Written by Jerry Chen. This article argues that myths surrounding youth baseball success and the “Chinese Taipei” designation obscure Taiwan’s complex history, while limiting global understanding of Taiwanese baseball and its evolving national identity.
Written by Yu-Han Huang. Reflecting on formative undergraduate experiences, the author traces how studying Japanese colonial Taiwan and reading Leo Ching’s Becoming “Japanese” shaped his academic path. Ching’s analysis of colonial identity formation, despite criticisms, offered a framework to understand Taiwan’s complex identity and revealed how colonial legacies continue to influence Taiwanese self-consciousness.
Written by Charles R. Charrington. This article re-examines Japanese colonial rule in Taiwan by juxtaposing narratives of modernisation with documented violence. It traces military invasions, massacres, and coercive governance from the late nineteenth century to World War II, while situating them within broader imperial dynamics. Rather than advancing anti-Japanese sentiment, it foregrounds how colonial violence has been obscured despite its centrality to Taiwan’s historical formation.
Written by I-Yun Lee. This article is an overview that traces Taiwanese comics from Japanese colonial to post-war Taiwan, the rise of rental comics, and the severe censorship that stifled creators from the 1960s to the 1980s. Shaped by colonial importation, market demand, and state control, Taiwan’s comic history emerges as a story of negotiation and constraint.
Written by Aaron Su. This article discusses the crucial role of photography in consolidating a liberal multicultural order in Taiwan by obscuring dissent through visual depictions of harmonious Indigenous life. Drawing on fieldwork at Taiwan’s Cultural Health Stations, the author shows how photography portrays Indigenous satisfaction with current health policies, leaving little room for the everyday pressures, demands, and disputes.
Written by Mu-Hsi Kao Lee. The article explores the experience of reading Taiwan Travelogue as a translated historical yuri novel. Kao Lee reflects on how the narrative, despite its clear genre and straightforward plot, evokes a sense of both satisfaction and longing in the reader. The article highlights the story’s ability to interweave historical and cultural details with the protagonists’ emotional connection, examining themes of desire, identity, and the complexities of relationships within a specific historical context.
