Coronavirus Archives - Talking Taiwan Podcast

From the Sunflower to the Bluebird and Great Recall Movement: A Conversation with Dr. Dean Shih (史書華) | Ep 363

Felicia Lin — Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:24:11 +0000

In July of 2025, we brought Talking Taiwan to the Taiwanese American Conference West Coast hosted in San Francisco/Silicon Valley, where we interviewed several of the conference’s speakers including Dr. Dean Shih (史書華). Dr. Shih is a dentist by training and he shared how he got involved in Taiwan’s social movements and the Great Recall. This interview was recorded before July 26^th, the first vote to recall 24 Chinese Kuomintang legislators.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Pacific Times (太平洋時報).

Stay tuned for our follow up interview with Dr. Shih. We caught up with him when he was in recently New York at the annual UN for Taiwan rally in September.

Special thanks to Mei-Ling Lin for her translation assistance with this episode

Ashton Yeh: 13-Year Old Taiwanese Imaginative Artist Does Exhibitions Around the World | Ep 359

Felicia Lin — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:59:37 +0000

Earlier this year, in March we met and interviewed 13-year-old artist Ashton Yeh right before the opening of his debut exhibition in New York. Born in Taiwan Ashton moved to Japan to immerse himself in his passion for animation and Japanese Manga. He has already had successful solo shows in Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, and the Philippines. Ashton’s artwork is a vibrant portal of monsters, pop-culture-inspired creatures, and imaginative worlds.

We had a lot of fun meeting and speaking with Ashton. What a creative and expressive young man he is! Ashton gave us a personal walkthrough of his exhibit, telling us about the stories and ideas behind each of his pieces of artwork, so if you’d like to see and hear even more about Ashton’s artwork, be sure to visit Talking Taiwan’s YouTube channel where we’ll be sharing that video.

Vincent Hsu (徐崇育) Award-Winning Taiwanese Jazz Bassist Composer Bridges Cultures through his Musical Works | Ep 358

Felicia Lin — Wed, 02 Sep 2026 11:36:22 +0000

Vincent Hsu (徐崇育) is a Taiwanese bassist, composer and the leader of Vincent Hsu & Soy La Ley Afro-Cuban Jazz band. We sat down to speak a few days before his concert, Spirits from Both Sides. The concert was held on August 15th at Flushing Town Hall with Vincent and Arturo O’Farrill- a six-time GRAMMY Award winner and two-time Latin GRAMMY Award winner. Hsu planned to premiere a big-band arrangement of his Taiwanese Trilogy Music Suite (台灣人三部曲), at the August 15th performance.

We talked about the parallels between Taiwanese folk culture and Afro-Latin spiritual beliefs and how his musical composition, Taiwanese Trilogy Music Suite, draws inspiration from Taiwanese Hakka writer Chao-Cheng Chung (鍾肇政).

Talking Taiwan’s 2025 Inaugural Fundraising Gala! Ep 332

Felicia Lin — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 02:39:55 +0000

Get Access to the Replay of the Talking Taiwan Gala Make a Donation at Humanitix

https://events.humanitix.com/talking-taiwan-2025-fundraising-gala

For Free Access the Replay of the Talking Taiwan Gala Give Us Your Feedback by emailing podcast@talkingtaiwan.con with the Subject Line: 12 MORE

Talking Taiwan’s inaugural fundraising gala was on April 30^th here in New York City at the elegant Eichholtz showroom in Chelsea. The gala was a celebration of Taiwanese American cuisine, culture and community.

We had Peter Lin’s AAPI Jazz Collective perform, and food catered by 886 Restaurant, DAE tea and Taiwan Beer. It was a memorable, magical night and if you’re wondering what you missed out on it, don’t worry, later on in the episode I’ll be sharing how you can watch the replay that we made of the event. We’ll also share the Humanitix link where you can make a donation to watch the replay of the Talking Taiwan Gala.

At the gala I interviewed comedian Esther Chen, Thomas Duh of DAE Tea, artist Kaarina Chu MacKenzie, and Jonny Lee, President of TAP-NY (Taiwanese American Professionals- NY chapter). And that’s what we’ll be sharing in this episode.

