Contributors: Ho Chie Tsai, Shawna Yang Ryan, and Anna Wu

February 28th, 2009.

8:12 pm: On a snowy Illinois evening, two mysterious hooded Asian “thugs” approach Professor Wen. They shoot him at point blank range. He tumbles to the icy ground –setting the on-screen instigating episode that inspires the Hollywood political thriller, Formosa Betrayed.

Flashback 2 hours…

6:12 pm: The valet pulls our car up to the front of our posh Hollywood hotel, situated next to the famous Kodak Theatre where the Oscars were held a weekend ago. Remembering that a year ago, Slumdog Millionaire, winner of eight Academy Awards, was an unknown film without a distributor puts into perspective where the film Formosa Betrayed is today. Excited, the four of us pile into the car knowing that we are among a privileged group of investors and VIPs who will see a private screening of this long-awaited project. It is also appropriate that the film is debuting on the evening of February 28th, a date that is commemorated by Taiwanese around the world as the beginning of Taiwan’s forty years of martial law.

Inspired by actual events, Formosa Betrayed is set in the 1980s and tells the story of an American detective, Jake Kelly, who is assigned to investigate the murder of a Taiwanese American professor who has actively spoken out about the political situation in Taiwan. The incident is reminiscent of the murders of Carnegie-Mellon professor Chen Wen-Chen in 1981 and writer Henry Liu, better known by his pen-name Jiang Nan, who was killed in Daly City, California in 1984. Both were killed, it is rumored, by agents of Taiwan’s government for their outspoken criticism of the political system of martial law-era Taiwan. Setting Formosa Betrayed during this period throws the viewer into the midst of the terror and oppression of 1980s Taiwan, and gives some very important historical perspective on the multinational connections that might have benefited from keeping Taiwan a dictatorship for so long.

6:43 pm. Our car pulls up to the garage of the Writers Guild Association screening studio. We are slightly early. A staff member in a suit leans over to the driver’s window and instructs us to leave all cameras and cell phones in the car before proceeding to the red carpet area. This is evidently the big moment and a well-guarded project.6:50 pm. We join several other Taiwanese Americans who have also arrived early and march up the red carpet. A couple of event photographers are running around, and flash bulbs go off – just a few. There are no movie stars here (yet), just the invited guests who have helped to make this project a reality.

Since the early 1970s, Taiwanese have immigrated to the US in mass numbers, many to pursue higher education or better lives for their families. But often left untold is the story of the many Taiwanese pro-democracy activists in America that spent countless years being blacklisted by the government of Taiwan for speaking out about what they believed in. Now, at the premiere of Formosa Betrayed, many of these long-time leaders have begun to arrive. Their bright eyes and vibrant smiles tonight provide a moving counterpoint to the countless years of sacrifice they endured in order to make moments like this possible for younger generations.

6:53 pm. Will Tiao smiles and greets us just inside the lobby as his staff scurries around taking care of last minute preparations. He appears calm and collected, but it’s clear that he must feel as nervous as a groom greeting his future in-laws and 400+ guests at his wedding. This event has been three years in the making.

What a journey this has been for actor-turned-producer Will Tiao: TaiwaneseAmerican.org first featured him three years ago during the early fund-raising stages for his independent film project, Formosa Betrayed. When we met him, he had just raised his first $50,000 after presenting his risky but impassioned ideas about creating a movie that would tell the stories of countless unheard Taiwanese Americans. He might tell you that many doubted that he could bring such an ambitious project to fruition, but after fundraising in 60+ cities and sharing his visions for the film and the impact it would make, investors from all over the world jumped aboard. Now, three years later, Will’s vision has become a reality: an independent film with the scope and production value of a major Hollywood blockbuster.

7:15 pm. Excited greetings and hugs as we find several other 2nd generation friends and fellow investors. The staff announces the theater is now open for seating, and we claim some prime seats just in front of the “reserved” section. No doubt we will be sitting next to some recognizable actors, cast, and crew. Anticipation builds as the theater starts to fill. People crane their necks in search of recognizable faces.

