Witness to Taiwan history
At the same time Fix was altering his focus and searching for a path to his goal, times were changing and Taiwan history was gradually moving from being forbidden territory under martial law to becoming a politically correct branch of study. More and more scholars were examining the February 28 Incident, and Fix, who had not become a "228" specialist, did not lose any of his abiding interest in Taiwan history. From 1998 on he pushed his research interest back further, beyond the Japanese occupation and into the 19th century.
"I had previously been asked by nativist author Lin Ko-hsiang to collect materials on 19th-century foreign visitors to Taiwan, for a book he was writing. But it wasn't until 1998 that I began to systematically organize what I had collected," Fix recalls.
"Taiwan scholars appear to attach little importance to basic research, says James Ang. "Take the period I specialize in, Taiwan history in the 16th and 17th centuries. I've always lamented the fact that because a great many foreign-language materials have never been compiled and annotated, we have a situation whereby many discussions of early Taiwan history really cannot stand up to the historical evidence." Seeing the way Douglas Fix has done the legwork of basic research for Taiwanese historians over many years, Ang says with a sigh, "The contribution in terms of basic research that Fix has made by spending ten years compiling and editing historical materials on Taiwan from the US and Europe, including material by Le Gendre, far outweighs the publication of a few academic papers!"
140 years ago, General Charles W. Le Gendre compiled a great deal of "Taiwan knowledge" and pictorial data. Later he helped Japan to attack Taiwan after the Mudan Village Incident. Up to the present day, much of the "image" of Taiwan for many European and American scholars or those in the cultural sphere comes from Le Gendre, the "Taiwan hand." "Furthermore, there are few Chinese-language documents on Taiwan from the end of the Qing Dynasty, and almost no pictorial record. By comparison, Le Gendre preserved for us a great deal of dynamic material with an extremely high research value," says Ang.
Aside from fairly well-known Westerners like Le Gendre and Pickering, on Fix's 19th-century Taiwan web page you can find many names that even historians in Taiwan have never heard of.
Carrying a pistol, some measuring instruments, a few books and a minimum amount of baggage, a sailor in the Russian navy named Pavel (Paul) Ibis got the idea to come to Taiwan spurred on by the invasion of Taiwan by Japan following the Mudan Village Incident. He walked from the south clear to the north of the island passing along the way 13 Aboriginal villages, including those of the Amis and the Bunun, and leaving behind an interesting travelogue and pictorial record of the Aborigines. Other explorers and naturalists, including Germans, French and others speaking European languages left behind many precious records concerning Taiwan. "In the past, no one in Taiwan knew about these people. It was Professor Fix who put this right for us," says Wu Mi-cha.
Using the latest digital technology, people who have an interest in this historical material need only connect to Fix's "Formosa" online library to browse through over 100 travel diaries, reports and historical documents. In addition to the written material, this online library also offers an extensive collection of images originating from 19th-century foreign visitors to Taiwan, as well as maps that make those in Taiwan and foreign libraries pale by comparison.
What is most special about this material is that Fix has annotated the texts with itineraries of the routes taken by each of these visitors as well as information about the areas they visited. "Regrettably, due to financial limitations, out of the 500 items I have collected only 100 are online, and around half of those are only excerpted," says Fix with a smile. "As for the next step, aside from putting up more material on the web page in complete form, the Chinese translation will hopefully come out in book form before the end of 2006. In this way we can make the material more available to the public, especially the Chinese-reading public."
This plate appearing in the American publication Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper was long thought to depict Tanshui. Before Professor Fix put the picture up on his web site he checked it out and ascertained that the spot shown was actually Keelung.