Diseases and Disabilities Archives - Talking Taiwan Podcast

Collective Memory, Collective Trauma: A Conversation with Dr. Meng Chiang Ep 339

Felicia Lin — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 22:29:48 +0000

At the end of 2024 I sat down with Dr. Meng Chiang, the Executive Director of the 2024 Taiwanese American Conference- East Coast. We had a really wonderful heart-centered conversation about the conference theme Collective Memory and that led to collective trauma as it relates to the Taiwanese and Taiwanese American communities. We talked about the 4 types of trauma responses, the 4 Fs- flight, fight, freeze and fawn and post-traumatic growth.

This episode is dedicated to the memory of Sharon Huang, who passed away in December of 2025. She was a dear friend, mother, wife, sister, auntie, a community organizer and a cornerstone of the Taiwanese American community, especially in New York where she resided. Most notably she and her husband Patrick Huang ran the Brooklyn Artists Studio (BAS) and have supported the Taiwanese American Arts Council (TAAC) and Talking Taiwan. Together they have advocated for Taiwan democracy, human rights, and culture. The loss of Sharon is felt by so many who knew and loved her, she leaves behind family in the U.S. and Taiwan.

Mengchun “Meng” Chiang, PhD (she/her/hers), is a member of the Taiwanese American community. She has served in various community leadership roles, most recently as Executive Director of the Taiwanese American Conference East Coast (TACEC) in 2024.

Professionally, Meng is the founder of CHI Executive Consulting, LLC, where she provides leadership coaching and consulting services, specializing in workplace inclusion and organizational wellness. She is passionate about empowering leaders from diverse backgrounds, helping them enhance their communication, negotiation, and inclusive leadership skills. Meng regularly facilitates workshops to help leaders integrate their identities into effective leadership practices that drive business success and personal growth.

Meng is a licensed clinical psychologist with affiliations to Harvard Medical School, Carnegie Mellon University, the Tepper School of Business, and National Taiwan University. Her experience spans education, training, and leadership roles. She pioneered the Leadership and Connection for Asian Women+ Leaders program and served as Assistant Director of Training at Carnegie Mellon University.

In her free time, Meng enjoys traveling, practicing loving-kindness meditation, listening to music, taking walks, and grocery shopping.

Talking Taiwan Top 5 of 2025 Award Winner – End of Year Review Ep 338

Felicia Lin — Fri, 02 Jan 2026 13:35:32 +0000

It’s time to reveal the Top 5 episodes of Talking Taiwan in 2025. What’s notable about these 5 episodes is that they are among the most popular Talking Taiwan episodes of all time.

But before revealing the Top 5 episodes of 2025, let’s take look back on 2025, which was a busy year for Talking Taiwan! We hosted the inaugural Talking Taiwan Fundraising Gala at the elegant Eichholtz showroom in New York City in April. It was truly a magical memorable night. In April we were also invited to speak at the North American Taiwanese American Women Association’s (NATWA) Annual Conference.

For sometime we’ve been watching what was happening with the Great Recall in Taiwan which ultimately led to 24 legislators being put up for a recall vote on July 26th and another seven on August 23. The world had not seen anything like this happen on a national level in a democracy! And after Felicia interviewed a group of highly dedicated recall campaigners, she learned firsthand about the grassroots mobilization efforts that resulted in over one million signatures being collected in support of the recall vote, and she felt this was a historic moment that Talking Taiwan should be in Taiwan to cover. Thanks to an anonymous donor who offered to pay for our flights back to Taiwan and others who made generous donations we were able to travel back to Taiwan for a week to cover the first recall in vote on July 26^th. We left shortly after returning from the Taiwanese American Conference- West Coast (TAC-WC) which was held in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was the first time we were invited to speak at TAC-WC about our work. While we were at the conference, we also set up an on-location podcasting studio where we interviewed several of the conference’s speakers. We look forward to releasing those episodes very soon in the New Year.

It’s been an extremely eventful year for Talking Taiwan with many ups and downs. Spending only a week in Taiwan to cover the Recall Vote in July, and trying to conduct interviews, and edit and produce them in that time period proved to be a bit unrealistic and we’ll need to pace ourselves better in the future.