When Will Tiao – who, beyond acting and producing the movie, also participated in developing the screenplay – began sharing this compelling story of our untold Taiwanese history around Hollywood, he and co-producer David Allen Cluck attracted a top-notch crew and staff. Director/Producer Adam Kane is known for his work on Heroes, as well as the critically acclaimed (but now cancelled)Pushing Daisies. Formosa Betrayed’s actors include James Van Der Beek ofDawson’s Creek fame in the lead role. Solid and talented supporting actors such as Wendy Crewson, John Heard, Tzi Ma, Kenneth Tsang, and Leslie Hope round out the list. The movie was a labor of love: even though the budget of this movie is in the millions of dollars, we hear that just to be a part of this project, most of these actors and crew accepted much less than their normal salary.

7:26 pm. Out in the lobby, a growing crowd buzzes around, greeting each other. The lobby is a Who’s Who of Taiwanese American community leaders. Virtually every major Taiwanese American organization from coast-to-coast is represented. Speckled amongst the older 1st generation Taiwanese American crowd are many non-Asian faces unknown to us, but clearly these must be Hollywood movers and shakers.

From Will Tiao’s early career path as an intern for the Formosa Foundation and his experiences on Capitol Hill working on legislation in the interest of US-Taiwan relations, one would think that this engaging and well-spoken young man had found his place in the world of politics. Washington DC, after all, is the Hollywood of the East Coast; however, Will Tiao started his early college career as a Music major, so it was only natural that he would find his way back into the arts, first as an actor and now as a major player in the world of independent media. His passions – art and politics – seemed destined to fuse. Sure enough, these diverse interests transformed into his first film production company, Formosa Films. Factoring in his talented networking abilities, Will Tiao has the perfect storm of brains, talent, connections and passion needed to pull this project off.

7:33 pm. The movie is scheduled to start soon, and the remaining crowds are ushered into the theater. They are slow to enter, but the reason is obvious. The entrance of James Van Der Beek and fellow cast members is drawing everyone’s attention. The actors and production crew stop for red carpet pictures while starstruck onlookers watch.

7:51 pm. Associate producer Jon Lee, fellow 2nd generation Taiwanese American who also serves as a contributor to TaiwaneseAmerican.org, steps up to the front to welcome all and introduce producer/actor Will Tiao and director/producer Adam Kane.

Though the movie takes us through the story from the perspective of a white American, several key roles are played by Asian American actors. Tzi Ma, recognizable from his roles in the Rush Hour films and hit TV series 24, plays a deceptively affable official for the Taiwanese government, while Kenneth Tsang plays an army General with ambiguous motives. The multi-talented Will Tiao plays one of the central characters -Ming, an underground democracy activist who befriends James Van Der Beek’s character and acts as his liaison to Taiwanese culture. Tiao’s measured and humanizing portrayal is reminiscent of Haing S. Ngor’s performance in The Killing Fields. We also see some young emerging Taiwanese American actors, Tonray Ho, Adam Wang, and Henry Chu in small but critical roles. With notoriously few roles available for Asian Americans in Hollywood, it is obvious that Will Tiao’s sense of community and his attempt to give voice and opportunity extends even to the creation of roles and casting.

8:00 pm. The crowd settles in for this long awaited moment. Our 2nd generation contingent is excited to find that James Van Der Beek, Wendy Crewson, Tzi Ma, and Kenneth Tsang are all sitting in the rows just behind us. We resist the urge to turn around and watch their reactions at seeing themselves on screen. For non-actors like us, this is a truly surreal moment. The lights go down and the Formosa Films logo dances across the screen, and then the camera drifts down on a satellite map of Taiwan…

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9:35 pm. Credits roll. The applause lasts through the entirety of the credits. Certainly, this is the first time that most of the audience have seen their names and the names of people they know in the credits of a movie. This is not only the culmination of Will Tiao’s vision, but also of the faith and investment of the Taiwanese American community. The crowd rises for a standing ovation. The applause breaks only as some wipe away tears at hearing the familiar Taiwanese melody The Spring Breeze playing over the credits. We head out to the catered reception in the lobby to mingle with the cast and crew. Like those gatherings of yesteryear – picnics and dinners and lunar new year celebrations – the Taiwanese 1st generation connect with each other, greeting old friends and reveling in the afterglow of witnessing their story on the silver screen for the first time.

Through the depiction of the young Taiwanese independence activists in the movie, one can envision the vibrance, the sacrifices, the hopes and dreams of these now-older 1st generation Taiwanese Americans. The project, as well as the film itself, signifies the merging of the generations, as 2nd generation Taiwanese Americans find a way to share the dreams of their parents’ generation. Will Tiao, like many other 2nd generation Taiwanese Americans, has found a balance between following his passions and keeping in mind the sacrifices of our parents’ generation.

Through the years, we’ve followed Will Tiao’s progress. In a short, unheard-of three years, he has taken an idea for a film into the reality of a finished feature film. More amazing, he has managed all the key steps along the way – from fundraising, to casting, writing, acting and producing.

And even as three years come to an end, this is only the beginning. The journey to share our story has just started. Who knows where we will be a year from now, but based on the ambition and abilities of Will Tiao and his team, we know some nice surprises must lie ahead.

11:10 pm. Nearing midnight, but the celebration is not close to over. Now, we’re off to the after-party at the famed Formosa Café on Formosa Ave to hang out with the stars. How appropriate.

Let the buzz begin.

To learn more about the film:
Visit the movie website: http://formosathemovie.com
Join the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5250182906

You can also visit our first Spotlight article on Will Tiao at:
http://spotlight.taiwaneseamerican.org/2006/06/introducing-will-tiao.html

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Ho Chie Tsai, the creator of TaiwaneseAmerican.org, vividly remembers growing up in the 1980s when his parents were blacklisted while actively supporting the Taiwanese independence movement.
Shawna Yang Ryan, author of Water Ghosts, is at work on a novel about Taiwan during martial law.
Anna Wu, an active supporter of Asian American art, is a photographer, the creative director of Mochi Magazine and a staff member of TaiwaneseAmerican.org.

by Bettina Chang
photos by Andrew Lo

On Thursday, February 19, at the end of my Sociology of Religion class, my professor said thank you and her 30 students gave her a big round of applause. No, it was not yet the end of the quarter, but we were nearing the end of her third trimester—Professor Chen’s due date is March 3.

At the start of the quarter, I was so excited to be in one of Professor Carolyn Chen’s classes again that at first I didn’t even notice that something was different. Of course, I was also sitting in the back of the classroom, so my view was obscured in a way that it never had been in our last class, which was an intimate gathering of five. But sure enough, she was standing in front of the classroom, six months pregnant with her first child, and hadn’t seemed to slow down a bit since last time I saw her.

My first class with Professor Chen was an Asian American studies course about modern immigration to America. During that class, I learned that she was a second generation Taiwanese American. What a coincidence, I thought—I’m a second generation Taiwanese American. In fact, over the course of the next few weeks, I gradually realized that Professor Chen knew more about my life story than I did. Her research has centered on ethnic communities (especially Taiwanese-Americans!), race, religion, and immigrant experiences. All of these issues are addressed in her 2008 book, “Getting Saved in America: Taiwanese Immigration and Religious Experience.”

In our small, five-person class, not only was I able to learn a lot from and about Professor Chen, but I also became more curious about the rest of her life, and how she’d gotten where she was—a successful, published, almost-tenured sociology professor at Northwestern University, about to have a child. Fortunately, because of TaiwaneseAmerican.org, I had a legitimate reason to interview her and ask her the questions I’ve always wondered about.

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Full name: Carolyn Ester Chen
Chinese name: “Wen-ling, but I don’t usually go by it.”
Family background: “My parents came here in 1967, so they were pretty early immigrants. They went to Pittsburgh first, because my dad was doing his medical residency. What my dad did was very common; about 70 percent of medical students at the time were going abroad for training.” (She smiled at me here, knowing that I had learned this statistic in class last year. Most people can’t quote statistics asked about their family history—Professor Chen can.)
Hometown: Hacienda Heights, CA
Currently living in: Chicago, IL with husband Dylan Penningroth, another professor at Northwestern.
Greatest joys in life: “Spending time with my family, being out in nature, or just beautiful spaces.”
Favorite foods: “I really love a good bowl of noodles, like za-ziang mian or ‘da-mi’ [gan-mian]. Just to be able to have it for lunch—it’s so easy in Taiwan, you can go to any street corner it’s there. It’s one of the things you can get in Hacienda Heights or the LA area, and something I really miss here.”

So, Professor Chen, how did you get started in sociology?
“I studied sociology as an undergrad, but I didn’t necessarily think I’d go into it as a profession. In between college and grad school I took a year off and was thinking about what I wanted to do. There’s certain things about academia that appeal to me in terms of a lifestyle choice. It’s intellectually challenging and creative, and I have autonomy over my time and my mind… Sociology offered me the tools to study [religion and ethnicity], and more.”

