Inner Voices of the Fog: A Reflection on A Foggy Tale

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Guest Contributor: John Lee 李榮恩 A Foggy Tale, 《大濛》is set during Taiwan's White Terror era, the long stretch of martial law from 1947 to 1987 during which thousands of Taiwanese were imprisoned, disappeared, or executed under the Kuomintang government for suspected communist sympathies or political dissent. It is the period in which my grandparents grew up. And yet, growing up myself, I never heard them speak of it. The fog of that era was not only cinematic. It was real, and…

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Where we come from, who we stand with: A Conversation with Professor Hsin-I Cheng (Part 1/2)

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Part 1: Citizenship, Belonging, and the Emotional Legacies of Immigration This interview has also been translated to Mandarin Chinese (Hanzi) and can be viewed here.  Editor's Introduction: As political crises unfold, they rarely do so in a vacuum—and neither do our responses to them. I have been thinking fervently of how the different reactions to statements like this within our own community illuminate a lack of common ground for understanding. While I do not expect or want everyone…

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The Life Story: An Interview with Author Julia Lin

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We recently came across Taiwanese Canadian author Julia Lin’s recently published book, Shadows of the Crimson Sun: One Man’s Life in Manchuria, Taiwan, and North America. This biography of Dr. Charles Yang, a community leader and activist living in Vancouver, Canada, caught our attention because of the unique formative experiences that shaped his perspectives and life of activism. At the same time, his story echoed many of the experiences of the first generation Taiwanese who immigrated throughout…

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Keep Taiwan Free Rally in NYC

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The first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. A thriving youth civil society. An evolving post-colonial national identity. Taiwan has much to celebrate. But as we cheer the achievements of Taiwan's democratic government and civil society, our celebration is bittersweet. We are appalled by the PRC government's increasingly aggressive initiatives to discredit Taiwan's achievements and legitimacy in the global arena. We mourn the loss of diplomatic relations with two more nations…

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A Rose By Any Other

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My Chinese name is 陳克聞. Seven strokes for the first character of my given name, fourteen for the second, because the fortuneteller told my grandmother that this mathematics of words was auspicious. I write my name with one stroke fewer than the prescribed number, so perhaps all my misfortunes are a result of bad penmanship. No one uses 陳克聞. At home, I am 哥哥, “older brother,” except when my mother, in exasperation, calls out all three syllables of my name for dramatic effect.…

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Beyond the Amy Tan Questions: Why a Millennial TA Anthology

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I call them the “Amy Tan Questions.” Questions like “how do families relate in context of war, distance, and famine?” or “how does a child reconcile the old world of their parents with the new world America in which they live?”. These questions are important, for they are our foundation as a community and give us vignettes of Asian and Asian American history that American public schools neglected. But they are dated, and they are not our stories. I wanted to see writing that moved…

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