Wanderings Through Formosa (1898) – Part 3 – S5-E49

In the final episode, the pace picks up as we follow Austrian traveler Adolf Fischer on his 1898 journey through Japanese-ruled Taiwan. He heads into the dangerous hill country of central Taiwan and later gives us some memorably morose lines about gray, cholera-scarred Penghu.

Fischer treks from Takao (Kaohsiung) across the southern mountains to the East Coast. Along the way, he has encounters with the Paiwan indigenous people involving fermented maize liquor and canned meat diplomacy, and yodeling. Eryk and John enjoy his often spicy opinions, sometimes agreeing (his observations on Buddhist missionaries) and at other times shaking their heads (he was so very wrong about Kaohsiung).

We wrap up by looking at Fischer’s ultimate verdict on Japan’s colonial experiment, and what happened to him and to his remarkable museum legacy in Germany.