Dr. Chen Chien-jen 陳建仁 Former VP of Taiwan Reflects Upon his Life in Politics and as a Public Servant Ep 327

Felicia Lin — Mon, 01 Sep 2025 01:00:13 +0000

In July of 2024, we brought talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference, east Coast at Westchester University, where I had the pleasure and honor of interviewing Taiwan’s, former vice President, Dr. Chen Chen (陳建仁). We talked about how Dr. Chen was trained to be an epidemiologist and was initially reluctant to go into politics, but then fate intervened and changed his mind when SARS hit Taiwan in 2003, and his experience handling the SARS outbreak as Taiwan’s Minister of Health played an important role preparing him to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic as Taiwan’s Vice President.

I asked Dr. Chen why it’s important for Taiwan to be a member of the WHO World Health Organization and about the challenges he’s faced as the Vice President and Premier of Taiwan. how he overcame them and why he decided not to run as Vice President with Tsai Ing-wen for a second term.

And finally, for some context, at the time of the interview, the Bluebird movement had emerged in Taiwan a month and a half earlier. I touched upon this with Dr. Chen briefly at the end of the interview.

At the time, more than a hundred thousand people in total had taken to the streets of Taiwan in a series of massive protests. It was a very public objection to controversial bills passed by Taiwan’s opposition controlled Legislative Yuan. After interviewing Dr. Chen, I was left thinking if only the world had more politicians like him with a public service mindset, the world would be a better place.

This episode is sponsored in part by the Taiwanese American Council of Greater New York.

Taiwanese Waves 2025 is Back! Ep 319

Felicia Lin — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 12:00:12 +0000

Summer is upon us and I’m sure that a lot of our listeners especially those in New York will be happy to know that Taiwanese Waves will be returning to Central Park’s Summer Stage on August 3 at the Rumsey Playfield. Doors open at 5:00pm

Since 2016 Taiwanese Waves has introduced Taiwanese music to audiences at Central Park’s Summer Stage. If you’re not familiar with Taiwanese Waves you’re in for a treat. In this episode I sat down with Mia, the main organizer of Taiwanese Waves and we are about to walk through and give you a taste of all of the acts that have performed at Summer Stage in the past nine years. You’ll also get to hear a preview of what to expect at this year’s concert.

A Conversation With Wen-Jen Deng Taiwanese Fiber Artist and Curator Ming Turner Ep 314

Felicia Lin — Sat, 21 Jun 2025 13:56:38 +0000

We recently sat down with Wen-Jen Deng one of the artists in residence at the Taiwanese American Arts Council’s House 17 on Governors Island and Ming Turner, curator of Wen-Jen’s art exhibit :The Embedded Stitch- Contemporary Fiber Art, which is currently showing at Tenri Cultural Institute until June 28th

According to Deng’s curator Ming Turner, “Deng is a core member of the influential Taiwanese artist collective, Hantoo Art Group. Her early works were primarily oil paintings which incorporated embroidery and collage using traditional Taiwanese floral fabrics. Deng often draws inspiration from Taiwanese food culture— her earlier pieces explored the island’s distinctive betel nut culture, while more recent works have focused on everyday culinary traditions and the cultural heritage of the Sirayu Pingpu people.”

