I came across this video in my search for more information about WUFI, the World United Formosans for Independence organization. Unlike some other 台灣演義 videos that I've posted, this one has English subtitles! Enjoy!
Saturday, April 13, 2024
Thursday, April 04, 2024
Preparing for a presentation in Japan
I've been invited to talk at the Center for Asian Studies at Kanagawa University in Yokohama about my research on George H. Kerr. My lecture is entitled, "Formosa's "Borrowed Voice": George H. Kerr's Struggle to Chronicle Taiwan's Postwar Trauma," playing on the title of Linda Arrigo and Lynn Miles' book, A Borrowed Voice: Taiwan Human Rights through International Networks, 1960-1980 (a book you should get if you haven't yet!). Like the "foreigners" Arrigo and Miles describe who lent their voices to speak for Taiwanese who, at the time, would be in danger if they spoke out themselves, Kerr tried to use his voice to tell Americans about what was happening in Taiwan as soon as he left the island after the February 28 Incident. But he struggled to write and publish a complete account of what happened, for reasons I'll describe in my talk.
My lecture is on April 19--if you happen to be in the Yokohama area, here's where you can get more information to register!
I'm also working on an article manuscript about this topic, which has been accepted with revisions required. (That might take a little while because I'm also speaking at the North American Taiwan Studies Association conference in June. Yikes!)
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
This blog is 20 years old!
A lot has happened since I typed out these words.
A Pennsylvania Dutch proverb that I often heard as a child goes, "Ve git too soon oldt und too late schmart." I think that about sums things up. I don't have any words of wisdom to share after 20 years of off-and-on blogging. I sort of do this for my own entertainment, I guess, so I don't have high expectations for it. (Though I have at times referred to it in my annual self-criticisms merit reviews as an example of the writing that I do.)
If anyone is curious, though, here's a list of what are currently the top three posts on this thing, according to Blogger stats:
- Thoughts and questions about George H. Kerr, Edward Paine, and Formosa Betrayed (Updated, 9/27/18), September 3, 2016
- Brush with history: My father's photos of the May 19, 1946 Tokyo food demonstrations, August 3, 2016
- "The Story of The United States Government..." in Taiwan and Bahrain, July 5, 2016
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Need to watch: Fareed Zakaria's CNN special about "Taiwan: Unfinished Business"
I saw an ad for this Fareed Zakaria special on Taiwan, but I wasn't able to see it when it was on CNN, so I'm recording it and will watch it later.
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Two new books in the former native speaker's library
University of Hawai'i Press has a clearance sale going, so I bought two books--I think they were a dollar each:
- Ideogram: Chinese Characters and the Myth of Disembodied Meaning, by J. Marshall Unger
- Family Catastrophe, by Wang Wen-hsing (translated by Susan Wan Dolling)
Saturday, February 03, 2024
Three new books in the former native speaker's library
Not much to say about these yet because I'm still buried in reading student work, last semester's "sabbatical" a distant bittersweet memory...
- Memories of the Japanese Empire: Comparison of the Colonial and Decolonisation Experiences in Taiwan and Nan’yo-gunto, ed. Yuko Mio (2023)
- The Meiji Japanese Who Made Modern Taiwan, by Toshio Watanabe (trans. Robert D. Eldridge) (2023)
- Words Like Colored Glass: The Role Of The Press In Taiwan's Democratization Process, by Daniel K Berman (1992)
Saturday, January 20, 2024
A video about the history of trains in Taiwan
Think I'll watch this when I get a chance. I tried to get my son the train fanatic to watch this with me, but he lost interest because I couldn't translate it fast enough...
Friday, January 05, 2024
Taiwan Film & Audiovisual Institute website
"Sabbatical" review
Books read since the end of last spring semester (links are to my posts on the books--I didn't post on everything I read):
- Hsin-I Cheng and Hsin-i Sydney Yueh, eds. Resistance in the Era of Nationalisms: Performing Identities in Taiwan and Hong Kong
- Carol S. Lipson and Roberta A. Binkley, eds. Rhetoric Before and Beyond the Greeks
- Xiaoye You, Genre Networks and Empire: Rhetoric in Early Imperial China
- Scott E. Simon, Truly Human: Indigeneity and Indigenous Resurgence on Formosa
- Richard Madsen, Democracy's Dharma: Religious Renaissance and Political Development in Taiwan
- Robert Culp, Articulating Citizenship: Civic Education and Student Politics in Southeastern China, 1912-1940
- Xing Lu, Rhetoric of the Chinese Cultural Revolution: The Impact on Chinese Thought, Culture, and Communication
- Nikky Lin, ed. A Taiwanese Literature Reader
- Darryl Sterk, trans. Scales of Injustice: The Complete Fiction of Lōa Hô
- A-chin Hsiau, Politics and Cultural Nativism in 1970s Taiwan: Youth, Narrative, Nationalism
- Chu Yu-hsun (朱宥勳), When They Were Not Writing Novels 【他們沒在寫小說的時候】
- Mira Shimabukuro, Relocating Authority: Japanese Americans Writing to Redress Mass Incarceration
- Hsin-i Sydney Yueh, Identity Politics and Popular Culture in Taiwan: A Sajiao Generation
- Wendy Cheng, Island X: Taiwanese Student Migrants, Campus Spies, and Cold War Activism
Monday, January 01, 2024
First "new book in the former native speaker's library" post of 2024!
This afternoon, I went to the neighborhood 7-Eleven and picked up a book I ordered yesterday from the 博客來 website: it's called 《島國知音:台灣問題專家葛超智其人其事》(An Island Nation's Close Friend: Taiwan Expert George H. Kerr's Life and Experiences). It's a translation of 《沖縄と台湾を愛した ジョージ・H・カー先生の思い出》, which was published in 2018. I have a copy of the Japanese book, but I can't read it, so I was excited when I found out a Chinese translation had been published.
The book is a collection of essays about George H. Kerr by people who knew him (like Kabira Tomokiyo 川平朝清 and Higa Mikio 比嘉幹郎) and people who have studied his life and work (like Su Yao-tsung 蘇瑤崇 and Yoshihara Yukari 吉原ゆかり). It looks like it'll be a good book to read on the flight home!