Talking Taiwan

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   This week's guest is Jason Wang who we've had on Talking Taiwan previously. In Episode 102 Jason spoke with me about how his advisory firm Cypress Rivers started producing PPE to support health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, through an effort called Face Shields for the First Line. At the time he mentioned that Face Shields for the First L...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Charles Yu is a Taiwanese American writer, author of the novel  Interior Chinatown , and winner of the 2020 National Book Award for fiction. He spoke candidly with me about how he and his family are dealing with the pandemic, his writing process, what it was like appearing on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah and how he transitioned from a career as a l...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   This is part two of my interview with Tony Coolidge. Tony is the Founder of the Atayal organization, which is named after his mother's indigenous tribe. In this interview Tony talks about his work with Indigenous Bridges through his nonprofit, the Atayal organization, and shares his perspectives on some of indigenous people he's interacted with from a...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Did you know that there are 16 indigenous tribes officially recognized in Taiwan and up to 29 self-identified tribes?  Also, Taiwan's current President Tsai Ing-wen's paternal grandmother was from the Paiwan tribe.    My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is Tony Coolidge. Tony is the Founder of the Atayal organization, which is named after his m...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   When I first interviewed Elena in 2013, she had just won the Entrepreneur Challenge and Competition. She was launching her Taiwanese tea business Té online.  Since then, I've wondered how she was doing and a couple of years later, I learned that Elena had opened a tearoom in the West Village.   I've visited the tearoom and it is a place of pure zen wh...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   The last time I had my guest Supei Liu on was six years ago to talk about her work with Nomi Network. Supei is the VP of Global Initiatives and Co-founder of Nomi Network.  Nomi Network combats human trafficking by creating pathways to safe employment, empowering women and girls to break cycles of slavery in their families and communities.   After spe...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin: Since March of this year, we've been publishing new episodes of Talking Taiwan on a weekly basis, so for our last episode of 2020, we thought it would be fun to look back and see which were the top five episodes of the year. It comes as no surprise that 2 of the episodes are related to the Coronavirus pandemic. Through it all, it's been amazing to see o...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Constance Parng, an actress, writer and healer who's earned the title of Super Auntie to Native Nations of the Auntie Sewing Squad. Constance spoke with me about her work to support the highly vulnerable Native American communities and her connection to Taiwan. Through this conversation she reveals that the lack of access to basic things like running...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Kristina Wong and Valerie Soe are back to talk about the Auntie Sewing Squad. When they were last here (on episode 75) the Auntie Sewing Squad was about two months old with over 600 members. A lot has happened with the Auntie Sewing Squad since then. As you listen to the episode, you might be wondering why is there a dog crying in the background as Kr...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   My guests on this episode of Talking Taiwan are Gary Reloj and Bonnie Chan, co-founders of the PPE Relief Initiative (PRI). I had Gary on as a guest previously in episode 79, only a couple of months into the COVID-19 pandemic. He talked about his own personal battle with COVID and the PPE Relief Initiative's crowdfunding campaign. Since then, the PPE...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   On this episode of Talking Taiwan I speak with Jason Chew about being a filmmaker. We talked about how he veered away from his traditional Taiwanese upbringing and parents' expectations that he become a lawyer. As a filmmaker, he's worked with several different clients in both Taiwan (a funeral home and cosmetics company) and the U.S. He shared how on...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   In the spirit of giving, with Thanksgiving approaching and the holiday season soon upon us, I thought I'd share this interview from 2014 with Supei Liu one of the co-founders of Nomi Network. Hear Supei tell the story of how the desire to create more awareness about human trafficking led to the creation of Nomi Network, an organization which gives eco...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   In 2013 I spoke with Andrew Yang who was the CEO of Venture for America at the time. He was at his office and multi-tasking during our interview, so when you listen to the interview, you'll hear some background noise and typing. At the time he talked about being invited to the White House amongst several things.   Who would have predicted that a few y...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Jason Wang, the Founder of Cypress River Advisors spoke with me about how his advisory firm which is normally not in the business of producing PPE, was able to start the production of face shields at scale in four weeks in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic. The effort which is called Face Shields for the First Line, donates face shields to health ca...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   In part two of my interview part two with Dr. Peter Tsai, he talks about how he was called out of retirement to help address the shortage and demand for N95 masks with the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Tsai is the Taiwanese American inventor of the N95 mask technology who has come out of retirement to figure out how to sterilize N95s for reus...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Dr. Peter Tsai is the Taiwanese American inventor of the technology behind the N95 mask, the piece of personal protective equipment that has become such a part of our everyday vernacular since the onset of the global Coronavirus pandemic. With the shortage of N95 respirators at the beginning of the pandemic, Dr. Tsai was called out of retirement to fi...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Earlier this year, I spoke with Professor Scott Simon about his research on Taiwan's indigenous peoples. He is a Professor in the School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies and Co-holder of the Research Chair in Taiwan Studies at the University of Ottawa. He's done research in Taiwan since 1996, spent an accumulated 10 years of residence in th...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   In part two of my conversation with Dr. Keating, we spoke about his other books on mapping and paradigm shifts.  Dr. Keating also shared some of his favorite quotes including the one that encapsulates why he writes about Taiwan. And he talked about meeting with Trigg Brown and Josh Ku the owners of the popular Taiwanese American restaurant Win Son, wh...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   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. Ke...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   With major league baseball playoffs soon upon us, we thought that this episode might appeal to our baseball fans. It seems like a distant memory now, when about a month into the Coronavirus pandemic, Taiwan was the only place on the planet where live professional baseball was being played. My guest on this episode is Professor Andrew Morris whose rese...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   This week's episode of Talking Taiwan features part two of my conversation with Eileen Lin-Goutier and Rolla Chng about raising Blasian kids. This was definitely the longest interview that I've done for Talking Taiwan to date, which is why we split it up into two parts. In this episode, Eileen talks about the Facebook group for Taiwanese Moms with Bla...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   My guests on this episode of Talking Taiwan are Eileen Lin-Goutier and Rolla Chng. Both are Taiwanese American women with Black partners and are parents of Blasian kids. Eileen is a relatively new parent with a two-year-old daughter and Rolla has two grown children who are 19 and 20 years old. I thought it would be a good idea to bring together these...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   September is National Suicide Prevention Month. Unfortunately, suicide is a very real issue for the Asian American community. According to the Office of Minority Health, in 2017 the leading cause of death in young Asian Americans in the US was suicide. My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is passionate about promoting emotional wellness and a pr...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   A relationship between mother and daughter that was so stonewalled that it took 20 years and a camcorder to make a breakthrough- this was the subject of Huang Hui-chen's first feature documentary film, Small Talk . Small Talk is one of two documentary films being screened at the Austin Asian American Film Festival's Prismatic Taiwan (September 4-13),...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Prismatic Taiwan, is a virtual, six-film series celebrating the past and present of queer Taiwanese cinema, co-presented by the Austin Asian American Film Festival (AAAFF). I recently spoke with Hanna Huang, the Executive Director of the Austin Asian American Film Festival and Josh Martin of the special programs team about the lineup of films that spa...