Talking Taiwan hosted a memorable evening of wonderful Taiwanese American cuisine, culture, and community at Talking Taiwan’s inaugural 2025 Fundraising Gala at the beautiful Eichholtz furniture showroom on West 18th Street on April 30th.
Emceed by three-time Asian literary award winner Ed Lin, this well-attended event featured live jazz music entertainment, catered Taiwanese American food and beverage, and a raffle of six outstanding prizes, while featuring the NYC premiere of the award-winning and longest running Taiwan-related podcast, Talking Taiwan, as a LIVE podcast!
A 2021 Golden Crane Award winning podcast, Talking Taiwan was also shortlisted in the category of Moment of Visionary Leadership by being chosen as one of 15 entries out of over 700 entries from 34 countries for the 2024 International Women’s Podcast Awards.
At the event, Talking Taiwan’s host and co-producer Felicia Lin conducted four live interviews with prominent Taiwanese American guests. This was an unusual divergence from its typical programming, which for more than 12 years has been predominantly online, where the two-person team conducted over 311 remote interviews with Taiwan diaspora and other interesting people from all over the world who share their interesting Taiwan-related stories.
Full disclosure: as the co-producer, editor, and sound engineer of Talking Taiwan, I am the other person of this two-person team.
A Musical Performance by Peter Lin’s AAPI Jazz Collective
Taiwanese American trombonist Peter Lin started the event by leading his quintet in a performance of classic Taiwanese jazz and folk songs, including Longing for the Spring Breeze, Moon Represents My Heart, Forgotten Time, and Tian Mi Mi. The band ended their first set with their own swinging version of Wife, and an authentic version of Rosemary, both sung by special guest, the great baritone Ting Yi-Chen.
Meanwhile, the popular Greenwich Village based Taiwanese restaurant 886 catered all the food for the event, while DAE Tea, a tea company for five generations from Taiwan operating since 1918, provided delicious and authentic freshly brewed Taiwan teas.
The Main Event: The Talking Taiwan LIVE podcast
Lin’s first guest was Taiwanese actor and comedian Esther Chen, who is known for her NYC standup act and appearances on Seinfeld. Notably, last year she posted several disturbing Instagram stories of crowd instances where censorship of Taiwan’s representation was demonstrated by derogatory signs inside the Paris stadium while she was a spectator at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
For decades, the International Olympic committee has not allowed Taiwan to call itself by its actual name, as it does not officially recognize Taiwan as a separate nation, forcing Taiwan to compete under the name “Chinese Taipei,” even though Taiwan has owned its sovereignty and conducted itself as a vibrant democracy since 1996. Lin and Chen spoke about those jarring visual signs and disturbing audio events that took place inside the stadium, but their conversation was mostly filled with light-hearted and amusing commentary.
Next up was Thomas Duh, the co-owner of DAE Tea, a business that has been in his family for five generations. The American brand DAE (standing for “tea”) is better known as Hwa Gung Tea in Taiwan. He discussed the long family history of the brand, and where it is heading in the future.
Lin’s third interview was with renowned Taiwanese American visual artist and painter Kaarina Chu Mackenzie. She is widely known for her vast works encompassing the immersive Night Market exhibit in Taipei. Chu Mackenzie displays her works in many galleries and exhibits throughout the U.S. and Taiwan.
Lin’s final guest was Taiwanese American Jonny Lee, the current president of TAP-NY, which is the Taiwanese American Professionals – NY Chapter. They bring together a large network of Taiwanese American young professionals throughout the U.S. and host many networking events about New York City.
A Second Set Surprise!
My favorite part of the evening was definitely the AAPI Jazz Collective’s second set, where yours truly performed five songs with the band, including the Sinatra Basie classic, Fly Me to the Moon, Crowd Lu’s Fishes, and two originals.
For me personally, the highlight of the set was my performance of the Taiwanese banger Island’s Sunrise by the Taiwanese rock band FireEx, a song that became the inspiring anthem for the 2014 Sunflower Movement in Taipei. The most enthralling part of all of this was singing this famous song in Taiwanese – as I do not speak the language! I had to learn this song phonetically, and apparently judging by the reaction of the mostly Taiwanese-speaking crowd, I was thrilled to see my performance was approved with high marks!
What a fun event this was! The night turned out to be such a raving success, we are seriously considering this to be an annual event. If you are curious about the Talking Taiwan podcast, visit talkingtaiwan.com
Read this article on Talking Taiwan’s 2025 Fundraising Gala where I originally wrote it in The Village View:
Kaju Roberto is an accomplished musician, singer/ songwriter, journalist, and an award-winning producer. He is the artist Rad Jet on Spotify