Talking Taiwan

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 <

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 fir...

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....

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 f...

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...

After fights broke out in Taiwan's legislative yuan on May 17 th  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 protest...

On May 26 th  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 ingredient...

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...

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 4 th . 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 o...

 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/   We...

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 21 st , 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 ho...

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-publi...

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 c...

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-clau...

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 bre...