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FORMOSA FILES, the best podcast about the history of Taiwan, is sponsored by The FRANK CHEN FOUNDATION (陳啟川先生文教基金會) www.frank-chen.org.tw
Hosted by John Ross (author, co-founder of publisher Camphor Press) and Eryk Michael Smith (writer, broadcaster, journalist). Both Ross and Smith have lived in Taiwan for well over 20 years and call the island home.
Check our very first episode, the story of a very white man who showed up in London in 1703... and claimed to be from Formosa. Or try a foodie episode from Season 3. Or, for those who want some harder-core history, hear the tale of the Lockheed U-2 pilot Wang Hsi-chueh 王錫爵, who became famous for defecting to the PRC by hijacking China Airlines Flight 334 on May 3, 1986.
Their lineage is ancient. They are loyal, smart, and great hunting companions. But Taiwan’s native dog almost went extinct, and today it’s hard to say how many “pure breeds” are left, if any. These medium-sized dogs, with pointy ears and a love for running, were not long ago the underdogs. But they…
Looking back over S5, the adjective "fascinating" is repeatedly used by both John and Eryk, who struggle for words a bit to describe their gratitude to listeners, our sponsor, and for the honor of having a platform to tell stories and hear stories from some amazing guests. Formosa Files Season Six …
American George H. Kerr was the most important Western eyewitness and chronicler of the February 28 Incident of 1947, the violent uprising and brutal crackdown that shaped Taiwan’s modern politics and identity.Kerr first lived in Taiwan in the late 1930s, when the island was a colony of Japan. …
John talks to Lee Moore about his 2025 book China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read, which focuses on four important China-related stories that often make headlines: Taiwan, Xinjiang, the Chinese economy, and Hong Kong.In this conversation, Lee and John focus on Taiwan b…
新年快樂 (Xīnnián kuàilè) from Formosa Files! As we head into the Year of the Horse, we have something different: pirates in the Taiwan Strait, both factual and fictional. We look at a Japanese woman who became a notorious pirate leader in the 1930s. And we follow the Shadow, a mysterious crime-fighter…
In the final episode, the pace picks up as we follow Austrian traveler Adolf Fischer on his 1898 journey through Japanese-ruled Taiwan. He heads into the dangerous hill country of central Taiwan and later gives us some memorably morose lines about gray, cholera-scarred Penghu. Fischer treks from Ta…
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