For the eighteenth episode of Radio New Bloom, we present the recording from the discussion and Q-and-A that followed our event last month screening New Bloom member SueAnn Shiah's documentary HuanDao at our space in Wanhua, Taipei...
Shock has broken out in Taiwan after baker Wu Pao-chun made an online statement that he was born in “Taiwan, China” and that he was proud of being Chinese. Wu is currently seeking to expand his chain of bakeries to China, hence why his remarks may not surprise. However, Wu’s remarks were shocking because his achievements as a baker had previously made him an object of national pride...
Anger has followed suit after the winner of a contest to design a new Taiwanese identification card had only 46 votes, disregarding the most popular design, which had 97,498 votes. The winning design was perceived as pro-independence in nature, due to its titling...
A recent contest organized by the government to design a new Taiwanese ID card and eventual shuttering of the website after cyberattacks is illustrative. Namely, the incident illustrates some of the dynamics of Taiwanese identity contestation in recent years...
With Ko Wen-Je and William Lai increasingly taking flak from the public regarding statements that are perceived as too compromising of Taiwanese sovereignty to China, one generally suspects their attempt establish independent foreign relations with China is doomed if they aim to accomplish this through placating China. Both may be misreading current trends in Taiwanese identity and views of what Taiwan's international status should be...
The firing of Taiwanese actress Irene Chen from the cast of the upcoming Chinese film GF Vending Machine for pro-Sunflower movement political views would be nothing new, regarding identity struggles in the Sinophone entertainment industry...
On May 6th, New Bloom editor Brian Hioe interviewed Shawna Yang Ryan through Skype. Ryan is most recently the author of Green Island, which depicts Taiwan’s White Terror and authoritarian era...
The specter of Taiwanese politics is everywhere in the artwork of Dean I-Mei. While, certainly, the artist himself poses his recent exhibition in light of a search for personal identity in the title “Wanted Dean I-Mei,” his search for individual identity is one deeply bound up with Taiwan’s state of unbelonging in the world...