ITASA West Coast and Midwest Conferences 2009
The following is a blog by Serena Wu reflecting on her experiences and thoughts after recently attending the Intercollegiate Taiwanese American Students Association conferences at the University of Southern California and at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. HoChie Tsai, creator of this website, teamed up with Serena Wu, who is one of the co-founders of mymomisafob.com, to present a workshop addressing generation gap and family dynamics issues. This piece is reprinted with permission…
A Papaya Story
When my dad was in the military, he served near a mountain covered with farms. There, people planted a lot of mangoes and papayas. But some of the papaya was wild and grew on their own, free. One day, a man from Taipei looked around and saw a big, red, pretty papaya. It was beautiful and delicious looking. He climbed up the wild tree and fell down because there was a bee nest in the tree. He cried and cried, and was sent to the emergency room. He ended up with a fever for a couple of days and…
Choosing Your Own Battles
It's easy for those who are conscious of their Taiwanese-American ethnicity, culture, and history to say that they would like to empower their people, but it's not easy to do it. I'm a senior in high school now and I've gone M.I.A. on you guys for a while. I live in a small town where I don't experience much culture outside of where I live, nor do I feel the life experiences regarding my heritage that I used to feel in a bigger city. That all changed very quickly. My school has an annual…
Obsession with Taiwanese Oyster Omelettes
The oyster omelette, more commonly known amongst us Taiwanese as 蚵仔煎 pronounced "oh-ah-tzen," has always been my favorite snack. My boyfriend, who is Japanese and Korean never had the honors of trying this luscious treat, full of crisp bok-choi and yummy oysters embedded in a chewy omelette. The best part is the red sauce smeared on top, the finishing touch, and also the most difficult part to master for aspiring chefs. We went to a cramped restaurant in Chinatown called Taiwan Cafe to try…