piling great rocks up in the sea. The tale is not all that fanciful. Some 60 million years ago, a massive earthquake rocked the East Asian shore, submerging the entire coastline. A second earthquake heaved a narrow chunk of sunken crust up through the waters. As the elements over millennia eroded the jagged landscape, the island spread out into its present shape.
"The earthquake and typhoon have played an important part in the formation of the [Taiwanese] character," W. G. God- dard,...