Taiwan Food Archives - Talking Taiwan Podcast

Vickie Wang (王宇平) Survivng the Shanghai COVID Lockdown of 2022 and Attitudes and Perceptions between Taiwanese and Chinese Ep 343

Felicia Lin — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:16:17 +0000

Vickie Wang (王宇平) is a writer, interpreter, and stand-up comedian born and raised in Taiwan. She’s lived in Shanghai, China for nearly a decade, where she started doing stand-up comedy under censorship. Last year I sat down to interview Vickie. in part one of my interview with Vickie, we talked about the perceptions and attitudes that many Taiwanese have about the Chinese, and on the other end how the Chinese she met in China perceived the Taiwanese and Taiwan.

We also talked what it was like for her to go through the strict COVID lockdown in Shanghai in 2022. Now based in New City York Vickie co-produces a monthly stand-up show called Wang’s World Comedy (pronounced WAYNE) and writes a Substack called Happy Medium. Stay tuned for the second part of my interview with Vickie.

She has published two Taiwan op-eds in The New York Times, one on the metoo movement, and one on what another Trump term means for Taiwan’s future. She is currently working on a nonfiction book about her experience of COVID and comedy in China.

KITA Foundation: Mapping the Path of the Trailblazers that Paved the Way for Taiwan’s Democracy and Freedom Ep 342

Felicia Lin — Tue, 17 Mar 2026 11:34:57 +0000

So in the vein of reflecting on the past, this year I thought I’d share my interview with Sabrina Liu and Meng Chiang who are part of the team that makes up the KITA Foundation, an organization that was formed as an oral history project to understand who are the trailblazers that paved the way for Taiwan’s democracy and freedom.

Every year we try to dedicate an episode of Talking Taiwan to 228, an important date in Taiwan’s history, marking the 228 Massacre. 228 stands for February 28 1947. February 28th is now commemorated as a national holiday in Taiwan known as the 228 Peace Memorial Day.

However, the 228 Massacre is not confined to this single date in history. There were circumstances leading up what happened on February 28th and there were also subsequent events after February 28th which escalated into bloody violence and massacres leading to what some refer to as the March Massacre.

Under the authoritarian Chiang regime, and Chinese Nationalist Kuomintang, what followed after 228 was 38 years of martial law and the White Terror era. Anyone could be disappeared, executed or worse for just saying or doing the wrong thing, or for what was seemingly wrong in the eyes of the authorities. The people of Taiwan were horrified and terrified. For decades there was denial and suppression of 228 by authorities in Taiwan, and generations dared not speak of 228.

228 was absent from high school textbooks until relatively recently. To learn more about the specifics of 228 I invite you to listen to some of our past episodes on the topic. We recommend episodes 309, 277, 228, and 172.

In an effort to confront its authoritarian past, in recent years Taiwan has taken steps to acknowledge historical sites of injustice such as buildings where military police fired on civilians on February 28, 1947. Around this time of year, around February 28 and leading into March, it’s a time to reflect on the past, and what we can learn from it.

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.

The Charm of Tainan Taiwan’s Oldest City: A Talk with Author and Historian Jinyu Hsieh (謝金魚) Ep 337

Felicia Lin — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 13:48:55 +0000

In July of 2024, we brought talking Taiwan to the 53rd annual Taiwanese American Conference (TAC), East Coast at Westchester University.

Jinyu Hsieh (謝金魚), one of the speakers at TAC is a writer and a historian. I sat down to talk to her about the charm of Tainan, located in southern Taiwan. It is the oldest city in Taiwan and was founded in 1624. In 2024, Tainan was celebrating its 400^th anniversary.

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

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.

The Real Life “Love in Taipei” Story: Virtuoso Musician Couple Antoine Boyer and Yeore Kim Ep 329

Felicia Lin — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 14:21:32 +0000

In this episode, the husband-and-wife team, gypsy jazz and classical guitarist Antoine Boyer and chromatic harmonica player Yeore Kim shared about their real life “Love in Taipei” story. He’s from France and she’s from South Korea, so music was their first common language. We also talked about how they navigate their partnership as life partners and as musical partners, and their debut duet album You and I.

