TAIWAN HISTORY - Formosa Files Episodes

Although Eryk is as sick as a dog, both he and John are in very high spirits, and not just because, once again, they get to chat about stinky tofu. In this "bits and pieces" episode there's some jumping around, …

Taiwan is a food-lover's paradise, with tasty treats, delicious dishes, scrumptious suppers, marvelous morsels... a versatile, vast variety of fabulous foods. John and Eryk aren't really down with the whole clichéd, “let's make stuff about foreigners eating stinky tofu” phenomenon, …

This week we're looking at Tokyo, and telling a few tales that connect events in that major world city to people, places, and things in Taiwan. ポッドキャストをお楽しみください!

Writer Wu Zhuoliu 吳濁流 (1900-1976), sadly, never saw Taiwan blossom into a democracy. But he left us with some of the most important works ever written about 20th-century Taiwan. Among these is the autobiography “The Fig Tree”, whose early chapters …

The History of Taiwan: Formosa Files, rated as the best Taiwan history podcast, has gained a lot of new listeners of late, and many seem to begin listening from where they first encounter the program. But there are lots of …

Mark Crilley is one of the top 10 American manga artists, and he has a new graphic novel out called LOST IN TAIWAN (2023). Formosa Files caught up with Mark, who spilled the beans on why he was here in …

Hear the tale of Japanese colonial officials discovering golf as the "new cool thing for elites" -- and ordering a course built in just a few hours. Plus, the story of Lu Liang-huan (呂良煥), a man from a poor family …

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 …

Taiwan loves seafood, and boats from this island trawl for yummy ocean offerings thousands of kilometers away from our shores. Taiwanese fishing vessels are very good at what they do, but they weren't always so good in how they did …

John chats with photographer Chris Stowers. In 1988, Chris sailed a traditional Indonesian boat on an epic sea voyage (a trip described alongside the three-part series on the Free China junk, S3-Ep23-25). This led to his first story and photos …

Here's something we bet you didn't know: in 1938, Soviet pilots in Soviet planes (disguised to look like ROC Air Force planes) bombed the main airfield in Taihoku (now the Songshan Airport 臺北松山機場 in Taipei City). We've got that story …

Not gonna lie folks: this episode gets dark; the story of a super swine slaughter. But, there's also some tasty morsels of info on Taiwan's favorite meat, and the pig’s place in the island’s history and culture. Plus, a final …

Remember those two Polish cargo ships and one oil tanker from the USSR seized by the ROC Navy in the 1950s? Well, the story has one highly interesting extra element we didn't have time to get to in the last …

After retreating to Taiwan, the ROC government-in-exile ordered a naval blockade of China, which lasted officially until 1979. In the early years, it was much more aggressively enforced than one might imagine. There were interceptions and attacks by the ROC …

Taiwanese history would have been very different except for a few pivotal moments. “Sure,” you might be thinking, “that's true everywhere.” However, the “what ifs” Michael Turton and Eryk Michael Smith talk about today are especially fascinating because of Taiwan’s …

Today John Ross and Chris Stowers (a man who has first-hand knowledge of what it's like to sail on an old-fashioned sailing boat) end our three-part series on the amazing voyage of the Chinese junk (built possibly in the 1890s) …

We continue the amazing tale of six men who set sail from Keelung in 1955 aboard the Free China junk to join a trans-Atlantic yacht race. They were attempting to show that an old-fashioned Chinese vessel could compete against some …

In 1954, a man living in Keelung 基隆 asked himself, “Could an old-fashioned Chinese junk beat modern yachts in a race on the high seas?” The answer? -- An almost unbelievable tale involving a boat that would become world-famous: the …

Seen the Barbie movie? No worries... Eryk saw it for you, and he noticed one thing they didn't mention in the film: from 1967-1987, most of the world's Barbie dolls were made in Taiwan. Factories in the tiny town of …

China's People's Liberation Army/Navy has been practicing for a possible blockade of Taiwan with ships, planes, and drones. This week, Formosa Files looks at the history of blockades connected to Taiwan. Plus, hear about the nastiest "ocean blockade" in history …

In this special episode, we hear Eryk reading from chapter five of John’s “Taiwan in 100 Books.” The topic is 2-28, an event named after a date: February 28, 1947. It’s usually referred to as the February 28 incident, but …

The last Japanese "holdout" of World War II was an Indigenous Amis Taiwanese named Attun Palalin, but in Japanese Formosa, he was Nakamura Teruo (中村 輝夫). Palalin was one of a group of Indigenous Taiwanese who served in the Japanese …

Tamsui (Danshui) native John Groot and Formosa Files' John Ross continue their walk and talk around the old town. They’re on the trail of the 1884 Battle of Tamsui between French and Taiwanese forces, a battle which was a rare …

Strategically located near the mouth of the Tamsui (Danshui) River, the port town of Tamsui has a long, rich history. The Spanish built a fort here in the 1600s, as did the Dutch, and numerous European traders came here in …