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The Taiwan History Podcast: Formosa FilesAuthor: John Ross and Eryk Michael Smith
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. The hosts are John Ross, an author and publisher of works on Taiwan and China, and Eryk Michael Smith, a journalist for local and global media outlets. Both Ross and Smith have lived in Taiwan for over two decades and call the island home. Email: formosafiles@gmail.com Language: en Genres: History Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Wanderings Through Formosa (1898) – Part 3 – S5-E49
Episode 49
Wednesday, 11 February, 2026
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 the dangerous hill country of central Taiwan and later gives us some memorably morose lines about gray, cholera-scarred Penghu. Fischer treks from Takao (Kaohsiung) across the southern mountains to the East Coast. Along the way, he has encounters with the Paiwan indigenous people involving fermented maize liquor and canned meat diplomacy, and yodeling. Eryk and John enjoy his often spicy opinions, sometimes agreeing (his observations on Buddhist missionaries) and at other times shaking their heads (he was so very wrong about Kaohsiung). We wrap up by looking at Fischer’s ultimate verdict on Japan’s colonial experiment, and what happened to him and to his remarkable museum legacy in Germany.
