Taiwanese has fought French in 1884 and it is called The French War Turmoil, or 西仔反

The day before Meeilei went back to U.S. or February 5, 2009, she went shopping in Taipei but I visited The Red Hair Castle 紅毛城 of Tamsui 谈水. The castle was built by the Dutch who had one time occupied Taiwan. Taiwanese called Dutch, The Red Hair people because Dutch is hairy (red hairs) in Taiwanese eyes.

The time I was at the castle, the museum had an exhibit of Taiwanese-French War in 1884, 11 year earlier than the Taiwanese-Japanese war in 1895. I was amazed and shocked, because I did not know about this war until the day I visited the castle museum.

The war was provoked by the French spread from Vietnam to Taiwan. By getting control of Keelung 蜝隆 and Tamsui, the French troops thought their indemnity would be guaranteed. The battle of Tamsui occurred on October 2 of 1884. The Taiwanese defeated the invaders. Later in 1895, the Hakkas used the same strategy to fight againt the Japanese invaders. The startegy was to bait the invaders to get deep into the bamboo forests where neither guns nor cannons of the enemy absolutely had any use. The Taiwanese then used swords and other Kung-Fu skills to defeat the enemy.

Failing to succeed in battle, the French changed the strategy by blockading the island. The blockage continued for 6 months forcing the Ching 请 government to talk on the negotiation table. Taiwanese refers this part of the history, The French War Turmoil: in Taiwanese it is called Sei-A-Fan 西仔反. The character Sei 西 is an abbreviation of Fran-Sei, 法蘭西. Fan, or 反 means rebellion or turmoil.

The Taiwanese even had a song to celebrate the victory of the battle. The song read as:

The French attacked Tamsui, our town. 西仔攻咱淡水城
But our people stood firm and unafraid. 台湾百姓攏毋驚
Swords drawn and artillery fired, 刀槍火炮佮伊拼
We won! We won! 嘿嘿, 咀贏

How come I did not know this part of the history until the day of museum visit? I think it is much due to Chinese colonialism education system in Taiwanese schools. In school, we leaned very much about Chinese geography and Chinese court history, but very little in Taiwanese geography and history.