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!
外 not
half-formed thoughts, occasional rants, and muttered sarcastic asides
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...