The Taiwan History Podcast: Formosa Files

What do Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam have in common? Chopsticks. In the second  Formosa Files Snack , Eryk and John explore the cultural story behind one of East Asia’s most iconic everyday objects. Why did chopsticks replace spoons in China? What role did noodles, rice, and Confucian philosophy play in their adoption? And how did superstitious Ming-dynasty boatmen turn the ancient wor...

Horses have never played a big role in Taiwan’s history – or have they? Eryk and John start Season Six of Formosa Files and celebrate the Year of the Fire Horse by uncovering a series of surprising equine stories. We have prehistoric horses, Dutch cavalry, and Indigenous riders hunting wild cattle in the 1700s. And this will be a revelation to most; horse racing was hugely popular across the islan...

Their lineage is ancient. They are loyal, smart, and great hunting companions. But Taiwan’s native dog almost went extinct, and today it’s hard to say how many “pure breeds” are left, if any. These medium-sized dogs, with pointy ears and a love for running, were not long ago the underdogs. But they’ve made a remarkable comeback and are finally getting their day -- a story worth sinking your teeth...

Looking back over S5, the adjective "fascinating" is repeatedly used by both John and Eryk, who struggle for words a bit to describe their gratitude to listeners, our sponsor, and for the honor of having a platform to tell stories and hear stories from some amazing guests. Formosa Files Season Six starts next week, but after this conversation, check out the first FF "snack" --...

American George H. Kerr was the most important Western eyewitness and chronicler of the February 28 Incident of 1947, the violent uprising and brutal crackdown that shaped Taiwan’s modern politics and identity. Kerr first lived in Taiwan in the late 1930s, when the island was a colony of Japan. During the war, he worked for the U.S. Navy as a Taiwan expert, and then from 1945 to 1947 served as the...

John talks to Lee Moore about his 2025 book  China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read,  which focuses on four important China-related stories that often make headlines: Taiwan, Xinjiang, the Chinese economy, and Hong Kong. In this conversation, Lee and John focus on Taiwan before 1800. Who were the earliest Chinese arrivals in Taiwan? Which ruler’s fondness for older women w...

新年快樂 (Xīnnián kuàilè) from Formosa Files! As we head into the Year of the Horse, we have something different: pirates in the Taiwan Strait, both factual and fictional. We look at a Japanese woman who became a notorious pirate leader in the 1930s. And we follow the Shadow,  a mysterious crime-fighter whose 1945 novel  The Taiwan Joss  centers around a jewel-studded statue of Koxinga (the Ming l...

In the final episode, the pace picks up as we follow Austrian traveler Adolf Fischer on his 1898 journey through Japanese-ruled Taiwan. He heads into the dangerous hill country of central Taiwan and later gives us some memorably morose lines about gray, cholera-scarred Penghu. Fischer treks from Takao (Kaohsiung) across the southern mountains to the East Coast. Along the way, he has encounters wit...

In Part 2, we continue in the footsteps of the cultured Austrian traveler  Adolf Fischer  on his 1898 journey in Japanese-ruled Taiwan. From the commercial enclave of Tōa-tiū-tiâⁿ ( Dadaocheng),  we cruise downriver to  Tamsui (Danshui) , meet the famed missionary  George Mackay , hear warnings about rebels in the nearby hills, and solve a crocodile mystery. After overcoming Japanese suspicions th...

The first in a special three-part series, this is a   Taiwan travel account never before told in English. Formosa Files has had  Streifzüge durch Formosa  (1900) translated into English. This travelogue,  Wanderings Through Formosa , describes a journey through Japanese-ruled Taiwan in the spring of 1898 by Adolf Fischer, a cultured, sharp-tongued Austrian traveler. It offers a vivid outsider’s vi...

From “Muddy Ditch” in Chiayi County, Lu Ch’ing-an (1944–2011) rose to national fame as Taiwan’s Father of Motorcycle Stunts. The story starts with an apprenticeship at a local scooter repair shop, where the mechanically gifted boy fell in love with motorbikes. Still a teenager, he was inspired by the ROC Air Force’s Thunder Tigers aerobatics team to start flying on two wheels. Over the next few de...

The Cold War is heating up as the CIA continues to build a “Third Force” – a democratic alternative to both Mao’s Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists. A secret army is being trained on the islands of Okinawa and Saipan. But when these Chinese special forces are dropped inside the PRC to gather information and organize anti-communist guerrillas, there is a grim reckoning. Most perished. B...

Standard histories tell us that after fleeing to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek became America’s staunch Cold War ally – an immovable figure with an iron grip on Fortress Formosa. But behind the scenes, parts of the U.S. government were quietly exploring ways to push him aside. Today we uncover a little-known CIA effort to build a “Third Force” – a democratic alternative to both Mao’s Communists and Chia...

