Diseases and Disabilities Archives - Talking Taiwan Podcast

U.N. for Taiwan Rally and Taipei Mayoral Race: Dr. Dean Shih (史書華) | Ep 364

Felicia Lin — Wed, 14 Oct 2026 21:52:44 +0000

While Felicia was away attending the World Federation of Taiwanese Associations (WFTA) meeting, that was held in Helsinki, Finland this year, back in New York the annual UN for Taiwan Rally was taking place on Saturday, September 12^th. Kaju was there and he spoke with Dr. Dean Shih (史書華) who is now serving as President of TAIUNA, Taiwan United Nations Alliance. We met and interviewed Dr. Shih last year at the Taiwanese American Conference West Coast, so this was a follow up episode of sorts. Kaju also spoke with Anna Tung.

One of the topics that came up was China’s attempts to reinterpret UNGA Resolution 2758 as based on its One China Principle. As noted in previous episodes of Talking Taiwan covering the UN for Taiwan rally, Taiwan specifically, is not mentioned once in the over 150 words that make up UNGA Resolution 2758.

For those interested in reading the complete text of UNGA Resolution 2758 we will include a links to places where you can read the full text in the Related Links section for this episode.

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

Passport to Taiwan 2026: Making Our Rounds with Taiwanese Community Organizations FAPA, TCCNY & NATMA | Ep 345

Felicia Lin — Wed, 27 May 2026 04:18:58 +0000

We stepped out in the drizzling rain for this year’s Passport to Taiwan 2026 on Sunday, May 24th in New York City’s Union Square Park, and were happy to see that the weather hadn’t put much of a damper on the number people that came out for this annual tradition.

We made our rounds and spoke to people at some of the booths representing different Taiwanese American community organizations including the Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), the Taiwanese Chamber of Commerce New York, (TCCNY) and the North American Taiwanese Medical Association (NATMA). And if doing a deep dive into historical facts related to Taiwan is your thing, we recommend you check out @formosa.forever on Instagram.

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.

Diseases and Disabilities Archives - Talking Taiwan Podcast

U.N. for Taiwan Rally and Taipei Mayoral Race: Dr. Dean Shih (史書華) | Ep 364

Related Links:

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

Related Links:

Passport to Taiwan 2026: Making Our Rounds with Taiwanese Community Organizations FAPA, TCCNY & NATMA | Ep 345

Related Links:

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: