Eight happinesses? If you’ve heard of or seen the famous movie about the remarkable British missionary Gladys Aylward, you'll know that the film (which was originally set to be shot in Taiwan) was called “The Inn of the Sixth Happiness.” Well, like many parts of her story, things were changed for the big-screen adaptation with Swedish megastar Ingrid Bergman. And Aylward – who founded an orphanage in Taipei in the late 1950s, and died in Taiwan in 1970 – didn't like the movie version one bit. Here's an incredible story about an incredible woman.

All languages borrow words from other languages. These “loanwords” often come with fascinating historical backstories, their adoption the result of encounters by traders, scholars, and adventurers; and the result of colonialization, as was the case with Taiwan, 1895 to 1945, when many Japanese words came into the Taiwanese language. And because the Japanese are themselves such prodigious borrowers, many of these words were originally from other languages. Find out why English owes such a debt to Cantonese, why John loves “tea,” and why Eryk doesn’t want to “kowtow.” Whether you’re an “obasan” or a “joss-pidgin-man,” we think you’ll enjoy our look at lovely linguistic loanwords.

Today, the district of Madou (麻豆區) in Tainan City is home to about 43,000 people. It has a pleasant small-town feel, an economy mainly based on agriculture, in particular, a citrus fruit called the pomelo ( 柚子). Back in the 1620s, when the Dutch arrived, Madou -- then called Mattau -- was inhabited by the Siraya (西拉雅族), a Taiwanese Indigenous group. Siraya resistance to Dutch expansion would lead to bloodshed and bring about a major turning point in early Taiwan history. Join Formosa Files as we visit the childhood home of Chen Shui-bian and recount the clash of cultures in the 1600s. You can also hear us stumble over some lines and words – John learns how to pronounce “pomelo” – in this "raw" edition. We left our mistakes in the episode to give listeners a look behind the scenes.

Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) was a highly controversial two-term ROC president (2000–2008). How “A-Bian” studied and fought his way out of rural poverty to the highest office, thus bringing 55 years of continuous KMT rule to an end, is the single greatest personal political story in modern Taiwanese history. Sadly, though, this fairytale would have a tragic ending, with a troubled second term and Chen later doing prison time for corruption. But in today’s episode, we look at the early years: his stoic parents, his remarkable local teachers, and the struggles and triumphs that shaped him.

Ever heard of the film "Attack Force Z"? No? Don't worry... almost no one has. Filmed in Taiwan, this WWII story featured both Mel Gibson and Sam Neill, long before they became major Hollywood stars. Gibson later called the film “pretty woeful... it's so bad, it's funny.” That's an unfairly harsh assessment, likely coming from the difficulties encountered making the movie on location in Taiwan back in the winter of 1979-80.

With their fearsome winds and dramatic downpours, typhoons have long been a part of Taiwan's history. Join Formosa Files for a look at a few notable typhoons that have hit Taiwan in more recent times, as well as some interesting asides, such as: When did typhoons get names? Why did they once only use female names? And, do typhoons do anything good for Taiwan?

In this fun Season Two finale, John Ross and Eryk Michael Smith battle with the AI phenomenon ChatGPT. Who knows more about Taiwanese history, John or the scarily omnipotent AI chatbot which may soon render humans obsolete? Does Eryk know more about Kaohsiung’s Nanzih District than the smartest machine-learning programs on earth? It’s time to pick a side – a couple of nerdy amateur historians or the finest in 21st-century computing power? It’s Man vs. Machine! This somewhat silly and hopefully entertaining super bonus episode is our sign-off to Formosa Files’ Season Two. See you next week for S3-E1!

Relations between the R.O.C. (Taiwan) and Spain have never been as close as Taiwan's ties to, for example, the United States. But back in the days when Taiwan was ruled as a one-party state, there were more connections than one might think between the R.O.C. and Spain, which was also a one-party state under the rule of a "generalissimo."

At the turn of the 20th century, Japan was on a roll. After taking Formosa and Penghu from Qing China in 1895, Japan beat mighty Russia in 1905. Eager to show the world its newfound economic strength – and to highlight the successful development of its new colony – the Japanese parliament voted vast sums of money to sponsor the Japan-British Exhibition. It was held in London from May to October 1910. Among the most “wild” displays the Japanese brought to London was a recreated Paiwan village, with live Indigenous Paiwan Formosans!

NOTE: This episode was first released in September 2021.

The southern peninsula of Taiwan was a "ship graveyard" for a very long time as unseen rocks and reefs gashed holes in the sides of vessels and left them stranded, or on the seafloor. The Western powers and Qing authorities both agreed that a lighthouse at the far southern end of Taiwan would be a good idea, and so it fell upon English engineer Michael Beazeley and fellow employees of the Chinese Imperial Maritime Customs Service to set off from Takao (Kaohsiung) overland into "savage" territory to find and buy a piece of land for a lighthouse. Here's the illuminating origin story of the famous Eluanbi Lighthouse at Kenting.

You're hiking in the hills of Taichung in the early 1990s and suddenly come across ... an orangutan? What's more, this massive great ape is um ... in need of some, um ... "affection," and gets handsy. An unlikely scenario, right? But, that story is true! There was a time when Taiwan was gripped by a craze for baby orangutans. These apes, however, grow rather fast, and some of them were subsequently "set free." Here's that wild story, plus some others related to the "bad old days" when Taiwan was not a safe haven for many kinds of wild animals.

NOTE: This episode was first released in Season One -- Formosa Files S1-E13, Nov. 21, 2021

This week we have another snippet from the audiobook of John's 2020 book, Taiwan in 100 Books. This extract tells the tale of Janet Montgomery McGovern, a feisty anthropologist who managed to cut through the red tape and official disapproval from Japanese colonial authorities in Formosa during her residence from 1916 to 1918, and headed up into the hills to learn about Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples -- most of whom had already given up headhunting by then. We'll also hear a "rose-colored glasses" 1921 travel account of a very brief visit to Taiwan by Englishman Owen Rutter. Enjoy!