In the summer of 1936, Shih Chang-ju had overseen the excavation of the largest cache of oracle bones ever found. The following year, when the Japanese occupied Nanjing, and the Kuomintang fled west. In 1949, they were driven to Taiwan by the Communists. That was the story of Shih Chang-ju’s life—a nomadic archaeologist, displaced repeatedly by war. There was something poignant about his published description of the excavations of June 1936, when the season’s last dig uncovered the oracle bones: But, indeed, facts are stranger than fiction. The actual pleasure of discovery far exceeded our anticipation! After archaeologists in Anyang told me about Shih, I telephoned the Academia Sinica in Taiwan. An assistant answered the phone. “He won’t be in today until about three o’clock,” she said. “He’s busy with meetings this week.”I explained that I wanted to schedule a visit to Taiwan. Such trips required time; direct flights weren’t allowed between the island and the mainland, so a traveler had to change planes in Hong Kong.
