Taiwan: Summary of Interview with Huwy-min Liu

Introduction 

Dr. Huwy-min Liu was born and raised in Taiwan, where she completed her primary and secondary education. Before moving to the United States in 2007 to complete her PhD, she earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from universities in Taiwan and Hong Kong. After receiving her PhD in 2015, Dr. Liu spent four years in Hong Kong as a professor before moving to Mason in 2019. As an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at George Mason University, she has focused on her anthropology studies and has written the book, Governing Death, Making Persons: The New Chinese Way of Death. Dr. Liu hopes to “pass [on] my passion toward anthropology to more American students” and “to help more people know about anthropology … a key means to help us understand our social world.”   

Dr. Liu received a BA in Journalism from National Chengchi University in Taiwan in 2001, a MA in Anthropology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2004, a MPhil in Anthropology from The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 2006, and a PhD in Anthropology from Boston University in Massachusetts in 2015.  Dr. Liu is currently an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Mason, where she teaches classes such as East Asian Cultures; Death, Dead Bodies, and Culture; Culture, Power, and Conflict; as well as Cultural Anthropology introductory courses at the undergraduate level. 

Life Before Migration 

Before moving to the United States in 2007, Dr. Huwy-min Liu completed her BA in Journalism and began work as a journalist at a publication based in Taiwan that focused on social change. When asked about what she did after completing her degree, she said: 

“I did my BA in journalism. When I was still in college, I [had] already start[ed] working in a magazine as an intern. After I graduated, I continued work[ing] at that magazine for a while as a formal employee. Then I switched to work for a different magazine. I worked as a journalist most of those two years, and I also worked with NGOs [Non-governmental organizations] in various places in Taiwan.”

During her work as a journalist in Taiwan, Dr. Liu was trying to decide whether or not she wanted to continue down that career path. She worked a few different jobs before she became interested in working with indigenous peoples of Taiwan: 

“I was also trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. I worked as [an] NGO [employee] in different NGOs. I worked as a volunteer based in rural Taiwan in the mountains among indigenous people helping them set up a sort of community newspaper. We were trying to come up with different kinds of educational activities for young people to promote human rights, promote consciousness and awareness of human rights issues.”

Moving to the United States 

Dr. Huwy-min Liu initially moved from Taiwan to Hong Kong to attend graduate school and get her MA in Anthropology. She then moved to the United States in 2007 to pursue her PhD in Anthropology. Dr. Liu said: 

“When I was in Taiwan, I decided I wanted to go to grad school and I wanted to study anthropology, but I did not think I could get a PhD directly. I basically decided [that] I wanted to get a master’s degree in anthropology first since I hadn’t majored or minored in anthropology before. At that time, I was also looking for possible fully-funded master’s degree programs [in] Anthropology [and] I found [one]in Hong Kong. I live[d] in Hong Kong for three years. Then, while I was in Hong Kong doing my MA and MPhil, I decided that I really like Anthropology and that I really wanted to continue my studies. I decided I wanted to get a PhD degree in Anthropology in the United States. From the time I left Taiwan, I basically spent three years in Hong Kong and then moved to the U.S. for my PhD degree.”

Perceptions of the United States 

Dr. Huwy-min Liu had a specific perception of the United States before she moved here that was shaped by U.S. influence and presence in Taiwan. In addition to her exposure to American popular culture prior to arriving in the United States, Dr. Liu explained that she had met many people who were from the United States or had at least been here before. This made the United States feel familiar when she arrived. For example, she shared how one of her professors made her transition easier:

“My college professors, [the] majority of them got their PhDs in the United States. On the one hand I had never been to the U.S. [before], on the other hand the U.S. felt like a familiar place, not just as something you could see from a movie, which obviously was a part of it, but also, in [a] more substantial way. Your professors, they may have studied and gotten their PhDs in the U.S. Then, for people who were more well off than my family, your parents might have had friends’ friends who did [their] masters’ in the U.S. or they definitely may have traveled to the U.S. either for fun or for work. I think the U.S. [was]…familiar to me at some level even though I had not lived in the U.S. before that time.”

Even though the United States felt familiar to Dr. Huwy-min Liu, there were still certain aspects of the culture in the United States that she had not been expecting. One of the main surprises Dr. Liu mentioned was the importance of small talk in the United States. She recalled:

“Small talk. I'm horrible [at] small talk, I think small talk is just one of these examples of [a] cultural difference. If you are from a [city like] New York City, you may not feel that way. But outside of these big cities [there is] this culture of small talk that people know how to do, they're very comfortable and this is just a normal, it's an important part of this very individualistic society. In Taiwan we don't really do small talk.”

