How to Become an Expert in Taiwan History
Basically, consume books as if they’re an addictive drug
I have always loved books and read a lot, so when I need to learn about something, the library is the first place I will go to indulge in my drug of choice. The beauty of this situation: so can everyone! These books have helped me greatly in understanding the complex story of how Taiwan developed in the 20th century. It’s impossible to learn history in a vacuum, so there are books about how China and Japan also developed as background information. The contextualization provides a “parallel universe” for comparison, as well as historical proof that Taiwan and Taiwanese heritage are unique.
Each book is linked to a full publication description so you can know exactly which copy to look for in your community library or if you decide to purchase for your own personal library.
Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah
There is another version of this book called Chinese Cinderella — both are the autobiography of an unwanted daughter in a prominent family and the tumultuous (abusive) family dynamics set against the backdrop of turbulent 1940s China. Taiwan is mentioned only peripherally, but the context of China events leading up to the family’s decision to split up and relocate is very similar to so many families’ stories in the China-Taiwan theater during this time.
Side note for architects and architectural historians: the descriptions of the early-1940s Tianjin and Shanghai cityscapes, particularly the foreign settlements that were insulated autonomous neighborhoods, are gems in writing about place and bringing it to life.
Mao’s Last Dancer by Li Cunxin
This book is fascinating to me because the author describes in great detail his journey from being a poor rural village boy, plucked from everything he knew, to becoming a product and treasure of Communist China as a world-class ballet dancer. His eventual “deprogramming” from the Communist party, and later defection, caused international headlines in 1981. Taiwan was spared a Cultural Revolution (sort of, at least the Madame Mao version when it came to dance), but there is definitely a dearth of artistic expression that Taiwan suffered post-colonial era to more recent times.
My favourite painting from colonial era Taiwan (painted in 1930) is just as much a history lesson as a work of art. There were several Japanese-educated Taiwanese painters who had very Japanese sensibilities in their artwork, and as they die off one by one, there’s really no one to replace them. Other forms of the arts follow this pattern, if they flourished in the first place. One interesting category, however, is fashion history — especially the qipao — because while the Cultural Revolution in China effectively interrupted the development of the qipao, Taiwan’s continuous qipao evolution means this is one art form that survived and provides significant context of how the Chinese diaspora dressed.
This memoir is epic because it tells the story of an entire century of China history through the lives of three generations of women in the same family. The most relevant threads to Taiwan history are how the warlordism of the author’s grandmother’s generation led to the various ideological-political armies, one of which being the Nationalist army that would eventually lose to the Communist Party and make its way to Taiwan (with full support from the Allied powers). This book follows what happened in China after the Nationalists left, and so paints a vivid picture of what it was the KMT was originally fighting. Those who know what happened within the KMT in later years will see some meaningful parallels with what happened in Communist China.
Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang
This is kind of an anti-recommendation because while I loved Wild Swans, this book had a not-so-subtle agenda-feel to it. Certainly with her father’s high-ranking connections in the Communist Party, and how everything fell apart for her family, the author had a lot of insidery source material that would have inevitably led to Mao. It’s worth reading for the perspective, and certainly for the parts that discuss Chiang Kai-shek before he left for Taiwan. I guess the “shock value” of debunking the myth of Mao is only shocking for someone who is either Chinese (and taught CCP propaganda) and/or doesn’t know anything about China-Taiwan (or Asia) history. I don’t know that anyone who has any consciousness of the subject matter would “suddenly” think Mao is the devil incarnate, which is the blatantly obvious subtext of this book.
Big Sister, Little Sister, Red Sister by Jung Chang
Like her own memoir, this book is a “group biography”, but rather than telling the stories of three women sequentially, this story about three sisters weaves their lives together, along with great historical events and other great historical figures. If people think an epic fictitious novel has a too-complicated plot and involves too many characters to portray accurately on film, try a real life story with all those elements and then some! The title sisters are the daughters of the Soong Family, or rather, Soong Dynasty if their father had his way. Although trained and ordained as a Methodist pastor, Papa Soong’s purpose in life was to install his sons as titans of industry and marry off his daughters to the greatest political leaders of China. And yes, that goes just about as smoothly as one might guess.