Did you always want to go into academia?
“Being an accountant, optometrist, a doctor—but not a demanding-hours doctor—these were the things that were floated around as options for me, by other people but not by myself. Then you go to school and your mind is opened and you’re curious in a certain way, in other subjects. You know what I mean. Then it’s hard to make a living looking at people’s eyes, or budget, or teeth.”

As a daughter of immigrants, I definitely understand what you’re getting at. So, how did your parents feel about your career path?
“There’s a contradiction, or paradox, among immigrants in that they’re risk takers, but they cling to security and are risk averse in certain ways. So much of their hopes, dreams, and aspirations are on the upward mobility of the second generation. To Americans [getting a PhD in sociology] is not unconventional, they’d say it’s being secure and offers high status, but from an immigrant perspective it’s not so conventional. I think we had some disagreements, but in the end they developed confidence and they’ve come around. I’d never say they strongly objected to it.”

Not only are you a Taiwanese American like many of our readers, you’ve also studied our community extensively. Has your researched influenced your personal life, or the way you think about it?
“W.E.B. Dubois talked about looking through a bifocal lens, or having a double consciousness… for someone who is religious and studies religion, that’s what it requires of them. Similarly, this goes with being aware of one’s own ethnicity and the ways that larger structures influence one’s life and the choices one makes. As a sociologist… you take a step back and see if it really is our culture that makes us hardworking or smart—you have to think twice when you study this. You see the context of certain things like generational tensions. You take the culture gap of experience and study it, rather than just experience it.”

Now that such a major body of your work is published, what are you working on now?
“Something you might notice at elite universities now, is that a disproportionate number of students in Christian student groups are second generation Asian Americans—Why do we see this pattern? Bible studies were predominantly white 20 years ago—what’s going on there? There’s some story about race and ethnicity, not just religion. You see similar patterns not just for Christians but South Asian Muslims and among East Asians. You don’t see the same kind of religious fervor among, say, Latino Americans in the second generation, and you certainly don’t see it among white American students. I’m editing a book and working a paper in this project.”

“For my second project, I’m interested in how alternative health practices are sources of spirituality for Americans today, yoga being one of them. I’m studying spirituality outside of conventional religious organizations, and how it’s shaping the landscape of American religion.”

So you must be doing a lot of fun yoga fieldwork, right?
“Now that I’m pregnant I haven’t been doing as much, but I have been enjoying it. This was a new thing for me, but once I started getting into the fieldwork, I got into the yoga too. Now, while it’s supposed to be relaxing and so forth, sometimes it’s become work for me, so it doesn’t have quite the same effect.”

Let’s talk about the baby—is it a boy or a girl?
“I don’t know yet—it was my decision to not know. My husband was like ‘okay,’ and people felt like I should know, but I didn’t want to. I just want it to be a surprise. I’ll find out soon enough, and I don’t believe that girls need to wear pink things and boys have to wear blue.”

So what color things did you buy?
“Yellow and green…”

****

After my talk with Professor Chen, I rose to say bye. I gave her a belated congratulations and an early good luck, and was about to pack up my things when I noticed a picture hanging on the wall of her office.

“It’s a photograph of a Tibetan Buddhist pilgrim,” she explained. “These pilgrims walk to the city and circle the city, and every ten steps he prostrates to the ground. He has on a special apron and shoes, and carries blocks so when he goes to the ground he doesn’t skin his hands.”

“I think it’s very profound,” she said, then smiled and looked at me in the way she does every class—challenging me to think critically and somewhere along the way, learn something about myself, too.

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Bettina Chang is a junior at the Medill School of Journalism. Contact her at bettina@u.northwestern.edu
Andrew Lo is a junior at the Medill School of Journalism. Contact him at a-lo@northwestern.edu

In the high-tech arena of Silicon Valley, “techies” and “geeks” are a dime a dozen. So how does one stand out above the white noise in a city so abundant with tech-heavy ideas, industries, and people? Well, one way is to be a girl geek and then gather all the women around you to create a network to support each other professionally. Now that will get guys’ heads to turn…

I recently sat down with Angie Chang, co-founder of Women 2.0, a San Francisco Bay Area organization committed to increasing the number of womenentrepreneurs in the tech industries. Its vision is “to be a catalyst for change, mobilizing a global community of ambitious women entrepreneurs seeking to advance the world through technology.”

