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Taiwan in the Eyes of a Western Traveler--John Thomson’s Footprints in Formosa

Publication date: 2013
Author: Li Pin-huei |Staff member of the Archives of Institute of Taiwan History

John Thomson(1837-1921)is regarded as a pioneering photographer in the 19th century. He traveled to Far East, documenting the portraits, landscapes and eastern cultures profoundly through his lens and these photographs have become precious historical records. Although John Thomson only stayed in Taiwan for a few days, the images and notes he left are valuable historical materials for the research into Taiwan in the 1870s.His story could be comparable to Shen Bao-zhen, one of the figures in 「Traveling in Time」Exhibition. They were the travelers who came to Taiwan in the same time period. Through their stories, we can learn how they interpret Formosa in the 19th century.
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II. The Chance for Visiting Taiwanese Plains Aborigines

After Thomson went to Taiwan, he mainly stayed in Tainan, which was one of the places where Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell did his medical missionary work. Dr. Maxwell came to Taiwan for his medical missionary work five or six years earlier than Thomson so that he was more familiar with Taiwan than Thomson was. When Dr. Maxwell first began his medical missionary work in Tainan, he faced difficulty since the Han Chinese refused him. Luckily, he met William Alexander Pickering soon after that. At that time, Mr. Pickering had influence since he actively participated many events and established connections with different groups. He had served in customs, played an important role in camphor trading, helped consuls from the U.K and the U.S. to tackle the issues regarding Taiwan, and visited the aboriginal peoples in Taiwan frequently. Contributed to Mr. Pickering’s language ability and his good connections with people in Taiwan, Dr. Maxwell could visit several aboriginal groups when he felt frustrated at not being able to do his medical missionary work. In fact, those aborigines treated them more kindly than the Han Chinese did. Because of Mr. Pickering’s assistance, Dr. Maxwell developed a new route to do his medical missionary work and also reduced the distance from the aboriginal peoples in Taiwan. This is why Dr. Maxwell took John Thomson to visit his aboriginal friends in 1871.


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