Talking Taiwan

Dr. Jung Tsai is a retired surgeon. He had been in practice for nearly 50 years. He specialized in Cancer and Vascular Surgery. He is the founding President of The Greater New York Region Pen club in 2003 and was the National President of North American Taiwanese Medical association. He was the commissioner and current consultant of OCAC  僑委會 Related Links: https://talkingtaiwan.com/dr-jung-tsa...

On August 6 th  we stopped by the TaiwanFest at the Culture Lab in New York City's Long Island City and what a treat it was!    Related Links: https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwanfest-at-culture-lab-a-night-market-comes-to-long-island-city-ep-250/   You may remember that back in April we stopped by the first TaiwanFest of the year which got rained out and talk about night and day! This time we were ha...

The Taiwanese American Arts Council (TAAC) has been selected to be an Organization in Residence on Governors Island from May to October of this year. The Taiwanese American Arts Council's house is at Building 7B in Nolan Park on New York's Governors Island. There will be several artists in residence there. About 20 or 30 artists will use the studios there. Every month there's something new to see...

I met Stan Kwiatkowski, better known as YouTuber Stan from Poland  斯坦 - 波蘭 ê 台灣囡仔 , at this year's Taiwanese American Conference where he was one of the speakers. His YouTube channel now has over 200,000 subscribers. And if that wasn't impressive enough, the first thing you'll notice after going to his YouTube channel is how fluently he speaks Mandarin Chinese in practically all of the vid...

During the pandemic, Kaarina Chu Mackenzie turned to art to find a sense of home. What resulted were a series of paintings inspired by the Raohe Night Market in Taipei. That became an immersive art exhibit called The Night Market which ran at the Bobble Haus, a gallery, shop and event space in New York City's Lower East Side. While the exhibit has closed, some of Kaarina's artwork can still be see...

Chin Chih Yang stopped by the Talking Taiwan podcasting booth at Passport to Taiwan and we talked about his performance art and his 10-year project "Watch Us, Together We Can Do It" which he will be working on during his residency at the Taiwanese American Arts Council's house, on New York's Governors Island. The Taiwanese American Arts Council's house, Building 7B is located in Noland Park on Gov...

Sam Lin is the New York-based veteran bubble tea shop owner who you heard from in episode 238 about bubble tea featuring Kristin McCoy-Ward. If you're a bubble tea lover, that episode is definitely worth a listen, Kristen covered everything you'd ever want to know about bubble tea and more.   Related Links: https://talkingtaiwan.com/bubble-tea-sam-from-quickly-to-coco-running-bubble-tea-shops-for-...

Pasuya Yao  ( 姚文智 ) is a politician turned film producer. His film production company thuànn TAIWAN, produced the documentary Su Beng, The Revolutionist and more recently the feature film Untold Herstory that ranked third at Taiwan's box office in 2022. We spoke about Untold Herstory, which is based on a book authored by Tsao Chin-jung ( 曹欽榮 ) and published in 2012, the book's title has been...

 Summer is upon us and in the past it's been a very busy time for the Taiwanese American community with several summer conferences and camps being organized across the country. There's TAF, the Taiwanese American Foundation, TACEC, the Taiwanese American Conference East Coast, TAC-WC, the West Coast version of the Taiwanese American Conference, and TANG just to name a few.   Related Links: https:/...

Author Ed Lin stopped by to chat with me in the Talking Taiwan podcasting booth at Passport to Taiwan. This is the first of several live interviews we recorded at our outdoor on-location podcasting booth.  We touched upon a broad range of topics, many that we've covered here in the past on Talking Taiwan. In fact, this gives us a good excuse to share some of our past episodes in the related links...

In October of last year, Anna May Wong became the only Asian American and fifth woman to appear on the U.S. quarter as a part of the U.S. Mint's American Women Quarters™ Program. Anna May Wong is one of the better known early Chinese American movie stars. She was the first Asian American actress to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She received it in 1960, the inaugural year of the Hol...

We had a beautiful day on Sunday at the Passport to Taiwan in New York City's Union Square Park. Congratulations to the Passport to Taiwan team for making the event a huge success! The park was packed and food lines were long. We were so glad to be invited to be a part of it. For us it was a welcome change of pace. It's not often that we get to meet our listeners in person! Related Links: https://...