It was also crushing to witness the results of the Recall Vote on July 26th with none of the 24 legislators successfully recalled from office. While still recovering from that ordeal in July, we traveled to T.O. Webfest awards in September where Talking Taiwan was nominated in the Best Ensemble Cast category. While we didn’t win, it was our second nomination after being shortlisted at the International Women’s Podcast Awards in 2024 and winning a Golden Crane Award in 2021.

As we go into the 13^th year of Talking Taiwan, I’d like take a moment to especially thank everyone who has supported Talking Taiwan over the years and made a contribution to help fund our trip to return to Taiwan to cover the Great Recall in July.

We also want to thank each and every one of all of our amazing guests for being a part of the Talking Taiwan podcast.

Special thanks to our listeners. We remain committed more than ever to producing content that matters to people who care about Taiwan.

For links to the top 5 episodes of 2025 visit our website TalkingTaiwan.com. Wishing everyone a Happy Healthy New Year 2026! I’m your host Felicia Lin.

Author and Speaker Dr. Yang Szu Pang (楊斯棓) : Don’t Think You’re Too Small to Make a Difference Ep 331

Felicia Lin — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:57:56 +0000

Dr. Yang Szu Pang (楊斯棓) is an author and speaker. He has donated 100% of his books royalties to causes and organizations that he cares about. He has been invited to speak at several Taiwanese American conferences and communities across the country.

In July of 2024 he sat down to speak with at the Taiwanese American Conference East Coast which was held at Westchester University. We talked about a broad range of topics from how to be financially prepared to care of aging, ailing parents to his most recent book, It Only Takes One, where the title of the books comes from and how it’s related to Hsiao Bi-khim, the current the Vice President of Taiwan.

Special thanks for translation assistance provided by Dr. Lee-Yuan Liu.

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

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.

Jane W. Wang Navigates a Multicultural Hero’s Journey (Classic) Ep 312

Felicia Lin — Mon, 26 May 2025 05:43:19 +0000

Since May is both Mental Health Awareness Month and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we think it’s fitting to reshare this episode with Jane W. Wang.

What we really appreciate about this interview with Jane back in 2021 is how she spoke so openly about how she dealt with her bouts of depression. She also shared how getting back in touch with her roots in Taiwan had a part in leading her to start her coaching practice. While she no longer offers the Multicultural Hero’s Journey course that she refers to in this episode, she is still actively coaching clients.

It’s our hope that Jane’s personal story can help destigmatize mental health and create more understanding about the coaching profession.

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

Jane’s connection to Taiwan
How being a third culture kid (TCK) has shaped her identity and life purpose
Her career path before becoming a coach
Why she wanted to become a coach
Her personal journey, the struggles and depression that she dealt with along the way before she became a coach
Why she decided not to get a degree in counseling from Columbia University and instead got certified in coaching
What is coaching and how it differs from counseling or psychotherapy
Jane’s own experiences with coaching, being the person being coached by someone else
Jane’s advice on how to pick a coach to work with
The challenges Jane faced in becoming a coach
The depression and imposter syndrome she experienced in the process of becoming a coach
How Jane dealt with her self-judgment and learned to love herself
How Jane dealt with three bouts of depression
What she learned from going through depression
How someone can identify whether or not they themselves or someone they know is experiencing depression
How Jane created her Multicultural Hero’s Journey coaching program
Who would benefit the most by going through the Multicultural Hero’s Journey coaching program
Jane’s advice for people who are interested in becoming a coach
What it takes to be a good coach

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

Aftermath of his Medical Mission to Ukraine One Year Later: Dr. Jung Tsai Ep 297

Felicia Lin — Fri, 15 Nov 2024 09:09:39 +0000

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.

This past July we took Talking Taiwan on the road to the 53^rd annual Taiwanese American Conference, East Coast that was held at Westchester University. And we set up an on-location podcast studio there. Dr. Tsai was one of the speakers at TAC, so nearly a year after his return, we sat down with him to hear how his medical mission went.

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

Remembering 228 Tragic Stories and the March Massacres Ep 277

Felicia Lin — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 22:05:17 +0000

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 to 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 brewing for some time.

So on the night of February 27, 1947 when Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agents tried to confiscate contraband cigarettes from a 40-year-old woman and brutally knocked her out, an angry crowd gathered in protest. Then one of the agents fired a shot into the crowd killing a bystander. What followed was a bloody crackdown by authorities, widespread violence and what some have called the March Massacres since most of the killings actually happened in March.

In this episode, is a personal account that James Shau, chairperson of the Taiwanese American Association of New York shared at last year’s 228 commemoration at the New York Taiwan Center.

Mr. Shau’s account is a reminder of how widespread the violence was at that time. And while we now know that intellectuals and community leaders were among those who were specifically targeted, there were many unknown, unnamed who also senselessly lost their lives.

228 led to 38 years of martial law and an even longer period of White Terror in Taiwan. Let us also remember those who suffered during those subsequent periods of time.

In more recent news related to 228, Taiwan’s Transitional Justice Commission has identified 42 historical sites where injustice related to 228 have happened.

On Monday, February 26 just a few days ago, the Executive Yuan compound was designated as a historical site of injustice. 77 years ago, it was the Taiwan Provincial Administrative Executive Office when the Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang KMT military police fired indiscriminately on protestors on February 28, 1947.

Other historical sites of injustice that have been unveiled include the Jing-mei White Terror Memorial Park which used to be the Taiwan Garrison Command’s detention center and military court, the Ankang Reception House, and the Tang Te-chang Memorial Park in Tainan.

Special thanks to Meiling Lin for her translation assistance for this episode.

Our Live Podcast Event @ Pic Collage: Highlights and Interesting Stories of 10 Guests in Taipei Ep 276

Felicia Lin — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 12:19:30 +0000

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 first time.

In this episode you’ll hear me speaking with our previous podcast guests and a few people from the audience also came up and spoke with me at our impromptu on-stage podcasting booth. Previous guests featured in this episode include: Eric Chang (episodes 121, 127 and 231), Jane W. Wang (episode 150), Karen Chung, (episodes 217 and 219), Elias Ek (episode 59), Brian Foden (episodes 184 and 185), Richard Wang (episode 77), Jerome Keating (episodes 97, 98 and 186).

This episode bookends the Talking Taiwan Election Tour episodes, but we do have some other interviews that we recorded while in Taiwan. Those will be released at a later date.

We are extremely grateful to our supporters and donors who made the Talking Taiwan Election Tour possible.

By the way, if you’d like to listen to the episode featuring our first in-person on January 19th at 4SC Crossfit thanks to T.H. Schee, check out episode 273 and if you want the full visual experience, visit Talking Taiwan’s YouTube channel where you can watch video footage from both of our in-person events.

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

Jenny Luo talked about the Taiwan Plus show she’s producing called, Anything Goes with JL
Eric Chang shares his thoughts on the January 13^th election in Taiwan, and talked about his work at Taiwan News and enjoying Taiwan’s natural beauty
Jane W. Wang talked about her interest in permaculture and degrowth
Karen Chung talked about an app she’s been working on to improve the listening skills of those learning English called Ear Bug
Elias Ek talked about how his early career in radio shaped him as an entrepreneur, Dragon’s Chamber and his latest business venture Keego
Brian Foden talked about his podcast, If the Phrase Fits
Richard Wang shared how he’s helping to bring baseball games to the Taipei Dome, that the Yomiuri Giants (Japanese baseball team) will be celebrating their 90^th anniversary with games at the Taipei Dome, and starting this year, the local baseball league will have six teams
John Fan made introduced and explained what PicCollage does
Jerome Keating shared his thought on the future direction of Taiwan and where Taiwan is headed
Nancy Baldwin talked about her book, One Thousand Layers of Water and Clouds: The Tale of a Taiwanese Daughter
Elias Ek shared a few pet peeves that he has about terms and phrases commonly used in Taiwan
Felicia acknowledged Gus Adapon the original producer of Talking Taiwan who was in the audience
Dylan Black a Canadian who has lived and taught English in Taiwan for many years talked about how he is now doing so in China, and how life China compares to life in Taiwan so far

NYC ART BRIDGE: How TAAC and CHATogether are Winning at Achieving Emotional Wellness Through Art Ep 258

Felicia Lin — Wed, 25 Oct 2023 10:55:51 +0000

The Taiwanese American Arts Council (TAAC) and the Yale CHATogether Group have collaborated on the NYC Art Bridge program. Several of the artists in residence at the Taiwanese American Arts Council’s house on Governors Island, Building 7B, which has affectionately come to be called the Taiwan house, have participated in the NYC Art Bridge program and created artwork for it. In this episode I will be speaking to Luchia Meihua Lee, the Executive Director of the Taiwanese American Arts Council, Dr. Eunice Yuen, Founder and Director of CHATogether, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Child Study Center, and LuLu Meng one of the artists in residence at the Taiwan house who participated in the NYC Art Bridge program. We previously had Dr. Eunice Yuen on Talking Taiwan in episode 93 to talk about CHATogether (Compassionate Home Action, Together).

