…quite fashionable clothes, right?
So it’s all Taiwanese‑branded?
Can you say that slowly again? Shi‑shung…
Xīshān Xínglǚ Tú.
Right.
I’ve just seen you wearing it a lot of times. You seem to really like it.
Were you into fashion before being…
Of course. Maybe let’s talk quickly about fashion. That’s not our topic here, but apparently, that’s something you’re interested in personally.
I heard there are quite a few Taiwanese fashion designers, but then they are mostly shunned by the richer Taiwanese people apparently, who want to buy more Gucci and stuff. Is that true?
Circular design means like recycling and doing new clothes out of old ones.
That fits very well with your SDG goals.
Is there an aesthetic interest in fashion as well, or?
When one looks at your Twitter and Facebook profiles, and also these videos you’re doing quite often, one might think there’s an implicit statement. You’re quite good at posing. It’s not meant in a negative way. Many people love you for that, I guess.
Yeah. I think there was recently a video by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, where you posed really as model. They even said, “Model, Audrey Tang.”
Even within the government…
Very original. [laughs] Very good. You are wearing Taiwanese designers only, or?
Japanese?
Right. These pans, what kind of idea do they convey, or is it more the overall thing?
Right. That’s a very beautiful line by Leonard Cohen, right? “There is a crack in everything.”
Let’s continue where we stopped last time, more or less.
I’m pretty sure we’ll talk…
Other things as well. Maybe just quickly, before we restart…
No worries. You just mentioned Hong Kong, so what’s your feeling about the current situation there?
I think we are already not in the structure of my interview anymore, because I wanted to talk about your one year in Germany as well, anyway. You just mentioned it. Let’s talk about it. You were 11, I think?
What kind of memories do you have related to that?
It still is, I think.
That must have been the first time you were confronted with Nazi footage, right?
What kind of impression did it leave on you?
It resonates with Taiwan’s history as well a little bit, at least?
I think Taiwan had their first really open, democratic elections in ‘96, right?
Taiwan wasn’t really a democracy in the beginning of the ‘90s, either, right?
Yeah, of course, right. Where were you in Germany, actually in Berlin?
I know.
Wow. Is that how you learned German as well?
That’s encouraging that even someone as clever as you can forget foreign languages.
Don’t you think there is something getting lost in this process?
You just said you think in English.
You must think in Chinese as well when you speak Chinese.
You don’t?
Oh, yeah, all the time?
Tâigí?
Ah, OK, Taiwanese Holo. Not Táiyǔ, but Taiwanese Holo?
I guess you also do think a lot of, most of the time, in English, because tech is just so much English, of course.
Oh, wow, OK. Back to my questions written here. One of your collaborators once said, “We can replace the entire government by AI in 500 years. I have no problem saying that.” From what I know about you, that’s not necessarily your goal, is it?
Yeah.
Absolutely, yeah. We’ve talked about it. I was just curious, why would she use a term that everybody understands differently, the way you were just describing it, like replacing humans?
That’s not your goal, of course?
You call it adhocracy.
Wow. Talking about the current forms of digital participation and your platforms, one major example, or one major use case that is mostly mentioned is this Uber case.
That was long ago, yeah. There are many nice little proposals, like just now, there are proposals like increase the stops of two trains on the line between Ilan and Hualien and stuff like that.
