The Taiwan History Podcast: Formosa Files

• 1962: Taiwan’s Bloody Year You’ve Never Heard Of -S5-E13

  PLEASE NOTE: Formosa Files 中文版 has a new, separate feed. Hear it HERE, or on our website. Thanks! This week, Formosa Files digs into two wild and almost totally forgotten killings from Taiwan’s Cold War years. First up: a soldier named Li Wei, a former POW, sets his army barracks on fire in the middle of the night and opens fire on his fellow soldiers. The whole thing gets swept under the rug. No local news coverage. It’s been basically erased from memory.Then there’s Taiwan’s deadliest school shooting: the Lixing High School Massacre. A fired sports coach shows up at school with a pistol and a grudge. He kills the principal, teachers, and even goes after the principal’s family. This one made the headlines at the time, but somehow, almost nobody talks about it today.Both happened in 1962, when Taiwan was still under martial law and the government kept a very tight lid on the media. With help from researcher and Formosa Files Chinese version co-host  Eric Hsu, we dug through old court records and tracked down as much truth as we could find.

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• Chinese and Taiwanese Names… Too Many Names! – S5-E12

  Your name carries history, identity, and sometimes in Taiwan, salmon? In this episode, we explore Taiwanese/Chinese naming traditions: family names, generational names, courtesy names, and how colonization, politics, and even sushi promotions have shaped them. From the chaos of post-war name changes to the viral “Salmon Naming Incident” of 2021, join Formosa Files for a fascinating and funny audio journey into what our names say about us.It's worth checking out our WEBSITE as that's where you'll find show notes, transcripts, photos, images, info, links and more.

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• IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT! 重要公告

  The Chinese podcast hasn’t disappeared; it’s now got its own feed.FORMOSA FILES中文版的節目沒有消失！我們成立了新的頻道（SPOTIFY、APPLE），並將所有的中文版 podcast 章節移動過去。之後FORMOSA FILES中文版將以新的頻道繼續為各位聽眾朋友帶來有趣的臺灣歷史故事。Those who wish to keep listening to Eryk speak bad Chinese to Eric… migrate over to the new feed HERE, or find it on all major podcast platforms. Thanks!如果您喜歡我們的中文版節目，敬請繼續支持我們喔！New feed: click HERE, or visit our website.

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• “China’s Titanic” (1949) & The Cruise That Ended in Cremation (1994) - S5-E11

  Often called “China’s Titanic,” the 1949 sinking of the Taiping claimed over 1,000 lives as desperate refugees fled Shanghai for Taiwan. Forty-five years later, another tragedy struck: 24 Taiwanese tourists were brutally murdered during a pleasure cruise on China’s Qiandao Lake. The deaths and the clumsy, heartless Chinese cover-up caused outrage in Taiwan. In this episode, Formosa Files is revisiting two haunting shipping disasters that reveal the human cost of war, exile, and political mistrust across the Taiwan Strait.  We put a lot of effort into our WEBSITE... that's the place to go for “show notes.” Each episode page is crammed with as much extra info, pics, links, maps, and other info we can find. Make sure to check out FORMOSA FILES DOT COM !

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• Taiwan in the “Teens” (1911-1919) – S5-E10

  This early part of the twentieth century was filled with revolutions and wars (including the First World War). Formosa, however, was a relatively stable Japanese colony. But not entirely stable. We’ll tell you about Chinese revolutionary Luó Fúxīng (羅福星), who was executed in Taiwan for trying to rid this island of the Japanese. And we’ve got some good info on the often-overlooked Tapani Incident – the largest Han Chinese (with Indigenous allies) revolt against Japan… and it happened two decades into Japanese rule! Find links, pics and more at formosafiles.com

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