New Bloom Magazine | Radical Perspectives on Taiwan and the Asia Pacific

Social Movements

Wave of Racism Sweeps Taiwanese Social Media Over Plans to Allow for Indian Migrant Workers

Brian Hioe11/26/2023

Taiwanese social media has seen a wave of posts reacting to the possibility of opening up Taiwan to Indian workers. In particular, the posts are xenophobic in nature, framing Indians as rapists who would sexually assault Taiwanese women if they are allowed into Taiwan. This has led to online calls for a march against the planned opening up...

EnglishLaborNovember 2023RaceSocial Movements5 min read

Bahuan Community Demonstrates at NTU to Call for Return of Ancestors’ Remains

Brian Hioe11/20/2023

Members of the Bahuan community, who are Bunun Indigenous, demonstrated outside of National Taiwan University earlier this week. The demonstration led to some clashes with police, with a large number of police deployed for a relatively small number of protestors...

EnglishIndigenousNovember 2023RaceSocial Movements5 min read

Unions Demand Reform of Pension System

Brian Hioe11/19/2023

Union groups demonstrated in front of the Executive Yuan earlier this week over pensions, calling for an increase in the minimum contribution to pensions from employers. The groups included the Taiwan Confederation of Trade Unions, the Taiwan Federation of Financial Unions, the Taipei City Confederation of Trade Unions, the Kaohsiung City Confederation of Trade Unions, the Taipower Union, the Taiwan High-Speed Rail Union, and the Taiwan Water Industry Union. This represents among Taiwan’s largest trade confederations, as well as a number of workers from state-owned enterprises...

EnglishLaborNovember 2023Social Movements4 min read

Zookeepers Call For, Win Higher Salaries and Hazard Pay

Brian Hioe11/17/2023

Zookeepers have called for higher pay, with zookeepers at the Taipei Zoo criticizing stagnant wages for the last thirty years. Currently, zookeepers are usually paid between 31,000 NT and 38,000 NT...

EnglishLaborNovember 2023Social Movements5 min read

Arts/Culture

Calling For a Return to Sinocentrism in the Name of Opposing It: Responding to ‘Reconsidering Sinophone Studies’

Brian Hioe07/18/2021

The International Journal of Taiwan Studies, one of the flagship journals of the discipline, published an unusual piece several months ago by Flair Donglai Shi. Though framed as an attack on Shih Shu-mei’s concept of the Sinophone, the crux of the piece’s argument is effectively that Taiwan studies is insufficiently Sinocentric...

Arts and CultureEnglishJuly 2021Literature and Poetry8 min read

Re/writing COVID-19 in China: Solidarity as Metonym for Historical Truth?

05/20/2021

How Taipei Became the Home of Live Comedy During the Pandemic

04/26/2021

Review: Classmate Minus (同學麥娜絲)

12/06/2020

Interviews

A Conversation with Diane Wilson Near Day 30 of a Water-Only Hunger Strike Against Formosa Plastics

Brian Hioe11/29/2023

New Bloom editor Brian Hioe interviewed American activist Diane Wilson, who is nearing day thirty of a water-only hunger strike against the actions of Taiwanese company, the Formosa Plastics Group (FPG). Pollution from a FPG subsidiary-owned steel mill in Vietnam led to fish die-offs in 2016 in what some have termed Vietnam's largest ecological disaster in history, affecting fishing villages along more than 200 kilometers of coast. Wilson is on hunger strike to call attention to Formosa's refusal to answer for the fish die-offs...

EnglishFeaturedInterviewsNovember 20237 min read

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