. to make phone calls back to Taiwan urging people to vote on January 13

· How the January 13 election is not only for Taiwan's President but also for the Legislative Yuan

· The importance of the election for the Legislative Yuan

· How in 2006 the KMT blocked passage of budget for the sale of submarines from the U.S. to Taiwan

· How people can participate in the phone call effort privately on their own by calling people within their own personal circles

· How the DPP has used creative, grassroots campaign to promote their candidates

· The merchandise created for the DPP presidential candidate Chen Shui-bian and Tsai Ing-wen to fundraise

· The 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally that helped Chen Shui-bian get elected in 2004

· Team Taiwan theme songs and merchandise

· The slogans used for the Lai-Hsiao ticket

· Overseas voters and supporters of Lai and Hsiao are encouraged to participate in the January 8th event at National Taiwan University which will involve a press conference to showcase overseas support for Lai and Hsiao

· The overseas voters include people from the east and west coast of the US, Taiwanese associations, and groups from Thailand, Japan, East Asia, West Europe, East Europe, and South America, and a Hakka group

· The January 8th event aims to encourage people to get out and vote

· How people can do their part to get out the vote even after December 13 by calling and asking others to vote on January 13

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-foun-chung-fan-the-quest-to-get-out-the-vote-for-lai-chuing-te-for-the-taiwan-presidential-election-2024/

My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is Hsin-Tai Wu (吳欣岱), a member of the Taiwan Statebuilding party. We talked about how and why she went from being a cardiovascular surgeon to joining the Taiwan Statebuilding party and becoming a politician, the background and goals of the Taiwan Statebuilding party, and how the party was instrumental in the recall of Han Kuo-yu as the mayor of Kaohsiung, after he ran as the Kuomintang presidential candidate in Taiwan's 2020 presidential election.

Related Links: https://talkingtaiwan.com/hsin-tai-wu-from-cardiovascular-surgeon-to-joining-the-taiwan-state-building-party-ep-264/

Hsin-Tai Wu is running for Taiwan's legislature on January 13th, the same day as Taiwan's presidential election, so we talked about the issues she cares about and her thoughts on the presidential hopefuls.

Here's a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· Hsin-Tai's background and upbringing

· How Hsin-Tai went from being a cardiovascular surgeon to a politician

· The impeachment of Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu

· How Hsin-Tai became a member of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party

· The anti-extradition movement in Hong Kong in 2019

· Han Kuo-yu was the Kuomintang presidential candidate in Taiwan's 2020 presidential election

· The background of the Taiwan Statebuilding Party and how it was founded

· Taiwan's attempt to enter the WHO in 2003

· When Hsin-Tai Wu joined the Taiwan Statebuilding Party

· What happened in Kaohsiung after Han Kuo-yu became the mayor

· Why Han Kuo-yu was recalled as the mayor of Kaohsiung

· How Han Kuo-yu as the mayor of Kaohsiung said he wouldn't run for president but then after serving three months as mayor he was nominated and later became the KMT candidate for Taiwan's 2020 presidential election

· Han Kuo-yu's proposals

· The outcome of Taiwan's 2020 presidential election

· The procedure to recall a mayor

· The outcome of the recall vote

· What it's been like for Hsin-Tai Wu switching from being a cardiovascular surgeon to a politician and member of the Taiwan Statebuilding party

· The goals and principles of the Taiwan Statebuilding party

· Problems with the Kuomintang

· The Brazilian egg issue that led the Minster of Agriculture in Taiwan to resign

· The problem with Taiwan's state system, the Republic of China

· How China is using UN Resolution to say that Taiwan is a part of China

· The confusion caused by Taiwan's official name the Republic of China

· Bills drafted by the Taiwan Statebuilding party

· Issues that Hsin-tai cares about

· China's interference in Taiwan's presidential election

· how a possible opposition alliance in between the Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party in Taiwan's 2024 presidential election would have used polls to determine who would be the presidential candidate- the Kuomintang's (KMT) candidate Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜) or the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je (柯文哲)

· Hsin-Tai's thoughts on the 2024 presidential hopefuls Terry Guo, Ko Wen-je, Hou Yu-ih, Lai Ching-te

· Challenges faced by the Taiwan Statebuilding party

Help us Get the Show on the Road by Supporting the Talking Taiwan Election Tour!

Support Talking Taiwan: https://talkingtaiwan.com/support/

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Related Links: https://talkingtaiwan.com/hsin-tai-wu-from-cardiovascular-surgeon-to-joining-the-taiwan-state-building-party-ep-264/