2025/01/01 New Bloom Newsletter
IMPORTANT NEWSLETTER UPDATE, 2024 in review, January 2025 events
Happy New Year everyone! Yo-Ling here. Thank you all so much for supporting the New Bloom Newsletter during this inaugural year. This Newsletter edition will be a bit different, as I need to first share an newsletter important update.
The New Bloom team has experienced some membership turnover the past month, and we are currently in the process of figuring out team capacity and Newsletter management going into 2025. As such, I have paused all paid subscription billing; this means that paid subscribers will still enjoy the perks of their paid subscription, but that their subscription will NOT be billed under subscription billing is turned back on. For free subscribers, that means that you will be unable to upgrade to paid subscriptions we turn them back on. Going into 2025, we will also be switching to monthly Newsletter posts as opposed to the twice-a-month pace we have been doing. We will update you all with more information as to future Newsletter content and frequency once we have it!
With that update out of the way, let’s turn to a brief 2024 end-of-year news recap:
New Bloom News
As 2024 comes to an end, we look back on a year that saw the election victory of Lai Ching-te, leading to an unprecedented third term for the DPP. Yet despite Lai’s win, the KMT took a narrow majority in the legislature, using its position to push for sweeping legislative powers that provoked civic outcry. We also saw the arrest and downfall of Ko Wen-je, who was released earlier last week on bail.
With KMT-led disruptions to democratic governance in the legislature, this year also saw the emergence of the Bluebird Movement, the largest set of protests in Taiwan since the Sunflower Movement. The Bluebird Movement has proved an echo of the past, even as it has drawn a new generation of activists into protest.
Even as Chinese military drills have continued in the past year around the time of Lai’s inauguration, in response to trips abroad by Lai, or around the time of National Day, this has taken place in a backdrop in which the KMT has continued to seek powers. At present, the KMT seeks to freeze Constitutional Court and siphon budgets from the central government into local governments under its controls. One expects continued protest into the new year, then, with many of the fundamental structural issues of Taiwanese politics continuing to be at stake.
DAYBREAK Events
(Please see our Facebook page for all upcoming and past events)
I wanted to take this chance to highlight that we have (with speaker/panelist permission) been able to post a series of event records from 2024 onto our YouTube page and Facebook livestream. They are below:
We have all of Evon Chiu’s “The Intergenerational Trauma of Taiwanese Americans” talk series uploaded (inaugural talk / series introduction, Taiwanese American children and emotional detachment, the historical and social context of Taiwanese parents' mental health stigma, Taiwanese American fathers and sons, narratives of re-rooting among Taiwanese Americans, part 6)
Scott Simon’s talk on “Indigenous Resurgence and the Unfulfilled Promises of Taiwan’s Basic Law on Indigenous Peoples.”
New Bloom member Brian Hioe’s talk, “Sunflower Movement 2.0?,” on the Bluebird Movement just as it was taking flight.
New Bloom member and Trif Trans Bar’s Trif Chiu’s talk on “Streamlining Gender Marker Changes in Taiwan” about the series of administrative court rulings from 2024 affecting transgender rights.
Our distinguished panel on “What the Trump Re-election Means for Taiwan” post-election.
“A Conversation About Insight Myanmar” — Our event with Joah McGee on giving Burmese voices an outlet to the world.
We hope to post more recordings (pending security concerns and speaker permission) in 2025, so please be sure to follow our socials for more updates!
Coming up
Trif Trans Bar is still doing their weekly transgender bar pop-up every Friday evening.
Coffee Hours are still being held from 2PM to 6PM every Saturday for folks to come and hangout or co-work.
2024/01/18 | 隨意畫聚 Pen Club (part 2!) - Join us during our Saturday afternoon Coffee Hours (2PM to 6PM) to hangout and sketch over drinks! Artists, designers, creatives, and anyone with a pen welcomed~
2025/01/09 | Stories of Taiwan: Short Story Club Vol. 12 — We will be reading chapter one of 楊双子’s award-winning novel,《臺灣漫遊錄》(2020), the English translation of which by Lin King 金翎 recently won the 2024 National Book Award in Translated Literature. Chapter pdf here.
2025/01/10 | Ukrainian poet event — Please check our socials for more details soon! This poetry event will be held simultaneously with Trif Trans Bar’s Friday night trans bar pop-up starting at 7PM~
2025/01/11 | 【T&N Party 跨性別／非二元派對：ft. Trif Trans Bar 】- Our quarterly Trans & Nonbinary Party is back for its first edition of the new year!
2025/01/12 | 從誤解到理解：跨性別女同志與順性別女同志的真心話大冒險 - Trif Trans Bar is co-hosting this dialogue event with the Intersex, Transgender and Transsexual People Care Association and 淑女俱樂部 on trans and cis lesbianism. Event will be fully in Mandarin.
2025/01/18 | DIY Electronic Sound Experiments Workshop - Starting at 1PM, Ruben Rübe will be hosting a beginner level ‘make your own synth’ workshop! Sign-up and pricing here.
Okay, that’s all for now. I hope that 2025 is off to a good start for everyone! We plan to have Newsletter planning figured out by the end of February, so please stay tuned~