Protest songs

The thunder of a Chinese bass drum mixed with the high-pitched whistle of a reed pipe. Dozens of young fans crowded round, and eagerly fell in with the rhythmic Hakka lyrics. It was a festive occasion, yet one bent on protest. "Let's sing our mountain songs! Let's go to the Legislative Yuan!"

The band played feverishly, strumming and sweating away a humid Taipei afternoon. "Say it loud. We're against the reservoir! Let's sing until the buildings become mountains, until the roads become rivers ..."

In Taiwan, where an atmosphere of pop music and idolatry reigns, Labor Exchange (交工樂隊) and its kind of rage-against-the-establishment style is rare. Protest bands are hardly en vogue here, despite numerous green and social causes yearning for attention as Taiwan enters a new phase of economic globalization and cultural development. Unlike protest icons of 1960s America, like Bob Dylan, there is little chance of becoming rich in Taiwan by lyrically railing against projects like the Meinung Dam (美濃水庫).

But Labor Exchange does it anyway. They are compelled to, they say, by the sorry state of affairs vis a vis the island's environment, its crumbling traditions, its fractured sense of right and wrong. "When we see injustice, we feel we cannot just stand by with folded arms," says bassist Chen Kuan-yu (陳冠宇).

Labor Exchange's roots are in the anti-Meinung Dam movement. The five men sing social protest songs to express their stand against building the dam, which the former KMT government deemed necessary to meet residential and industrial demands for clean water in the south. But it's also expected to flood Yellow Butterfly Valley, which has one of the highest densities of butterfly species in the world.

Wearing jeans, sneakers and simple T-shirts with Meinung Township patterns, Labor Exchange is probably the most prominent protest band in Taiwan. With compositions like "Let's Sing Mountain Songs (我等就來唱山歌)" and "If the dam can be built, shit can be eatable (水庫係築得, 屎嘛食得)," the group found overwhelming peer acceptance, if not commercial success, at this year's Golden Melody Awards, taking the awards for Best Producer and for Best Songwriter for non-pop music.

When the band accepted the honors, lead guitarist Lin Sheng-hsiang (林生祥) reminded the audience who they were about. "We'd like to dedicate the awards to our peasants in Meinung. ... We hope the album can help make more people aware of Taiwan's rural and environmental situation."

Just like the Meinung anti-dam movement, which emerged from a group of young Hakka intellectuals returning home and re-embracing their culture, the growth of Labor Exchange has also paralleled a journey to their ethnic roots. Four out of five members have Hakka heritage, and Lin comes from Meinung Township.

After the anti-dam movement began in 1993, Labor Exchange -- then known as Kuan-tsu Music Pit (觀子音樂坑), a college rock band in Tamsui -- occasionally joined protest gatherings to sing mountain songs and help warm up audiences for protests. The next year, the band decided to move to Meinung and change its name and style. Lin recalls telling activists at the time: "I felt ashamed that I could not do much for the movement. The only thing I could do was to write and sing music for our villagers."

Ditching city life turned out to be a wise move. Meinung became a source for artistic creativity, and also the base of a devoted fan clique, which even today follows them from town to town.