Videos

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E28: The Pirate Husband-and-Wife Duo Who Terrorized Taiwan (1800-1809) She loved opium, handsome pirates, and spoke English... plus she allegedly (it's almost certainly not true) sometimes went into battle topless! He was a pirate warlord who, at one point, had hundreds of ships and tens of thousands…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E27: 1946 Taiwan in 1946. How will post-war Formosa turn out? Will the KMT be successful in managing the local economy? Will there be strife between the new Chinese rulers and – until very recently – Japanized Taiwanese people? Who knows? Well, we do... now. The Formosa…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E25: The ROC (Taiwan) at World Expos & World Fairs In the first few decades after retreating from the mainland, the Republic of China on Taiwan needed to shine as brightly as possible in foreign spotlights to keep alive the idea (or some might say fantasy) that…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E26: Bits and Pieces - October 2024 Did you know? Joseph Stalin saved Chinese characters. (um… sort of) In Qing-era Taiwan, two men sometimes SHARED a wife! John has done 10 episodes of our other podcast, “Bookish Asia.” Plum Rain Press, the new publishing arm of Formosa…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4--Taiwanese-American Director Ang Lee Wins Again [ENCORE] To celebrate Oscar-winning director Ang Lee (李安) being named the winner for theater/film of the 2024 Praemium Imperiale, a global arts prize awarded annually by the Japan Art Association, we thought we'd reprise our Ang Lee bio episode from Formosa…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E24: Ronald Reagan and the ROC (Taiwan) Did you know that when the United Nations voted to admit “Red China” in 1971, then-California Governor Ronald Reagan called up President Richard Nixon and suggested that the United States quit the UN and become an “observer” in protest? To…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E22: Lonely Planet Travel Guidebook: Taiwan (1997-1998) Lonely Planet travel guidebooks provided some of best info on a new destination in the pre-internet era, and the late Robert Storey (1954-2017) wrote quite a few of them... including the first four editions for Taiwan. Robert Storey’s Lonely Planet…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-HIGH-TECH MINI BONUS EPISODE - AI and Footbinding in Taiwan (What?) What does AI have to do with footbinding in Taiwan? Well, it's a 13-min mini episode, so you're just gonna have to listen and find out. Check the show notes for more info. Cover: YES, we…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E21: Beggar Boy - an incredible tale of resilience Lai Dongjin 賴東進 was born into a “beggar family.” His dad is blind, his mom has a mental illness. He has 11 siblings! Many born into such a disadvantaged position would throw up their hands, blame fate, and…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E23: Taiwan’s President in Exile – Thomas Liao This forgotten father of Taiwan democracy sacrificed his comfortable life (he came from a rich family and had a PhD from the US in Chemical Engineering) to fight for Taiwanese independence in the post-WW2 decades. In 1956 he was…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E19: Taiwan's Olympic GOAT? Mike Chinoy's New Documentary "Decathlon: The CK Yang & Rafer Johnson Story" The incredible story of Amis Taiwanese Olympic decathlete Maysang Kalimud, better known as CK Yang (楊傳廣), was one of the first stories featured in the first season of Formosa Files (December…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E20: Democracy Fighter and Taiwan History Professor Gerrit van der Wees Did you know that all the water buffalo in Taiwan are the descendants of a group of these bovines from Indonesia (formerly the Dutch East Indies)? These poor water buffalo were put on a sailing ship…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E18: Taiwan's Greatest Modern Company - TSMC (The Morris Chang story) The person who did most of the work creating the company people around the world almost immediately associate with Taiwan has no ancestors from this island, was not born here, didn't go to school here, and…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-A Formosa Files INTERVIEW: The Island: a personal account of Taiwan’s extraordinary transformation by Mark O’Neill John chats with veteran Hong Kong-based journalist and author of The Island (2024) Mark O'Neill, who tells us what Taiwan was like in the early 1980s, when he first came to…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E16: Political Assassination Attempts, 1928-1970 Japanese princes, Taiwanese activists, a Korean martyr, American generals and presidents, Chiang Kai-shek and his son Chiang Ching-kuo. It’s an action-packed episode with an amazing cast of characters. These little-known Taiwan-related assassination attempts and plots will surprise you. And, we hope, also…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E17: “UNDER PROTEST” – Taiwan at the Olympics Did you know we once went to the Olympics under the name “Formosa”? At the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, Taiwan will once again compete under the ridiculous name of “Chinese Taipei.” It’s a silly name that makes…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Summer 2024 Musings and Announcements In this short segment, John and Eryk first make the stunning observation that summer in subtropical Taiwan is hot. They then reflect on the "Pacific Story," an NBC radio docu-drama from 1944, an episode that was a hit…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E14: PACIFIC STORY–Formosa: Prize of the China Sea (NBC Radio, 1944) It’s January 1944 and the tide of WWII has changed. Though it will be a long hard grind, victory is on the horizon. To “better inform the American public,” about the situation in the Pacific, NBC…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-The Qing Dynasty Doesn't Really Want Taiwan (1683) [ENCORE] The current Beijing authorities make bombastic claims as silly as “Taiwan has been part of China since the dawn of the universe!!” The reality, however, is quite different. Some Chinese dynasties may not have even known of Taiwan’s…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E15: The Community Services Center: Director Adam McMillan on the history of a place that's here to help A horrific murder of an American teenager by two other American teenagers in 1985 led to some serious soul-searching: How could the international community in Taiwan (some of whom…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-BONUS episode: Martial Arts Legend Hong Yixiang 洪懿祥 John talks with Chris Bates about one of Taiwan’s greatest ever martial artists, Hong Yixiang 洪懿祥 (1925–1993). He was Taiwan’s foremost master of the Chinese internal martial arts (which consist of baguazhang 八卦掌, xingyiquan 形意拳 and taijiquan 太極拳.) The…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-E13: China Airlines Survives Three Major Tragedies Three devastating crashes over an eight-year span, 1994 to 2002, with a combined 685 fatalities; a record that could easily bankrupt an airline. However, China Airlines (Taiwan's flag carrier) not only survived these horrific events but changed and flourished. They…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-The Inn of the EIGHT Happinesses 八福客栈 vs. The Inn of the Sixth Happiness [ENCORE] Gladys Aylward and Ingrid Bergman: The former, a British-born Christian missionary to China and Taiwan, the latter a three-time Academy Award winner. However despite very different lives, the two will forever be…

FORMOSA FILES PODCAST S4-BONUS episode: The Adventures of Frank Bessac During the Mao Zedong years, China was off-limits to Western researchers. Some came to Taiwan as a substitute, among them American anthropologist Frank Bessac. John chats with Michael Aldrich, author of “Old Lhasa: A Biography,” about Bessac’s work in Taiwan.…