Special thanks to Ming Turner for translation assistance during this interview.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Wen-Jen’s upbringing in Taiwan and how she knew she wanted to be an artist
What Wen-Jen thinks an artist’s role in the world is
Why Wen-Jen studied art in France and how she was inspired by Marc Chagall
How Wen-Jen started off doing oil painting as an artist
How Wen-Jen switched from using oil paint as her medium to fiber and textiles
How Wen-Jen worked in a textile shop making Chinese dresses while she was a student in France
Why her early source of inspiration was food
Her series of work that focused on lotus shoes and pig’s hooves (pigs feet), betel nuts, and other everyday Taiwanese cuisine
How Wen-Jen discovered her mother’s was from the Siraya tribe during her 2017 residency at Soulangh Cultural Park in Tainan, and that inspired her to move her focus from food to indigenous culture
How Wen-Jen learned indigenous weaving techniques
How Wen-Jen’s mother was a seamstress but Wen-jen did not pick out any of those skills from her mother
How Wen-Jen taught herself to embroider when she was working in the textile shop in France
How all of the embroidery and sewing on Wen-Jen’s works are done by hand
How in the process of weaving and embroidering Wen-Jen gets in a focused state of meditation
The field work that Wen-Jen does related to her artwork
Ming shared some of her thoughts on the significance of Wen-Jen’s artwork
Wen-Jen’s artwork “Oyster Noodles” which will be on display at the TAAC Governors Island House 17
How Taiwan’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy has impacted artists in Taiwan
How artists in Taiwan get funded
How Wen-Jen’s sculptural piece which is shaped like the island of Taiwan and shows its topography will be displayed at the TAAC House 17 on June 21

Understanding the History of Taiwan through Dr. Jerome Keating (Classic) Ep 311

Felicia Lin — Sun, 18 May 2025 12:10:43 +0000

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.

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and since 1999, Congressman David Wu (OR) and the co-chairs of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus have supported the celebration of Taiwanese American Heritage Week starting from Mother’s Day Weekend, so we thought this would be a good time to reshare one of our most popular episodes, an interview we did with Dr. Jerome Keating in 2020 about the history of Taiwan.

Dr. Jerome Keating 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. Keating also reflected on how Taiwan has changed in the past 30 years, and we discussed things past and present including Taiwan’s complicated international status, amendment of the constitution, changing the official name of Taiwan (which is the Republic of China) and redesigning the passport and flag of Taiwan.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

What motivated Dr. Keating to write his latest book, Taiwan The Struggle Gains Focus
Who the book was intended for and who Dr. Keating writes for
How Taiwan has changed in the last 30 years
The semi-martial-like atmosphere of Taiwan when Dr. Keating arrived in 1988
Keating’s first book Island in the Stream and what motivated him to write it
What intrigues Dr. Keating about Taiwan as a subject matter
How the San Francisco Peace Treaty (signed in 1951) left Taiwan in a limbo status
How the US position on Taiwan 75 years after World War II is still undecided
The circumstances surrounding “Taiwan” aka the Republic of China losing its seat in the United Nations in 1971, which included a proposal to have 2 Chinas in the United Nations
The Republic of China and People’s Republic of China’s claims on China
How Taiwan has never had a seat in the United Nations
The Republic of China framework and constitution that Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang brought to Taiwan
Keating’s thoughts on amending Taiwan’s constitution
Changing the official name and flag that represent Taiwan
Submissions for the new Taiwan passport cover design
The Taiwan Civil Government wanting to make Taiwan the 51st state of the United States
How Dr. Keating sees Taiwan’s future

The Boba Guys: Andrew Chau and Bin Chen Bubble Tea Entrepreneurs Bridging Cultures for 11 Years Ep 288

Felicia Lin — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 12:05:39 +0000

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 few stores Other topics covered include how Boba Guys weathered the pandemic, Andrew and Bin’s book called The Boba Book, and how they see boba as a way to bridge cultures.

What has Boba Guys been up to since we spoke? Lots of interesting collabs with other brands, and the release of a loyalty program called “Passport” which gamifies the experience through loot boxes instead of linearly earning points to redeem for a drink.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

How Andrew and Bin first met when they both worked at Timbuktu
How they decided to start a bubble tea business
Andrew’s recent trip to Taiwan and the other Taiwanese Americans he met up with while there
Andrew’s thoughts on Taiwan’s bubble tea scene
How they started with a pop-up shop
How they have not taken any VC (venture capital) money
The social costs and risks of being an entrepreneur
How other Taiwanese American entrepreneurs like Steve Chen and Kevin Lin mentored them
How Andrew does advising for the small business council and testified in Washington D.C. on behalf of small businesses
How they were working on Boba Guys Japan when the pandemic hit
How Boba Guys dealt with the pandemic
The biggest challenges they’ve experienced
The third wave of boba
The meaning of the word boba and how Andrew’s mom reacted to the name Boba Guys
How Boba Guys name their drinks
Their book, The Boba Book and how they choose their co-author Richard Parks
What happened when they went to Taiwan and tried to determine which tea shop invented bubble tea
The Boba Guys’ merchandise and aardvark mascot
The Boba Home Kit and how they created a boba kit that was on Williams Sonoma
How they teach people how to make boba online
How they have mentored other entrepreneurs

