Featured Stories

FASCINOMA: This Musical Taiwanese Cat Can Sing The Beatles

TaiwaneseAmerican.org's Ho Chie Tsai catches up with Taiwanese American singer-songwriter Alanna Lin aka Fascinoma as she works on her latest project recording covers of Beatles songs. She has had a strong following since her days performing shows around Los Angeles and since one of her songs became "quasi-famous amongst fans of American Dad on FOX". The ballad, "I'm Walking This Road Because You Stole My Car (Don't Go)," was used for a love scene between a boy and a cat. Seriously, the song is…

100 DAYS Opens in LA

100 DAYS Officially opens theatrically in LA at the Laemmle Playhouse 7 in Pasadena on Friday, December 12, 2014. Filmed in the village of Qinbi on the Taiwanese island Matsu, it's a beautiful love story that also highlights Taiwan's culture, settings, and traditions. Mark your calendars as packing every showing that opening weekend is crucial for the movie to have a longer run in the theaters! Director Henry Chan will be at various Q and A's that weekend. His credits include NBC's new show…

#ChampChu

At the beginning of this year, America met Arthur Chu. As a contestant on the long-running game show, Jeopardy!, he was, rather unexpectedly, the target of social media backlash, allegedly for his style of play. Since then, it’s become abundantly clear that Arthur’s game strategy could not have been the only factor in his notoriety. So why is it, when there have been other players in Jeopardy!’s history that have also used the “Forrest Bounce,” that Mr. Chu gets the heat? This is the…

KANO Screenings in USA

KANO is a 2014 Taiwanese baseball film directed by Umin Boya and co-produced by Wei Te-Sheng (director of Cape No.7, the second highest grossing film in Taiwanese history, and the epic Warriors of the Rainbow). KANO is crowd-pleasing inspirational film, which has won the Audience Award at the 2014 Osaka Asian Film Festival, and the Audience Award at the 2014 Taipei Film Festival. It was an Official Selection at the 2014 New York Asian Film Festival and is a Best Picture Nominee for the 2014 Golden…

Charlie Chang Releases New Album to Combat Domestic Violence

TaiwaneseAmerican.org's Ho Chie Tsai recently caught up with singer-songwriter Charlie Chang. In 2010, he was featured as one of our 100 Passionate People in the community. This month, he launches a new album with beautifully-inspired tracks and will be donating a portion of the sales from this CD to V-day, an organization dedicated to ending violence against women around the world. We talk about the inspiration behind this project. H: Hi Charlie! It's really nice to catch up with you again!…

Survey on Culture and Identity for Asian American High School Students

Are you a high school aged student or a parent of one? Are you interested in the Asian American experience and how it affects perceptions of identity? Read on to see how you can help and be rewarded with a $10 gift card! HELLO! My Name is Wells Ling, and I am currently a graduate student at Saint Louis University working towards my doctorate in developmental psychology. As a second generation Taiwanese American growing up in the Midwest, I rarely wondered or truly appreciated my family’s…

Inside the Taipei Office of PicCollage

Create. Connect. Collage. That's the simple premise behind PicCollage, one of the most downloaded photo collage apps on iOS and Android smartphones today. The app allows free-form collage editing with or without the use of templates, and it has attracted a huge user-base globally--primarily young female tweens. Gone are the days of printing, cutting, and pasting on posterboard. Its simplicity and intuitive gesture-based photo manipulation is also its greatest strength. Add colorful backgrounds,…

A Plea for Baby Benjamin: Join the Bone Marrow Registry

Update 10/7/14 From Benjamin's Carepage... Brave Benjamin earned his angel wings and passed away to heaven peacefully in his mommy's arms on October 6, 2014. He touched so many lives during his 6.5 weeks with us... doctors, nurses, friends, family, and people who never met him, but were inspired by his story to join the bone marrow donor registry. We truly hope that at least one of you will be a match and save a life. Benjamin's doctors confirmed that he had a match, but his HLH took too great…

ART FOR ADVOCACY: Bringing Taiwan's Sunflower Movement to Brooklyn

By Dana Ter On a damp New York evening on May 22, just a stone throw away from Bushwick Collective on Troutman Street – a street filled with graffiti murals turned into an art gallery of sorts, the open-air Bat Haus Coworking Space was abuzz with artsy hipster types. They were holding Brooklyn Brewery beers and admiring photographs and paintings of sunflowers. Speaking in Mandarin with a smattering of English, the attendees, mostly young people in their 20s and 30s, were discussing the role of…

How I Became More Involved With the Taiwanese American Community

by Nikki DePaola When I first moved to Los Angeles three years ago, I didn’t know very many people outside of my job and a few cousins. Growing up in Kansas, I was excited to be in a place known for the best Taiwanese food outside of Taiwan, and with so many options to connect with the Taiwanese American community. There are plenty of opportunities in LA for a young Taiwanese American woman. Organizations like TAP (Taiwanese American Professionals), TACL (Taiwanese American Citizens’…