Coming soon! The first major book from our new publishing venture Plum Rain Press (English translation): "Three Tribes in Dutch Formosa" by Dr. Chen Yao-chang 陳耀昌.
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…
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 by the Dutch in 1648 and …
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 make…
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 Biograp…
In the summer of 1973, a young Mike Chinoy finagled his way onto one of the earliest trips of civilian Americans to “Red China.” He would later become CNN’s China correspondent – moving to the PRC in 1987 – and became famous…
Did you know:
In 1920, ROC founder Sun Yat-sen wrote a letter in support of Israel’s nationhood aspirations? And, the ROC govt in Nanjing was the first Asian state to recognize the State of Israel in 1948?
Israel was t…
1958. Just 66 years ago, yet Taiwan back then was like a completely different country. There was no television, but there were Russian-language radio broadcasts to Siberia. Eryk and John share nuggets from a 1959 ROC booklet…