The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek by Hannah Pakula
Modern China-Taiwan-US (maybe even Japan) relations as we know it can be traced back to the three Soong sisters (and actually, their father), but Soong Mei-ling is a true force of nature all to herself. Love her or hate her, she was the extreme antithesis of some politician’s trophy wife, and makes super-involved American first ladies look like lightweight game show contestants. This dedicated biography to just one child of the Soong Family explains so much of China-Taiwan history, and also provides fascinating insight into Soong Mei-ling’s personal ambitions. This is my own paraphrase: If anyone knows their ancient Roman/Egyptian histories, Soong was essentially Cleopatra, looking for her Julius Caesar, so together they could rule the world. Her life was THAT dramatic.
Chiang Kai-shek’s Secret Past by Ch’en Chieh-ju
More like Chiang Kai-shek’s Secret WIFE. This book came out in 1993, almost twenty years after the death of a woman who was known to have been Chiang’s second wife. The way she tells it, Chiang had divorced his first wife (the mother of his son and heir) because it was a loveless arranged marriage, and this time it was for love. However, in his insatiable quest for power, a political marriage with Soong Mei-ling was inevitable.
Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan by Patricia Tsurumi
This is the English textbook for anyone interested in education(al history), and especially about the methods and intention behind the mandatory education system that the Japanese colonial government installed in Taiwan. Although there are a lot of charts and research-method descriptions, the anthropological aspect is covered well and there is plenty of insight for both heritage specialist and layman alike.
This book is out of print now and difficult to obtain, and I’m lucky to have a copy because my uncle gave it to me a decade ago when I was starting on my journey of becoming a historic preservationist (though I didn’t know it at the time). A heritage specialist himself, my uncle spent his entire career researching the Japanese colonial education system that was specifically for “the natives”. He essentially spent forty years writing a book (in Japanese) on a topic that no one else has really bothered to study in-depth, and I’m now in the process of repackaging it into English. If you can and want to read the original in Japanese, contact me so I can put you in touch with him to buy a copy!
A Taste of Freedom by Peng Ming-min
This is the only book I have read written by someone who was born and raised in the Japanese colonial era and describes the transition to the KMT government in such emotive-yet-analytic detail. The reason why I like this book so much is because while the topic of Japanese colonialism (and colonialism in general) almost always leads to outrage and vitriol now about the evil of Japanese military and government in the first half of the 20th century (or any colonial power), the author is the best example of how the Taiwanese people who actually lived through Japanese and KMT rule felt about the two fundamentally different approaches to governance. Were the Japanese perfect? No. And no responsible historian will ever say that (so calm down, ragers). The topic is complicated, and requires integrative complexity to fully comprehend and appreciate it — Peng Ming-min’s narrative sets a high standard (and not just because it’s the only standard!).
Formosa Betrayed by George Kerr
This was written by an American diplomatic attache in the 1940s; he was on the transition team that de-Japanized Taiwan and helped set up the KMT government. He witnessed the 228 Massacre and believed he was part of a huge mistake, which is why his perspective is mostly through the lens of personal regret and powerlessness. The peripheral story surrounding this book is that he wrote the manuscript soon after the massacre and secretly circulated it for years. When finally published in 1965 (in the US), it was nonetheless impossible to obtain in Taiwan. It is probably the most famous 1947 eyewitness account by a non-Asian foreigner, and unique as an English-original work written by someone with his specific background in US-Taiwan diplomacy. A movie of the same title was released in 2009, but the story was completely changed and shouldn’t be confused with the book.
Formosa Calling by Allan Shackleton
Much like Formosa Betrayed, but written by a New Zealander, this is another eyewitness account of Taiwan’s development from a foreign diplomat’s perspective. I was only a few pages in when I gave my copy to someone else to read, so what I remember is mostly skimming in desperation while in the car on the way to meet that person. The difference between this and Kerr’s book is that Shackleton didn’t feel as personally responsible because he was part of the UN Relief program and his work was less about setting up the new government and more about cleaning up after the war. Like Kerr, Shackleton knew the likelihood of his manuscript being published was very slim, so it was actually his son who published the book, 50 years after it was written. I expect if I had finished this book it would have helped round out a lot of the context for Kerr’s book, so I recommend pairing the two — I don’t know if it would make a difference which book is read first.
This curated list of book recommendations is by Emi Higashiyama, the preservationist behind @JapaneseColonial on Instagram.
