The Taiwan History Podcast: Formosa Files
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The Taiwan History Podcast: Formosa Files
Formosa Files is the world's biggest and highest-rated Taiwan history podcast. We use an engaging storytelling format and are non-chronological, meaning every week is a new adventure - and, you can just find a topic that interests you and check out that episode...skip stuff that isn't your thing. Th...
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Chen Shu-chu: Taiwan’s Vegetable Vendor Philanthropist – Snack 04
In this Mother’s Day edition, we celebrate the extraordinary life of Chen Shu-chu (陳樹菊), a humble vegetable seller from Taitung who quietly donated...
Taiwan Ghosts: Haunted Hotels, Trickster Spirits, and Vengeful Widows – S6-E9
Ghosts of all kinds – wandering spirits, water ghosts looking for substitutes, mountain demons, and many more; welcome to the strange supernatural wor...
Guns in the Mountains: Taiwan’s Indigenous Firepower – S6-E8
We head into the mountains to tell the story of the deep relationship between Taiwan’s Indigenous communities and firearms. The warriors’ incredible s...
Ping-Pong with Mao in Taiwan: The Chairman (1969) – S6-E7
Join us as we step into the strange Cold War world of The Chairman, a forgotten 1969 spy thriller starring Hollywood great Gregory Peck. The movie, wh...
The Celebrity Forensics Expert: Henry Lee – Part 2 – S6-E6
It’s 1965, and Henry (27) and Margaret (26) Lee have moved to the USA. She’s working as a schoolteacher, and he’s trying to make ends meet however he...
Shoes, Graves, and Fingerprints: Henry Lee in Taiwan – Part 1
To mark the recent passing of Henry C. Lee (李昌鈺), one of the world’s most famous forensic scientists, we examine his extraordinary life. In Part 1,...
Bonus episode: Taiwan’s Sugar Railways (with Prof. Dafydd Fell) -S6
John talks with Professor Dafydd Fell of SOAS University about "The Twilight Years of Taiwan’s Sugar Railways", his new book co-written with Wang Xian...
Taiwanese Tea in America, American Spies in Formosa – S6-E4
In 1904, colonial Taiwan tried to impress America with oolong tea at the St. Louis World’s Fair. Just five years later, two American spies disguised a...
Wasabi – Green Fire from the Mountains – Snack 03
That little green blob of spicy paste beside your sushi and sashimi has an amazing backstory. The notoriously fussy plant is grown in the mountains of...
The Extraordinary Life of Huang Chin-tao (Part 2) – S6-E3
Huang Chin-tao (黃金島) was never a household name, but his life story is the story of modern Taiwan. In this concluding episode, we follow Huang from...
Huang Chin-tao: a History of Taiwan Through One Man’s Life (Part 1) – S6-E2
This is part one of the extraordinary life story of Huang Chin-tao (黃金島 Huáng Jīndǎo). In fact, he seemed to live not one life but many; he was a J...
Chopsticks – The “Quick Little Boys” of East Asia – Snack 02
What do Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam have in common? Chopsticks. In the second Formosa Files Snack, Eryk and John explore the cultural sto...
Taiwan’s Forgotten Horse History: Cowboys, Cavalry, and the Racing Craze – S6-E1
Horses have never played a big role in Taiwan’s history – or have they? Eryk and John start Season Six of Formosa Files and celebrate the Year of the...
The Taiwan "Tugou," or Mountain Dog – Snack 01
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...
Rambling Review of Season Five, and Introducing the Formosa Files "Snack"
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 t...
George Kerr and Formosa Betrayed (with Prof. Jonathan Benda) – S5-E52
American George H. Kerr was the most important Western eyewitness and chronicler of the February 28 Incident of 1947, the violent uprising and brutal...
"China’s Backstory: The History Beijing Doesn’t Want You to Read" by Scholar and Podcaster Lee Moore – S5-E51
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-rel...
New Year Special – The Taiwan Joss: The Shadow and the Pirates – S5-E50
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 f...
Wanderings Through Formosa (1898) – Part 3 – S5-E49
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...
Wanderings Through Formosa (1898) – Part 2 – S5-E48
In Part 2, we continue in the footsteps of the cultured Austrian traveler Adolf Fischer on his 1898 journey in Japanese-ruled Taiwan. From the commerc...
German Wanderings Through Formosa (1898) – Part 1 – S5-E47
The first in a special three-part series, this is a Taiwan travel account never before told in English. Formosa Files has had Streifzüge durch Formosa...
