Spare a thought for the stars of the show at the the 21st Golden Melody Awards (第二十一屆金曲獎) ceremony, which took place at Taipei Arena (台北巨蛋) on Saturday night. Not only did they do battle for the top slots, they had to contend with inclement weather, preventing many from showing off their carefully preened plumage on the red carpet. And as if it couldn’t get any worse, the ceremony ran over time, with some awardees complaining that their acceptance speeches were unfairly cut short while A-listers were given as much time as they liked.
Pop diva Chang Hui-mei (張惠妹), better known as A-mei (阿妹), was crowned the biggest award winner to date, picking up top honors in six categories, including Best Mandarin Album, Best Mandarin Female Singer and Best Song for her concept album A-MIT (阿密特, also the name of her alter ego). She broke the record Jay Chou (周杰倫) set with his album Fantasy (范特西), which garnered five awards in 2002.
“God, this [award] is so hard to get,” said A-mei, after receiving her second Best Female Singer trophy in eight years.
Nominations in the prestigious Best Mandarin Album and Best Song categories were dominated by familiar faces such as Cheer Chen (陳綺貞), Tanya Chua (蔡健雅) and Karen Mok (莫文蔚).
Having garnered six nominations, young songstress Hsu Chia-ying (徐佳瑩), aka Lala Shu, was a sure winner in the Newcomer category. The song I Ride a White Horse, from her self-titled debut album, is a smash hit that combines gezai opera (歌仔戲), pop and references to puppetry.
The hotly contested Best Band Award was handed to indie rock outfit 1976, which beat out two-time titleholder Sodagreen (蘇打綠), and Super Band (縱貫線).
“We have kept playing music for 14 years ... Winning this award may encourage young people to think that it’s great to play music,” the band said.
The biggest surprise of the night came when Yan Yung-neng (嚴詠能) and his band Takaorun (打狗亂歌團) from Kaohsiung beat off Golden Melody regulars Ricky Hsiao (蕭煌奇) and Judy Chiang (江蕙), the uncontested reigning queen of Hoklo music, to take home the Best Taiwanese-language Album gong for their CD Ta Yuan I Chia Nung Chu Lai (大員一家農出來).
Since it was founded in 2005, Yan’s group has been touring the country’s towns and villages, entertaining inhabitants with Taiwanese grassroots music. The T-shirt wearing, barefooted Yan said that many elders in farming villages buy his CD but don’t have the equipment to play it. “So they place the CD on their altar tables and ask the deities to protect my voice,” the musician said. “I make music for those who are farmers like my grandparents. I think we can all learn from their wonderful and humble attitude toward life.”
The ceremony overran, winding up at midnight. While the tedious event was filled with uninspiring performances and loquacious presenters prattling on, a time limit was imposed on the winners’ acceptance speeches. Well, some of them. Many awardees struggled to finish in the designated time. But that restriction wasn’t applied to everyone. Big-name acts, such as A-mei, were given as much time as they wanted.
The unequal treatment didn’t end there. During her acceptance speech after winning the Best Instrumental Album Producer award for Paper Eagle (紙鳶) by jazz ensemble Sizhukong (絲竹空), pianist and composer Peng Yu-wen (彭郁雯) said: “We almost made it to the red carpet. But someone said ‘hurry, she [A-mei] is here,’ and we [were asked] to leave.”
If it’s any consolation, Peng wasn’t the only one who didn’t it make up the red carpet. Heavy rain put the kibosh on the traditional star-studded parade.
The 90m-long red carpet posed a real challenge to stars as they tottered along in the downpour.
Hong Kong actress and singer Mok was among the few who gracefully completed the treacherous walk. “It is quite romantic walking in the rain,” the star said, despite the hem of her haute couture Lanvin evening dress turning into a sodden dishcloth.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
Peter Brighton was amazed when he found the giant jackfruit. He had been watching it grow on his farm in far north Queensland, and when it came time to pick it from the tree, it was so heavy it needed two people to do the job. “I was surprised when we cut it off and felt how heavy it was,” he says. “I grabbed it and my wife cut it — couldn’t do it by myself, it took two of us.” Weighing in at 45 kilograms, it is the heaviest jackfruit that Brighton has ever grown on his tropical fruit farm, located