Isa Ho: Talks About her Career as a Photographer and her Westbeth Exhibit in NYC Ep 282

Felicia Lin — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 16:46:03 +0000

Isa Ho is a photographer based in Taiwan. Last year I spoke with her about her photography and the Westbeth Exhibit in NYC, 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.

Westbeth is so named because it sits at the corner of West and Bethune Streets, and was conceived in the 1960’s as a partial solution to the acute need to provide affordable housing and studios for artists and their families.

The abandoned 13-building complex that was constructed between the 1860s and the 1930s, was formerly used by Bell Telephone Labs, and was turned into affordable permanent housing and workspace for hundreds of artists, as well as space for arts and cultural organizations. Westbeth was the first subsidized housing for artists in the United States. In 2009 it was added to the National Registrar of Historic Places. And in 2011 the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission unanimously designated Westbeth Artists Housing a New York City landmark.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Isa’s exhibit at the Westbeth gallery that features her photos and videos of artists who reside at Westbeth
How Isa is working on a documentary about the residents of Westbeth
How Isa arrived for a residency at Westbeth in 2013 after Hurricane Sandy
The residency project that brought Isa to Westbeth was initially about multicultural New York but as she got to know many of the people who lived at Westbeth, it became the Westbeth project
Isa’s connection to Taiwan
How Isa is fascinated by people
Isa has interviewed over 50 people and what was on display at the Westbeth gallery is only a third of her work
The personal stories of several of the artist who live at Westbeth
How the photos and videos were displayed at the Westbeth gallery
How the Westbeth project has been exhibited in Israel, Italy, Germany and Taiwan
How people have reacted to the Westbeth project
How one of the pieces of the Westbeth project won an award in Italy
How Isa got interested in photography
How Isa creates a collage of photos that serve to tell a person’s story
How Isa does her photography full-time
Isa’s advice to those interested in pursuing photography
Isa’s video comparing the movements of Kunqu opera dancer and K-POP dancer
Why Isa is planning to go to Ukraine
How Isa felt useless as an artist during the pandemic but realized that when facing tragedy or if feeling like there is nothing that we can do, art can connect us with humanity
How there aren’t many housing communities like Westbeth in the world
The wait list of people who want to live at Westbeth
How one of the Westbeth residents George Cominskie has advocated for artists

Coronavirus Archives - Talking Taiwan Podcast

From the Sunflower to the Bluebird and Great Recall Movement: A Conversation with Dr. Dean Shih (史書華) | Ep 363

Related Links:

Ashton Yeh: 13-Year Old Taiwanese Imaginative Artist Does Exhibitions Around the World | Ep 359

Related Links:

Vincent Hsu (徐崇育) Award-Winning Taiwanese Jazz Bassist Composer Bridges Cultures through his Musical Works | Ep 358

Related Links:

Talking Taiwan’s 2025 Inaugural Fundraising Gala! Ep 332

Related Links:

Dr. Chen Chien-jen 陳建仁 Former VP of Taiwan Reflects Upon his Life in Politics and as a Public Servant Ep 327

Related Links:

Taiwanese Waves 2025 is Back! Ep 319

Related Links:

A Conversation With Wen-Jen Deng Taiwanese Fiber Artist and Curator Ming Turner Ep 314

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Related Links:

Understanding the History of Taiwan through Dr. Jerome Keating (Classic) Ep 311

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Related Links:

The Boba Guys: Andrew Chau and Bin Chen Bubble Tea Entrepreneurs Bridging Cultures for 11 Years Ep 288

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Related Links:

Isa Ho: Talks About her Career as a Photographer and her Westbeth Exhibit in NYC Ep 282

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

Related Links: