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Taiwan: A Unique Colonial Record 1937-8 edition

Issued By Kokusai Nippon Kyokai, in Tokyo Japan

Edited Compiled and Designed by Hideo Naito

Book summary:

The completion of a work of this nature, 'however conscientiously undertaken and pursued, brings with it a feeling of pleasure not, however, unmixed with a certain measure of trepidation. This is all the more true in the case of the present book, "A Record of Taiwan's Progress" (1936-7 Edition); for, to the best of the Editor's knowledge, it is absolutely the authoritative work in English language dealing exhaustively, through illustrations and reading matter, with the fascinating country of Taiwan. A glance through these pages will convince even the casual reader that Taiwan is a land of surprises, unsurpassed in many respects, rich in scenic beauties and the glorious glamour of the tropics. And when one additionally realises that Taiwan is a vital link in the Japanese Empire, is destined by nature to play a yet more important part, one cannot but feel that hitherto it has not received the publicity it rightly merits. In any case, the Editor and his associates have applied themselves in the preparation of this book to the best of their ability, carefully sifting data and statistics in the interest of accuracy: and, although a few improvements must doubtless be made in future editions, we feel confident that those persons interested in Taiwan will find much useful information between its covers. Should our task, here presented as "A Record of Taiwan's Progress" (1936-7 Edition), be rewarded with a measure of public approval, we would indeed feel amply repaid for the hard work involved in its preparation; in addition, it would encourage us to bring the 1937 Edition nearer to perfection. With these few introductory remarks, the Editor takes great pleasure in presenting: "A Record of Taiwan's Progress" (1936-7 Edition).

From Far Formosa

Author: George Leslie Mackay

Book summary:

From Far Formosa is a memoir written by George Leslie Mackay, a Canadian missionary who spent many years in Taiwan (then known as Formosa) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The book details Mackay's experiences, challenges, and successes as he worked to spread Christianity and establish churches among the indigenous Taiwanese people. Mackay arrived in Taiwan in 1871 and settled in northern Taiwan, where he faced numerous obstacles including language barriers, cultural differences, and opposition from local authorities. Despite these challenges, Mackay was determined to build relationships with the Taiwanese people and share his Christian beliefs with them. Throughout the book, Mackay recounts his interactions with the indigenous tribes, his efforts to provide medical care and education, and his experiences in navigating the political and social landscape of Taiwan during that time. He also shares stories of conversion, baptism, and the growth of the Christian community in Taiwan.

About the author:

George Leslie Mackay (1844-1901) was a Canadian Presbyterian missionary who played a significant role in the history of Taiwan. He arrived in northern Taiwan, then called Formosa, as the first Presbyterian missionary from Canada. His work with the Canadian Presbyterian Mission left a lasting impact, making him one of the most prominent and influential Western figures in Taiwan's history.

Taiwan Lives: A Social and Political History

Author: Livesniki J. P. Alsford

Book summary:

From a cradle of Austronesian expansion to the dynamic economic powerhouse and successful democracy it is today, Taiwan is layered in colonial histories. In Taiwan Lives, Niki J. P. Alsford presents a comprehensive examination of the island nation's rich and complex past, told through the life stories of those who have lived it. A merchant, an exile, an activist, a pop star, a doctor, and a president are just some of the twenty-four individuals whose lives populate this people's history of Taiwan. Ranging across time, social strata, ethnicity, and political alliance, these tales offer snapshots of historical eras and illustrate the interwoven fabric of colonialism.

About the author:

Niki J. P. Alsford is professor of Asia Pacific studies and head of Asia Pacific Institutes at the University of Central Lancashire. He is author of Transitions to Modernity in Taiwan: The Spirit of 1895 and the Cession of Formosa to Japan.

Taiwan: The Threatened Democracy

Author: Bruce Herschensohn

Book summary:

Taiwan: The Threatened Democracy is Bruce Herschensohn's timely examination of the forgotten conflict that may yet embroil the world in war. Taiwan has long been a flashpoint in the struggle between freedom and conquest. Having served both Presidents Nixon and Reagan, Herschensohn brings compelling insight into the ongoing struggle between these emerging Asian rivals. Among the new facts revealed in Taiwan: The Threatened Democracy is the existence of a personal letter written by former President Nixon to then-President Jimmy Carter after Carter broke diplomatic relations with Taiwan and extended them to the People's Republic of China. While Nixon's letter explicitly warned of the pressures Carter's decision would place on the United States, the former president refused to publicly censure Carter's decision, observing a tradition that Carter has disdained-that of not criticizing a sitting president. Utilizing his unique access to officials in both the United States and Taiwan, Herschensohn traces their relationship from the Maoist era through the Cold War to today, then projects what the future might hold. "There are, of course, in every country, the disunited who will accept peace at any price. Those are the ones who do not know that liberty without peace still has hope, while peace without liberty is surrender. Always."

About the author:

Bruce Herschensohnhas led a rich and varied life. Herschensohn traveled through over ninety countries of the world. He was the 1992 Republican nom-ince for the U.S. Senate in California and was defeated while winning more than four million voles; one million votes more than Californians cast for the national ticket of the Party. Herschensohn has received the Distinguished Service Medal the nation's second-highest civilian award. A prolific author and political commentator, he currently teaches at Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy, is an Associate Fellow of the Nixon Center, and serves on the Board of Directors of the Center for Individual Freedom.

Taiwan’s Statesman: Lee Teng-hui and Democracy in Asia

Author: Richard C. Kagan

Book summary:

A well-known observer of Taiwan and Asian history and culture provides an insightful biography of Lee Teng Hui, the pro-democracy statesman and former president of the Republic of China. As head of the Taiwanese government from 1988 to 2000, Lee managed, without violence or major civil unrest, to reform the authoritarian state into a constitutional democracy with a multi-party political system. This examination of Lee's success puts to rest the idea that Asian values support only authoritarian regimes and reject human rights and political democracy in favor of economic success and military power. Richard C. Kagan describes in rich detail Lee's struggle to reinvent Taiwan's culture and political system by advocating an independent sovereign nation with universal values of human rights, democracy, freedom, and economic justice. His book offers new insights into the role Lee played in the still volatile Taiwan Strait crisis and how Lee's diplomatic skills used the crisis to break free of the One China straitjacket of the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972 while avoiding open warfare with the People's Republic of China. The author argues that Taiwan is a vital part of America's national security interests in Asia and that the loss of Taiwan to Mainland China would seriously damage American economic and military power in Asia. He calls Lee's life a beacon for people looking for new ways to promote democracy and sovereignty and intends this biography of Lee's life to highlight the statesman's significant contributions, until now little known or misunderstood in the United States and Europe.

About the author:

Richard C. Kagan is professor emeritus in history at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He holds a Ph.D. in Asian history from the University of Pennsylvania. He studied in Taiwan from 1965 to 1967 at the Stanford Center at National Taiwan University, where he befriended many Chinese and Taiwanese political and literary dissidents, and during the next dozen years he made several trips to Taiwan to study the growing pro-democracy movement. He also became active in Taiwan human rights issues and testified twice before congressional committees and government agencies about abuses in the aftermath of the 1979 "Kaohsiung Incident." From 1981 to the early 1990s, Professor Kagan was not welcome in Taiwan.He returned there in 1994 to write a biography of Chen Shui-bian, then mayor of Taipei and now Taiwan's president. In 2003 Professor Kagan received a human rights award in Taiwan. He has written about human rights in North Korea, China, Japan, and Taiwanqwi and has taught courses on international Shamen rights law and comparative genocide.

Men and Women: An Obstetrician-Gynecologist's Essays 
男女兩性: 一位婦產科醫師的文集

Author: Huang Zheyang 黄哲陽

Book summary:

Short collection of excerpts from the author. The short articles are written as the author waits for the delivery of the baby. The subject matter is imaginative, but the observation is nuanced and the insights are unique, and it is quite readable. It is divided into five articles: memories, religion, miscellaneous thoughts, fabrications, and tourism.

About the author:

Dr. Huang was born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and graduated from National Taiwan University School of Medicine in 1967. From 1967 to 1968, he served as a reserve officer in the 49th Division of the Army at Guguan in Taichung, focusing on the examination and treatment of venereal diseases in the army, and came to the United States in 1968 to receive specialist training in obstetrics and gynecology, obtained a medical license in New York and California and a diploma from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and practiced obstetrics and gynecology in Southern California for 30 years He is the two-term director of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at St. Anthony's Hospital, edited the annual journal of the Taiwanese Physicians Association of North America for nine years, and assisted Professor Ye Siya in founding and holding the Taiwanese American Faith and Humanities Workshop, which is committed to the study of various religions and interreligious harmony, and now lives in Upland, Southern California.

黃哲陽醫師生於台灣高雄，1967年畢業於台灣大學醫學院醫科。1967-1968在台中谷關陸軍49師服預備軍官役，專注軍中樂園性病之檢查和治療，1968年來美國接受婦產科專科訓練，取得紐約州和加州醫師執照以及美國婦產科學院文憑，在美國南加州開業婦產科三十年，曾任Upland 的聖安東尼醫院婦產科主任兩屆，曾主編北美洲台灣人醫師協會年刊九年，協助葉思雅教授創設並舉辦台美人信仰與人文研習會，致力於各宗教的研習及宗教間的和諧，現居於南加州 Upland。

Forbidden Nation: A History of Taiwan

Author: Jonathan Manthorpe

Book summary:

The raw truth is that no government of China, neither the current communist administration nor the previous Kuomintang regime, has a persuasive legal or moral claim to sovereignty over Taiwan. During the 300 years of Qing Dynasty presence on the island which ended in 1895 with Japanese annexation, China exercised a feeble and constantly challenged administration on only the western third of Taiwan. After Taiwan was handed to Chiang Kai-shek at the end of the Second World War in 1945— an illegal bequest as will be shown— the Mainland Kuomintang government was already on the run from the Communists. Large areas of China were never under effective Kuomintang control and Chiang lost it all to Mao Zedong by the end of 1949. Thus there has never been a Chinese administration which exercised government over both the Mainland and Taiwan at the same time. Beijing's lust now to possess Taiwan is excited by the same passions that have driven other empires over the last five centuries to gather the island under their imperial mantles. Taiwanese, for whom the island has simply been a refuge from the horrors of life elsewhere, are cursed for living on an outcrop of mountains and plains that sits on the strategic meeting place between the Far East and Southeast Asia. It is also a spot in the oceans that can give control over the South China coast. For that unhappy accident of geography Taiwanese have paid dearly throughout their history and continue to pay.

About the author:

Jonathan Manthorpe is a foreign news correspondent and international affairs columnist for the Vancouver Sun. He has been reporting on Asia since 1976. Manthorpe has received numerous awards for journalism and is a regular guest commentator on television and radio in Canada and several Asian countries.

Seven Colored Hearts 七色之心

Author: Ye Buyue 葉步月

Book summary:

How did Qiu Qing, a young and beautiful widow, survive poverty and hardship in the feudal society of the early 20th century, eliminate the cold discrimination of the world, and train three boys to enter the highest institutions of learning and become social elites? This is a trilogy of Dahe novels that span the four generations of a Taiwanese family from Japanese colonial rule to the post-war recovery of Taiwan. This story depicts all kinds of human images through the thorny road of the Lin family, reflecting the beliefs and customs of the time, and interweaving the joys, sorrows, hopes, aspirations, love, hatreds, and sympathies of the world.

年輕貌美的寡婦秋卿，如何在二十世紀初期的封建社會，度過貧窮艱厄、排除世人冷眼歧視，培養三個男孩進入最高學府，成為社會菁英？這是一部跨越日本殖民統治到戰後台灣光復，一個台灣家庭祖孫四代的三部曲大河小說。這個故事透過林家的荊棘之路描寫種種的人間圖像，映照當時的信仰風俗，交織出人世的喜怒哀樂、熱望抱負、愛憎憐憫等動人情節⋯⋯。

About the author:

Ye Buyue (1907-1968), whose real name was Ye Binghui, graduated from the Governor-General's Medical College in Taiwan in 1930 and received a doctorate in medicine from Taipei Imperial University in 1943. During the Japanese occupation, essays, and novels were scattered in newspapers and magazines such as "Taiwan Xinmin Daily" and "Taiwan Art". In the early post-war period, he published Japanese novels "White Painting Murder" and "Immortality", which were the first modern detective novels in Taiwan. In addition, he is the author of "The Doji of the Southern Sky - The Biography of Dr. Du Congming". "Seven Colored Hearts" was written in the late 1950s, and after the author's death for 40 years, it has finally been published in Chinese. In this photograph taken in January 1936, Ye Buyue, the person in the photo, said that it was an appropriate expression of his state of mind at that time.

葉步月(1907-1968)，本名葉炳輝，一九三〇年畢業於台灣總督府醫學專門學校，一九四三年獲台北帝國大學醫學博士學位。日治時期即有隨筆、小說散見於《台灣新民報》、《台灣藝術》等報刊雜誌。戰後初期所出版的日文小說《白畫の殺人》、《長生不老》，為台灣近代偵探小說之先河。此外，並著有《南天的十字星——杜聰明博士傳》。《七色之心》約執筆於一九五〇年代末期，作者過世後埋塵四十年，而今終於以中文版面世。這張攝於一九三六年一月的照片，影中人葉步月謂其適切表達彼時的心境。

The Season When Flowers Bloom 花開時節

Author: Yang Chien-he 楊千鶴
Translator: Lin Chih-mei 林智美
Purchase link

Yang Chien-he's important work "The Season When Flowers Bloom" (1942) examines the predicaments of modern girls in Japanese Taiwan. The new edition (2023) is in Chinese, English, and above all, two Taiwanese translations, to go with the Japanese original. In celebrating women's herstories, we include here some of the most valuable photos on Yang's life and work.

(Book launch on 12/17/2023)