Forms of Expression: An Interview with Artist Jocelyn Tsaih

There’s a good chance you’ve seen artist Jocelyn Tsaih’s work already– her signature cloud-like, amorphous, faceless figurines have been seen as article illustrations for the New York Times, on the cover of slant’d Magazine, and as murals in Hollywood, SF MoMA, and NYC’s Spotify office. If you’ve ever eaten at Mama Liang’s in the SF/Bay area, you may have noticed her subtle illustrations on their Taiwanese noodles-to-go packaging! After I discovered Tsaih’s work, I began…

A Girl Worth Rooting For: Meet Holly-Mei Jones

Synopsis: Packed with humor and heart, this debut middle grade series follows a girl finding her place in a brand-new world of private school and frenemies when her family moves to Hong Kong. Taiwanese Canadian Holly-Mei Jones couldn’t be more excited about moving to Hong Kong for her mother’s job. Her new school is right on the beach and her family’s apartment is beyond beautiful. Everything is going to be perfect . . . right? Maybe not. It feels like everywhere she turns, there…

Rosalie Chiang on “Turning Red”: “My red panda is my acting career.”

TaiwaneseAmerican.org is excited to present our latest “New Creatives” interview with Rosalie Chiang, voice actress for the protagonist Mei in Pixar’s blockbuster 2022 animated film, Turning Red. Chiang is a 16 year-old actress, model, and author of two children’s poetry books, including A is for Albatross: Birds A to Z, which received the Skipping Stones Honor Award. Her mother is Taiwanese while her father is Singaporean, born in Taiwan. Chiang hopes to pursue a full-time acting career…

“Danny, Danny”: Meet San Francisco filmmaker Huan Cheng

FEATURE PHOTOS COURTESY OF HUAN CHENG, 2021 San Francisco-based filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist Huan Cheng explores the loneliness of the immigrant experience in her short film Danny, Danny. Cheng, born in Taiwan, draws upon her own experiences of arriving in the United States as a young adult in Danny, Danny, which screened at CAAMFest this year and The Method Fest in 2020, and is now available to audiences again. Cheng is a member of the Hollywood Professional Association 2021 Young Entertainment…

Director Zero Chou on “Spider Lilies” and the Evolution of Taiwanese Queer Cinema

Zero Chou is the director of Spider Lilies, a compelling psychodrama released in 2007 that explores Taiwan’s online culture in the early 21st century. It remains influential to this day as one of the earliest queer films in Taiwan. Winner of the 2007 Teddy Award for Best/Gay Lesbian Feature Film, Spider Lilies was streamed at The Austin Asian American Film Festival (AAAFF) in a virtual, six-film series celebrating the past and present of queer Taiwanese cinema available September 4-13, 2020…

Taiwanese Cha Cha Cha: Judie Yang on Language, Culture, & Family

Judie Yang is a polyglot: she can speak English, Mandarin, Taiwanese, Japanese, and Spanish. Although she doesn’t always introduce herself as a polyglot, language has always been a huge part of her identity and is a common theme that runs through all her films, including Taiwanese Cha Cha Cha, a narrative short-film now playing at the Austin Asian American Film Festival. Taiwanese Cha Cha Cha explores the connections between language, culture, and family in Taiwan as it follows a young woman…

Between the Notes: Jordan Hwang brings the Taipei Music Academy & Festival to Austin Asian American Film Festival

The film begins with the universal cues of an orchestral warm up: a retrieved violin bow, the tell-tale crisp sleeves and cuff links of performance attire, the scrambling annotations, the conductor’s swelling flourish. This could be anywhere, until we catch glimpses of something cheerfully familiar, locating us in the heart of Taiwan: the interior of a double-decker bus (equipped with karaoke screens), a cup of bubble tea.  Hwang’s recent documentary Between the Notes, now playing…

We interviewed “The Half of It” writer & director Alice Wu

  FEATURE PHOTO OF ALICE WU BY K.C. BAILEY When Netflix dropped its trailer for The Half of It almost a month ago, it rocked the internet. People quickly attached themselves to the film’s universally relatable main character Ellie Chu. Ellie is a shy and smart student who devotes her screen time to helping her best guy friend, Paul Munsky, win over Aster Flores, the hottest girl at their high school. Though The Half of It begins with a seemingly conventional premise, it quickly subverses…

An Interview with Eva Lou, Madeleine Editions

Editor's Note: Something we consider often is how language informs how we define and experience an ethnic or national identity. We wonder about the merits of raising bilingual, or even trilingual, children, and whether our mother tongues will ever find a place in communities that do not recognize them. Our contributors have discussed loss and mourning of such languages, but also learning and discovery. With language as vehicles in mind, Taiwanese American writer Eva Lou launched Madeleine Editions,…

An Interview with Juliana and Wayne, Co-directors of the Piedmont Chamber Music Festival

Pianist Juliana Han and violinist Wayne Lee are the husband and wife co-directors of the Piedmont Chamber Music Festival in the Bay Area, California. Our editorial director Anna Wu caught up with them to chat about the festival, the Formosa Quartet, and their journeys as musicians. * * * Anna Wu: Hi Juliana and Wayne! Thanks for joining us today. Could you guys tell us a little bit about the Piedmont Chamber Music Festival? What inspired you to start it? Wayne Lee: The Piedmont Chamber…