Speak Up

In January 2026 I moved into a thin-walled second-floor Taipei apartment and found myself talking to an older gentleman outside watering the plants. His name was William and he was my upstairs neighbor. William had that kind of magnetic friendliness, a warm smile and a soothing voice, that made me instantly feel at home. Yet, I found that although I saw William watering the plants almost everyday,...

Tianmu is a neighborhood in northern Taipei that has never quite felt like the rest of the city. Shaped by American military housing in the 1950s and decades of expat culture, it became the place where foreign food, foreign faces, and foreign ideas landed in Taiwan. Today, some of that energy has faded, but some things stayed. Eddy Gonzalez is one of them. Born in Canada to Mexican parents, Eddy c...

In this episode, Sophie Yang explores the issue of period poverty through a conversation with Elle Yang , founder of Love Binti (愛女孩國際關懷協會), a Taiwanese nonprofit organization working with communities across Africa. Through reusable cloth menstrual pads, health education, water projects, and women's empowerment programs, Love Binti helps girls stay in school and build a better future. The...

Trigger warning: We talk about domestic violence, emotional manipulation, and sexual assault in this episode. Please take care of yourself while listening. It is completely okay to pause or stop the audio if you need a break. Abuse is a heavy word. Usually, people hide it and treat it like a dark family secret. In this 10 minute podcast, we are opening the doors. We talk honestly about what really...

What happens when a simple side job to earn extra pocket money turns into a psychological prison? In this episode, we explore how predatory mentorships networks weaponise the intense financial pressures of young adulthood into invisible traps of coercive control. This investigation is grounded in the real world context of the 2019 Singapore case of Huang Baoying , who died from severe malnutrition...

A whale placenta floating off the coast of Maui, Hawaii , might sound like the beginning of a strange story, but for Pacific Whale Foundation , a non-profit dedicated to ocean conservation, it became an opportunity to rethink how science and Indigenous knowledge can work together. In this episode, Kaya Heimowitz speaks with marine scientists and cultural practitioners about conservation, Native Ha...

Competitive gaming (esports) often celebrates focus, discipline, and resilience. But behind every match, there is also pressure — pressure to perform, to stay composed, and to keep going even when things fall apart. I’m EChen, a former semi-pro In-Game Leader.  In this episode, we explore the emotional side of competitive Apex Legends and ask what mental support can look like in a...

Macau’s casinos and tourism are booming again, but local businesses are hurting as residents spend their money across the border in Mainland China. Is Macau’s recovery real, or just an illusion? In this episode, special guests Bella (Lo Hiu Ching) and Kou Tak Kei talk about the real economic situations on the ground. Bella is my friend who often goes mainland for consumption in weekend...

Charis Hayward is trying to get published, but she has found it to be an extremely difficult journey. She shares the upward battle she's chasing before delving into a conversation with Karissa Chen , author of the critically acclaimed historical romance Homeseeking (2025) about the experience of writing and publishing. Acknowledgements from Charis: "Special thanks to Athena Kane and Rian Johnson f...

When you move to a new country, sticking close to people from your home culture is a natural instinct. But is it a vital safety net or a barrier to your growth? In this episode, Michael Doan sits down with Kim (Trinh Kim Nguyen) and Mia (Nguyen Tran Mai Anh) - both are Vietnamese students pursuing their Masters degrees at National Chengchi University in Taiwan. Kim is from the province of Bin...

In 2023, Calvin Chen visited Bangkok through the Taiwan Youth Overseas Expatriate Bridging Program, sparking a lingering question: does the bridge actually continue after the trip ends? To find out, he sat down with past program participants Coco and Joyce to explore their transformative seven-day journeys to Houston, USA, and Vancouver, Canada. From rehearsing performances in hotel lobbies and sh...

"I just got my degree, I have no real-world experience, and I'm competing against locals who know the market better than I do." Every young person, regardless of whether they graduate, faces the terrifying transition of leaving the safe structure of school and entering the unstructured real world. By focusing on my highly specific, messy experience in Taiwan, I am actually creating a mirror for an...

What does it mean to feel everything a little more deeply? In this episode, Dalphene Tan explores the experience of being a highly sensitive person in a world that often feels overwhelming. From crowded social spaces and constant notifications to emotional empathy and overstimulation, guest XY shares her personal journey of learning to understand and navigate high sensitivity. Dalphene T...

How does an outside perspective help protect the heart of Taiwanese music? In this episode, Aurelia Chuah chats with Chen Yu Neng (陳玉能) aka Lao Huang Gua (老黃瓜), founder of Singapore's FreshmusicSG - a music site on Mandopop and Sinophone music. They chat about FreshmusicSG's dedicated annual marathon of listening to over a thousand album, explore the team's decision to shift its focus from i...

Hi! My name is Jim Chiang, and I've always been a fan of fashion. But among all its different categories, vintage stands out, because each piece carries a history that can't be replicated, a story that belongs to a specific moment in time. That's what makes it fascinating, and that's what keeps pulling me deeper into it. But as the second-hand market grows, so does the pressure on the stores that...

Charis Hayward interviews Dr. Frank Yu-feng Hsu (Professor, Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University) on his lifetime spent researching butterflies and moths. He tells stories about discovering new species and his conservation efforts. After the interview, Hayward visits and describes the "Wings over the island" butterfly and moth exhibit currently on display at the...

In Taiwan, the traditional script for finding “home” has always been anchored to your family of origin: stay close to your parents, get a stable local job, buy an apartment, marry, and settle down. But for a new generation raised to be “global citizens” and encouraged to cross borders, that's starting to feel like a suit that no longer fits. When you are educated to be worl...

Michael Doan sits down with Chelsea who worked in compliance - a job that stresses background checks and fraud prevention. Despite this, Chelsea fell victim to a sophisticated phone scam that cost her $10,000 USD and her most sensitive personal data when she was living in the U.S.  Michael Doan is a graduate student at the International Master's Program in International Communication Studies...

In this episode, I take you with me to Taipei Fashion Week to answer one simple question: how does fashion make people feel? By mixing real sounds from the event with my own thoughts in the studio, I explore the connection between what we wear and who we are. Through my conversations with people there, I found out that clothes can give us confidence and help show our personality. But I also learne...

“I think in Taiwan you either love dogs or you do not care for them,” Mary Choi says. Choi is the founder of  Mary’s Doggies , a dog rescue nonprofit in Taiwan that works to find stray dogs loving families – often in countries like the U.S. Taiwan is home to thousands of stray dogs, known as “tugous” (土狗). Often they are Formosan Mountain Dog , a bre...