Interpreting Taiwan to the World:

From academic works to fiction, Stephan Thome has traveled from Biedenkopf in Germany to Taipei in Taiwan to tell the stories of Taiwan and introduce this island, his second home, to the world.

Not to be simplified

Located at the western edge of the Pacific Ocean, Taiwan is often labeled a “small country” in inter­national discourse, especially when compared to China across the Taiwan Strait. And in Western societies, many people assume that small places have very homogeneous cultures. However, says Thome, “Taiwan is completely the opposite.”

Taiwan’s complexity derives from its layered history. From the Qing Dynasty to the Japanese era to the Nationalist government of China, which relocated to Taiwan, the island has endured several episodes of regime change and linguistic transformation. Nonetheless, under the long era of martial law and authoritarian rule, any discussion of iden­tity—“Who am I?”—was suppressed and could not be considered openly and fairly.

It was democratization that opened this sealed door. Thome recalls that the year 2005, when he was doing his postdoctoral research in Taiwan, fell during the early part of President Chen Shui-­bian’s second term. It was an era in which discussion of the identity of Taiwanese was bursting out like lava from a volcano. Virtually every weekend various political parties or groups with different ideas would hold demonstrations, and debates about historical memories and the nation’s future raged in the streets.

Stephan Thome believes that Taiwan is by no means “small” and is very complex. Following the long years of martial law and authoritarian rule, starting in the 1980s demonstrations brought opinions on many issues—including national identity, gender, labor rights, and the status of the Indigenous peoples—into the streets. (MOFA file photo)

Thome found this passionate, chaotic setting extremely appealing. “I wanted to help readers understand Taiwan’s complexity.” When he picked up his pen to tell Taiwan’s stories, he decided to incorporate this “complexity” into a novel.

Thome observes that from the Sunflower Student Movement of 2014 to the election of Tsai Ing-wen as Taiwan’s first woman president in 2016, reassessment of identity and the country’s future direction became increasingly prominent in society. The shift toward ever greater indentification with Taiwan, and ever less with China, reflects Taiwan’s unique historical experience and social dynamics.

The search for identity in Plum Rain

On page one of the novel Pflaumenregen (Plum Rain), the first sentence reads: “She ran so fast that the world blurred before her eyes.” Umeko (Hsiao Mei, meaning “Little Plum”), who loves baseball and is full of vitality, lives in an environment of regime change in which she tenaciously searches for her own true self amid multiple competing identities. This sentence sweeps her into the hearts of readers.

In his novel Pflaumenregen (Plum Rain), Thome tells the story of four generations of a single family as a means of introducing Taiwan’s modern history to readers. It observes how changing times have affected the lives, memories, and identity of the Taiwanese people. (courtesy of Linking Publishing)

Jinguashi provides more than just the setting for Plum Rain—its mountain scenery and history were the sources of inspiration for the novel.

Following Umeko’s story, readers feel as if they are personally experiencing the storms of Taiwan’s modern history. Thome’s book condenses the enormous weight of history into the fates of four generations in a single family. The title—referring to the period of often heavy “plum rains” that Taiwan gets early each summer—symbolizes how Taiwanese have been stuck in a rut of repressed identity through multiple historical changes of direction. For German-speaking readers it is also the starting point of an exploration of an exotic land.

Many Taiwanese readers of his novel (which appeared in Chinese translation in 2025) have come up to him to say that after reading his book, they have decided to go back and carefully study Taiwan’s history. “To some extent I found this very heartening, but it also astonished me.” In Germany, which has been through a serious reckoning with its own history and a period of transitional justice, all citizens must face up to the past, but in Taiwan, many younger people have had to first read a foreigner’s novel before being willing and able to reassemble the jigsaw puzzle of their elders’ historical memories.

In the course of researching and writing his book, Thome learned that during the Pacific War, Japan set up an Allied prisoner of war camp in the Taiwanese town of Jinguashi. He wrote this into his novel, thus creating a link between Taiwan and distant Europe. Through this connection the book causes readers to ponder the fact that Taiwan’s entire experience from the global nightmare of World War II to the authoritarian Nationalist regime and the transition to today’s democracy has never been solely Taiwan’s own affair.

Under Japanese rule, a prisoner of war camp was set up in Jinguashi; it is now the Taiwan POW Memorial and Peace Park. Thome discovered this piece of history by chance on a visit to the town, and wrote it into his novel Plum Rain. Through its characters and stories, the book enables German readers to understand a part of Taiwan’s past that is unknown to them, but, Thome believes, is worthy of being remembered. (MOFA file photo)

This photo shows the remains of the Japanese Shinto Shrine in Jinguashi, which after World War II was left with only its torii gate foundation and its stone lanterns intact. Its destruction echoes how the old Jinguashi in the memory of Umeko, the lead character of Plum Rain, is gone when she revisits. (MOFA file photo)

Explaining the Taiwan Strait conflict

The outbreak of the Russia–Ukraine war in 2022 prompted the world to also pay attention to the risk of conflict in the Taiwan Strait. Thome, already a resident of Taiwan, thought to himself: “Everyone says that Taiwan is in danger, but where in fact does this danger come from?”

He then researched and wrote Schmales Gewässer, gefährliche Strömung: Über den Konflikt in der Taiwan­straße (Narrow Waters, Dangerous Currents: On the Conflict in the Taiwan Strait) in which he precisely analyzes the dual structure of the conflict in the strait. One element is the geostrategic competition between the US and China, and the other is the dispute over sovereignty between the two sides of the strait. He points out that Taiwan Strait issues not only impact the security of the global supply chain, they also relate to Taiwan’s identity transition over the last decade or so to being “more and more Taiwanese, less and less Chinese.”

Thome introduces his adopted home of Taiwan to the world through two non-fiction books: Gebrauchsanweisung für Taiwan (User Manual for Taiwan) and Schmales Gewässer, gefährliche Strömung: Über den Konflikt in der Taiwanstraße (Narrow Waters, Dangerous Currents: On the Conflict in the Taiwan Strait). (courtesy of Taiwan Interminds Publishing Inc.)

Through this book, Thome aims to remind Europe that Taiwan’s security and democratic way of life are of critical importance to the world.

From observations of daily life in Gebrauchsanweisung für Taiwan (User Manual for Taiwan), to the historical depth of Plum Rain, to the geopolitical warnings of Narrow Waters, Dangerous Currents, Stephan Thome has composed three books about this land that he sees as his second home. As the turbulence in the Taiwan Strait has grown increasingly intense, he has chosen to remain here and speak out on behalf of Taiwan through his writing, telling the story of Taiwan’s freedom, identity, and resilience. 

Through writing, Stephan Thome records his understanding of and feelings for Taiwan. (courtesy of Linking Publishing)