Talking Taiwan

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin: Cindy Wu is an English and Mandarin Chinese bilingual performer, speaker, and music educator based in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. She loves and enjoys all aspects of life, travel, and culture. I met Cindy years ago when I lived in Kaohsiung. I've invited her on to Talking Taiwan to speak about her music career and how she's dealt with the setbacks and challenges...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is Amazin LeThi, a global LGBTQIA+ advocate and one of the first Asian ambassadors for WorldPride at Copenhagen 2021. She reached out to me not long after hearing that Taiwan would be hosing WorldPride 2025.   She spoke with me about the challenges she's faced as an Asian and LGBTQ youth, and how her sports t...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Now it's time to announce our Top 5 of 2021 Talking Taiwan episodes.  In doing so we'd like to recognize our wonderful guests, who make what we do possible.    But first, we have some exciting news!   On December 21st Talking Taiwan won a Golden Crane Podcast Award. We are so honored to have been recognized for our work and to have been nominated alon...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   In November it was officially announced that Taiwan had been chosen to host WorldPride 2025. The Kaohsiung Pride Team won the bid over Washington D.C. to host World Pride Day. My guest on this episode is Darien Chen, the founder of WorldPride Taiwan 2025.   WorldPride 2025 will be first time that a WorldPride will be held in East Asia and this is exci...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   To mark the year's International Human Rights Day, I reached out to Yibee Huang, the CEO of Covenants Watch to talk about Lee Ming-che a Taiwanese activist who has been imprisoned in China since 2017.   December 10th is International Human Rights Day. It's also an important day in Taiwan's history and a turning point in Taiwan's transition from author...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   When you think about things made in Taiwan what comes to mind? Barbie dolls, textiles, plastics, toys, bicycles, or maybe these days its boba, bubble tea, or semiconductor chips?   What's made Taiwan the leader in the semiconductor industry, what is its competitive advantage, how can it maintain it going forward?   The story of how Taiwan's semiconduc...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Tim Chng is one of the founders of ITASA (Intercollegiate Taiwanese American Students Association), and we've known each other since those college days. He is currently documenting the overseas Taiwan Independence Movement on Wikipedia.   I thought I'd invite him onto Talking Taiwan to talk about some of the media attention that Taiwan's been getting...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Esther Chen is a Taiwanese American actress and comedian. We spoke about how she got into doing standup comedy, worked with Jerry Seinfeld, and ended up back in Taiwan during the pandemic. Esther shared how she's had to adjust her standup comedy material to suit the different tastes of audiences in Taiwan, other parts of Asia, and the U.S.   While in...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Earlier this year there was a lot of buzz about this thing called NFTs. These days you know that something's definitely gone more mainstream when it's talked about on The Ellen Show and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.   What are NFTs, these non-fungible tokens? I was curious about the whole thing myself which is why I've asked Kaku, a Taiwan-based DJ...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   November 9th would be the 103rd the birthday of the late revolutionary, Taiwan independence activist, and historian Su Beng (史明), who passed away on September 20, 2019. I've been working on his English-language biography and I wanted to remember him on this day.   In this episode of Talking Taiwan, I spoke with Jiho Chang one of the co-authors of  T...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   We thought it would be a good time to re-share this past episode about the Ghost Month in Taiwan. It's November first, the day after Halloween, October 31st which is actually short for all Saints' Eve, and November first is All Saints' Day, a Christian feast dedicated to celebrating departed saints. When you really get into it there are many festivals...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is Ming Chiang, the president of Hello Taiwan. We talked about how Hello Taiwan got started, its charitable contributions and events, its connection to the annual Passport to Taiwan event in New York, what its mission is, how it creates greater recognition of Taiwan, and the unexpected PR generated for Hello...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   This week's episode of Talking Taiwan continues with the second half of my conversation with Hsinyi Lin, the Executive Director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty. We continued our conversation by talking about what the public opinion in Taiwan on the death penalty is, the types of surveys that are typically done to gauge public opinion,...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is Hsinyi Lin, the Executive Director of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty. She spoke with me about the movement to abolish the death penalty in Taiwan. 2000 was an exciting year for Taiwan, it was the first time that there was a transition in power from the Kuomintang, and the first time that a De...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   I recently interviewed Christina Hu, the Director of the Write in Taiwanese Census Campaign about the Pew Research report on Asian communities which misrepresented the Taiwanese. For months Christina and the Write in Taiwanese Census Campaign team worked with Pew Research to get an official response issued. After several months of communications, Pew...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Jane W. Wang is a self-actualization coach based in Taipei, Taiwan. She spoke candidly with me about the challenges she faced in her journey to become a coach, which involved dealing with imposter syndrome and bouts of depression. She's channeled these personal experiences into creating her Multicultural Hero's Journey program. We also talked about th...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin: My guest on this episode of Talking Taiwan is Keelung City Councilor, Jiho Chang. Jiho spoke with me about his work as a city councilman, and how his interest and involvement in Taiwan's politics dates back to his time as a university student, and the 1995-1996 Taiwan Strait missile crisis that happened after KMT presidential candidate Lee Teng-hui visi...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   In April of this year, reports published by the Pew Research Center analyzing Asian American communities included footnotes stating that data for "  'Chinese' includes those identifying as 'Taiwanese.' " Soon after, in May, the Write in Taiwanese Census Campaign published an open letter and petition on TaiwaneseAmerican.org asking Pew Research to issu...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin: Happy Labor Day! We've decided to take a break ourselves, so we are sharing one of our past episodes that I think really stands the test of time. In 2013 I interviewed entrepreneur Yao Huang. That year, she was involved with the Entrepreneur Challenge and Competition, which was organized by the Taiwanese American Professionals, New York Chapter and the...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Tiffany Yu is a disability activist, CEO and founder of Diversability, and host of Tiffany & Yu, a social impact podcast. She's also on the  San Francisco Mayor's Disability Council , a three-time TED Talk speaker and has a list of many more impressive accomplishments that appear on her Wikipedia page.   She spoke with tremendous vulnerability about h...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   This week I'm welcoming back Dr. Dafydd Fell to talk about the SOAS Center of Taiwan Studies at the University of London. They just had their summer school program in July, which is free and open to the public. It's a tremendous resource for people interested in learning more about Taiwan. The program included speakers on the topics of Taiwan's anti-n...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Dr. Dafydd Fell is the author of  Taiwan's Green Parties Alternative Politics in Taiwan . He spoke with me about his book, which he started working on in 2012. Topics covered in this episode include the Green Party concept, and the impact that Taiwan's Green Parties have had on Taiwan's other political parties and social movements. Dr. Fell's not only...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin: In May of 2020 I interviewed Valerie Soe and Kristina Wong about the Auntie Sewing Squad, a sewing circle that was formed on March 24th during the global Coronavirus pandemic. Initially the group sewed masks for frontline medical and essential workers, and then for vulnerable marginalized communities. From the outset, Kristina described the Auntie Sewin...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   This is part two of my interview with Sergeant Steven Lee, a 16-year veteran of the NYPD, and whistleblower fighting to reform police corruption. Previously, in part one, we talked about Sergeant Lee's undercover work and the police corruption that he's witnessed. If you haven't had a chance to hear part one, you might want to go back and listen to it...

A note from Talking Taiwan host Felicia Lin:   Sergeant Steven Lee is a 16-year veteran of the NYPD. He's a whistleblower fighting to reform police corruption and he shared his story with me. This is part one of my interview with Steve.  In part two, next week, you'll hear what happened to him after his undercover work and the related court case, how he's dealt with the pressure, his thoughts on h...