If you’d like to know more about Antoine you can check out Kaju’s in-depth interview with Antoine on YouTube

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

Cathy Erway on The Food of Taiwan Ep 310

Felicia Lin — Wed, 16 Apr 2025 09:24:01 +0000

Cathy Erway talks about her cookbook The Food of Taiwan.

Last year I came across an article in the Gothamist titled, A Taiwanese food crawl in the East Village with NYC writer Cathy Erway. I have of course heard of Cathy Erway and her cookbook and thought to myself, Why haven’t I had her on Talking Taiwan as a guest yet? For those of you who aren’t familiar with Cathy’s work, she is a James Beard Award-winning food writer and author based in New York City. Her cookbooks include The Food of Taiwan: Recipes From the Beautiful Island and Win Son Presents: A Taiwanese American Cookbook.

Her cookbook, The Food of Taiwan which was published in 2015 is the first cookbook from a major U.S. publisher to explore the food culture of Taiwan from home-style dishes to authentic street food. We talked about how publishers rejected the cookbook at first and how it eventually got published.

She also has a Facebook page called The Food of Taiwan, and if you’re a Taiwanese food lover, I highly recommend liking and following it. On the page, Cathy shares news about Taiwanese food like where to get the best Taiwanese food in and out of Taiwan, and new Taiwanese restaurant openings.

Cathy Erway’s journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Food & Wine, Eater, Grub Street, T: The New York Times Style Magazine and more. She is a columnist at TASTE, and received the James Beard Award for Home Cooking journalism in 2019. In 2021, she received the IACP Culinary Award for her column.

This episode is part of the trailblazing Taiwanese women’s series sponsored by NATWA the North America Taiwanese Women’s Association, which was founded in 1988. To learn more about NATWA visit their website, www.natwa.com.

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

How Cathy started off writing a blog called Not Eating Out in New York, which led to her first book, The Art of Eating In
Cathy’s cookbook The Food of Taiwan
The article in the Gothamist about Taiwanese restaurants in the East Village
Cathy’s Facebook page The Food of Taiwan
How Cathy has had a Google alert set on the term Taiwanese food for 20 years
How things have changed in the 10 years since The Food of Taiwan was published
How the owners of Taiwanese restaurants in New York City (Win Son, 886, and Ho Foods) are all friends
How Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry has contributed to the interest in Taiwanese cuisine
How Cathy learned to cook and her parents’ cooking styles
How Cathy’s family is foodies
Cathy’s connection to Taiwan
What went into creating The Food of Taiwan
How the photography of The Food of Taiwan was an important part of the cookbook
How The Food of Taiwan got rejected by several publishers
How The Food of Taiwan is a snapshot of all the foods in Taiwan including home-style foods and street food, up to 2015, the year it was published
How The Food of Taiwan includes foods that are unique to Taiwan
How the recipes in The Food of Taiwan suggests substitutions for certain ingredients that might be hard to find
How Cathy met Josh Ku and Trigg Brown of Win Son
How Cathy collaborated with Josh Ku and Trigg Brown of Win Son on Win Son Presents a Taiwanese American Cookbook
How hard it was to convince the editor to publish The Food of Taiwan
Other Taiwanese cookbooks that have been written by Clarissa Wei, Frankie Gaw, Tiffy Chen, and George Lee
How Cathy is working on an article about the frozen dumpling business for Taste
Topics that Cathy writes about like how tamari is a different product in Japan vs. the U.S.
Té Company tea house in the West Village, Yumpling restaurant in Long Island City, Ho Food restaurant in the East Village
Cathy’s favorite Taiwanese dish is sān bēi jī (three cup chicken)
How Taiwanese breakfast foods are now available at Win Son Bakery and Ho Foods

Documentary Films on the Pandemic, Immigration, and Human Rights Issues: Our Talk with Taiwanese American Filmmaker Hsuan Yu Pan Ep 301

Felicia Lin — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 15:28:47 +0000

In this episode of Talking Taiwan, I started off speaking with Taiwanese American documentary filmmaker Hsuan Yu Pan about how she got interested in documentary filmmaking. As we talked about her films, we covered a broad range of topics from the COVID-19 pandemic to parallels between the 2017 travel bans that barred people from seven Muslim majority countries from entering the U.S. and internment of Japanese Americans in the1940s. Time and time again entire groups of people have been targeted and blamed.

