| Abstract |
In the latter half of 1904, Japan, along with her newly-acquired colony Taiwan (Formosa), participated in the St. Louis World’s Fair. This was not the first time that Taiwan had taken part in a world's fair, but the one in St. Louis was the largest that it had ever been a part of. The year before, Japan itself had held a large domestic industrial expo in Osaka; and during the St. Louis World’s Fair, Japan was still engaged in a war with Russia. Its taking part in the 1904 fair was thus an indication of the importance it attached to “the special Japan-U.S. relations.” The Governor-General’s Office of Taiwan, with assistance from the Agriculture and Commerce Ministry of the central government in Japan, assembled the Taiwanese delegation. American diplomats in Taiwan also pitched in to help. It was believed that taking part in the fair would help to promote Taiwan's economic growth, in particular by increasing exports of Formosa Oolong tea. To this end, a specially designed Taiwan Tea House was created. Though Taiwan’s participation in the fair was successful, it was also not without problems, caught as it was between several great powers. Taiwanese attended the fair as Japanese subjects; at the same time, however, they were subject to the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1882. This meant that Taiwanese could not take part in the fair as ordinary Japanese citizens. And unlike in other world fairs both prior and subsequent to the one in St. Louis, the indigenous people of Taiwan were not represented at all in the 1904 Fair; they were made completely invisible. |
