Featured Stories

Josephine Cheng: The Best Day

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Nothing wakes the woman this morning. Perhaps a dream, but she doesn’t remember. She  opens her eyes, her back spread flat against the bed and her covers stopping right at the nose. Sun  slants in between window shades. From where she lays, the woman sees dust motes twinkling.  For a while, she lays there, her gaze unfocused, her mind blank. Content.   She thinks, Snow. The door to her room eases open, and a cat slips in. It leaps onto the  bed, curling up against the woman. She pulls…

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Anastasia Yang: Crosswalk・Catwalk

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  On the intersection of Zhongxiao E. Road and Fuxing S. Road, the streets are crowded with sounds of office workers heading home, parents bringing toddlers on walks, and classmates going out for snacks after school. It’s five thirty in the evening in Taipei, my favorite time, and the last glimmers of sunlight are reflecting off the glass panels of surrounding buildings as the street vendors set up their stalls. The city begins to wake up after a long day, filling up with conversation…

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Political intrigue, romance, danger: Meet Judy I. Lin, fantasy author of A Magic Steeped in Poison & A Venom Dark and Sweet

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Welcome back to another interview in our “New Creatives” series at TaiwaneseAmerican.org! With August and the end of summer coming around, avid readers will know that this month brings a plethora of new book releases. One of our most highly-anticipated reads of the summer is A Venom Dark and Sweet, the second book in author Judy I. Lin’s Book of Tea duology and sequel to #1 New York Times bestseller A Magic Steeped in Poison. In the first installment in the series, the protagonist Ning…

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Ian Yu-Hung Tseng: “Deconstructing Daan Forest Park”

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From The First Journal of Lost Taiwan’s History, Pub. 2087, Vol. 12, Iss. 8, p. 122-127 Daan Forest Park once sat in the heart of Taipei, at least according to the cardiologists at the National Taiwan University Hospital, though the pulmonologists must have been more popular when they supposedly nicknamed the park, “the lungs of Taipei City.” Surrounded by a metropolis that suffocated in its own humid smog, it is said that Daan Forest Park offered a block of fresh air with its fir trees,…

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Alton Ru: Doujiang, Youtiao, Bean (Short Story)

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"A lot of heart and emotion in here; honest and raw." - Charles Yu I did everything I could during childhood to keep my apologetic Asian hidden within me. I tried being boisterous, loud, and even mean to minimize the amount of times I apologized in school. I tried every persona that made it easy to talk your way out of having to apologize to your peers. No, my apologetic Asian only came out for my father. The last day I had with him in Wanhua District began just like the previous four:…

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Charles Yu, Shawna Yang Ryan, Alvina Ling Select 2022 Creative Writing Prize Recipients

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We are pleased to announce the 2022 cohort of honorable mentions, finalists, and grand prize winners of the Betty L. Yu & Jin C. Yu Creative Writing Prizes, established in partnership with TaiwaneseAmerican.org in honor of Yu’s parents, who are longstanding Taiwanese American community leaders. In its second year, the prize has expanded to include middle school participants and selections. Their work will be published on TaiwaneseAmerican.org throughout the year. The Prizes are named…

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Oliver Lin’s short film “To Add Oil” interrogates identity and duty

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Feature images provided by Oliver Lin or from his website. Today, we’re incredibly excited to be launching TaiwaneseAmerican.org’s “New Creatives” initiative, a series that seeks to highlight up-and-coming Taiwanese/Taiwanese American artists in various fields of creative artistry. Our first guest is Oliver Lin, a Taiwanese filmmaker and senior at the Ringling College of Art and Design studying film. Oliver grew up in Taiwan and came across video editing and cinematography at a young…

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We grieve the May 15th Shooting at Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church

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Editor's note: This is not a think piece or analysis of the situation as it unfolds. We are a small, deeply passionate team of Taiwanese American volunteers and we are grappling with the shock and grief of this tragedy, too. This is not something we were prepared to cover or feature. We only hope that those directed towards our website for support/further resources can find here an organized way to access the Gofundme set up by the church congregation to support victims of the shooting, as…

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Treat Yourself: Meet the Powerhouse Women of Twrl Milk Tea

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It seems like nearly every day, a new food & beverage takes on the diasporic niche, bringing long-missed-but-not-forgotten flavors to pockets of Asian Americana. From supply chain innovations making old-school, local products more accessible to the masses, to nostalgic takes on trendy seltzers, there are ever-growing ways to experience the evolution and joy of eating well. We asked Taiwanese American food blogger Carol Lee (@hungrycarol, @nycmunchkin) to profile powerhouse Olivia Chen, whose…

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Cosette Wu: The Last Night: March 11, 1947

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A sudden bang made Shih Chen Jiaotong drop the stack of freshly folded laundry she had been carrying to her bedroom on the third floor of the Sifang Hospital. Another bang resonated through the building, where Jiaotong lived with her husband, Shih Jiangnan, and their daughters. It seemed to have come from downstairs. Jiaotong stepped over a few stray shirts and headed toward the stairway, trying to make out the sounds’ origin.  As she reached the second floor, the hospital ward, muffled…

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