Brian Hioe

The First Asian “Country,” “Place”, Or “Chinese Province” To Realize Marriage Equality?

Brian Hioe
International media outlets have sometimes referred to Taiwan as the first “country” in Asia to legalize gay marriage by court ruling. More commonly, Taiwan has been referred to as an “island,” “place”, or without any reference to what kind of polity Taiwan is altogether, but still stressing the historic nature of the event as a first in Asia. This is revealing of the hypocrisy of international media...
#18EnglishGender/SexualityMay 2017Social Movements5 min read

The Ball Is Back In The DPP’s Court Regarding Marriage Equality In Taiwan

Brian Hioe
After the ruling of the Council of Grand Justice’s yesterday, the legislature will need to amend Taiwan’s Civil Code to allow same-sex marriage within two years. But this opens the way for backsliding by a DPP legislature which has already proven recalcitrant on the issue. The DPP has already shown early signs of backsliding in its reactions and so means will need to be found of putting pressure on the DPP to live up to past promises...
#18EnglishGender/SexualityMay 2017Social Movements9 min read

關於林奕含自殺，許多討論都劃錯重點

Brian Hioe
令人遺憾的暢銷作家林奕含自殺事件，以及那些因此爆發的一連串醜聞，揭露了台灣社會根深蒂固的性別歧視與厭女心態。她由於九年前遭受補習班老師性侵所引起的憂鬱症而自殺，但大部分的討論都劃錯重點，某些台灣媒體仍一貫地以羶色腥報導手法來處理女性相關議題，或是只知鎖定性侵林奕含的「狼師」而不顧其他，錯失聚焦於更大更迫切的社會議題的可能。那麼，該如何把討論重新導回有益於今後處理這些更大課題的方向？...
#17Gender/SexualityMay 2017Social MovementsWilliam Tsai中文2 min read

Will The Tsai Administration’s War On Drugs Prove Invasive Of Personal Freedoms?

Brian Hioe
The Tsai administration has vowed to step up the war on drugs in recent times. But does the Tsai administration's war on drugs raise concerns for personal privacy in Taiwan, particularly for young people? Namely, social attitudes in Taiwan sometimes skew towards seeing young people as dangerous drug users, even when this is not backed up by statistics, and there is the possibility that the Tsai administration's war on drugs may disproportionately target young people. More broadly, as with elsewhere in the world, one suspects that the Tsai administration's war on drugs masks systemic inequalities in society...
EnglishMay 2017Politics7 min read

Wu Den-Yih Clinches KMT Chair

Brian Hioe
The election of Wu Den-Yih as KMT chair probably does not represent the party stepping back from the brink but a return to something closer to normalcy within the party. This will not, however, forestall the internal crisis within the party, nor does it mark that the KMT will be able to turn over a new leaf in the near future and win back the Taiwanese public...
EnglishMay 2017Politics11 min read

Review: Small Talk (日常對話)

Brian Hioe
Small Talk, directed by Huang Hui-Chen, is in many ways a remarkable film, but it is also an incredibly unsettling one. Small Talk is a highly personal film, as a documentary detailing Huang’s relation with her mother, Ah-Nu. In particular, Huang’s relation with her mother, who works as a Daoist priestess, is troubled because of Ah-Nu’s emotional distance, as well as that Ah-Nu, a lesbian, had two daughters from an abusive marriage...
Arts and CultureEnglishFilm and TelevisionMay 20176 min read
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Brian Hioe

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.

丘琦欣，創建破土的編輯之一，專於撰寫社會運動和政治的自由作家偶而亦從事翻譯工作。他自哥倫比亞大學畢業，是亞洲語言及文化科系的碩士，同時擁有紐約大學的歷史，東亞研究及英文文學三項學士學位。