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Let’s read newspaper-Contents of The Taiwan Shinminpo and Kounan Shinbun

Publication date: 04 Jul 2022
Author: Lee Yi-ling |Staff member of the Archives of Institute of Taiwan History

The Taiwan Minpao, The Taiwan Shinminpo and the subsequent Kounan Shinbun (Kounan News) constituted the newspaper series published between April 1923 and March 1944. However, surviving copies of the daily published since 1932 were few. In view of the importance of this newspaper series, the Institute of Taiwan History began gathering remaining copies both in Taiwan and abroad, and discovered an exclusive collection of The Taiwan Shinminpo (1938-1941). The newspapers carried diverse contents, including political and economic affairs, local news, arts and new knowledge, which are rare and precious historical materials for research on Taiwan history during World War II.

Reviewing the daily newspapers published since April 1932, this article attempts to elucidate the layout format and language use as well as main contents and subject matters covered in the columns. Moreover, it further analyzes the particularity and variations in choice of contents as time evolved and the environment changed. This article provides an in-depth introduction to this newspaper of the Taiwanese, and invites you to read the newspaper and revisit major and minor happenings of Taiwan past.

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III. John Thomson’s footprints in Formosa

John Thomson published Through China: with a Camera in 1898. Through his words and photographs, we can feel a western traveler’s feelings of his first visit in Taiwan. The hearsay of the aboriginal people in Taiwan could not stop Thomson’s curiosity toward them. However, his voyage to Taiwan was not easy since passing through the Taiwan Strait has never been an easy thing. Even worse, a Malaysian sailor told him that their ship might hit a reef and there were headhunters living on the island. Even though the rumors sounded scary, John Thomson still wanted to see Formosa in person. In fact, these rumors were actually from the incidents and conflicts between Japan and China at that time. In the end, the rumors affected John Thomson, causing him to change his traveling plans in Taiwan. After John Thomson and Dr. Maxwell reached the Port of Takao (Kaohsiung) in the early April in 1871, they soon met a Scottish pastor, Hugh Ritchie, who had been doing his missionary work in Takao. Hugh Ritchie told them that it was not safe to stay in the southern Taiwan so that John Thomson gave up on the idea of visiting the aboriginal peoples living there. He followed Dr. Maxwell and went northbound to Taiwan Prefecture and the areas where Taiwanese plain aborigines lived. They ended up visiting Bama (Zuojhen), Muzha (Neimen), Ganzailin, Jiaxianpu, (Jiaxian), Paozailiao, Laonong, and Liuguili. John Thomson used his camera to capture the images of the Taiwanese plain aborigines and the natural landscapes in Taiwan within a week.(see Figure 1 & 2)

Figure 1:The image of Neimen District of Taiwan through John Thomson’s lens
(Source:Through China : with a camera, the digital archives of the Archives of Institution of Taiwan History)
Figure2: The image of Laonong District of Taiwan through John Thomson’s lens
(Source:Through China : with a camera, the digital archives of the Archives of Institution of Taiwan History)


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