Greatest Challenges 

Dr. Huwy-min Liu faced some challenges when migrating to the United States and adapting to the culture here. One of the challenges she discussed was the difficulty of acquiring documents due to the hyphen in her name:

“For example, in Taiwan our names on our passports and therefore the names we use in American schools are romanized. The way people in Taiwan romanize their names is that they will add a hyphen between the two characters of their given name. So my first name is Huwy-min [with] two characters. But the way you write then is you add a dash between the huwy and the min. [The] U.S. social security administration system though, they cannot process a dash. In the end for some government computers my first [name] is [just] H-U-W-Y because they could not process the dash and “min” became a middle name. At some places they could handle the dash, then it will show up as Huwy-min as a first name. It's a really small thing but it's kind of annoying, to have to remember which one is my first name for which places. It's not my fault, it's because American computers can not deal consistently with the dash [but] I have to remember which one I'm using. In order to preserve my Taiwanese identity, I still keep that dash on my publications [and staff profile].” 

The difficulty of accessing health care in the United States was another challenge that Dr. Liu highlighted in comparison to her experience in Taiwan. She recalled:

“In Taiwan we have national healthcare so it's really easy and, well, first it's very affordable, …but [it’s] also really easy [to navigate]. You can just walk into local clinic. I was fortunate that in my PhD program they had a medical school and therefore whenever I got sick enough that I needed to see a doctor, I [could] just go to my university's clinic and then if they thought it was something you needed to see a specialist [for], they would transfer you. [Now] it's really hard…I have to make multiple phone calls to just get a first-time appointment and very often [getting the appointment] involves 2-3 months wait. Then they all tell you, we're not guaranteeing they’ll cover your whole thing. It's so complicated. I think seeing a doctor is [among] the most complicated things here.”

Accomplishments and Future Aspirations

Dr. Huwy-min Liu talked about what she has accomplished so far and what she is proudest of. She talks about how she is proud of completing everything she has for her education and her career. She said:

“Getting my PhD first and then becoming a professor and now I'm professor at George Mason. I think I came a long way. I went through my whole pre-college education in Taiwan. I remember vividly that in my first class, my first English class in middle school. I was 12. At that time, English class only started in your first year in middle school. But before you started your first day of middle school, many families could send their kids to private companies to at least learn the ABCs. I was one of the four kids…in my middle school class at that time who did not already know those ABCs. So, while I was one of only four kids that didn't know those 26 letters in English, from that moment to now, on top of getting my PhD, I'm a professor in a university in the United States and I’ve published a book on my research into funerals in China.”

In addition to her past accomplishments, Dr. Huwy-min Liu also mentioned her aspirations for her future that includes furthering her writing career. She stated:

“There are many things I want to accomplish. I want to write a couple more books. I really enjoy [writing], doing research in Anthropology. I also really enjoy teaching Anthropology. I really hope that I can…pass [on] my passion toward Anthropology to more American students. This is also the case in Taiwan. Most people never had an Anthropology class in high school. A lot of people don't know what Anthropology is. I want to have more research, more books, but I also really want to help more people know about Anthropology and how cool Anthropology is as a discipline that helps us understand our social world.”

Message About Immigration 

Towards the end of the interview, Dr. Huwy-min Liu was asked to share her thoughts on what she wished more people knew about immigration. She talked about how the perception of immigration in America does not accurately reflect the reality of immigration and that not all immigrant stories are the same. She said:  

“I think it's the complexity of immigration experiences. I think very often … general Americans, when they think about immigrants, they have a very specific image of immigrants. Even their perception; let's just say immigrants from Asia, they have a very fixed, one singular story about what Asian immigrants are. If we're just looking at the Asian population, “Asia” is a really big [group] composed of different areas. There are very different kinds of immigrant trajectories for people who migrate from South Korea or from China, and from Taiwan or from Japan each will have very different kinds of life experience in [the] United States. Within these, there are also very different kinds of immigration experiences.  There are many different factors including gender, economics, class and educational level. If there is just one thing I hope us people would know more about it’s the complexity of immigrants in the United States. I'm not trying to say that complexity is just individual difference. I think there are a lot of structural differences, but borrowing form Adichie, it's just important to not have one single voice, one single story about immigrants in the United States.”

Learn more about Dr. Huwy-min Liu here.