In the previous episode, we told you how these three rather stunning neo-classical Chinese buildings came to exist. This week, we’re looking at them through a “culture and society” lens. The massive statue of Chiang Kai-shek…
In the left corner, mega-multinational corporation DuPont. In the right corner, farmers from central Taiwan’s Lugang 鹿港. Ready? Fight!! To open Season Four, we have a David vs. Goliath story, made more complicated by the fac…
Linda Arrigo has been in Taiwan for many years, working as a human rights activist, as an important member of the early team of fighters who risked life and limb for a democratic Taiwan, and more recently, worked with the Ta…
Shih Ming-teh 施明德 died on the morning of his 82rd birthday, January 15th, 2024. This Taiwan democracy champion spent a combined 25.5 years in Taiwanese prisons for “sedition;” what the one-party state called his activism. Sh…
In the 1960s and 1970s, many tens of thousands of Taiwanese went into self-exile; most of them headed to the United States. The people who became Taiwanese-Americans did so for a variety of reasons, but it's probably fair to…
A generation of Taiwanese left (or you might say “fled”) Taiwan in the 1960s and 70s, with most going to the United States. Some went to school there and stayed, while others emigrated as they saw no future for themselves an…
Henry Alfred Kissinger died on November 29, 2023 at the age of 100. This incredibly controversial figure was a massive player in US politics and policies during the last four decades of the 20th century. Among the most conse…
Writer Wu Zhuoliu 吳濁流 (1900-1976), sadly, never saw Taiwan blossom into a democracy. But he left us with some of the most important works ever written about 20th-century Taiwan. Among these is the autobiography “The Fig Tree…
Taiwanese history would have been very different except for a few pivotal moments. “Sure,” you might be thinking, “that's true everywhere.” However, the “what ifs” Michael Turton and Eryk Michael Smith talk about today are e…
Today John Ross and Chris Stowers (a man who has first-hand knowledge of what it's like to sail on an old-fashioned sailing boat) end our three-part series on the amazing voyage of the Chinese junk (built possibly in the 189…
We continue the amazing tale of six men who set sail from Keelung in 1955 aboard the Free China junk to join a trans-Atlantic yacht race. They were attempting to show that an old-fashioned Chinese vessel could compete agains…
In 1954, a man living in Keelung 基隆 asked himself, “Could an old-fashioned Chinese junk beat modern yachts in a race on the high seas?” The answer? -- An almost unbelievable tale involving a boat that would become world-famo…
In this special episode, we hear Eryk reading from chapter five of John’s “Taiwan in 100 Books.” The topic is 2-28, an event named after a date: February 28, 1947. It’s usually referred to as the February 28 incident, but s…
Formosa Files and Taipei-based lawyer Ross Feingold very much hope you never get arrested in Taiwan, or anywhere else for that matter. But should this unfortunate event occur, what are your rights? Does Taiwan require search…
Among the too many killings committed in the lawless year of 1997 was the execution of 21-year-old Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶), a soldier convicted of a horrific crime after a forced confession. Chiang went to his death maintaini…
![[ENCORE] Henry Kissinger (and president Nixon) Go to China, and Everything Changes for the Republic of China (Taiwan)](https://images.podpage.com/https%3A%2F%2Fs3.us-west-1.amazonaws.com%2Fredwood-labs%2Fshowpage%2Fuploads%2Fimages%2F494d234e-2214-46a6-907c-6e55c0caf6e4.jpg?auto=format%2Ccompress&w=100&s=3e7d0c0f3c31d4283de66b10208c8c6c "[ENCORE] Henry Kissinger (and president Nixon) Go to China, and Everything Changes for the Republic of China (Taiwan)")
