Episodes
S2-E9 - The Murder of Pai Hsiao-yen 白曉燕 and the Alexander Family Hostage Crisis
April 28, 2022
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 kidnapp…
S2-E8 - Makalu Gao 高銘和 : The Taiwanese Climber Who Survived a Night on Mt. Everest
April 21, 2022
The high number of deaths during the 1996 Mt. Everest climbing season supplied a tragic plotline for books, movies, and documentaries. Taiwanese climbers did not come out of these accounts looking competent -- to say the lea…
S2-E7 - Part 2: Dr. Peng Ming-min 彭明敏 (1923-2022) - Escaping Taiwan and a Hero's Return
April 14, 2022
How do you get a famous, one-armed democracy activist -- who is under house arrest and being watched 24/7 by the authorities -- off of a well-guarded, militarized island? Hint: A team of brave supporters, some forgery, and a…
S2-E6 - Part 1: Dr. Peng Ming-min 彭明敏 (1923-2022) - The Incredible life of a Democracy Fighter
April 8, 2022
Dr. Peng Ming-min (彭明敏) was a Taiwanese pro-independence/pro-democracy activist who lived an exceptional life - losing an arm in a WWII US air raid, witnessing the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, and being arrested for sedition …
S2-E5 - Tragedy on Taiwan's Majestic Mountains
April 7, 2022
Two-thirds of this island is mountainous, and climbing the mountains -- or even just driving across them -- is an awesome experience. But, woe be to those that are unprepared... or, sadly, just unlucky. With many peaks over …
S2-E4 - Searching for the "Motherland"
March 31, 2022
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…
S2-E3 - The Lamey Island Massacre
March 24, 2022
In 1622 and then again in 1631, crew members (including foraging parties and shipwreck survivors) from Dutch ships were killed by the aboriginal people on Lamey Island, what is today’s Pingtung County’s Xiao Liuqiu (小琉球). Th…
S2-E2 - Thomas Barclay: The Man Who Helped Save a City
March 17, 2022
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 capi…
S2-E1 - The CIA vs. Made in Taiwan Nukes
March 10, 2022
After the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, nations around the world began thinking about acquiring nuclear weapons of their own. Among them was China, then ruled by supreme leader Chiang Kai-shek. The Nation…
Bonus Mini-Episode: Eryk Calls John for a Chat About Taiwan's Indigenous Peoples
Feb. 24, 2022
When did people first get to Taiwan? Was there a land bridge? Plus... a few interesting legends. A short phone call that's a fun intro to Taiwan’s prehistory.
S1-E26 - Bonus Episode - What Were the Dutch Doing in Formosa Anyway?
Feb. 7, 2022
The Dutch were expelled from southwestern Taiwan by a pirate warlord and Ming loyalist Koxinga in 1662. Their relatively brief stay of 38 years was marked by impressive achievements and lasting impacts. But why they were the…
S1-E25 - From Russia With Love: ROC First Lady Faina Chiang 蔣方良
Jan. 25, 2022
In 1933, on a winter’s night in the Russian town of Yekaterinburg, Faina Vakhreva -- then 17 years old -- was walking home and became the unwanted subject of attention of a Russian man who began harassing her. A 23-year-old …
S1-E24 - Taiwan's Awesome National Health Insurance System
Jan. 16, 2022
In the mid-1990s Taiwanese politicians got together, and, after much wrangling, settled on a national health insurance system that today is the envy of many countries around the world. Here's the story of how we got to a sin…
S1-E23 - Walls of Death
Jan. 9, 2022
In the 1980s, Japan's, South Korea's, and Taiwan’s massive fishing fleets gained notoriety for their destructive driftnet fishing. The use of giant driftnets, sometimes tens of kilometers long, threatened to turn the oceans …
S1-E22 - The Cruel Sea
Dec. 30, 2021
Despite the failed attempt to create a myth of a Pacific Ocean "Bermuda Triangle" near Taiwan, the seas around this island are indeed cruel... ships sometimes disappear without a trace. It's little wonder the majority of tem…
S1-E21 - The "Best" Hijacking in History?
Dec. 23, 2021
The word "stalemate" defined relations between Taiwan and China in the 1970s and early 1980s. Neither side wanted to legitimize the other with "official" talks so ideas such as postal and travel links, as well as the most im…
S1-E20 - The "Iron Man of Asia" - C.K. Yang 楊傳廣
Dec. 19, 2021
Maysang Kalimud, better known by his Chinese name C.K. Yang (楊傳廣), is arguably the greatest Taiwanese athlete of all time. In 1960, this native Taiwanese from the Amis tribe came within an inch of winning the Olympic decathl…
S1-E19 - The End of the Qing
Dec. 16, 2021
War in northern Vietnam spills over into Taiwan, with French troops occupying several ports. This wake-up call for the Qing prompts an upgrading of their neglected frontier prefecture; Taiwan becomes a province, and the auth…
S1-E18 - Shipwreck Savagery and Clandestine Colonization
Dec. 9, 2021
After native people in the far south of Formosa kill survivors from the wrecked US merchant vessel The Rover in 1867, the Americans send a punitive expedition. A few years later, the survivors of a Japanese (Ryukyuan) shipwr…
S1-E17 - Missionaries Pull Teeth in Treaty Ports
Dec. 5, 2021
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 foreig…
S1-E16 - Japanese Formosa Catches Spy Fever
Dec. 1, 2021
As the Empire secretly prepared for a coming war with the aim of dominating Asia, visitors to and foreign residents on Japanese Formosa fell under suspicion. Spies lurked everywhere in the 1930s!! --in the fevered imaginatio…
S1-E15 - Japan Puts on a Show
Nov. 25, 2021
Determined to prove that they were just as fit to be imperialists as the great Western powers, the Japanese were keen to show off the "model colony" of Taiwan. The most ambitious attempt to do this was at the Japan-British E…
S1-E14 - Buddhism "In Action" – Taiwan's Remarkable Tzu Chi 慈濟 Charity Group
Nov. 18, 2021
Tzu Chi is unique in relying on mostly laypersons instead of clergy, focusing on real-world problems instead of only the spiritual, and having an extremely open-minded attitude towards other faiths – this Buddhist group buil…
S1-E13 - The Orangutan Craze
Nov. 11, 2021
As one of the four "Asian Tigers," Taiwan's economy roared in the 1980s, but free-flowing money came with downsides such as the exploitation of wild animals, including tigers.