Before this encore, a quick announcement: we are looking for (human) artists for a 2027 calendar project. If you're interested, get ahold of us. Thx! The SS President Hoover was a ship ahead of its time, but just seven years after being commissioned, the ship ran aground just off Green Island, which in 1937 was a part of the Japanese Empire. This encore presentation is a riveting adventure inv...

Shih Ch’ien (施乾) is a young, well-educated Taiwanese man with a coveted government job in the Japanese colonial administration. But he turns his back on this comfortable life to live among society’s outcasts. In 1923, aged just 24, he founded a shelter for beggars, Aiai Ryō (愛愛寮, the “House of Love”) in Taipei’s Wanhua district. There, he would spend the rest of his short life caring for the...

Wuxia (武俠) novels are martial-arts stories full of swordsmen and swordplay, secret techniques, and chivalrous outlaws. Think  Robin Hood  crossed with Taoist mysticism and Chinese history. John talks with Taipei-based writer Scott Crawford about the genre – and  Jin Yong 金 庸 (1924-2018) ,  the most popular and influential wuxia writer. Generations of admiring readers across Asia have devoured...

When Japan took control of Taiwan in 1895, it inherited a financial mess: a chaotic mix of chopped silver, copper cash, and foreign coins. The new colony also cost far more to subdue and administer than it brought in. Yet during that demanding first decade, able administrators such as Gotō Shinpei turned things around, bringing monetary order and eventual profitability. The United States took noti...

THIS IS AUDIO-ONLY. A LONGER VIDEO VERISON IS AVAILABLE. This episode may not be suitable for minors. Yes,  funeral strippers  are real, and their story is far more complicated than the headlines. With anthropologist  Marc L. Moskowitz  as our guide ,  we climb aboard Taiwan’s infamous   Electric Flower Cars, neon-lit mobile stages where dancers perform during funerals and temple processions. In t...

Note: This episode may not be suitable for minors. Yes,  funeral strippers  are real, and their story is far more complicated than the headlines. With anthropologist  Marc L. Moskowitz  as our guide ,  we climb aboard Taiwan’s infamous   Electric Flower Cars, neon-lit mobile stages where dancers perform during funerals and temple processions. In this dual episode (video/audio only), Eryk chats wit...

We end our Shulinkou trilogy by tying together the surprisingly interconnected Taiwan–U.S.–Vietnam story. It’s July 1964, and two U.S. Navy destroyers are in Taiwan preparing for an intelligence-gathering mission off the coast of North Vietnam. Shulinkou Air Station provided intel, specialized equipment, and trained personnel for the USS  Maddox  and USS  Turner Joy  – ships about to play starring...

We continue the story of the Shulinkou Air Station and the American military in the early 1960s. We tackle Taiwan’s infamous gravel-truck killers (urban legend or fact?), get slapped by Typhoon Gloria, and have our duck-hunting excursion interrupted by the Generalissimo’s latest China invasion plans. And we follow the trail of controversial crimes and court verdicts which led to the ROC and U.S. f...

It was one of Taiwan’s most secretive Cold War outposts: Shulinkou Air Station (樹林口空軍情報站), a joint-service U.S. intelligence base perched on a misty plateau west of Taipei. Built in 1955, it was a hub for the interception, decryption, and analysis of enemy radio and electronic communications. In Part 1 of this three-part series, we focus on the early 1960s and the everyday world of the you...

Pioneering researcher, physician and historical novelist Dr Chen Yao-chang passed away at the age of 76 on November 17. He will be deeply missed by family and friends. John and Eryk had the pleasure of getting to know this kind and talented man through our publishing wing, Plum Rain Press. Our first book in fact was the English-language edition of his breakout novel, A Tale of Three Tribes in Dutc...

Ever taken Kaohsiung’s cable car across the harbor, had fun at Chiayi’s Universal Studios theme park, marveled at Taiwan’s Statue-of-Liberty-style gift to the US (a giant Moon Goddess monument)? Well, no, you couldn’t have because these projects were never realized. These are just a few of the many bleached bones we explore from the graveyard of broken dreams. AND – there will be an extra episode...

Ancient Chinese records tell us that in 210 BC a Taoist priest and alchemist named Xu Fu (徐福) sailed east to find the elixir of immortality for the despotic Qin Shi Huang. China’s first emperor was obsessed with cheating death (as revealed by his huge tomb complex in Xi’an, with its thousands of terracotta warriors); he outfitted Xu Fu’s expedition with everything needed to establish a settlemen...