Taiwan’s Motorcycle Daredevil: Lu Ch’ing-an (呂慶安) – S5-E46
From “Muddy Ditch” in Chiayi County, Lu Ch’ing-an (1944–2011) rose to national fame as Taiwan’s Father of Motorcycle Stunts. The story starts with an...
The CIA Plan to Remove CKS (Part 2): S5-E45
The Cold War is heating up as the CIA continues to build a “Third Force” – a democratic alternative to both Mao’s Communists and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nat...
The CIA Plan to Remove President Chiang Kai-shek (Part 1): S5-E44
Standard histories tell us that after fleeing to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek became America’s staunch Cold War ally – an immovable figure with an iron gri...
S5 - [Remastered Encore] Ghost of Green Island: the SS President Hoover Shipwreck (1937)
Before this encore, a quick announcement: we are looking for (human) artists for a 2027 calendar project. If you're interested, get ahold of us. Thx!...
Shih Ch’ien: Taiwan’s “Father of Beggars” – S5-E43
Shih Ch’ien (施乾) is a young, well-educated Taiwanese man with a coveted government job in the Japanese colonial administration. But he turns his bac...
War Against Wuxia: Jin Yong, Banned Books, and Taiwan’s “Rainstorm Project” – S5-E42
Wuxia (武俠) novels are martial-arts stories full of swordsmen and swordplay, secret techniques, and chivalrous outlaws. Think Robin Hood crossed with...
Opium Paste and Stamped Silver: Early Japanese Rule in Taiwan – S5-E41
When Japan took control of Taiwan in 1895, it inherited a financial mess: a chaotic mix of chopped silver, copper cash, and foreign coins. The new col...
AUDIO ONLY - Taiwan’s Funeral Strippers: “Dancing for the Dead” – S5-E40
THIS IS AUDIO-ONLY. A LONGER VIDEO VERISON IS AVAILABLE.
This episode may not be suitable for minors.
Yes, funeral strippers are...
Taiwan’s Funeral Strippers: “Dancing for the Dead” – S5-E40
Note: This episode may not be suitable for minors.
Yes, funeral strippers are real, and their story is far more complicated than...
Shulinkou Air Station – Part 3: Taiwan and the Gulf of Tonkin – S5-E39
We end our Shulinkou trilogy by tying together the surprisingly interconnected Taiwan–U.S.–Vietnam story. It’s July 1964, and two U.S. Navy destroyers...
Shulinkou Air Station – Part 2 – S5-E38
We continue the story of the Shulinkou Air Station and the American military in the early 1960s. We tackle Taiwan’s infamous gravel-truck killers (urb...
Shulinkou Air Station – Part 1 of 3 (early 1960s) – S5-E37
It was one of Taiwan’s most secretive Cold War outposts: Shulinkou Air Station (樹林口空軍情報站), a joint-service U.S. intelligence base perched on a...
Special Episode: A Farewell to Dr. Chen Yao-chang, and a Look at His Novel “Three Tribes”
Pioneering researcher, physician and historical novelist Dr Chen Yao-chang passed away at the age of 76 on November 17. He will be deeply missed by fa...
Unfinished Projects – unbuilt buildings, unfilmed films, unrealized dreams – S5-E36
Ever taken Kaohsiung’s cable car across the harbor, had fun at Chiayi’s Universal Studios theme park, marveled at Taiwan’s Statue-of-Liberty-style gif...
S5 Bonus: Taiwan and Xu Fu (with Chris Stowers)
Ancient Chinese records tell us that in 210 BC a Taoist priest and alchemist named Xu Fu (徐福) sailed east to find the elixir of immortality for the...
Alters and Outlaws: Ben Sando on Taiwan’s Underworld – Gangs, Temples, and Political Influence – S5-E35
We’ll let Benjamin Sando, research fellow at the Global Taiwan Institute, and our guest for this week’s episode, describe the topic:
“The Eleventh Commandment” – the First Western Movie Shot in Taiwan – S5-E34
This wonderfully weird story is part of our “almost-no-one’s-ever-hear-of-Taiwan-trivia” collection, and man… it’s wild. Plot synopsis: A Cold War war...
Bits & Pieces: “Women of the Orient” and Around the World in an Amphibious Jeep (1956) – S5-E33
In this Bits & Pieces episode, John makes Eryk read some cringe-inducing lines from a guide to “the women of the Orient.” Then, they set off on one of...
From Ashes to Innovation: Japan, Taiwan, and the Spirit of the Osaka Expo of 1970 — S3-E32
In 1968, just 23 years after the end of WWII, Japan became the world’s second-largest economy (and would remain so until 2011, when it was overtaken b...