Annie’s T Cakes: Vegan East Asian snacks from your childhood

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If you’ve been around town in the Bay Area, you may have noticed these cute packages of pineapple cakes (in compostable packaging!), that say Annie T’s Cakes. These vegan gluten-free spin offs of the traditional Taiwanese pineapple cake have been making a splash with nods from the SF Chronicle and other East Bay periodicals.   Longtime TaiwaneseAmerican.org fan, Tammy Chang, a holistic nutritionist based in Oakland, had the chance to sit down with founder/owner, Annie Wang, to discuss…

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All Hail the ‘BNS’: Meet Wil Chung of Impromptu Spices

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In the spring of 2020, a small group of Taiwanese Americans started the Taiwanese Home Cooking Facebook group in order to have a place for the Taiwanese diaspora and others to share and learn about Taiwanese food that was more focused than other groups we had been a part of.  It was through this group that I first met Wil Chung, the creator of Impromptu Spices and its signature Beef Noodle Soup spice mix. How did you come up with the name Impromptu Spices? Trader Joe's "Everything but…

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interWellness: The women-led startup representing Taiwan at the Hult Prize global accelerator

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Just last week, the Hult Prize—a global startup challenge that has been dubbed the “Nobel Prize for students” and awards US$1 million to the winning team—wrapped up its accelerator and penultimate round of business pitches in London. Among the competitors was Joyce Chen, a Bay Area native, recent graduate of the National Taiwan University, and second-generation Taiwanese American.  [caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="1102"] interWellness co-founders with Minister of Health and Welfare,…

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

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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…

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Anne Hu’s Short Film “Lunchbox” Unpacks a Complicated Mother-Daughter Relationship

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Independent filmmaker Anne Hu is cooking up a new project rooted in her own experience growing up Taiwanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. Titled Lunchbox, this short drama will feature modern-day scenes of a woman cooking the foods from her mother’s cookbook, interspersed with childhood memories of her attempts to fit in with her classmates--and the effects this had on her relationship with her mother.  Writer Grace Hwang Lynch chatted with Anne to find out more…

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Meet Laura and Olivia, Co-founders of Project EMplify

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Photos provided by Olivia Chen Project EMplify, co-founded by Taiwanese Americans Laura Huang and Olivia Chen, is a global non-profit initiative dedicated to addressing inequality and disadvantage through personal empowerment. Their programming includes a book matching program, mentoring sessions, and workshops to help underserved communities discover how they can find and create their edge, as outlined in Huang’s debut book, EDGE: Turning Adversity into Advantage. Their goal is to reach…

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Jude Chao: ‘Skin Care for your soul’ and sexy radishes

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“Internet big sister” Jude Chao on how a passion for skincare led her to share more about mental health, wellness, and the art of real living with her debut book and sheet mask line ‘Skin Care for your soul’ and sexy radishes “Internet big sister” Jude Chao on how a passion for skincare led her to share more about mental health, wellness, and the art of real living with her debut book and sheet mask line Chao is a longtime friend of TaiwaneseAmerican.org. In 2019, she shared…

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Katrina Liu on Asian American Motherhood: “Mina Learns Chinese”

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There are a lot of things that delight me about children’s books despite being a single, childless, young adult. For example, in Katrina Liu’s bilingual book, “I Love Boba,” I’ve found a new favorite bit of joyful dialogue: “但是你是叫它波霸奶茶, 珍珠奶茶, 還是泡泡茶呢? Do you call it boba, pearl tea, or bubble tea?”  That, and a sweetly illustrated girl wisely explaining why fat straws are more appropriate than skinny ones for drinking boba.    View…

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Introducing Taiwan Mixed: An Aggregator for English-Language Taiwan News

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L: Hi Salina! Thanks for taking the time to chat. Tell us about this aggregator project.  S: Taiwan Mixed is a platform that aggregates English content on Taiwan. In particular, the aggregator seeks to support Taiwan-based independent media outlets that release English articles related to developments on the island and beyond. It also seeks to support organizations that share the same mission of sharing Taiwanese culture with an international audience and disseminating information about Taiwan…

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

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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…

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