Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) promised on Thursday to help with the production of a documentary on Hung Yi-feng (洪一峰), better known as “the king of Formosan song,” who died of pancreatic cancer at Taipei Medical University Hospital, on Wednesday at the age of 82.
Hung, who was blessed with a deep, resonant voice and was a prolific songwriter, is familiar to middle-aged and elderly Taiwanese-language music fans.
Old numbers such as Memories of an Old Love (舊情綿綿) and The One I’m Missing (思慕的人) are still very popular among KTV patrons.
Chiu Kun-liang (邱坤良), a professor at National Taipei University of the Arts who grew up listening to Hung’s songs, said he awakened the Taiwanese identity of many people.
NATIONAL TREASURE
“He was unfortunate to have been born in Taiwan ... If he had lived in another country, he would have long been recognized as a national treasure,” Chiu said.
Chuang Yung-ming (莊永明), a researcher of Taiwanese history, said Hung’s contribution to Taiwanese-language songs lay in his inheritance of the independent creative spirit of the Taiwanese during the period of Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945).
“A group of talented Taiwanese artists composed many lyrical Taiwanese-language songs between 1932 and 1940. However, their development came to an abrupt halt after Japan launched a campaign to turn ‘Taiwanese into loyal subjects of the Japanese emperor,’” Chuang said.
ENKA
Hung successfully incorporated the Oriental five-note scale musical style popular in the 1930s into his compositions and also made use of features of Japanese enka and jazz music that made their way to Taiwan in the 1950s, Chuang said.
“As a result, he created a unique blend or hybrid style that reflects the complexity of Taiwanese history,” he said.
Hung was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer on Dec. 7, his family said. He was hospitalized on Dec. 26 after he fell into a coma following a bout of pneumonia and was transferred to a hospice ward on Feb. 11.
A memorial service will be held for him on March 13.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
LOOKING NORTH: The base would enhance the military’s awareness of activities in the Bashi Channel, which China Coast Guard ships have been frequenting, an expert said The Philippine Navy on Thursday last week inaugurated a forward operating base in the country’s northern most province of Batanes, which at 185km from Taiwan would be strategically important in a military conflict in the Taiwan Strait. The Philippine Daily Inquirer quoted Northern Luzon Command Commander Lieutenant General Fernyl Buca as saying that the base in Mahatao would bolster the country’s northern defenses and response capabilities. The base is also a response to the “irregular presence this month of armed” of China Coast Guard vessels frequenting the Bashi Channel in the Luzon Strait just south of Taiwan, the paper reported, citing a
BETTER SERVICE QUALITY: From Nov. 10, tickets with reserved seats would only be valid for the date, train and route specified on the ticket, THSRC said Starting on Nov. 10, high-speed rail passengers with reserved seats would be required to exchange their tickets to board an earlier train. Passengers with reserved seats on a specific train are currently allowed to board earlier trains on the same day and sit in non-reserved cars, but as this is happening increasingly often, and affecting quality of travel and ticket sales, Taiwan High-Speed Rail Corp (THSRC) announced that it would be canceling the policy on Nov. 10. It is one of several new measures launched by THSRC chairman Shih Che (史哲) to improve the quality of service, it said. The company also said
A magnitude 6 earthquake last night at 9:11pm struck off northeastern Yilan County, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The earthquake’s epicenter was located in waters between Toucheng Township (頭城) and Turtle Island (Gueishan Island, 龜山島), about 22.1km northeast of Yilan County Hall at a depth of 112km, CWA data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effects of a temblor, was highest in Yilan’s Dongshan (冬山) and Nanao (南澳) townships and Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義), where it measured 4 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. It measured 3 in other areas of Yilan and Taipei, as
RSS