In a competition in which mainstream artists with strong sales dominated, Adia (
The best album went to newcomer Jay Chou (
Na Ying (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In the eyes of the music industry, where money is the bottom line, the male nominees are small potatoes compared to the women. "Females have much higher recognition," said Perry Ko (
Taiwan's top seller at Tower Records in 2000 was Faye Wong (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
"The market for female singers is much, much bigger than the market for the guys," said Ko. "There's kind of a weird split. Female pop singers get both guys and girls buying their albums, but male pop singers only get women buying the records."
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In a predictable award ceremony, in many categories, winners seemed to be selected on their record sales, with mainstream artists pushing out less famous names. A massive crowd attended the gathering, held for the first time in the event's 12-year history in Kaohsiung. The broadcasting rights for the event, which for the last three years have been held by TVBS, were taken for the first time by ETTV.
In an early surprise, Sun Yan-zi (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Occasionally lapsing into English, the Singapore native said she was "surprised," "very happy," and that she appreciated the support and friendship of the other nominees.
Sun's fame has grown rapidly over the last two years, and a career comprised of only two CDs and a string of TV commercials has been sufficient to make her a star.
The conservatism of this year's Golden Melody Awards was further revealed by Chiang Hui's (
According to Ma Nien-hsien (
Sticky Rice was praised at the beginning of the award ceremony by Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) as "representing a new element in Taiwan." Despite this, the trend toward picking big names was working against the group. Last year, there had been criticism that many of the winners were relatively unknown in the mainstream, and this year judges seem to have gone out of their way to pick only those groups that have been moving CDs in the stores.
Speaking after receiving their award, Ah Hsin (
While there were good crowds attending the event, some members of the public did give voice to the idea that such mainstream festivals did not altogether reflect their musical interests. "I like Jay Chou (
Liu Chia-chang (劉家昌), one of Taiwan's most prolific writer of golden oldies, received a lifetime achievement award. As the writer of the hit In Praise of the Republic of China (中華民國頌) and other patriotic songs, he spoke about how, under the DPP government, people now tiptoe around the name "Republic of China." This caused some embarrassment for the presenter of the award, the deputy director general of the Government Information Office.
Another usually minor category was for Best Classical Music, in which category the soundtrack for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was knocked out of the competition because it was not pure classical music, according to the judges. Officials said that a new movie soundtrack category may be incorporated in next year's event.
One of the biggest sore spots in Taiwan’s historical friendship with the US came in 1979 when US president Jimmy Carter broke off formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan’s Republic of China (ROC) government so that the US could establish relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Taiwan’s derecognition came purely at China’s insistence, and the US took the deal. Retired American diplomat John Tkacik, who for almost decade surrounding that schism, from 1974 to 1982, worked in embassies in Taipei and Beijing and at the Taiwan Desk in Washington DC, recently argued in the Taipei Times that “President Carter’s derecognition
This year will go down in the history books. Taiwan faces enormous turmoil and uncertainty in the coming months. Which political parties are in a good position to handle big changes? All of the main parties are beset with challenges. Taking stock, this column examined the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) (“Huang Kuo-chang’s choking the life out of the TPP,” May 28, page 12), the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) (“Challenges amid choppy waters for the DPP,” June 14, page 12) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) (“KMT struggles to seize opportunities as ‘interesting times’ loom,” June 20, page 11). Times like these can
June 23 to June 29 After capturing the walled city of Hsinchu on June 22, 1895, the Japanese hoped to quickly push south and seize control of Taiwan’s entire west coast — but their advance was stalled for more than a month. Not only did local Hakka fighters continue to cause them headaches, resistance forces even attempted to retake the city three times. “We had planned to occupy Anping (Tainan) and Takao (Kaohsiung) as soon as possible, but ever since we took Hsinchu, nearby bandits proclaiming to be ‘righteous people’ (義民) have been destroying train tracks and electrical cables, and gathering in villages
Dr. Y. Tony Yang, Associate Dean of Health Policy and Population Science at George Washington University, argued last week in a piece for the Taipei Times about former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) leading a student delegation to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) that, “The real question is not whether Ma’s visit helps or hurts Taiwan — it is why Taiwan lacks a sophisticated, multi-track approach to one of the most complex geopolitical relationships in the world” (“Ma’s Visit, DPP’s Blind Spot,” June 18, page 8). Yang contends that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has a blind spot: “By treating any
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