One of the most engaging Aboriginal artists, if not the most famous, Biung is appearing tomorrow night at the Riverside Music Cafe.
Wang Hong-en (
PHOTO COURTESY OF RIVERSIDE MUSIC CAFE
More recently, Biung has channeled his fondness for writing about his ancestral heritage into a nightly television program highlighting the treatment of Aborigines during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan. The program airs nightly at 8pm on public television.
With homegrown lyrics that both emphasize his ethnic background and are a diary of his childhood experiences, most of his songs are written in the Bunun language. "Bunun is my mother tongue so when I am singing about my experiences it seems appropriate to sing in my native language."
At 28, Biung has already released two albums in addition to receiving a Golden Melody Award for Best Non-Mandarin Male Singer in 2002. His first album, The Hunter, was completed while he was still a college student and recorded entirely in his native language. In order to garner a larger audience, however, Biung decided to include songs in Mandarin on his second album, Biung.
What sets Biung apart from his Aboriginal contemporaries is his style, which marries traditional Bunun music with an upbeat pop-esque sound. While he denies that Taiwanese Mando-pop has had any large effect on his music, he does confess to listening to Western pop artists such as Michael Jackson and Linkin Park.
"I don't put any limitations on the kind of music I listen to, but musically the biggest inspiration to me has been traditional Bunun music.
Although the audience can't understand all of his lyrics, it doesn't stop crowds of people from packing in to see Biung perform live.
Geddy Lin (
Whether it's salvation from another night at a monster club in Taipei or simply to change things up, Biung provides a good introduction to one of Taiwan's unique Aboriginal sounds.
Performance notes:
Biung will perform tomorrow night at Riverside Music Cafe
Tickets cost NT$300.
For details call (02) 2368 7310.
“Why does Taiwan identity decline?”a group of researchers lead by University of Nevada political scientist Austin Wang (王宏恩) asked in a recent paper. After all, it is not difficult to explain the rise in Taiwanese identity after the early 1990s. But no model predicted its decline during the 2016-2018 period, they say. After testing various alternative explanations, Wang et al argue that the fall-off in Taiwanese identity during that period is related to voter hedging based on the performance of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). Since the DPP is perceived as the guardian of Taiwan identity, when it performs well,
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ！). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
At Computex 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) urged the government to subsidize AI. “All schools in Taiwan must integrate AI into their curricula,” he declared. A few months earlier, he said, “If I were a student today, I’d immediately start using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini Pro and Grok to learn, write and accelerate my thinking.” Huang sees the AI-bullet train leaving the station. And as one of its drivers, he’s worried about youth not getting on board — bad for their careers, and bad for his workforce. As a semiconductor supply-chain powerhouse and AI hub wannabe, Taiwan is seeing
Jade Mountain (玉山) — Taiwan’s highest peak — is the ultimate goal for those attempting a through-hike of the Mountains to Sea National Greenway (山海圳國家綠道), and that’s precisely where we’re headed in this final installment of a quartet of articles covering the Greenway. Picking up the trail at the Tsou tribal villages of Dabang and Tefuye, it’s worth stocking up on provisions before setting off, since — aside from the scant offerings available on the mountain’s Dongpu Lodge (東埔山莊) and Paiyun Lodge’s (排雲山莊) meal service — there’s nowhere to get food from here on out. TEFUYE HISTORIC TRAIL The journey recommences with
RSS