A large number of other topics are touched on. There's Taipei's Snake Alley ("the worst of the old and the worst of the new"), Wulai, Chiufen, the cult of Matsu, sex life in ancient China, the Japanese occupation in general (Ross is remarkably even-handed here), Koxinga, martial arts, the 15th century Chinese admiral Zeng He, the 17th century Dutch missionary Reverend Georgius Candidius, the 18th century impostor George Psalmanazar, and the 19th century missionary George Mackay.
Invariably Ross's approach is that of the robustly skeptical plain man -- standing no nonsense, but on the other hand not spectacularly prejudiced in advance against anything. "Try it on me and let's see what happens," appears to be his typical open-minded reaction.
Ross has read a wide range of books on subjects bearing on Taiwanese history, and giving the reader the gist of what these contain in a couple of pages is one of his specialisms. He'd be a good teacher, you feel, able to point his students in a large number of different and intellectually profitable directions.
He recounts, for instance, Joseph Needham's belief that there was contact between Asia (probably China) and the Americas in ancient times, and re-tells the story of Tim Severin's aborted 1993 voyage which attempted to prove the theory's feasibility.
Indeed, there's a great deal of re-telling in this book, and as a result its final nature becomes that of a no-nonsense compilation. Just about everything that is touched on is explained and its background filled in. The whole thing is held together by the author's bluff good-humor and direct, occasionally even confrontational, approach.
Ross has published this book himself, seeing a gap in the market and fearing someone else will fill it before he does. His previous book, Kawthoolei Dreams, Malaria Nights, on Burma's war against its minorities, was published under a pseudonym in Thailand.
Because of this new book's hybrid nature, every reader will probably find some parts of it superfluous to their requirements.
Nevertheless, there will be other parts they will value for their informativeness, either on abstruse subjects, or on everyday ones in conveniently concise form. It's possible you might get a little weary of Ross' robust cheerfulness ("Okay John," I told myself, "go and explore") but this book will nevertheless prove much to some people's tastes. The author's own view, that it is a history of the island with travel episodes to sweeten the pill, is essentially correct. All you need to add is that he opts to write about where he happens to have been, and what happens to interest him, and leaves the rest well alone.
Formosan Odyssey provides information many a newly-arrived expatriate will want to know. It ought to sell well, and by and large it deserves to do so.
Thanks, John! And mine's a Taiwan beer, large and very cold.
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