The Peripatetic Historian
First Impressions, Taipei. September 2024, Vol. 4, no. 4.
Welcome to the September issue of the Peripatetic Historian.
This Month:
Peripatetic Field Report: Earthquakes, Ghosts, and other Rattles in the Night
Book News
What’s New in Old News?
Then and Now: The Capital that Never Was
Let’s get started…
Peripatetic Field Report: Earthquakes, Ghosts, and other Rattles in the Night
5:06 p.m., nearing the end of my first full day in Taipei.
Phones squeal as our apartment building lurches. For a moment it feels like a heavy truck rolling past on the street below. Then it grows worse.
The building slithers sideways, a viscous, grating thrust; my stomach feels like it is sliding in the opposite direction. A water glass, placed on the arm of the sofa, defies gravity and topples onto a cushion.
A few more rattles, a pair of grumbles, and peace returns—apart from the plaintive disaster alert tone still sounding from our mobile phones. A notification fills the screen:
Presidential Alert. Earthquake Alert. 08/15 17:06.
(Two lines of Chinese characters that I cannot [yet] read).
Felt earthquake alert. Keep calm and seek shelter nearby.
Welcome to Taiwan.
In the post-rattle analysis, the geologists labeled this a 5.7 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter stood offshore, about 22 km east of the island. The quake fell well short of the 7.4 temblor that struck Taiwan on April 2, 2024, but it felt pretty exciting from where I sat.
Dawn arrived, and I was just finishing typing my earthquake report when a second one hit. This time we reached 6.1 on the Richter scale and the shaking stretched for fifteen seconds.
Two earthquakes, more powerful than any I have ever experienced, in my first two days. Taiwan is the product of a slow moving collision between two tectonic plates: the Eurasian plate is sliding beneath the Philippine plate at the southern end of the island, while in the north, the situation is reversed with the Eurasian plate climbing over the top. The stress resulting from this complex encounter yields a productive earthquake zone.
The April 2 quake, which killed ten people, was the strongest in twenty-five years. I do hope that, having relieved anxiety with a crack of its geological knuckles, the earth will return to quiescence for another quarter century.
A Jolt to Spring the Gates of Hell
I’m not a superstitious person, but if I leaned in that direction, I might attribute the jumpy earth to spirits. As it happened, my Delta flight dropped me right in the middle of Taiwan’s Ghost Month.
During the seventh lunar month of the year, the gates of the underworld open and the spirits of the departed are released to visit family, friends, or old haunts (sorry about that one). A religious idea that lives at the overlap between Buddhism, Taoism, and traditional folk religions, Ghost Month encourages the living to honor those who have ventured into the great beyond. The ancestral debt is repaid through acts of piety and charity. Tables loaded with food—apples, oranges, home-cooked meals in tin boxes—are placed on sidewalks or in temples. Festooned with burning sticks of incense, they summon the hungry spirits to a meal. It is believed that if a family neglects its departed loved ones, the throats of the spirits shrink to the size of a needle. The ghost will endure a fire worse than a thousand jalapenos should it attempt to swallow something while in this condition.
And speaking of burning, it is also common to see people torching packets of fake money in large burners. This works a bit like a spiritual bank wire, a transfer of cash to the other side.
I’m not certain what the ghosts do with this money. Is there a Walmart or Tesco in the underworld?
My inquiries continue…
Book News
L. A. Birdmen Lands in the U.K.
August 18 was the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the point at which the celebration of Ghost Month crests. It was also, coincidentally, the day on which L. A. Birdmen went on sale in the U.K. The book is available through normal channels—WHSmith, Waterstones, independent shops, and Amazon. I have updated the purchase links on my website for the convenience of British readers.
Discounted Copies Still Available
U. S. readers can still take advantage of a 20% discount though the Rowman & Littlefield website. Click this link and claim your discount:
What’s New in Old News
A rollicking good time continues over at sister publication, What’s New in Old News? In this month’s broadcasts we met a husband suffering from an overdose of cats, a despondent salesman who threatened to take an overdose if Good Samaritans failed to help him meet a debt, a mother who kidnapped her daughter to prevent marriage to a chemist, and a husband who was left exhausted after being forced to hook up his wife for two weeks.
If any of these tales sound interesting, click the link for a look: What's New in Old News?
Then and Now: The Capital that Never Was
After leaving the Oregon coast at the end of July, I proceeded inland to the Willamette Valley. In the mornings of yet another unusually hot summer, I took long walks among the cool forest that cloaks Champoeg Park.
Champoeg (pronounced ‘Shampoo-ey’) was the site of one of the first settlements in Oregon. It derives its name from ‘tchampuick’ the place of the ‘yampa—an indigenous plant with a starchy root’ in the language of the area’s first residents, the Tualatin Kalapuya tribe.
French fur trappers and Americans from the East Coast arrived early in the nineteenth century. While England and America debated which country would control the Pacific Northwest, settlers gathered at Champoeg for the first of several “wolf meetings.” Although the initial agenda centered on devising strategies to discourage the wolves that were attacking the immigrants, attention soon turned to the question of a government for the region.
On May 2, 1843, by a vote of 52-50, the men passed a resolution to establish a provisional government for the western territory. Champoeg, one of the best developed towns at the time, was named the region’s capital. A petition was sent overland to Washington D.C., requesting admission into the United States. The Oregon Territory was recognized in 1848 and Oregon formally became a state in 1859.
Despite Champoeg’s central location, administrative control of the new state soon passed to Salem. This was probably a good thing. On December 2, 1861, a surge of water added 55 feet to the normal height of the Willamette River. The flood inundated the town and scrubbed it from the face of the earth. Champoeg vanished as if it had never existed.
Today signs of Champoeg’s existence are relegated to sign boards and the monument to the original 52 supporters of the provisional government.
And that’s the newsletter for this month. I am finding much to occupy me here in Taiwan, including spending fifteen hours a week in an intensive Chinese class. The heat has swamped this West Coast boy, but I’m hoping that temperatures will moderate in September. When that happens it will be time to peripateticate about the island. Stay tuned for exciting accounts and the occasional insight in the coming months.
Until then, be safe, be sensible,
If you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, or others in the series, it does help me out if you spread the word. Hit the share button and pass a copy along to someone else who might find it interesting.