This year the Passport to Taiwan will be returning to New York City's Union Square Park on Sunday, May 28 th  from 12 noon to 5:00pm. It will be the first in-person Passport to Taiwan in three years since the pandemic, and we are looking forward to it!   Talking Taiwan will be there with a special live on-location podcasting studio. Read on to learn more about what we have planned.    Related Link...

How is it that I haven't done an episode about bubble tea? It's surprising that of all the things related to Taiwan, that I've covered on this podcast, I haven't covered this one.   Last year I heard that April 30 th was National Bubble Tea Day when I saw a tweet by President Tsai Ing-wen. So I got to work planning to release an episode about bubble tea for this year's April 30th. Related Links: T...

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and my guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan, Peter Lin is here to talk about the Asian American Pacific Islander or AAPI Jazz Fest which is coming up on May 20 th  in Newark, NJ. The AAPI Jazz Fest celebrates the diversity of the pan-Asian jazz community with a full day of performances and panels. Peter is Founder of Yardbird Entertainment and Produc...

This past Saturday, April 29 th was the first TaiwanFest of the year in New York City. So we decided to go check it out and see what businesses and community organizations were there. Related Links: To view all related links for this article, click link below: https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwanfest-nyc-2023-talking-taiwans-live-stream-coverage-in-the-rain-ep-236/  For this episode we tried out somet...

 This episode is a follow up on episode 233 that covered Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen's 48-hour transit through New York from March 29-31 en route to Central America.   When Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen left Taiwan to go on a ten-day state trip to Central America to meet with Taiwan's diplomatic allies Guatemala and Belize. She first transited through New York from March 29-31 en route to Ce...

In part two of our interview with T.H. Schee we talked about what concerns in particular that Taiwan should have about AI, ChatGPT and Baidu's chatbot Ernie.   ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI in partnership with Microsoft, which is its largest investor. It was released in November of 2022. And in case you're wondering, GPT stands for: generative pre-trained transf...

On March 29th Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen left Taiwan to go on a ten-day state trip to Central America to meet with Taiwan's diplomatic allies Guatemala and Belize. In a pre-departure speech, President Tsai shared that the theme of her trip "Meeting Democratic Partnership, Fostering Shared Prosperity" expresses our determination to foster deeper exchange and cooperation between Taiwan and our...

Last year I spoke with T.H. Schee about Taiwan's civil defense preparedness in episode 178. This was a hot topic of discussion in Taiwan after Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February of 2023. It made the military threat that the people of Taiwan face from the People's Republic of China very real. A year has passed since Russia's invasion and I wanted to bring T.H. back for a follow up conversatio...

Related Links: To view all related links for this article, click link below: https://talkingtaiwan.com/eric-chang-on-the-unfolding-situation-at-the-legislative-yuan-during-the-sunflower-movement-ep-231/   The Sunflower Movement in Taiwan, which started in protest to the passage of the Cross-Strait Service Trade Agreement (CSSTA), happened nine years ago, on the night of March 18, 2014. I was in Ta...

Related Links: To view all related links for this article, click link below: https://talkingtaiwan.com/rur-architecture-what-inspired-the-team-to-design-the-taiwan-music-center-and-kaohsiung-port-terminal-ep-230/ The Kaohsiung Port Terminal just opened on March 6 th  and I had a chance to speak with Jesse Reiser AR'81 and Nanako Umemoto AR'83 of Reiser+Umemoto, RUR Architecture, the architects beh...

Related Links: To view all related links for this article, click link below: https://talkingtaiwan.com/robert-tsao-founder-of-umc-pledges-to-donate-usd-100-million-to-taiwans-military-cause-ep-229/   In December we spoke with Robert Tsao, founder of UMC, who in August of 2022 pledged to donate 100 million U.S. dollars to help Taiwan defend itself. In 2011 he moved to Singapore and became a citizen...

Related Links: To view all related links for this article, click link below: https://talkingtaiwan.com/commemorating-the-228-massacre-taboos-scars-stigmas-and-an-essential-lesson-in-taiwan-history-ep-228/   228, February 28, 1947 is an important date in history for Taiwan. In Taiwan it is a national holiday known as 228 Peace Day, and since 228, which is also known as the 228 Massacre is just arou...

Related Links: To view all related links for this article, click link below: https://talkingtaiwan.com/courtney-donovan-smith-of-taiwan-report-shares-his-analysis-on-taiwans-2022-nine-in-one-local-elections-ep-227/   With Taiwan's next presidential election set for early 2024, what are the implications of Taiwan's  2022 "Nine-in-One" Local Elections  that took place back in November? We've invited...