Editor’s Note: In this article, we use the terms “Taigi” and “Taiwanese” interchangeably to refer specifically to Taiwanese Hokkien, also known as Taigi or Tâi-gí (台語). While commonly spoken in many Taiwanese households and often associated with Taiwanese cultural identity, it is important to recognize that Taigi is not currently the official language of Taiwan, nor is it the sole language spoken by those who identify as Taiwanese. Taiwan is home to a rich diversity of languages, including Mandarin, Hakka, and multiple Indigenous Austronesian languages—each deeply rooted in the island’s history and communities.
When Anne first launched her Instagram account @thattaiwanesegal as part of a senior thesis project, she didn’t expect it to resonate so widely. But her blend of approachable language lessons, cultural commentary, and personal reflections on identity resonated with others — especially with fellow ABTs (American-born Taiwanese) looking for a meaningful way to connect with their heritage. Today, Anne is still committed to preserving and revitalizing Taigi with warmth, humility, and deep intention.
We were thrilled to sit down with Anne to learn more about her upbringing, her motivations, and her hopes for the future of Taiwanese language education.
Born and raised in New York to Taiwanese parents, Anne describes herself as technically third-generation, but first-generation American-born. Growing up in a bilingual household where Taiwanese and Mandarin were spoken exclusively at home, Anne recalls feeling like her home life existed in a “mini Taiwan bubble.” Outside, the world was New York: English-speaking, diverse, and just different.
“Being Taiwanese was kind of like my parents’ explanation for why there were differences between my life at home and what I saw outside,” Anne explains. For a long time, her understanding of “Taiwanese” and “American” felt surface-level and separate. It wasn’t until middle school, when she met other Taiwanese American peers, that the process of weaving those identities together truly began.
“In some ways, it made me feel like home was a mini Taiwan bubble, and anything outside of home was New York and America. At home, my parents only spoke to me in Taiwanese and Mandarin, and we mainly ate Taiwanese food. But then at school, I’d talk in English and eat pizza, and occasionally, my parents would take us out to try other cuisines. So up until I met other Taiwanese American people who were not family, I felt like I had a surface-level understanding of being Taiwanese and being American independently, but it wasn’t until middle school that I started to question and dig into what it meant to be Taiwanese American and the nuanced layers of identity.”
Anne credits her fluency in Taigi for deepening her connection to Taiwan in unexpected ways. What began as a love for Taiwanese dramas and Jody Chiang ballads eventually led her down YouTube rabbit holes on language politics, martial law, and cultural erasure.
“I don’t think you have to speak [Taigi] to be Taiwanese,” Anne clarifies. “Obviously there are many other Indigenous languages and plenty of people who I’ve met along the way who do not speak Taiwanese are still unequivocally super Taiwanese… but language is such a major part of any culture. Knowing how to speak it gives you that sense of 親切感 — a warmth and familiarity — when you meet someone else who speaks it too.
I had [also] learned about the previous prohibition of speaking Taiwanese during the martial law period and how the language was thus endangered, as fewer and fewer people, especially younger children in Taiwan, are speaking the language. This broke my heart because we’re now seeing the repercussions of the banning of Taiwanese from the martial law period and it made me all the more grateful that my parents took the effort to teach me Taiwanese.”
One moment that stands out was a conversation with staff at a tea farm in Nantou. For once, Taiwanese wasn’t praised as a rare skill or curiosity — it was simply spoken, casually and freely. “It wasn’t a deep philosophical conversation,” Anne remembers, “but it felt like Taiwanese was a normal, everyday language again. That’s the future I want.
As a kid, I would get praised a lot when I met random grandmas or grandpas who heard me speaking Taiwanese with my parents, and of course as a child, compliments make you feel happy, and I’d feel really proud of myself. But as I’ve gotten older and learned more about Taiwanese and what it’s faced over history, that feeling of being special has diminished because common things are not put on a pedestal. The way in which no one would compliment you for speaking English in the United States or Spanish in Spain, I’d love to see a future one day where speaking Taiwanese, Hakka, or other indigenous languages in Taiwan is also just another everyday norm. After all, accolades are reserved for rare or tough accomplishments, and while it may feel nice on an individualistic level, I’d much rather the languages be thriving on a national scale.”
Anne’s growing platform, which began as a thesis on the role of social media in shaping Taiwanese American identity, has since evolved into a mission: to create accessible, engaging resources for learning Taiwanese — especially for those who don’t speak Mandarin.
“In a lot of ways, I felt like I was disproving this false idea that speaking Taiwanese will hurt your English or Mandarin,” she says. “I speak all three fluently. It’s not only possible — it’s powerful.”
Inspired by creators like A-Hôa Sai and collaborators like Lisa Cheng Smith of Yun Hai, Anne sees language learning as a community project. Her dream is to build a comprehensive, English-language resource for learning Taiwanese — one that removes the Mandarin prerequisite and welcomes heritage learners and curious non-Taiwanese alike.
“During my research process, I came across videos by A-Hôa Sai, a Taiwanese YouTuber, who talked about how Taiwanese is an endangered language and how an increasing amount of parents in Taiwan choose to only teach their children Mandarin and English because they’re worried that learning Taiwanese can negatively impact their children’s ability to do the former well. In that moment, I felt like my identity as an ABT who speaks all three languages made me a great example for disproving the false linguistic idea that these Taiwanese parents held.
Additionally, [when] I interviewed Lisa Cheng Smith from Yun Hai for a part of my thesis, I vividly remember her sharing a part of Yun Hai’s mission that really stuck with me. She said beyond being a distributor, Yun Hai serves as a space for Americans and non-Taiwanese people to learn more about Taiwanese culture through products like their soy sauce — so even if they’re not intending on purchasing anything, they get to walk away with more knowledge about Taiwan. And that helped me realize the importance of creating educational content, because it keeps other people informed and it has greater potential to reach more people that you’d imagine, especially with the internet nowadays.
As for a big dream project, it’d definitely be something that further contributes to creating resources for learning Taiwanese in English. I’ve come to see that many ABTs, like myself, would love to learn how to speak, read, and write in Taiwanese, but there are insufficient resources that currently exist that would allow you to do so in solely English. If you want to learn Taiwanese right now, odds are you need to do so in Mandarin, because the majority of the resources available are only in Mandarin. But that’s discouraging to ABTs because it means the precursor to learning Taiwanese is learning Mandarin. This is why I think Taliyah Huang’s project, BobaWay, is so incredible because it seeks to eliminate that Mandarin barrier. I was only able to create the existing content that I have because I would literally Google the translation of the Mandarin phrase, and so I’d be stoked about working on something that can allow for us ABTs collectively to learn Taiwanese in a language we’re already comfortable with. That way, even non-ABTs who are English speakers can also learn Taiwanese, allowing us to further share this beautiful language.”
Anne’s dedication recently culminated in an unexpected opportunity: working with PTS Taigi TV, a public broadcasting network in Taiwan, to produce a special feature on Taiwanese American businesses in New York. The segment, 紐約的台灣味 (The Taste of Taiwan in New York), spotlighted beloved establishments like Yun Hai Shop, Win Son Bakery, Té Company, and Main Street Imperial Taiwanese.
“It all started back in the summer of 2023 when I signed up to attend a 2-day Taiwanese class at the Taiwan Center in New York, where I met Professor 何信翰, who teaches Taiwanese at NTCU,” she explains. “At the time, I had just graduated with my bachelor’s and I had no clue what I wanted to do and was waiting for a full-time job offer that was taking longer than expected, so I decided I was going to go back to Taiwan for two months and just live my best life. And when I went back, I reached out to Professor Ho to see if I could ask him some questions about Taiwanese-related careers, and he helped introduce me to the director and producers at PTS Taigi TV. A few days later, I naively walked into the PTS office building thinking I was just there to chat and network, but they took a chance on me, and next thing I know, we were discussing details of where we could film in New York.
One of the major highlights from this experience was definitely getting to connect with all of the amazing people I met along the way at both PTS Taigi TV and the stores I featured. It was such an honor to be able to interview the brilliant minds behind Yun Hai, Té Company, Win Son Bakery, and Main Street Imperial Taiwanese and learn more about their stories and what inspired them to start doing what they do. I also loved seeing how everyone incorporated Taiwanese and American elements into their stores to captivate the uniqueness and multifacetedness of being Taiwanese American. Similarly, it was very heartwarming to see how dedicated the team at PTS Taigi TV is in promoting Taiwanese and their creativity in extending the stories they tell beyond the physical borders of Taiwan. I’ve always felt that the Taiwanese American community in New York has been very well connected with one another, but being able to showcase this to audience members in Taiwan directly was pretty cool, because I don’t think most people in Taiwan think about what overseas Taiwanese communities are like unless (or until) they’ve left the country, so this felt like an incredible crossover of my two worlds.
On a personal level, I am humbled that I was able to contribute a small part to the storytelling of Taiwanese Americans and just overall so excited that I had the chance to work on a video production project with an organization that I admire. I was a media studies and film studies major in undergrad, and currently a media studies major in grad school, so getting the opportunity to work on a project that encompasses so many of the things I am vividly passionate about is something I am immensely grateful for. This was also my first ‘official’ production with a major company, and I learned so much along the way from both the PTS Taigi TV team and my wonderful videographer, Ash, that I feel better equipped for future projects.”
Anne was especially moved to have her mother present during parts of the filming. “She was the first person to teach me about Taiwan. I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without her.”
Anne’s work is part of a larger wave of Taiwanese Americans reclaiming their stories, languages, and histories — not through nostalgia alone, but with strategy, discipline, and community engagement. Whether through bite-sized videos, multilingual teaching materials, or on-the-ground storytelling, Anne is helping to reshape what language learning can look like for a global diaspora. Follow her work at @thattaiwanesegal.
For a community-sourced list of Resources for Learning Taiwanese as an English Speaker (led by Catherine Chou), click here.
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