Koxinga: A hero's legacy
Key information
- Date
- Time
-
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
- Venue
- Main Building, SOAS University of London, 10 Thornhaugh St, London WC1H 0XG
- Room
- KLT
- Event type
- Lecture
About this event
Join Jonathan Clements for a talk on the Zheng Cheng-gong (1624-62), as part of the SOAS Taiwan Studies Seminar Series.
Author and TV presenter Jonathan Clements talks through the strange afterlife of Zheng Cheng-gong (1624-62), the Ming loyalist and conqueror of Taiwan, variously derided as a pirate and a rebel; lauded as a resistance leader and prince, twice deified, spuriously reclaimed as both a Japanese patriot and a Chinese "People's Hero".
Along the way, there are some unlikely legends, some suspicious shenanigans, and his co-option into a 2010 mayoral campaign that threatened to turn into a fistfight among historians.
*All SOAS Centre of Taiwan Studies events are open to all and not needing to register.
Meet the speaker
Jonathan Clements
Jonathan Clements is the author of Rebel Island: The Incredible History of Taiwan (Scribe, 2024). He has presented three seasons of Route Awakening (National Geographic), an award-winning TV series about Chinese historical and cultural icons, and also appeared in Koxinga: A Hero's Legacy, a documentary about the reconstruction of one of Koxinga's trading vessels.
Image credit: Jacques Beaulieu via Flickr.
