Last year I was in a meeting with a Japanese semiconductor executive in Tokyo. During our post-meeting chat, he asked me a question: “What does Taiwan have culturally, besides bubble tea and the Palace Museum?”

I was stunned for a moment. Not because I couldn’t answer—my mind raced through a whole list. The Great Buddha, Cloud Gate, indigenous weaving, high mountain tea ceremonies in Alishan. But what stopped me was this: while I could name all these things, none of them could be conveyed in a way that would let him truly “feel” them in a single sentence.

On the flight back to Taiwan, I thought about this for a long time. Then I realized: the problem isn’t whether we have culture—it’s that we haven’t turned our culture into a language others can use.

China Isn’t Selling Products—It’s Selling Cognitive Frameworks

Let me start with an uncomfortable truth.

Mixue’s store count in Southeast Asia has already surpassed Starbucks’ numbers in the same region. But it’s not selling beverages. It’s selling the concept that “cheap can also have brand appeal”—a redefinition of consumerism itself.

Li Ziqi has accumulated over 20 million YouTube subscribers. But she’s not exporting Chinese rural life. She’s exporting the perceptual framework of “slow living”—a solution to globalization anxiety. Without a single line of dialogue, she shows young people worldwide something they crave but cannot name.

DJI holds over 70% of the global consumer drone market. But what it’s really captured isn’t market share—it’s ownership of the cognitive category of “aerial perspective.” When you think drone, you think DJI. This isn’t marketing; it’s category definition rights.

What do these cases have in common? They’re not just selling products. They’re exporting ways of understanding the world.

Grammar vs. Vocabulary

Here’s a crucial distinction.

Most of Taiwan’s cultural exports still operate at the “vocabulary” level—we have great content, great works, great creators. But these are words, not grammar.

Vocabulary is “bubble tea tastes good.” Grammar is “why young people worldwide are drinking hand-shaken beverages”—a structure that allows your vocabulary to be combined, disseminated, and actively used by others.

What China is doing is upgrading culture from vocabulary to grammar. Forbidden City cultural products aren’t just selling tape printed with ancient paintings. They’re building an “Eastern color spectrum system”—an aesthetic database that designers can directly access. This is the leap from content to infrastructure.

Does Taiwan have anything similar?

Frankly, very little. We have many moving stories, but we haven’t yet turned these stories into frameworks that others can “use.”

Logic I Learned from Circular Economy

I’ve worked in the circular economy industry for over a decade. This field taught me one thing: value isn’t in the thing itself, but in how you define it.

The same discarded circuit board—call it trash, and it goes to the incinerator. Call it urban mining, and it’s worth tens of thousands of dollars in precious metals. What changes isn’t the physical composition, but the cognitive framework.

The logic of cultural discourse power is exactly the same.

Taiwan’s cultural assets—whether tea ceremony, indigenous aesthetics, temple architecture, or our unique democratic experience—their “physical composition” is already rich. But have we established cognitive frameworks that allow international society to “access” them?

China has turned Dunhuang into digital immersive experiences, turned Along the River During the Qingming Festival into NFT authentication projects. They’re not preserving culture—they’re “listing” cultural assets on the shelves of global digital civilization.

And Taiwan’s cultural assets? Most are still in exhibition halls, waiting for tourists to visit.

Taiwan’s Real Advantage

That said, I’m not trying to paint a pessimistic picture of Taiwan. Quite the opposite.

At the Taiwan-Japan semiconductor cooperation site, I’ve observed something interesting: Japanese trust in Taiwan far exceeds their trust in China. This isn’t just political factors. It’s cultural temperament. Taiwanese people’s honesty, flexibility, willingness to get things done properly rather than just adequately—these qualities are extremely valuable in international cooperation.

But the problem is, we’ve never consciously “branded” these qualities.

Japan has “craftsmanship spirit.” The Nordics have “hygge.” Korea has “한류.” These aren’t just adjectives—they’re cultural brands that have entered global vocabulary.

What’s Taiwan’s equivalent?

Our warmth, resilience, diverse inclusivity—these truly exist, but they remain at the stage of “only people who’ve been to Taiwan know.” Without being named, they cannot be transmitted. Without transmission, they won’t become discourse power.

It’s Not About Volume

The competition for cultural discourse power isn’t about who shouts loudest. It’s about who can establish a narrative order that others willingly adopt.

China uses state power plus commercial machinery—a path Taiwan can’t and shouldn’t take. But we have another path: using authenticity to replace scale. In an era flooded with misinformation and collapsing trust, “real” itself is the scarcest currency.

Taiwan’s opportunity isn’t in competing with China on volume, but in becoming a “trustworthy cultural interface.” Letting people feel an unguarded sincerity when they encounter Taiwan’s content.

But this requires design. Sincerity is raw material, not a finished product. You must turn sincerity into a format that can be perceived, replicated, and disseminated.

Back to that flight from Tokyo to Taipei.

If I encountered that question again—“What does Taiwan have culturally, besides bubble tea and the Palace Museum?”—I would now answer like this:

Taiwan is one of the few places in the world that can simultaneously understand East and West, operate both technology and humanities, maintain tradition while staying open. We’re not the loudest, but we might be the most authentic.

The only question is: are we willing to turn this authenticity into a grammar that the whole world can use?