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The Making History Crowdfunding Campaign is going LIVE on October 26th!

Thanks for visiting! On October 26th, I'll be launching a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo called Making History: The Story of Su Beng. But you'll have to wait until 10/26 to see the pitch video.

In the meantime... check out this BLOOPER reel from the making of the pitch video.

Here's sneak peak of what I say in my pitch:

Most of my friends know two things about me-that I’m writing a book and that I’m Taiwanese. I believe in the power of personal stories to inform and educate. That’s why I’ve been working on the biography of Su Beng, lifelong Taiwan independence activist, historian and author of this three volume, 2,000 page book, Taiwan’s 400 Years of History. This book took about 18 years to write, and has influenced generations of Taiwanese activists and still continues do to so. Su Beng is a controversial, complex character, much like Malcolm X or Nelson Mandela. Through it all, the one thing that he has always been fighting for could be summed up simply as, the fight for social justice for the people of Taiwan. 

Well, I’ve decided that it’s time to complete this project and I’m giving myself three months to do it. I haven’t been back in Taiwan for over five years so I’ve decided to quit my job, and to take a self-imposed sabbatical to spend it in Taiwan to complete my research. Yes, it’s actually happening and I’m going through with it but I’ll need your help and support to push me to the finish line. 

This project is not just about telling the largely unknown story of Su Beng’s life, but in the bigger scheme of things it’s also about the story of Taiwan, the people of Taiwan. It’s about their struggle under a dictatorship that imposed one of the longest periods of martial law in world history. 

This project is about injustice and the very basic human need for freedom and for our voices to be heard. That is the story of Taiwan. That was the story of my parents. My father was a professor at the University of Alaska and a US green card holder when he married my mother in Taiwan. But she was not permitted to leave Taiwan with him by the government. They were separated for nearly a year with my father in Alaska and my mother in Taiwan.  What kind of a government would deny people this basic right to come and go as they pleased? This was the question in my child’s mind that was the root of all my curiosity. It’s led me to my years of work in the Taiwanese American community which in turn motivated me to embark on this project to shed some light on the situation in Taiwan.

Ebook Version of Taiwan's 400 Year History

Taiwan's 400 year History -an abridged English version of Su Beng's encyclopedic book, People of Taiwan’s 400 Year History (台彎人四百年史)

For some time I’ve thought that there should be an ebook version of Taiwan’s 400 Year History. This book is an extremely abridged English version of Su Beng’s encyclopedic book, People of Taiwan’s 400 Year History (台彎人四百年史), which is over 2000 pages long and written in Chinese. Actually, what I’d really like to one day see is a complete translation of Su Beng’s, People of Taiwan’s 400 Year History, since the English version is only a mere 160-something pages long in comparison. One day it will happen, but for now it would be good to make Taiwan’s 400 Year History more accessible by having an ebook version of it. Perhaps it could also be made available for print on demand, since it is now out of print. The crazy thing is that I’ve actually seen a copy of Taiwan’s 400 Year History for sale on Amazon.com for over 500 dollars!

Recently, I spoke to Su Beng about creating an ebook version of Taiwan’s 400 Year History. He not only gave me the go ahead to do this, but also suggested that I personally edit and revise it. 

The first thing that I’m thinking of revising is the book’s title. Su Beng used the term “400 years” to refer to Taiwan’s written, documented history, which began in the 1600s with the Dutch occupation. However Taiwan has a prehistory evidenced by archaeological findings that indicate Taiwan was inhabited by indigenous people thousands of years before any major Han Chinese migration in the 17^th century.  Human remains dating back as far as 30,000 years ago have been found in Taiwan. So the title, Taiwan’s 400 Year History is a bit misleading because Taiwan’s history is actually more than 400 years long.

That being said here are some alternate titles that I’ve come up with:

400 Years of Taiwan’s History
Taiwan’s 400 Year Written History 
Taiwan’s 400 Years of Written History
Taiwan’s 400 Years of Documented History

What title would you vote for?

I’ll take suggestions for a new title for the revised ebook version.