VIEW THIS PAGE The sound of galloping horses, Middle Eastern melodies and reggae — keen listeners will hear all of these influences in the music of Yerboli Ahmethan (葉爾波利), a Kazakh musician born and raised in China’s Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region.
Ahmethan, who is currently based in Shenzhen, is traveling outside China for the first time ever to play at the Bitan Music Festival (碧潭音樂節) in Taipei County tomorrow and Sunday.
Although he started learning the dombra, a traditional stringed instrument common in Central Asia, at the age of 5, Ahmethan says he also spent his youth listening to the likes of Frank Zappa, AC/DC and “all kinds of rock ’n’ roll.” He finds it hard to communicate at length in Mandarin, so during a phone interview earlier this week his manager and close friend, Tu Fei (塗飛), helped answer questions.
Ahmethan, 28, now plays Kazakh folk music — which reflects a combination of “Islamic and Mongolian culture” in Tu’s words — but with his own twist.
He rearranges traditional songs, adding elements of improvisation and displays of virtuosity on the dombra. He says half of his material consists of original songs, which mix Kazakh lyrics and music with contemporary forms like reggae, folk and rock.
The dombra features prominently in Ahmethan’s debut CD, Kazakh Spirit, which Ahmethan released on his own last year. The instrument, which has two nylon strings, a pear-shaped body and slender neck, was traditionally used as accompaniment for Kazakh folk songs and poems.
When strummed rhythmically, the dombra has been compared to the sound of galloping horses, which play a major role in the lives of the nomadic Kazakhs. When plucked, it sounds somewhat similar to the oud, an Arabic lute, and echoes the hints of Middle Eastern melodies found in Kazakh music.
Ten years ago, Ahmethan wouldn’t have imagined that he would still be playing the dombra. After leaving Xinjiang at the age of 16, he was a guitarist in AC/DC cover bands and made a living by playing piano, mandolin and accordion for live bands and studio sessions.
Ahmethan’s situation is typical, says Tu, who works as a radio DJ and runs a live music venue in Shenzhen. “In the interior [of China], a lot of traditional things are almost all gone. A lot of young people, in order to survive, can’t do [traditional music]. So they have to do Western music in order to make a living.”
Ahmethan started to rediscover his musical and cultural roots when he moved to Beijing in 2000. There he played in IZ, the locally renowned band led by fellow Kazakh musician Mamuer Rayeskan (馬木爾). Ahmethan met Tu on a visit to Shenzhen, where he gigs regularly with his current three-piece band, which will also be in Taipei this weekend.
Tu encouraged Ahmethan to go back to his “roots” while exploring “world fusion” music. Tu says Ahmethan’s current interests include working with avant-garde and free-jazz musicians.
But Ahmethan doesn’t intend to put the dombra down again. “His biggest goal,” says Tu, “is to let more people around the world know about Kazakh culture.” VIEW THIS PAGE
The unexpected collapse of the recall campaigns is being viewed through many lenses, most of them skewed and self-absorbed. The international media unsurprisingly focuses on what they perceive as the message that Taiwanese voters were sending in the failure of the mass recall, especially to China, the US and to friendly Western nations. This made some sense prior to early last month. One of the main arguments used by recall campaigners for recalling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers was that they were too pro-China, and by extension not to be trusted with defending the nation. Also by extension, that argument could be
Aug. 4 to Aug. 10 When Coca-Cola finally pushed its way into Taiwan’s market in 1968, it allegedly vowed to wipe out its major domestic rival Hey Song within five years. But Hey Song, which began as a manual operation in a family cow shed in 1925, had proven its resilience, surviving numerous setbacks — including the loss of autonomy and nearly all its assets due to the Japanese colonial government’s wartime economic policy. By the 1960s, Hey Song had risen to the top of Taiwan’s beverage industry. This success was driven not only by president Chang Wen-chi’s
Last week, on the heels of the recall election that turned out so badly for Taiwan, came the news that US President Donald Trump had blocked the transit of President William Lai (賴清德) through the US on his way to Latin America. A few days later the international media reported that in June a scheduled visit by Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) for high level meetings was canceled by the US after China’s President Xi Jinping (習近平) asked Trump to curb US engagement with Taiwan during a June phone call. The cancellation of Lai’s transit was a gaudy
The centuries-old fiery Chinese spirit baijiu (白酒), long associated with business dinners, is being reshaped to appeal to younger generations as its makers adapt to changing times. Mostly distilled from sorghum, the clear but pungent liquor contains as much as 60 percent alcohol. It’s the usual choice for toasts of gan bei (乾杯), the Chinese expression for bottoms up, and raucous drinking games. “If you like to drink spirits and you’ve never had baijiu, it’s kind of like eating noodles but you’ve never had spaghetti,” said Jim Boyce, a Canadian writer and wine expert who founded World Baijiu Day a decade
RSS