Taiwan Expats Episodes

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.

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.

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.

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!

We generally don't discuss politics very much on this podcast, but, when one of the world's most well-established international experts on politics in Taiwan is gracious enough to be willing to chat – we're gonna talk politics. While this might be perhaps too 'deep' for some, if you've spent some time in Taiwan and are interested in the political scene here, this short chat provides an interesting look at groups beyond the big party players. For more info on SOAS University of London, and Dr. Dafydd Fell's books, visit www.soas.ac.uk

Imagine this: It's 1949. You and your family live in Fujian, China. A friend invites you to the island of Kinmen for a short vacation. You hop on a ferry and, a 10-kilometer ride later, you're on Kinmen. While there, your hometown falls to PLA troops, the People’s Republic of China is founded, and the ROC retreats to Taiwan (and off-shore islands like Kinmen). You're stuck on one side while your sister and family are on the other. Each of the million-plus refugees who fled to Taiwan has some type of "exodus" story, and while people already on Taiwan would bear the brunt of the brutality of the then-one party authoritarian state the Nationalists would set up, those who fled China also suffered -- especially the pain of being stranded from their families. Drawing on Li Zhuqing’s best-selling biography “Daughters of the Flower Fragrant Garden,” we tell the story of Jun and Hong, two sisters separated by civil war. (NOTE: Eryk has a bad cold and we apologize for his voice quality. Doct…

In this special episode, we thank listeners and talk briefly about season two (We are now being listened to in 90 countries/regions!!), and share an excerpt from the audiobook of John Ross' 2020 "Taiwan in 100 Books" related to Father Barry Martinson and the famous globetrotting Taiwanese author Sanmao (三毛).

Why is "Kaohsiung" spelled so strangely? Shouldn't it be closer to "Gao-Shung"? (Or we could just use Hanyu Pinyin, "Gāoxióng"). Well, many names in Taiwan are spelled with the Latin alphabet, using a romanization system popularized by Mr. Herbert Giles, a British consul who spent 25 years in the treaty ports of China and Taiwan. The -- for some -- infamous Wade-Giles system renders "Pingdong" as "P’ing-tung," and "Taidong" as "T’ai-tung." It’s big on hyphens and apostrophes, too – T’ai-pei, T’ai-wan, Nan-t’ou – but this punctuation is seldom used correctly. Mr. Giles played an important role as an early Sinologist and Chinese translator, while the second Mrs. Giles chronicled treaty port life in a series called China Coast Tales, which included two stories set in Danshui, where the couple lived in the 1880s. Mr. and Mrs. Giles were not only prolific writers, but both also had some strong opinions and were not shy in expressing them, which makes for a fun episode.

Kaohsiung Harbor was, in the late twentieth century, one of the world's busiest ports, but back during the time of the Opium Wars, it was still a rather secluded and hard-to-find place. Based on the somewhat embellished "A Cruise in an Opium Clipper," this is the story of how a British merchant ship carrying chests of opium found its way to Takao -- modern-day Kaohsiung. Today, of course, opium is mostly illegal, but as you'll hear... back then it was quite popular, and considered by many to be no worse than alcohol. So, trim the mainsail, hard to starboard... and another barrel of grog! We're sailing to 'Ta-ku'!

Taiwan's only English radio station, International Community Radio Taipei (ICRT) has been a part of millions of Taiwanese -- and many an expat in Taiwan's -- lives since it took over from the US military in 1979. Tim Berge, a 30+ year Taiwan resident, has spent most of his years here working for ICRT, and is today the station's GM. In this new Formosa Files interview feature, Tim Berge talks to Eryk about where ICRT came from, waxes nostalgic over the 'golden era' of the 1980s-90s, gives info on how ICRT is funded, tells a few lesser-known stories and answers questions about common misconceptions. (Full disclosure: Eryk Michael Smith has, since 2007, worked for or with ICRT as a writer, news broadcaster, and 'stringer' reporter from south Taiwan)

April 1997. Taiwan’s crime story of the century starts with the kidnapping and murder of a celebrity’s 12-year-old daughter by a trio of hardened criminals. In the seven-month crime spree that follows, there are more kidnappings, killings, rapes, police manhunts and shoot-outs. The climax comes in November when Chen Chin-hsing (陳進興), the sole survivor of the trio, takes foreign hostages; South African military attaché to the ROC, McGill Alexander and his family are held at gunpoint at their Taipei home for twenty nightmarish hours.

Western-style adoption (as in a couple taking a baby home from an orphanage) has not been and is still not very common in Taiwan. But there are plenty of local ways kids find new homes here, including a now-abandoned, rather shocking "brother-sister/husband-wife" arrangement! And -- for a time -- quite a few girls, in particular, were adopted by American, Australian and European parents, who raised the children back in their home countries. Several of these foreign-raised Taiwan-born girls would become local media sensations when they returned to the island in search of their "mother-land."

It's 1895 and Formosa has officially become part of the Japanese Empire. Not everyone on the island is super happy about this, and bursts of violent resistance are put down by imperial troops as they march for the rebel capital of the self-declared Republic of Formosa, Tainan. Japan's General Nogi is losing patience. If Tainan doesn't surrender, he might just level the city with artillery. But a group of locals and foreign missionaries embark on a brave quest that would lead to the oldest city in Taiwan not being turned into a heap of rubble.

The Second Opium War (1856-1860) lead to the opening of Danshui, near Taipei, and Anping (Tainan) as treaty ports. Soon after, the Qing authorities opened Takao (Kaohsiung) and Keelung to foreign ships. First came the foreign traders, then the missionaries... one of the latter would become a household name on the island: George Leslie Mackay, a man who used his dentistry skills -- and a pair of pliers -- to help spread the word.