Talking Taiwan

Julien Oeuillet is an independent journalist, who has produced content for Radio Taiwan International and TaiwanPlus. He is the Founding Editor of IPON the Indo-Pacific Open News. 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...

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-ar...

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 th...

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...

  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...

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 Ci...

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 202...

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...

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-s...

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. Als...

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 sta...

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- he...

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 approac...

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...

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...

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 uni...

After hearing about Team Taiwan's historic gold medal baseball win at the Premier 12 on November 24 th  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 Li...

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'...

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-miss...

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-...

In July we took the show on the road bringing Talking Taiwan to the 53 rd 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 g...

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 16 th  and Taiwan's constitutional court made its ruling o...

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-2...

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 f...

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 here <