On Sunday, April 6, 2025, the Taiwan Studies Initiative and the National Taiwan University Huayu BEST Program co-hosted IU’s annual Taiwan Day! The Taiwan Day event series originated in 2018, and aims to bring elements of Taiwanese culture to IU and the larger Bloomington community. This year, the day’s theme was “Coming of Age: Stories of Taiwan,” and the event took place at the Monroe County Public Library, allowing a broader scope of community outreach past the boundaries of IU’s campus.
The event opened with a lunch catered by local Taiwanese restaurant Judy’s Kitchen, which included staples like cucumber salad, pork dumplings, Taiwanese popcorn chicken, stir-fried cabbage, with wintermelon tea and sweet sesame balls for dessert. Attendees were able to enjoy a Taiwanese meal while listening to music from Taiwan and hearing about the importance of the event from its organizers, Dr. Yea-Fen Chen, Dr. Fei-Hsien Wang, and Kai-Wei Victoria Cheng. Dr. Chen and Dr. Wang serve as leaders of the Taiwan Studies Initiative, while Victoria Cheng spearheads the NTU Huayu BEST program at IU.
After everyone had eaten their fill, the group moved to the public library’s auditorium, where the day’s main attractions would be held. First, attendees were able to watch a performance from a Taiwanese dance group performing a style of dance called Taike 台客. The Taike style blends elements of a dance similar to hip-hop with traditional Taiwanese folk styles, and despite historical marginalization, is becoming more and more popular with younger generations as they begin to embrace their Taiwanese identity. The group performing this dance consisted of IU Taiwanese faculty and staff and was led by Zijun Shen, a lecturer in the department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.
When the dance performance had concluded – and after a group photo – the event continued its “coming of age” theme with a screening of the Taiwanese animated film On Happiness Road (幸福路上). The film, released in 2017 to much acclaim, including winning the grand prize at the 2018 Taipei Film Festival, follows the story of a woman rediscovering her identity on a trip home to Taiwan.
Li Shun-Chi, the film’s protagonist, grew up in Taipei during the tail end of Taiwan’s era of martial law. The film portrays her both then, as a young girl living through various Taiwanese historical events, and now, returning from America to attend the funeral of her beloved grandmother. Through a series of flashbacks, the viewer can see Chi struggle with her parents’ expectations, society’s rapid changes, and the hardships that many children face – bad grades, a friend moving away, and schoolyard teasing. The film seamlessly weaves a coming of age story that everyone can relate to with elements that are quintessentially Taiwanese. The animation style further paints a vivid, beautiful picture of Taiwan, and lends itself well to Chi’s active imagination, both as a child and an adult.
On Happiness Road was well-received by its Taiwan Day audience, and the showing of the film was followed by a panel discussion including Fei-Hsien Wang, Yea-Fen Chen, and one of Dr. Chen’s students. The discussion was able to expand further on some elements of the film that members of the audience who were still learning about Taiwan may have missed – including moments in which the characters switched between speaking Mandarin and Taiwanese, some of the alluded-to but never explicitly defined historical events, and the nuances of the film’s art style.
The event wrapped up as the afternoon came to a close, and many of its participants left feeling either connected to their own Taiwanese heritage or immersed in new elements of the culture of Taiwan.
The East Asian Studies Center would like to thank the organizers that made this event a success, the Monroe County Public Library for lending us their space, and all of the members of the Bloomington community that came to connect with Taiwan Day.
Post written by Taiwan Studies Initiative program assistant Morgan Short
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