We recently sat down with Wen-Jen Deng one of the artists in residence at the Taiwanese American Arts Council’s House 17 on Governors Island and Ming Turner, curator of Wen-Jen’s art exhibit :The Embedded Stitch- Contemporary Fiber Art, which is currently showing at Tenri Cultural Institute until June 28th

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/a-conversation-with-wen-jen-deng-taiwanese-fiber-artist-and-curator-ming-turner-ep-314/

According to Deng’s curator Ming Turner, “Deng is a core member of the influential Taiwanese artist collective, Hantoo Art Group. Her early works were primarily oil paintings which incorporated embroidery and collage using traditional Taiwanese floral fabrics. Deng often draws inspiration from Taiwanese food culture— her earlier pieces explored the island’s distinctive betel nut culture, while more recent works have focused on everyday culinary traditions and the cultural heritage of the Sirayu Pingpu people.”

Special thanks to Ming Turner for translation assistance during this interview.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

• Wen-Jen’s upbringing in Taiwan and how she knew she wanted to be an artist

• What Wen-Jen thinks an artist’s role in the world is

• Why Wen-Jen studied art in France and how she was inspired by Marc Chagall

• How Wen-Jen started off doing oil painting as an artist

• How Wen-Jen switched from using oil paint as her medium to fiber and textiles

• How Wen-Jen worked in a textile shop making Chinese dresses while she was a student in France

• Why her early source of inspiration was food

• Her series of work that focused on lotus shoes and pig’s hooves (pigs feet), betel nuts, and other everyday Taiwanese cuisine

• How Wen-Jen discovered her mother’s was from the Siraya tribe during her 2017 residency at Soulangh Cultural Park in Tainan, and that inspired her to move her focus from food to indigenous culture

• How Wen-Jen learned indigenous weaving techniques

• How Wen-Jen’s mother was a seamstress but Wen-jen did not pick out any of those skills from her mother

• How Wen-Jen taught herself to embroider when she was working in the textile shop in France

• How all of the embroidery and sewing on Wen-Jen’s works are done by hand

• How in the process of weaving and embroidering Wen-Jen gets in a focused state of meditation

• The field work that Wen-Jen does related to her artwork

• Ming shared some of her thoughts on the significance of Wen-Jen’s artwork

• Wen-Jen’s artwork “Oyster Noodles” which will be on display at the TAAC Governors Island House 17

• How Taiwan’s transition from authoritarianism to democracy has impacted artists in Taiwan

• How artists in Taiwan get funded

• How Wen-Jen’s sculptural piece which is shaped like the island of Taiwan and shows its topography will be displayed at the TAAC House 17 on June 21

This past Sunday, May 26th we stopped by the annual Passport to Taiwan that’s held in New York City’s Union Square Park. The first Passport to Taiwan was held in 2002 and it’s become the largest outdoor Taiwanese American event in the entire United States.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/passport-to-taiwan-2025-ben-hedges-a-laowais-view-of-china-and-ambassador-lee-of-teco-ep-313/

While there I spoke with the Taiwanese American Arts Council’s (TAAC’s) Executive Director Luchia Meihua Lee, Ambassador Tom Lee of TECO-NY, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York, and Ben Hedges, host of Lao Wai Kan Zhongguo also known as the A Laowai's View of China & Taiwan YouTube channel.

Passport to Taiwan is a celebration of Taiwanese art, culture, music, community, and of course food.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· The Taiwanese American Arts Council’s (TAAC’s) house on Governors Island, House 17 is twice the size of last year’s house

· The theme of the Taiwanese American Arts Council’s (TAAC’s) House 17 on Governors Island is Eco Art on Island

· How the Taiwanese American Arts Council’s (TAAC’s) House 17 on Governors Island will be open from May 17 to November 2

· Ambassador Tom Lee mentioned this is the first time that TECO-NY (Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York) has had a booth at Passport to Taiwan

· Ben Hedges, host of the YouTube channel, Lao Wai Kan Zhongguo has emceed Hello Taiwan events

· How 7-11 stores in Taiwan sponsored travel videos on Lao Wai Kan Zhongguo’s YouTube channel

· How Ben will be relaunching the Lao Wai Kan Zhongguo’s YouTube channel

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/passport-to-taiwan-2025-ben-hedges-a-laowais-view-of-china-and-ambassador-lee-of-teco-ep-313/

Since May is both Mental Health Awareness Month and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we think it’s fitting to reshare this episode with Jane W. Wang.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/jane-w-wang-navigates-a-multicultural-heros-journey-classic-ep-312/

What we really appreciate about this interview with Jane back in 2021 is how she spoke so openly about how she dealt with her bouts of depression. She also shared how getting back in touch with her roots in Taiwan had a part in leading her to start her coaching practice. While she no longer offers the Multicultural Hero’s Journey course that she refers to in this episode, she is still actively coaching clients.

It’s our hope that Jane’s personal story can help destigmatize mental health and create more understanding about the coaching profession.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

• Jane’s connection to Taiwan

• How being a third culture kid (TCK) has shaped her identity and life purpose

• Her career path before becoming a coach

• Why she wanted to become a coach

• Her personal journey, the struggles and depression that she dealt with along the way before she became a coach

• Why she decided not to get a degree in counseling from Columbia University and instead got certified in coaching

• What is coaching and how it differs from counseling or psychotherapy

• Jane’s own experiences with coaching, being the person being coached by someone else

• Jane’s advice on how to pick a coach to work with

• The challenges Jane faced in becoming a coach

• The depression and imposter syndrome she experienced in the process of becoming a coach

• How Jane dealt with her self-judgment and learned to love herself

• How Jane dealt with three bouts of depression

• What she learned from going through depression

• How someone can identify whether or not they themselves or someone they know is experiencing depression

• How Jane created her Multicultural Hero’s Journey coaching program

• Who would benefit the most by going through the Multicultural Hero’s Journey coaching program

• Jane’s advice for people who are interested in becoming a coach

• What it takes to be a good coach

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/jane-w-wang-navigates-a-multicultural-heros-journey-classic-ep-312/

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month and since 1999, Congressman David Wu (OR) and the co-chairs of the Congressional Taiwan Caucus have supported the celebration of Taiwanese American Heritage Week starting from Mother's Day Weekend, so we thought this would be a good time to reshare one of our most popular episodes, an interview we did with Dr. Jerome Keating in 2020 about the history of Taiwan.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/understanding-the-history-of-taiwan-through-dr-jerome-keating-classic-ep-311/

Few contemporaries are more qualified than Dr. Jerome Keating on understanding the history of Taiwan. He has been living in Taiwan for over 30 years. Initially he came over to Taiwan to work on the MRT. He has written several books about Taiwan. We invited him on to the podcast to talk about this latest book, Taiwan The Struggle Gains Focus. Dr. Keating also reflected on how Taiwan has changed in the past 30 years, and we discussed things past and present including Taiwan’s complicated international status, amendment of the constitution, changing the official name of Taiwan (which is the Republic of China) and redesigning the passport and flag of Taiwan.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

• What motivated Dr. Keating to write his latest book, Taiwan The Struggle Gains Focus

• Who the book was intended for and who Dr. Keating writes for

• How Taiwan has changed in the last 30 years

• The semi-martial-like atmosphere of Taiwan when Dr. Keating arrived in 1988

• Keating’s first book Island in the Stream and what motivated him to write it

• What intrigues Dr. Keating about Taiwan as a subject matter

• How the San Francisco Peace Treaty (signed in 1951) left Taiwan in a limbo status

• How the US position on Taiwan 75 years after World War II is still undecided

• The circumstances surrounding “Taiwan” aka the Republic of China losing its seat in the United Nations in 1971, which included a proposal to have 2 Chinas in the United Nations

• The Republic of China and People’s Republic of China’s claims on China

• How Taiwan has never had a seat in the United Nations

• The Republic of China framework and constitution that Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang brought to Taiwan

• Keating’s thoughts on amending Taiwan’s constitution

• Changing the official name and flag that represent Taiwan

• Submissions for the new Taiwan passport cover design

• The Taiwan Civil Government wanting to make Taiwan the 51st state of the United States

• How Dr. Keating sees Taiwan’s future

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/understanding-the-history-of-taiwan-through-dr-jerome-keating-classic-ep-311/

Last year I came across an article in the Gothamist titled, A Taiwanese food crawl in the East Village with NYC writer Cathy Erway. I have of course heard of Cathy Erway and her cookbook and thought to myself, Why haven’t I had her on Talking Taiwan as a guest yet? For those of you who aren’t familiar with Cathy’s work, she is a James Beard Award-winning food writer and author based in New York City. Her cookbooks include The Food of Taiwan: Recipes From the Beautiful Island and Win Son Presents: A Taiwanese American Cookbook.

Her cookbook, The Food of Taiwan which was published in 2015 is the first cookbook from a major U.S. publisher to explore the food culture of Taiwan from home-style dishes to authentic street food. We talked about how publishers rejected the cookbook at first and how it eventually got published.

She also has a Facebook page called The Food of Taiwan, and if you’re a Taiwanese food lover, I highly recommend liking and following it. On the page, Cathy shares news about Taiwanese food like where to get the best Taiwanese food in and out of Taiwan, and new Taiwanese restaurant openings.

Cathy Erway’s journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Food & Wine, Eater, Grub Street, T: The New York Times Style Magazine and more. She is a columnist at TASTE, and received the James Beard Award for Home Cooking journalism in 2019. In 2021, she received the IACP Culinary Award for her column.

 This episode is part of the trailblazing Taiwanese women's series sponsored by NATWA the North America Taiwanese Women's Association, which was founded in 1988. To learn more about NATWA visit their website, www.natwa.com.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

• How Cathy started off writing a blog called Not Eating Out in New York, which led to her first book, The Art of Eating In

• Cathy’s cookbook The Food of Taiwan

• The article in the Gothamist about Taiwanese restaurants in the East Village

• Cathy’s Facebook page The Food of Taiwan

• How Cathy has had a Google alert set on the term Taiwanese food for 20 years

• How things have changed in the 10 years since The Food of Taiwan was published

• How the owners of Taiwanese restaurants in New York City (Win Son, 886, and Ho Foods) are all friends

• How Yun Hai Taiwanese Pantry has contributed to the interest in Taiwanese cuisine

• How Cathy learned to cook and her parents’ cooking styles

• How Cathy’s family is foodies

• Cathy’s connection to Taiwan

• What went into creating The Food of Taiwan

• How the photography of The Food of Taiwan was an important part of the cookbook

• How The Food of Taiwan got rejected by several publishers

• How The Food of Taiwan is a snapshot of all the foods in Taiwan including home-style foods and street food, up to 2015, the year it was published

• How The Food of Taiwan includes foods that are unique to Taiwan

• How the recipes in The Food of Taiwan suggests substitutions for certain ingredients that might be hard to find

• How Cathy met Josh Ku and Trigg Brown of Win Son

• How Cathy collaborated with Josh Ku and Trigg Brown of Win Son on Win Son Presents a Taiwanese American Cookbook

• How hard it was to convince the editor to publish The Food of Taiwan

• Other Taiwanese cookbooks that have been written by Clarissa Wei, Frankie Gaw, Tiffy Chen, and George Lee

• How Cathy is working on an article about the frozen dumpling business for Taste

• Topics that Cathy writes about like how tamari is a different product in Japan vs. the U.S.

• Té Company tea house in the West Village, Yumpling restaurant in Long Island City, Ho Food restaurant in the East Village

• Cathy’s favorite Taiwanese dish is sān bēi jī (three cup chicken)

• How Taiwanese breakfast foods are now available at Win Son Bakery and Ho Foods

Related Links:

If you’ve been following our social media, you might already know that Talking Taiwan is participating in the Podcasthon which is a global movement calling on as many podcasts as possible to dedicate one episode of their show to a cause of their choice. The idea is to release these episodes simultaneously, from March 15-21, 2025 and by doing so this will create a massive and international wave of inspiring audio content.

We are proud to represent Taiwan in the Podcasthon and to dedicate this episode to FAPA, The Formosan Association for Public Affairs.

FAPA was established in 1982, during Taiwan’s 33rd year of martial law.

In this episode you’ll soon learn about all of the important, hard work that FAPA does in order to advocate for Taiwan in the U.S. For many Taiwanese Americans, friends of Taiwan and supporters of democracy, FAPA’s work will probably resonate with you.

Here’s something that will hit home especially for Taiwanese who have immigrated to the United States. Did you know that before 1994 Taiwanese Americans were forced to list "China" as their place of birth on U.S. passports? I’m old enough to remember this happening to my parents and some of my relatives.

This misrepresentation fueled a policy campaign by FAPA advocating to correct this oversight and affirm the rightful identity of Taiwanese Americans. As a result, Taiwan was allowed to be listed and recognized as a place of birth on U.S. passports. This is just one of FAPA’s lasting achievements and an example of how FAPA is a leading voice for Taiwan in America.

If this is the first time you are hearing about FAPA you might be wondering about FAPA’s name and where it comes from.

Once upon a time, Taiwan was known as Formosa. The name goes back to the Portuguese who named Taiwan “Iha Formosa!” which means Beautiful Island when they discovered it in the 16th century, back when Portugal was known for its exploration prowess.

But even knowing this, I still wondered why Formosa or Formosan was used instead of Taiwan or Taiwanese, so I asked around and FAPA’s current President Dr. Su-Mei Kao shared some stories that Taiwanese Hokkien speakers who are listening to this episode are going to be able to appreciate.

The early founders did try to come up with a name that used Taiwan, the Taiwanese Association on Public Affairs, but the acronym, TAOPA or when pronounced in Taiwanese Hokkien “TAOPA” sounds like “help hit” and then a shorter alternative, TAPA, “TAPA” sounds like the word for a Spanish appetizer.

It turns out, the acronym for The Formosan Association for Public Affairs, FAPA when pronounced in Taiwanese Hokkien “huapa” sounds like “calling to hit or attack.” The name has stuck and has served the organization well.

Last July while we were at the Taiwanese American Conference, we sat down to interview FAPA’s Executive Director, Anny Hsiao, President Dr. Su-Mei Kao, and Vice-President Chia-chun Chung.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

• Dr. Su-Mei Kao, Vice President Chia-chun Chung’s connection to Taiwan

• How and why Executive Director, Anny Hsiao, President Su-Mei Kao, Vice President Chia-chun Chung each got involved in FAPA

• The 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis and Taiwan’s first direct presidential election

• FAPA's major accomplishments and achievements

• FAPA’s Passport Place of Birth Campaign (1992-1994) that allowed the Taiwanese to list Taiwan as their place of birth on U.S. passports

• How has FAPA’s work changed since it was founded in 1982

• How U.S.-Taiwan relations have changed since FAPA was founded

• FAPA's programs and initiatives

• Why it’s important to change the name of TECRO (Economic and Cultural Representative Office)

• Why Taiwan should not have to compete at the Olympics under the name “Chinese Taipei”

• How Taiwan should be allowed to compete in the Olympics using the flag and anthem of its choice

• FAPA's mission

• FAPA’s Song Yea Lee Memorial Fund

• FAPA’s most famous intern is Hsiao Bi-Khim, Taiwan’s current Vice President

• What happens during FAPA's annual national advocacy training

• How overseas Taiwanese are in a unique position to advocate for Taiwan

• Anny, Su-Mei and Chia-chun’s hope and vision for the Taiwan American community

• How to get involved with FAPA or to donate

Related Links:

If you’ve listened to our most recent episode of Talking Taiwan, you’ll know that the sixty-ninth session of the Commission on the Status of Women or CSW69 is now taking place at United Nations Headquarters in New York. It began on March 10th and runs until March 21st.

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-on-the-margins-of-csw-69-celebrating-womens-resilience-progress-at-taiwan-main-stage-ep-307/

On March 12th the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York (TECO-NY) hosted an event called “Taiwan Main Stage: Celebrating Women’s Resilience & Progress on the margins of CSW 69.” This smartly worded event title is undoubtedly a soft reference

the fact that Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, and therefore on the margins of CSW69.

We were there at TECO-NY’s fully packed event on the 12th where we heard from Po-Chun Sophiyah Liu and Chia-Hui Lu. Sophiyah is Ambassador-at-Large for Sports Diplomacy of Taiwan, and she is Taiwan’s first female umpire. Chia-Hui Lu is a classical musician, cross disciplinary artist and an associate professor at National Taiwan University of Arts.

Here’s a little preview of what we talked about in this podcast episode:

· How Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations

· Sophiyah Liu’s remarks at TECO-NY’s event called “Taiwan Main Stage: Celebrating Women’s Resilience & Progress on the margins of CSW 69”

· How the Global Sports Mentoring Program that set Sophiyah on the path to sports diplomacy

· How when Sophiyah won the IOC and UN Women: Women and Sport World trophy in 2019, a special arrangement was made for her to enter the UN building to receive the award

· When Sophiyah was invited to attend the UN Global Sport Program working group which met in a conference room in the United Nations building but when it came time to attend the meeting, she was told she couldn’t enter the UN building because she has a passport from Taiwan

· Sophiyah’s thoughts on the controversy over questions about the gender eligibility of female boxer Lin Yu-ting at the Paris Olympics

· Sophiyah’s thoughts on gender eligibility testing in sports

· Chia-Hui Lu’s remarks at TECO-NY’s event called “Taiwan Main Stage: Celebrating Women’s Resilience & Progress on the margins of CSW 69

· The technology, AI training and experimentation involved in creating the real-time music recognition system that captures melodies from Chia-Hui’s piano playing and transforms it into a surreal visual story  

· The mission and past projects of the Egret Cultural and Education Foundation

· How the Egret Cultural and Education Foundation’s cross art productions combine theater, music, dance, technology, culture, and history

· How the Egret Cultural and Education Foundation was published books about Taiwan’s history, nature, music, and art

Related Links:

https://talkingtaiwan.com/taiwan-on-the-margins-of-csw-69-celebrating-womens-resilience-progress-at-taiwan-main-stage-ep-307/