In Taiwan We Speak

Olek says bye-bye and thanks all the guests and listeners who gave this podcast so much meaning.

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A taciturn woman named Free Church disrupts a warm Scottish celebration, while a Taiwanese goddess unsettles an entire village with her sudden disappearance.

These stories reveal both the distance between Scotland and Taiwan and the shared struggles of preserving (and letting go of) estranged cultural norms, languages, and identities once deeply felt as one’s own.

In the second part of our conversation, Will Buckingham takes us from Dundee to Tainan, a migration that inspired ‘Tâigael'.

📚 Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic (eds. Will Buckingham & Hannah Stevens | Wind&Bones)

📚 Find the book and enjoy free audio stories at taigael(dot)com

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Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!

Tâigael is a groundbreaking book linking two distant worlds — Taiwan and Scotland. It features four original stories written in native tongues, translated across four languages and five scripts, brought together by two British publishers based in Tainan.

The book’s co-editor, Will Buckingham, joins us to share how the idea came to life, why its Tâigí stories use two different writing systems, and how only a Taiwanese-sourced font could make the book’s design possible.

📚 Find the book and enjoy free audio stories at taigael.com

📚 Tâigael: Stories from Taiwanese & Gaelic (eds. Will Buckingham & Hannah Stevens | Wind&Bones)

Find #InTaiwanWeSpeak on: 🎧 Your podcasts 🎙️ YouTube 📸 Social channels

Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!

Do young people really want to talk about decolonisation — or are they too tired to care? Lahok Ciwko reflects on uncomfortable truths about the microaggressions, racism, and everyday prejudice Indigenous people still face in Taiwan.

He shares what it means to “check your privilege”, why laughing off racist jokes isn’t always healing, and why recognising Indigenous land isn’t about guilt — it’s about respect and responsibility.

Find #InTaiwanWeSpeak on: 🎧 Your podcasts 🎙️ YouTube 📸 Social channels

Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!

As the largest Indigenous group in Taiwan, how confident are the Amis about their language revival? Why do some parents still doubt the value of teaching Amis/Pangcah in immersive kindergartens? And what made our guest feel freer in Aotearoa/New Zealand than at home in Taiwan?

Listen to our latest episode with Lahok Ciwko — on identity, prejudice, and what it means to be Pangcah today.

Find #InTaiwanWeSpeak on: 🎧 Your podcasts 🎙️ YouTube 📸 Social channels

Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!

What does it mean to be Indigenous in Taipei? Lahok Ciwko, an Amis (Pangcah) youth raised in the capital, shares his story of growing up disconnected from his roots and culture, facing prejudice and microaggressions from all sides, and reclaiming his identity through learning and advocacy. Now at NTU’s Indigenous Students Resource Centre, he helps others do the same.

Find #InTaiwanWeSpeak on: 🎧 Your podcasts 🎙️ YouTube 📸 Social channels

Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!

What happens when AI meets Taiwan’s Indigenous languages? First, it might break its teeth trying to decipher Paiwan’s highly inflected, polysynthetic grammar.

In this episode, linguistics researcher Yedda Ljeljeng lja Palemek explores how AI could help advance research on Indigenous languages. At the same time, she raises concerns about Indigenous data sovereignty — a concept yet to enter Taiwan’s legal system — and the potential for AI to reproduce harmful colonial biases.

Find #InTaiwanWeSpeak on: 🎧 Your podcasts 🎙️ YouTube 📸 Social channels

Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!

You can’t learn a language in a vacuum — and the Paiwan language proves it. Words like ‘pai’, ‘manu’ and ‘avan’ carry layers of meaning that are inseparable from cultural and social context and resist simple translation.

In this episode, Yedda Ljeljeng lja Palemek, a researcher of Paiwan linguistics, guides us through the rich complexity of her Indigenous language. Yedda shows how Paiwan — along with other Austronesian languages — challenges common assumptions about language and reveals new possibilities for linguistic theory.

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Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!

Born with only a Chinese name — despite Paiwan tradition — Yedda Ljeljeng lja Palemek found a turning point when her teacher called her Yedda. She embraced it, and after Taiwan recognised the right of Indigenous people to remove Chinese names from their IDs, she reclaimed it as her sole legal name.

That name followed her on a powerful journey — from reconnecting with her family’s heritage to learning, researching, and revitalising the Paiwan language, and leading national projects as CEO of the Indigenous Peoples Cultural Foundation.

Find #InTaiwanWeSpeak on: 🎧 Your podcasts 🎙️ YouTube 📸 Social channels

Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!

Through her grandmother’s extraordinary life — from Atayal to Japanese, and the so-called “mountain compatriot” — Eri Liao traces the complex history of her family and her people. Her grandmother’s words, “You must dance, you must sing,” became Eri’s life compass and led her to leave the prestigious Columbia University for a life of music.

Listen to the final part of our interview with Atayal-Japanese singer Eri Liao on your podcast platforms or YouTube.

Find #InTaiwanWeSpeak on: 🎧 Your podcasts 🎙️ YouTube 📸 Social channels

Come back for new episodes every Tuesday at 21:00 (Taipei, GMT+8). Share your feedback and help mainstream the conversation!