Talking Taiwan

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...

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...

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-...

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 tim...

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-t...

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 13 th  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 9 t...

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 7 th  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 (...

On December 30 th   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...

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 go...

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-dis...

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 beyon...

Our deepest apologies. Listen to find out why. And looking ahead to 2024, we are making some changes.