Profound.

I’m a little intimidated to be honest. But Angie is a cool girl, quite chic, and not what you imagine a “geek” to be. Here, I share a little of our conversation.

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H: Hi Angie! It’s great to be able to meet up with you today. You are one of the co-founders of Women 2.0, which aims to bring together techie women in Silicon Valley. Tell me how the idea got started.

A: I graduated from UC Berkeley in 2004 and my first job out of college was at tech startup YouSendIt in Palo Alto – I was hired as their web producer and employee number nine. I was new to the Silicon Valley and its entrepreneurial lifestyle, so I began attending seminars and lectures on the Stanford campus on business, technology, and entrepreneurship. For every room of 50 guys, I would find 1-2 other young women in the audience. The co-founders of Women 2.0 were doing the exactly same thing I was — working in tech startups, feeling the lack of community in the female entrepreneurial community, and wanting to network with the women of the burgeoning web 2.0 movement.

H: So you guys banded together?

A: Yes, our first event was the Women 2.0 conference in April of 2006 featuring a panel of startup founders that happen to be women: the list includes Elaine Wherry and Sandy Jen of Meebo, Emily Chang of eHub, Joyce Park of Renkoo. We received so much support for our mission of networking current and aspiring women entrepreneurs that we continued to hold events monthly from then on — from meeting up at bars to hosting panels on the Stanford campus and in downtown San Francisco. We even started an annual business plan competition (“Pitch 2009: Startup Competition) for women entrepreneurs, and run workshop series for women entrepreneurs (“Jumpstart Your Startup”)

H: How is the organization going? Is it growing strong?

A: Absolutely, our team has grown organically from four co-founders to a team of over a dozen women who take on various tasks from event production to business development, from managing the business plan competition to managing the members of the Women 2.0 community on college campuses. Beside having a strong team of incredible individuals, we see a diverse set of new and returning Women 2.0 members at our events. I hosted a wine and cheese at my apartment once, and I had never seen a hundred women in my apartment at one time. We frequently reach capacity at our venues, but we also try to hold our monthly meetups at venues that are intimate and fun to facilitate networking.

H: Angie, you also launched Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners in early 2008 so that guys would essentially “come as the +1 for once.” Tell me about your perspectives as a woman in this male-dominated field and your ideas behind the Dinners.

A: Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners is basically an extension of the Girl Geek Dinners which originated in London. Most geek events (tech, entrepreneurship, Battlestar Galactica meetups, etc) are so male dominated we joke that the only women present are working the registration table or someone’s “plus one”. When I started Girl Geek Dinners in the Bay Area, I wanted to make the Girl Geek Dinners special for geek girls — and the events so lucrative that guys who want to come have to come as the “plus one” of a girl geek. This way we keep the events female-centric and it’s always fun to see the gender ratio of a geek event in the Silicon Valley reversed! The first Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner was sponsored by Google and drew 800 girl geeks, and a mere handful of male guests. Topics at Girl Geek Dinners range from building credibility and reputation in technology and business, to engineering Facebook applications.

H: Wow! Eight hundred women. That can be quite intimidating for those “plus one” guys! Haha. So, career-wise you are into web design and marketing. What motivates you? What do you love about it?

A: I love how the web is viral and open 24/7 to the public. I started web design in high school, when my sister was KEY Club President. Because we had so many awesome events and pictures to show for it, I learned to hand-code websites with Notepad and to Photoshop scanned pictures, arranging them stylistically on webpages that would be viewed by 10x more people than had actually volunteered. I really believed in showing how much fun the KEY Club members had at their volunteer activities, as a way to grow membership and promote the club’s mission statement of helping others. Every website I design and produce is a marketing vehicle for a cause — KEY Club promotes community service, Women 2.0 promotes networking women entrepreneurs, etc. I love to make it easy for any random person on the Internet who stumbles upon my website to 1.) realize the community and potential in the organization and 2.) find out how to participate or join. When I build websites for businesses or corporations, it’s a very similar thought process but instead the goal is to encourage people to spend money on a product or service.

H: How do you see the face of the tech and web changing?

