Hearts in Taiwan

“Budget Conscious | Authentic Relationships | Integrity”—these values distinguish Conductive Ventures from other venture capital firms that hold the keys to which startups get funding in Silicon Valley. Our guest Carey Lai shares how his story and shared values with co-founder Paul Yeh have shaped their unique formula for investment that have led to a portfolio of companies that is two-thirds led by minorities and first-generation immigrants.

Featuring:
Conductive Ventures (conductive.vc)
Sand Hill Road as the epicenter of venture capital (Wikipedia)
The story behind Bay Area dim sum legend Koi Palace (Eater)
Related episode: Hearts in Japan (Hearts in Taiwan S1E14)

About our guest:
Carey Lai is a Founding Member and Managing Director at Conductive Ventures which focuses on investments in the areas of software, hardware and technology enabled services.
Prior to Conductive Ventures, Carey spent over four years investing at Intel Capital. He also worked at Institutional Venture Partners and the Technology Investment Banking Group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

Carey has an M.B.A. from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and he graduated with a B.A. in International Economics from the University of California Los Angeles.

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Whether you call your grandmother “amah”, “popo”, “waipo”, “nainai”, “mama”, “grandma”, or something else, she plays a key role in your connection to your heritage. Amah Faraway tells the story of how young Kylie transforms from feeling unsure and reluctant to embracing her grandmother and her heritage country. We got to talk with author Margaret Chiu Greanias and illustrator Tracy Subisak and found many common threads that the Taiwanese diaspora will see reflected throughout this delightful picture book.

Where to buy Amah Faraway:

• Signed by Margaret (Linden Tree Books)
• Signed by Tracy (Green Bean Books)
• Your preferred booksellers

Margaret Chiu Greanias

• Twitter
• Instagram
• Website

Tracy Subisak

• Instagram
• Website

Additional resources:

• Chinese family tree (Off the Great Wall video, Mina Learns Chinese Instagram graphics for grandparents, aunts/uncles)
• Taiwanese family tree (Taiwanese)
• "Lost Generation", a palindromic poem by Jonathan Reed (video, text)
• Taiwanese Association of Greater Portland (TAGP)

Connect:
instagram.com/heartsintaiwan
facebook.com/heartsintaiwan
heartsintaiwan.com

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

heartsintaiwan.com

Hosts Annie Wang and Angela Yu kick off Season 2 with an interview of Abigail Hing Wen, author of New York Times bestseller Loveboat, Taipei which is currently being filmed in Taiwan starring Ashley Jiao, Ross Butler, Nico Hiraga, and Chelsea Zhang. The Young Adult novel’s sequel Loveboat Reunion hits bookshelves January 25.

We learned how Abigail's family background has shaped her worldview, got a realtime account of what it's like to run around Taiwan with movie stars, and talked frankly about how bamboo and glass ceilings are very real for Asian women in tech. From references to The Baby-Sitters Club and Bridgerton to Angela quoting Abigail's books back to her three times, this conversation is unique to say the least.

Featuring:
Follow @abigailhingwen on Instagram
Subscribe to Abigail's newsletter on abigailhingwen.com
Where to buy:

• Loveboat, Taipei
• Loveboat Reunion
• Serendipity featuring "The Idiom Algorithm", a short story by Abigail Hing Wen

If you're interested in a similar immersive cultural camp for the current generation of Taiwanese American youth who have completed grades 4 through 12, look into Leading Youth Forward (LYF) Camp organized by the Taiwanese American Citizens League and held in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Connect:
instagram.com/heartsintaiwan
facebook.com/heartsintaiwan
heartsintaiwan.com

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

heartsintaiwan.com

Hearts in Taiwan podcast is back with a second season! Hosts Annie Wang and Angela Yu share what you can look forward to this year.

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

heartsintaiwan.com

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

heartsintaiwan.com

Was it crazy for two women in their 40s with kids, full-time jobs, and no media experience to start a podcast during the pandemic? From our first emails in January, we never would have guessed that by September we’d be wrapping our first season with 18 episodes and hundreds of listeners. In this episode, we look at the progress we’ve made on our journey so far, what we’ve learned about ourselves and each other, and the surprises we’ve encountered along the way. We reveal popular episodes and our favorites, then share what’s in store ahead.

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instagram.com/heartsintaiwan
facebook.com/heartsintaiwan
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Connect:

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facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

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As English-speaking parents living outside our heritage country, we discuss how we go about passing our culture on to our kids. From seeking out Mandarin Immersion schools and caregivers, cultivating our kids' palates to appreciate Taiwanese food, and planning to visit Taiwan regularly for family vacations (when we can again!), we share what’s worked and what hasn’t across our kids ranging from age 4 to 12. Angela also shares the many new resources that have cropped up from entrepreneurs in the past 5 years to help parents like us.

Links:

NTNU Mandarin summer camp

Mina Learns Chinese Instagram Reels featuring shows and movies on Netflix and Disney+ with Mandarin audio tracks

Go! Go! Cory Carson on Netflix by Alex Woo and Stanley Moore of Kuku Studios

Alok Menon on Instagram normalizing body hair and trans beauty

La La Learn app for iPhone and iPad by Alice Han featuring children’s songs in Mandarin

Hearts in Taiwan raising bilingual kids resources page lists all the books we mentioned and more (https://heartsintaiwan.com/raising-bilingual-kids)

Connect (check for our giveaway here!):
instagram.com/heartsintaiwan
facebook.com/heartsintaiwan
heartsintaiwan.com/voicemail

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

heartsintaiwan.com

When we recorded our episode on politics in Taiwan, we practiced a mock debate to help us understand the viewpoints of the green and blue ends of the Taiwanese political spectrum. The issue in question: Should Taiwan formally declare independence from China in the next 12 months? Each of us was randomly assigned to represent one side in this bonus companion to the “50 shades of green (and blue)” episode.

Credit:
Cover photo of the infamous “pig guts brawl” in Taiwan’s legislative yuan by Gwydion M. Williams on Flickr with additional edits by Hearts in Taiwan.

Connect:
instagram.com/heartsintaiwan
facebook.com/heartsintaiwan
heartsintaiwan.com/voicemail

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

heartsintaiwan.com

Annie and Angela tackle a taboo topic: politics in Taiwan! From dark green to light green and light blue to dark blue, we attempt to understand why each party believes what they do, and relate our observations to American pop culture. Plus, Angela asks for your recommendations for earth-friendly products that aren’t made in China.

Further reading:

• Brawls in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan (YouTube: pig guts in 2020, commonplace in 2017)
• Wild Lily student movement (OFTaiwan)
• 1992 Consensus (Wikipedia)
• China interfering with Taiwan’s vaccine procurement (article)
• #FreeBritney Spears from conservatorship (freebritney.net)
• Sex and the City struggles of moving in together (clip)
• Green parties’ anti-nuclear platform (article)
• Insecure’s Thug Yoda character replacing “c” with “b” (clip, HBO homepage, Compton rapper YG explains on YouTube)
• Taiwan passport 2021 redesign (BBC)
• False comparison between US policy toward Afghanistan and Taiwan (New Bloom Magazine, Taiwan Insight)
• Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 (official text)
• Japan’s security tied to Taiwan (article)
• What Taiwanese Americans can learn from Taiwanese Politics (TaiwaneseAmerican.org)

#notsponsored:
Piico floss picks made in Taiwan (website, Instagram)
Indigenous American-owned businesses (IG Guide, Website)
Buy Nothing project for neighborhood sharing (buynothingproject.org)

Credit:
Cover photo by tomscy2000 on Flickr depicting a young protester during the Sunflower Movement

Connect:
instagram.com/heartsintaiwan
facebook.com/heartsintaiwan
heartsintaiwan.com/voicemail

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

heartsintaiwan.com

Japan has some of the more notable cultural influences on Taiwan due to its 50 year occupation of Taiwan from 1895 to 1945. We explore some of the marks that Japan has left and its unique approach to colonization of Taiwan. Annie's mom returns for a guest appearance. 

Sources
The Empire of Japan (Wikipedia)
Kano - 2014 movie about the baseball team
Ear cleaning with mimikaki (JapanTravel)
Ear cleaning in Chengdu, China (BBC)
Ellie Yang Camp’s post on ear wax types (Instagram)
Symbolism of plum blossom 梅花 in Taiwan (Wikipedia)
The Twenty-One Demands from Japan to China in 1915 (Wikipedia)
Nanjing Massacre (Wikipedia)

Further reading
https://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-taiwan-japan-20171106-story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/magazine/taiwan-china.html
Taiwan as part of the Japanese empire (Encyclopedia Britannica)
Longing for the Spring Breeze song history (Wikipedia)

#NotSponsored
EVA Air Hello Kitty flights
EVA Air Hello Kitty flights to nowhere in August 2020 (CNN)
EVA Air flight map draws thumbs-up sign (Scooper)

Credits
“望春風Longing for the Spring Breeze” was one of the first Taiwanese pop songs during the period of Japanese colonization.
Longing for the Spring Breeze cover by 薛詒丹 Dan Hsueh and 翁光煒 Wico Weng
Original recording of Longing for the Spring Breeze

Connect
instagram.com/heartsintaiwan
facebook.com/heartsintaiwan
heartsintaiwan.com

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

heartsintaiwan.com

Just how big is the worldwide Taiwanese community anyway? We look at the numbers past and present that make up Taiwan and its diaspora, and discuss why it’s hard to track and measure the Taiwanese diaspora. The numbers surprise us and also leave us with some mysteries.

Sources:

UN world population prospects for Taiwan

CIA World Factbook page on Taiwan

Wikipedia page on Austronesian peoples

Wikipedia page on Christianity in China

Taipei vs New Taipei City Quora answer

Wikipedia page on Overseas Taiwanese

Taiwan’s OCAC report of 1M Taiwanese emigrants to the US (as of 2010)

TACL summary of Census 2020 “Write in Taiwanese” campaign

Credits:

"Level Up" by Vienna Teng (Spotify)

Cover photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

heartsintaiwan.com/voicemail

Connect:

instagram.com/heartsintaiwan

facebook.com/heartsintaiwan

buymeacoffee.com/heartsintaiwan ← Buy us a boba!

heartsintaiwan.com