There will be a closing ceremony for the Taiwanese American Arts Council’s house on Governors Island this Saturday, October 28 at 2:00pm. As a special treat Talking Taiwan’s very own Executive Producer Kaju will be performing as the artist Rad Jet at the closing ceremony with a special guest, Rico Jones, six time Downbeat Magazine Award Winner,Tenor Saxophonist. If you are in the New York area we hope to see you there at Building 7B located in Governors Island’s Nolan Park.

Luchia Meihua Lee, Executive Director of the Taiwanese American Arts Council

Eunice Yuen, MD, PhD. Founder and Director of CHATogether, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Child Study Center

LuLu Meng, one of the artists in residence at the Taiwan house who participated in the NYC Art Bridge program

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

The concept behind NYC Art Bridge and its connection to CHATogether
How NYC Art Bridge connects mental health with the arts
How graphic media, illustration and other visual art can be used as tools to discuss mental health
Through NYC Art Bridge there have been talks with the community, AAPI artists, a community art exhibition
The two community NYC Art Bridge events that have been held on April 29 at the Queens Community College and on September 16 at the Taiwan house (on Governors Island)
The CHATogether component of the NYC Art Bridge events and how it facilitated discussion among the audience
The three parts of NYC Art Bridge: 1) an art exhibit 2) workshop, artist talks, role play, conversation with mental health professionals 3) artist interviews
The purpose of the artist interviews
How NYC Art Bridge serves to bridge artistic work with child and family mental health
How art can be a powerful form of expression or communication without words
How CHATogether use theater as a medium to destigmatize mental health and make people feel more comfortable to talk about mental health
How CHATogether has components of drama therapy, psychodynamic psychotherapy and cognitive behavioral therapy
How CHATogether and NYC Art Bridge will be presented at AACAP (American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry) on October 25 and what will be presented there
Pages from the graphic novel, Healing the Whole Family are displayed at the Taiwan house
The graphic novel, Healing the Whole Family, that was based on a New York Times article written by CHATogether member Grace Chiang
The illustration artwork of Elaine Shin (a psychiatry resident from, Northwestern University) is displayed at the Taiwan house
LuLu Meng, one of the artists in residence at the Taiwan house who also participated in NYC Art Bridge
How LuLu went from being a chemical engineer to an artist
LuLu’s background and childhood in Taiwan
LuLu’s family portrait artwork piece
LuLu’s NYC Art Bridge interview and what it revealed
The artwork LuLu created for NYC Art Bridge
LuLu’s reflections and thoughts about the CHATogether workshop on April 29 at the Queens Community College
LuLu’s artwork that has been displayed at the Taiwan house and what inspired LuLu to create them
What being an artist means to LuLu
The closing ceremony of the Taiwan house (Building 7B in Governors Island’s Nolan Park) will feature a performance by Talking Taiwan’s very own Executive Producer Kaju, who will be performing as the artist Rad Jet at the closing ceremony with a special guest, Rico Jones, six-time Downbeat Magazine Award Winner, Tenor Saxophonist

Diseases and Disabilities Archives - Talking Taiwan Podcast

Collective Memory, Collective Trauma: A Conversation with Dr. Meng Chiang Ep 339

Related Links:

Talking Taiwan Top 5 of 2025 Award Winner – End of Year Review Ep 338

Related Links:

Author and Speaker Dr. Yang Szu Pang (楊斯棓) : Don’t Think You’re Too Small to Make a Difference Ep 331

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:

Jane W. Wang Navigates a Multicultural Hero’s Journey (Classic) Ep 312

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:

Aftermath of his Medical Mission to Ukraine One Year Later: Dr. Jung Tsai Ep 297

Related Links:

Remembering 228 Tragic Stories and the March Massacres Ep 277

Our Live Podcast Event @ Pic Collage: Highlights and Interesting Stories of 10 Guests in Taipei Ep 276

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

Related Links:

NYC ART BRIDGE: How TAAC and CHATogether are Winning at Achieving Emotional Wellness Through Art Ep 258

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

Related Links: