The first wave of migration from Myanmar to Taiwan consisted of KMT officers and their families in the 1950’s, followed by waves in later decades due to anti-Chinese riots and the 8.8.88 Crackdown. In the following decades, education and economic opportunities (linked, but not exclusively related to the tech sector) were another strong factor attracting Burmese Chinese migration to Taiwan. Zhonghe District in what is now New Taipei City became a centre of the community and constitutes one of, if not, the biggest ethnic enclave of Burmese Chinese in the world (Lu 2008)

The community became ever more visible through cultural festivals attended by the Mayor of New Taipei city and in 2018 a magazine and podcast were launched to present Burmese Culture to a mainstream Taiwanese audience. This podcast “Mingalapar Miandian jie” (Hello, Burma Street) originally dealt more with cultural topics and invited guests from other immigrant groups to discuss issues of cultural adaptation but after the military coup of 2021 the content turned more toward political discussions of how the community in Taiwan could support the anti-Junta forces in Myanmar.

The Thesis will analyse a selection of podcast episodes (in Mandarin and English), especially those on the anniversaries of the coup, how the magazine and podcast attempt to mobilise the community and as a next step even started to lobby the Taiwanese government to change its foreign policy toward Myanmar.

In 2024, President Lai Ching-te was inaugurated, marking the ninth year of Democratic Progressive Party governance, while the Legislative Yuan was led by opposition parties. In May, the Kuomintang and Taiwan People's Party proposed several "parliamentary reform" bills, sparking public anger and protests outside the Legislative Yuan on Qingdao East Road. Due to social media restrictions on the term "Qingdao青島", activists adopted the name "Bluebird Movement," using "Bluebird," which sounds like “Qingniao青鳥,” as a play on words. Unlike the 2014 Sunflower Movement, the Bluebird Movement focused on regular gatherings and utilized visual symbols and social media for outreach. The proposed bills raised concerns about increased legislative power and potential civil liberties infringements, with unclear language causing significant worry. The movement garnered immense public support, with reports of up to 100,000 participants at its peak and backing from the international community. In October, Taiwan's Constitutional Court deemed parts of these laws unconstitutional, offering a temporary resolution. The Bluebird Movement inspired numerous artistic and cultural works, including AI-generated songs and various poems shared online and in print. These poems primarily appeared in journals emphasizing local consciousness and opposing China, with limited exposure in mainstream media. This study examines how poetic works emerged during the Bluebird Movement and explores the connections between writing, social movements, and legal issues across different social media platforms.

A prolific Z-generation American writer and a second-generation Taiwanese American writer, Tao Lin has dealt with materials such as drugs and cyborgian objects and their impact on the author and these characters since 2006. Based on the criteria of the level of Taiwanese American consciousness revealed, I have divided Tao Lin’s writing into the Germination Phase (2006-2010) and the Emergence Phase (2011-present). The prototype of Failed Taiwanese Americans in Lin’s work, such as Eeeee Eee Eeee (2007), Bed (2007), Shoplifting from American Apparel (2009), Richard Yates (2010), Taipei (2013), Trip: Psychedelics, Alienation, and Change (2018), and Leave Society (2021), carries out peculiar biopolitics and achieves an ethnic distinction in Pierre Bourdieu’s term.

This essay proposes to use a newly coined term, Addictionocene, to refer to the extended phenomenon of addiction that permeates Tao Lin’s writing and the age of addiction, which mainly consists of addiction to drugs, cyborgs, and hypochondriasis (especially in Trip and Leave Society). The concepts of new materialism and interobjectivity by Bruno Latour will be utilized to analyze Lin’s work, in which matters act as actants that carry out affect, and their ontology is thus extended. In addition, regarding Bernard Siegler’s concept of Neganthropocene, Tao Lin’s writing on addiction shows the increase of entropy, and, occasionally, the countering strategical negentropy, in which a posthuman character portrayed by Lin is situated in the age of Anthropocene. Thus, the Pharmakon, which carries both curing and poisoning effects of drugs and technology, will be explored in the discussion of Lin’s writing.

Taiwanese children’s literature represents history and the movement experience via the themes of memory and space. For it involves the relation between humans and the natural environment, it is significant for a sustainable development of the future. Looking back at those children’s series of books Taiwan has published with the help of the UNICEF since 1965 and a variety of children’s literature with multiple features published by the Taiwanese government, we know that these publications facilitate the function of multi-faceted cultural education. Responding to the demand of the Indo-Pacific, the manuscript analyzes the themes of children’s literature published by the Taiwanese government, utilizing DocuGIS space information technology to draw maps. For example, “Welcome to My Hometown” narrates the story in the first-person point of view of a small friend, who shares multi-nation culture and customs. “Thailand News” is associated with customs, holidays, religions, education, and mythologies. “Sparkling Blessings” narrates the boy’s memory of how he went to India to attend the Ishara International Puppet Theatre Festival and temporarily replaced the head of a Taiwanese puppet show team to engage in a performance. At the same time, he watched the Indian large-scale puppet show, the Vietnamese water puppet show, and the Thailand wooden rod puppet show. “Borneo Rain Forest Adventure” represents the natural scenery of Borneo, showing the environmental crisis caused by cutting the rainforests. This manuscript explores how the texts understand the relations between selves and the world, and advances the suggestions for the Taiwanese government’s publication of children’s literature.

The success of Lin Yi-Han’s first and only novel, Fang Si-Chi's First Love Paradise (2017), is inextricably linked to the tragic event of the author’s suicide, which occurred shortly after the book's release. The novel's thirteen-year-old protagonist suffers sexual violence at the hands of a 37-year-old professor, ultimately leading to her mental illness. Following its publication, much of the discourse revolved around the sensitive topic of sexual assault, questioning the autobiographical nature of the narrative.

The theme of violence against women—both physical and psychological—is not new to Taiwanese society and literature. Notable precedents can be found in works such as The Butcher's Wife (1983) by Li Ang and the short story "In Remembrance of My Buddies from the Military Compound" (1992) by Zhu Tianxin.

Over time, the reception of these narratives has shifted. Today’s readers are more likely to empathize with Fang Si-Chi than readers in the late 1980s and early 1990s were with the butcher’s wife or the girls abused in the military compounds. However, empathizing with Fang Si-Chi means acknowledging that we still reside within a cannibalistic patriarchy, where women’s voices are often dismissed as mere delirium.

This analysis, inspired by Silvia Lippi’s call for a re-evaluation of sisterhood and feminist psychoanalysis, seeks to elevate Lin Yi-Han’s novel beyond mere sensationalism, situating and re-examining her work within its broader context. While Lin Yi-Han’s novel portrays a violently patriarchal reality, it also provides a vital space for sociocultural reflection.