This led us back to the pandemic and recalling the high incidence of Asian hate that happened at that time. Her current film project Hear, Eat, Home touches on many of these topics including the Syrian Revolution and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After speaking to Hsuan Yu I get the sense that through her documentary filmmaking she wishes to create understanding so that history doesn’t repeat itself and to foster more empathy in the world.

Below in the Related Links section is a link where you can support and watch a work in progress version of Hsuan Yu’s film Hear, Eat, Home.

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

Hsuan Yu’s upbringing and how she initially had aspirations to be a visual artist
How Hsuan Yu got interested in documentary filmmaking
How Hsuan Yu’s early experiences editing wedding videos taught her how to use video footage to tell a story
How her work at Bric TV taught her how to find stories
How she came up with the concept for her documentary film Alone Together that was shot during the pandemic
How footage for Alone Together was gathered and planned
How Alone Together featured footage from 11 different countries
What Hsuan Yu learned from making the film Alone Together
Hsuan Yu views her filmmaking as being about telling people’s stories
How she met the Taiwanese puppeteer, Mr. Tsai who is the subject of her documentary film project I, Puppet
How Hsuan Yu was able to encourage Mr. Tsai to do some impromptu puppetry in New York’s Washington Square Park
How Mr. Tsai attended a Puppet Slam event in Coney Island, NY and brought the puppet slam concept back to his puppet museum in Taipei, Taiwan
The relationship between Mr. Tsai and his father who is also a puppeteer
How and why Mr. Tsai’s parents didn’t want him to become a puppeteer
What Hsuan Yu loves about making documentaries
Her documentary film project Hear, Eat, Home
How two of the subjects of the film Hear, Eat, Home, Kinan Azmeh and Kevork Mourad are members of Yo-yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble
How the internment of Japanese Americans and the travel bans of 2017 (aka Muslim bans) are examples of how the U.S. government has labeled certain groups of people as a threat and discriminated against them
How Kinan Azmeh was affected by the travel bans of 2017 (aka Muslim bans)
How different groups have been blamed such as the Japanese Americans, Muslim Americans and Asian American
How as a documentary filmmaker Hsuan Yu feels that sne should document history so that people can learn from history
Kevork Mourad’s background and family story
What the film Hear, Eat, Home is about
Hear Eat Home tells the story of Syrians, Japanese Americans and Ukrainians
What Hsuan Yu believes makes a good documentary
How Hsuan Yu was trying to finish working on Hear, Eat, Home in 2020, but she wasn’t satified with it
When the Russian invasion of Ukraine happened in 2022 Hsuan Yu felt that she should include stories of her Ukrainian friends in to the film Hear, Eat, Home
Hsuan Yu plans to complete Hear, Eat, Home me next year
Hear Eat Home is available for view as a work in progress until January 5th
Anyone wishing to support the completion of Hsuan Yu’s film Hear, Eat, Home can make a donation on the link provided on TalkingTaiwan.com for this episode

Taiwan Food Archives - Talking Taiwan Podcast

Vickie Wang (王宇平) Survivng the Shanghai COVID Lockdown of 2022 and Attitudes and Perceptions between Taiwanese and Chinese Ep 343

Related Links:

KITA Foundation: Mapping the Path of the Trailblazers that Paved the Way for Taiwan’s Democracy and Freedom Ep 342

Related Links:

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

Related Links:

The Charm of Tainan Taiwan’s Oldest City: A Talk with Author and Historian Jinyu Hsieh (謝金魚) Ep 337

Related Links:

Talking Taiwan’s 2025 Inaugural Fundraising Gala! Ep 332

Related Links:

The Real Life “Love in Taipei” Story: Virtuoso Musician Couple Antoine Boyer and Yeore Kim Ep 329

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:

Cathy Erway on The Food of Taiwan Ep 310

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

Related Links:

Documentary Films on the Pandemic, Immigration, and Human Rights Issues: Our Talk with Taiwanese American Filmmaker Hsuan Yu Pan Ep 301

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

Related Links: