New Bloom editor Brian Hioe had a conversation on October 12th with Kevin Ko-wen Chen and Andrea “Chuey” Chu, who, along with Albertine Wang, are the editors of Chrysanthemum: Voices of the Taiwanese Diaspora, an upcoming anthology of print collection of visual and written work by North American members of the Taiwanese diaspora...
Have there been any clear takeaways from Taiwan so far from the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party? So far, it does not look as though any significant change in policy has occurred...
The example of the rise of Yuriko Koike’s “Party of Hope” in Japan, offers an example in a mirror darkly for Taiwan, perhaps. Namely, what Japan offers as a counter-example for Taiwan is the failure of democratic politics in allowing for the rise of two starkly conservative parties which do not substantially differ in their politics. Nevertheless, there may be some lessons to be learned for Taiwan...
One of the ironies of William Lai taking power as premier in September would be that, as one of the most popular politicians in Taiwan, it will be a question going forward if luster attached to Lai’s name will last. Although Lai likely remains one of Taiwan’s most popular politicians, this would be the realities of taking power on the national stage...
The focus on military personnel in the Tsai administration’s pension reforms, with military personnel paid a higher pension than public servants and teachers in a manner modeled after the US army pension system, likely points to some of the challenges that the Tsai administration faces with regards to that pension reform...
Several hundred attended a memorial event on Ketagalan Boulevard to commemorate the one year anniversary of the death of NTU professor Jacques Picoux yesterday...
With the recent independence referendum in Catalonia, a flurry of comparisons have been drawn between what lessons that referendum in Catalonia could draw for Taiwan. At the same time, however, there has been the opposite tendency, to insist that referendum in Catalonia does not offer lessons from Taiwan because of the differences in circumstances between the two areas...
“Fantasy”, directed by Yen Lan-Chuan and Chuang Yi-Tseng, provides a look at the last days of the Ciaotou Sugar Refinery in Kaohsiung, which was converted into an artists’ village by a group of artists who hoped to preserve the structure...
"Motherland" directed by Ramona S. Diaz, would be an examination of the lives of pregnant women at Dr. Jose Fabella Memorial Hospital, the so-called “baby factory” of the Philippines. In this sense, the film is a look at the overpopulation crisis of the Philippines at the very human level of the conditions faced by the pregnant women living in conditions of poverty who give birth at the Fabella Memorial Hospital...
While Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-Che remains imprisoned in China under murky charges of “subverting state power” and attempting to encourage “multiparty rule” in China, it may be worth considering the question of what exactly China hopes to gain out of Lee’s imprisonment, if at all. Obviously, in all likelihood, China wishes to intimidate Taiwan, but in precisely what way does it wish to intimidate Taiwan?...
Brian Hioe is one of the founding editors of New Bloom. He is a freelance journalist, as well as a translator. A New York native and Taiwanese-American, he has an MA in East Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University and graduated from New York University with majors in History, East Asian Studies, and English Literature. He was Democracy and Human Rights Service Fellow at the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy from 2017 to 2018 and is currently a Non-Resident Fellow at the University of Nottingham's Taiwan Studies Programme.
