Featured Stories

From Ilha Formosa to Passport to Taiwan: Comparing the 2006 and 2018 Taiwanese Tourism Bureau Campaigns

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Editor’s Note: There are so many ways to advocate for Taiwan: on the streets with Keep Taiwan Free, in DC with organizations like the Formosan Association for Public Affairs, and, like Washington University in St. Louis freshman Vivienne Chang shows, in the classroom by incorporating thoughtful research and analysis on Taiwan into open-topic schoolwork. We were so moved by her decision to, in her words, “write every optional paper I get for each class about something that is related to Taiwan.”…

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19 Things That Happened in Taiwan & Taiwanese America in 2019

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As the decade draws to a close, we’re sharing just 19 of the many things that happened in Taiwan and Taiwanese America in 2019. PODCASTS & MUSIC (1) Emily Wu launched Ghost Island Media in Taipei Ghost Island Media is a podcasting startup based in Taipei that (1) grows the Mandarin podcasting market in Taiwan, and (2) increases the presence of English content coming from Taiwan. Their first show, Waste Not Why Not, is an English-language science show on environmental policies and…

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The Thrill of the Chase: Get to Know Taiwanese Canadian Actor Chase Tang

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Chase Tang’s press coverage has the makings of a fully-fledged biography. From the headlines alone, we get a glimpse of the many communities that take pride in this Taiwanese Canadian actor: his hometown of Bedford; his alma mater, the University of Guelph; Mandarin-speaking netizens clamoring over a new heartthrob to call their own. It’s not surprising (I mean, just look at him) that each wants a claim to Tang’s rising Hollywood fame. IMAGE CREDIT: JUSTIN WU FOR CHASE TANG Born in Taipei,…

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Census Day is April 1, 2020: “Write in ‘Taiwanese'”

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[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvKaDOwMzpg&feature=youtu.be[/embed] Every 10 years, the United States counts every person living in the United States -- citizens and non-citizens. The census shapes public policy and funding towards our communities. Counting everyone ensures fair and equal representation. We are calling all who identify as Taiwanese and Taiwanese American to check "Other Asian" and write in "Taiwanese" on the 2020 Census.  Please support the Write In Taiwanese Census Campaign…

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No, Double Ten Is Not “Taiwan’s Independence Day”

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No, Double Ten is not “Taiwan’s independence day”.  Just bear with me here; I know it looks very much like Independence Day on July Fourth here in the United States. When I was growing up in Taiwan in the 1980s, it certainly felt like it.  It was something I looked forward to. The oppressive summer heat in Taiwan cools down, every house on the block hangs a big flag by the door, the flags gently swaying in the autumn breeze. School would be closed, my parents would have stayed home,…

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(In Memoriam) Su Beng: The Revolutionist

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On June 26, 2016, a political commentator (my uncle), a university professor (my other uncle), and a deeply insignificant 19-year-old (me) shuffled into an apartment building in Xinzhuang, Taiwan to interview Su Beng for a nascent book of poetry about Taiwanese American identity. Small details swell with grand, wistful nostalgia. The trees in front of his building, by then iconic from how often they'd been the backdrop of frenzied, polarizing reporting. The portrait of Che Guevara, to whom…

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I’m Taiwanese American. Here’s Why I Stand by Hong Kong.

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After Taiwanese American Eric Tsai offered to co-host a workplace discussion on the protests in Hong Kong, a disgruntled co-worker wrote in a separate WeChat of over 300 Chinese American employees: “Let’s just spend some money and hire thugs to go after him.”   Editor's Note: I want to be very clear that TaiwaneseAmerican.org has never been, and never will be, anti-Chinese, and certainly not anti-Chinese American. We support the Taiwanese people in their right to self-determination;…

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TaiwaneseAmerican.org Statement on Solidarity with Mauna Kea Protectors

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We urge Taiwanese Americans to stand in solidarity with those protecting Mauna Kea. Today, we reflect on our own island nation’s Austronesian ancestry; the many times she was confronted with imperial and colonial violence; the work of our own indigenous peoples resisting foreign and local rule. We admit that the Taiwan we know today — vibrant, progressive, technologically advanced as she is — exists in imperfect parallel with other colonized lands: historical and holy grounds turned…

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Summer Language Camps in Taiwan: Five Firsthand Accounts

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Thinking of bringing your children to Taiwan for the summer to improve their Mandarin Chinese? A refresh of our article from two years ago, “Summer Language Camps in Taiwan: Five Firsthand Accounts,” this time we profile five Taiwanese American families* who enrolled in camps, some a little off the main path, to assist in their children’s Mandarin Chinese learning. Information current as of July 2019. *Some names have been changed Seeking A Cultural Experience - Karen Karen was…

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Ties that (Un)Bind: Q&A with Filmmaker James Y. Shih

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James Y. Shih is a filmmaker currently working on a short film entitled Ahma & Alan--a drama about a Taiwanese grandmother who travels from her rural small town to Taipei to get her American-born grandson out of jail. TaiwaneseAmerican.org's Ho Chie Tsai speaks with James about his path in film-making and this current project now in post-production. Ho Chie: Hi James. Good to chat with you today. What an interesting project you've been working on lately! James: Hi Ho Chie! Thank you…

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