From August 10 to 20, Osaka hosted “Magical Taiwan,” an exhibit featuring the breadth and deep lineages of divination, folklore, spiritualism, and the supernatural in Taiwanese literature. From genre mainstays to oral traditions to indigenous influences, the featured works and writers emphasized their unique cultural traditions, while gesturing towards an affinity and commonality with Japan’s own significant mythologies.
In Japan, the time of Obon is when the veil between the living and the dead grows thin. In some regions, it is said that one’s ancestors travel between the realms on “spirit horses” fashioned from cucumbers and eggplants. This summer, however, right before the festivities, a different crop of guests crossed the threshold; from Taiwan to Japan, ghosts and gods traveled on the wings of the written word for “Magical Taiwan,” an exhibition of Taiwanese literature. The Special Room of the Osaka City Central Public Hall, with its frescos of Japanese myths and legends, provided an ideal locale for the event, which was curated by the National Museum of Taiwan Literature and subtitled “The Enchanted Page: Folktales and Magical Realism in Taiwan Literature.” Time seemed to slow as people of all ages moved through the six themed areas, each a gateway to Taiwan’s literary enchantments, spanning the shimmering realm of magical realism, the chilling darkness of ghost stories, and the enduring influence of folkloric wisdom.
The exhibit began with “Indigenous Taiwan: The Inspiration Behind Myths and Magic,” in which three authors from Taiwan’s various indigenous groups showcased their works: 絕島之咒 (Curse of the Island) by Amis writer Nakao Eki, 巫旅 (Witch Way) by Puyuma author Badai, and 八代灣的神話 (The Myths of Badai Bay) by Tao/Yami writer Syaman Rapongan. Attendees could be seen paging through a copy of the latter, a collection of myths and legends important to the native people of Lanyu (Orchid Island), located to the southeast of Taiwan. Happily enough, the July 2025 issue of Asymptote features an excerpt from Rapongan’s Eyes of the Ocean (with an accompanying lesson plan in the issue’s Educator’s Guide); in it, Rapongan—who has been described as an “ocean writer”—recounts a scene from his travels to Greenland:
Soon my friends and I were riding on a boat up a fjord. I ignored the humpback whales that were escorting us, out of appreciation for the natural topography, which was truly a “stroke of natural genius,” the work of the gods.
From there, the exhibition delved further into the world of folklore, exploring ways in which the past inspires the future. “Discovering the Value of Folklore” described the tension that has, at times, existed between tradition and modernity. Here, one finds that in the quest for progress, many of Taiwan’s cultural treasures likely would have been forgotten if it weren’t for the effort of Li Hsien-chang, who published a collection of traditional folk songs and adaptations of folk tales in 1936 entitled 台灣民間文學集 (A Collection of Taiwanese Folk Literature).
Contemporary works also continue to draw inspiration from the old tales, including 臺北城裡妖魔跋扈 (Demons Run Rampant in Taipei) and 說妖 (Speaking of Monsters) from Taipei Legend Studio (TLS). The collective creates novels and games, with writer Ho Bo-yen describing their work as “excavating history and cultural materials and translating their findings into creative writings with the attempt to reconnect modern people to the lost local memories through entertaining stories.”
From the theme of folklore as entertainment, the exhibit transitioned to ghost stories that depict the anxieties of modern life in “Fear as Society’s Mirror: Ghost Stories in Popular Literature.” In this section, Japan’s kaidan (scary stories) were juxtaposed with the oral tradition of ghost stories in Taiwan, showing the influence of kaidan manga on Taiwanese literature. Such tales are usually set in elementary schools in Japan, but in Taiwan, they often take place at universities, with some even being based on the common experience of compulsory military service, such as 無聊男子的軍中鬼話 (A Bored Guy’s Military Ghost Stories) by Chen Wei-min, which was published in 1991 and “pioneer[ed] the new genre of military ghost stories,” according to the Virtual Museum of Taiwan Literature.
Though local viewers of the exhibit were likely familiar with kaidan from their childhoods, as an outsider to Japan, I was curious to discover more. In a 2023 article, Yoshioka Kazushi states that according to his research, school restrooms and classrooms are the most common settings for the stories, with the toilet being “seen as a boundary space between this world and the next, where there’s a great possibility of encountering supernatural yōkai creatures.” He goes on to say that although these frightening tales have been told since the late 1800s, it wasn’t until the 1990s when Tsunemitsu Tōru’s 学校の怪談 (School Ghost Stories) and nonfiction volumes were published that the genre became more popular; since then, many scary stories set in schools have been adapted into books, manga, movies, and other media. Like this, in Japan, Taiwan, and beyond, oral storytelling has had important influence on modern entertainment.
After that, the exhibition’s tone darkened, showing literature as a vessel for grief, memory, and the haunting legacies of history. “Colonial Science and Romance: Paranormal Taiwan Literature Through a Japanese Lens” presented literary expressions of the complex historical relationship between Japan and Taiwan. Verse was the feature of “Lingering Odes: The Supernatural in Poetry” and drew special attention to works related to death—with somber topics including not only colonialism, but also catastrophic mining disasters and the 228 Incident. A representative work from this section was “最後的王木七” (The Last of Wang Mu Chi) by Chen Li, who has received Taiwan’s National Award for Literature and the Arts and the Taiwan Literature Award. This poem, about a miner who perished in the 1980 flood at the Yongan coal mine, includes a recounting of the tragic events by his ghost. A poet, essayist, and translator, Chen Li’s poems from his collection Summer Song, as well as two of his essays, have previously been published in Asymptote. An evocative quotation from the former reads:
In front of the hill on a summer night, the pling-plong
rattle of mahjong tiles echoes. Are the players the gods who
arrived by riding the prevailing winds of east, south, west, north,
and hewed a square gaming table out of a rock?
The exhibition took a brighter turn with “Seeing Ourselves in the Nonhuman: Magic and Realism in Literary Fiction,” which invited attendees to look at themselves in different ways—but colorful and original visual art accompanied each section of the exhibition. The inspiration for these pieces was described as “scenography reminiscent of a Chinese opera performed for the gods,” and featured the work of artist Chiaos Tseng from his work, 台灣妖怪地誌 (The Mythology of Birth in Taiwan), which was described as depicting Taiwan “as a place where gods, spirits, and spectral beings coexist across layered landscapes and tradition.”
The exhibition was part of We Taiwan, a larger cultural program organized by the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan that includes several other events that may be of interest for literature lovers. During the festival, a range of Taiwanese films were also screened, including The Fantasy of Deer Warrior (1961), which echoes Aesop’s fables; the recent documentary Poetries from the Bookstores: Somewhere I Belong; and other notable selections. Furthermore, Taiwanese picture books awaited young readers as part of “Made in Taiwan, Loved in Pictures” at Nakanoshima Children’s Library. The well-known facility, characterized by its whimsical, bright green apple sculpture, was designed by world-renowned architect Ando Tadao. Throughout it all, one finds that in this year’s EXPO 2025, with all of its showcases and festivities, it is ultimately stories—both passed down through generations and reimagined for the future—that continue to forge connections between people and cultures around the world.
Mary Hillis is an educational arm assistant at Asymptote. She has an MA in English with a specialization in teaching English to speakers of other languages. She lives in Japan, where she teaches English language and literature at the university level.
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