A: Well, I graduated college in 2004, so I grew up with Facebook, MySpace, Friendster, LiveJournal, Xanga, and AOL chat rooms… In the last few years, I have seen the web attempt to really monetize from “social media” applications. Yelp sells advertisements to local businesses and has built an amazing community of Yelpers. The advent of Facebook’s platform (both paid advertising and Facebook “fan pages”) along with the popularity of Yelp have convinced many small and medium-size businesses to hire young professionals as “social media strategists” to help them understand the youth market and leverage the Internet (namely Facebook and Yelp, maybe even this “Twitter” they read about in the Wall Street Journal).

H: Even TaiwaneseAmerican.org is on Twitter now!

A: I am waiting for web 3.0 to emerge — that will be when all these discombobulated simple web 2.0 applications and endless “social media” websites finally level out to reveal a cohesive and functional web 3.0 world that unites all disparate applications. We just have to wait and see.

H: So as a Taiwanese American, what was it like for you growing up? Did you feel the pressure of going into the sciences?

A: I grew up in Orange County where there was a relatively large and diverse Asian population. I don’t remember identifying things as Taiwanese — my parents spoke Taiwanese to each other, but Mandarin to my sister and myself. In the vein of the Taiwanese way, my mom put me through 11 years of classical piano training, and a few years of Chinese school. Thanks to her persistence in my growing up as a well-rounded individual, today I can play Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, op. 13 (commonly known as Sonata Pathétique), and read the Chinese words for things like cow, sheep, and fish — very useful for reading Chinese food menus.

H: I can relate. Except I only know like three words: hello, hungry, bathroom. Haha. Sorry, continue on…

A: My mom also encouraged me to build leadership skills and get into a good college, so I was a Girl Scout for years and earned my Silver and Gold Awards. Surprisingly enough, my mom never pressured me to go into the sciences. She knew I was a bit of a web geek, so even though I couldn’t get through the pre-req computer science classes at UC Berkeley, I had plenty of work experience in web design and marketing coming out of college. My mom’s current pressures on me are to buy a condo/townhouse/house (build credit by paying off a mortgage), have a full-time job (preferably in the government, of course), and get married (so she can stop worrying about me and retire happily to Taiwan). I try to keep her Taiwanese ideals for my life in mind, but we also recognize that I was born and raised in California so the view of the good life in California today is not the same as it was in the 60s and 70s in Taiwan.

H: Oh, Taiwanese moms. We all have them… Speaking of Taiwan, when was the last time you visited Taiwan?

A: I participated in the first Taiwan Tech Trek in the summer of 2005. I hadn’t been back to Taiwan for maybe 10 years prior to that, so I was super excited to go with a bunch of other ABTs (American-Born Taiwanese) my age and do something technical while having fun on the Formosa island. My internship was at the Taipei Zoo so we prototyped an English website for their Conservation Project. Between days of coding webpages, we made friends with animal keepers and went behind the scenes at some of the exhibits. It was a great experience, both the internship and simply being in Taiwan for the summer — navigating the MRT (Taipei Rapid Transit System), shopping and eating at night markets, and checking out the Taiwanese scene for young professionals.

H: Yes, the Taiwan Tech Trek is an excellent program I hear, and it’s great to connect with other Taiwanese Americans and explore the common heritage and culture together. So Angie, what are your future plans and big ideas?

A: Currently I am on the hunt for full-time employment as a web designer or marketing manager. I’m also open to contract work and special projects. My resume and cover letter are online.

H: I have no doubt you’ll be hired soon. You are definitely talented and quite visionary. Let me ask you this: If you could give advice to young people out there, especially the Taiwanese or Asian American young women, what would that be?

A: If you have a vision or dream for yourself, you can execute on it. Think as big as you possibly can! How can you make the most of yourself, for yourself and/or for the greater good? Don’t hesitate to broach your ideas to other people, especially to those who can help you achieve your dreams. To start, you can buy me a cup of coffee and tell me all about it…

H: I’m buying your next cup of coffee!

Links:
Women 2.0: http://www.women2.org
Bay Area Girl Geek Dinners: http://www.bayareagirlgeekdinners.com
Connect on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/thisgirlangie
Hire Angie (because she is awesome): http://www.visualcv.com/thisgirlangie

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Ho Chie Tsai is the creator of TaiwaneseAmerican.org and loves meeting people who are out to make a difference in the world. He also has a soft-spot for “geeks” because he was an electrical engineering major back in his college days.