TAIWAN HISTORY - Formosa Files Episodes

400 Years: Dutch Formosa - part one: Of course, Chen Di was not actually the first person from China to visit Taiwan. What makes him special is that he wrote an account of what he saw here in 1603, and that account is the earliest surviving manuscript discovered thus far. Chen Di's short tr…

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 of men under his control.  Meet the Tsais (Cais): 蔡牽 and 蔡牽媽 a crazy…

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 existence, while others definitely knew, and stayed away. Taiw…

Tea was domesticated in China, and the knowledge of how to grow it, harvest it, and process it was a closely guarded secret. After basically becoming addicted to the beverage, the British needed to find a way to grow their own tea, as buying it from China was eating up their silver reserves. So, mi…

You'll see the "Blue Sky, White Sun, and Red Earth" flag everywhere across Taiwan, and each year, streets are lined with this banner to celebrate Double Ten Day on October 10th. But is it really the flag of Taiwan? Who designed it? Today's episode is all about the ROC flag: an engrossing tale invol…

Joyce Bergvelt's book Lord of Formosa is a novel, but she's an author who has extensively studied the Dutch colonial period and the main characters involved. Lord of Formosa, therefore, might be closer to a history book than fiction. Listen to John speak with Joyce as they discuss the complicated, …

Some of the earliest photos we have of Taiwan were taken by a British photographer who visited the southwest of the island in 1871. Taking pics back then was far from “point and shoot.” It was “get inside portable darkroom, grab delicate glass plate, cover with chemical A, then B, then C, then expo…

Arguably the single most important event in Taiwan’s history – and certainly the most dramatic story – was the arrival in 1661 of warlord and Ming loyalist Koxinga (鄭成功 Zheng Chenggong). After a fierce struggle, Koxinga evicted the Dutch, who had established a successful settlement in southwestern …

Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s two expeditions of 1852–1854 pried open Japan. Less well known is that one of the American ships visited Keelung in northeastern Taiwan to investigate the harbor and its coal resources. And completely forgotten is another American project, the North Pacific Exploring an…

Koxinga's eldest son, Zheng Jing, -- the ruler of the short-lived Kingdom of Dongning (1661-1683) -- almost lost his head in his late teens. Daddy Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) twice ordered his execution for fooling around with a wet nurse. But Zheng Jing survived and soon after became ruler-warlord u…

Taiwan lies at the heart of what's called the "first island chain," a boring name for a long line of amazing islands that stretches from Borneo to Russia’s Kuril Islands. The main island of Taiwan's closest neighbor is Yonaguni Island, part of what is today Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Formerly it wa…

After unifying Japan’s warring states, supreme feudal lord Hideyoshi launched a massive invasion of Korea. In 1593, a year into this Imjin War of 1592-1598, he sent an envoy to Taiwan on a doomed mission to establish formal diplomatic and trade relations. In 1609 and 1616, the Japanese Shogun Toku…

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). The Dutch East India Company’s regional headquarters in Batavia (Jakarta) sen…

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.

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 there in the first place? What did they want? Who did they trade with? How did…