English conversation with Freddy Lim

The Taiwan Foreign Correspondents club recently met Freddy Lim  (林昶佐). The heavy metal rock star / independent second-term legislator talked about a wide variety of subjects, but came back to Taiwanese identity again and again.

I made a video of the conversation. Enjoy! 

• 00:32 Chthonic, fans and politics. The key year 2014 and consequences from the Sunflower Movement 
• 12:28 The Ma Ying-jeou administration and its China fallacies 
• 17:04 Taiwans’s roadmap towards more international recognition. Preparing for when opportunity comes 
• 23:33 How can Taiwan further improve its international standing. Aboriginal culture and progressivism 
• 27:25 The Taiwanese language vs. Mandarin. Spelling of names in official documents. Why “Lim” and not “Lin” 
• 32:44 Should the ROC flag be changed. How Freddy takes down the flag and Sun Yat-sen pictures in parliament 
• 35:45 Political asylum and doing more for Hong Kong’s pro democracy protesters 
• 39:14  (My question) Freddy’s legislative priorities: LGBTQ marriage issues,  more transitional justice. Transparence and Open Parliament. Young  people’s frustration with politics (answer partly in Chinese) 
• 47:16 Economic develeopment: What became of Tsai Ing-wen’s 5+2 plan? (answer partly in Chinese)

I am not really an obsessive selfie taker, but I just went through my photo collection to check: Of the many people I met and interviewed over the years, who is there pictured in the same frame with me?

Here is a little selection I came up with. Whom do you recognize?



1) Chi Chia-wei  祁家威 , 小銘 & 小玄

2) Shieh Jhy-wey  謝志偉 

3) Linda Arrigo  艾琳達 

4) Tony Lo  羅祥安 

5) at Tsai Ing-wen's 2016 inauguration

6) Su Beng  史明 

7) 萬秀的洗衣店, 萬吉 & 秀娥 (the couple from wantshowasyoung on Instagram)

8) Egon Bahr (a legendary German politician)

9) Chen Chien-jen  陳建仁