A group of vinyl enthusiasts from the Taiwan Phonograph Music Cultural Association has duplicated four original vinyl records by late Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) singer Chun-chun (純純) that were released more than 80 years ago.
The records, which were released between 1933 and 1938, contain the singles Four Seasons of Red (四季紅), Sadness in a Moonlit Night (月夜愁), Longing for the Spring Breeze (望春風), and Flowers in the Rainy Night (雨夜花).
Late lyricist Teng Yu-hsien (鄧雨賢) wrote the lyrics to all four songs.
Photo: Lin Liang-che, Taipei Times
Since records at that time were made from shellac, they were fragile and difficult to store, association members said, adding that vinyl record collectors do not usually display their collections.
Furthermore, as phonographs were gradually replaced by cassette players, CD players and other audio technology, many vinyl records were thrown away, they added.
Eighty years later, few original vinyl records of the four songs — which are collectively referred to as April Rain (四月望雨) — remain.
The vinyl with the most surviving copies is Sadness in a Moonlit Night, while there are fewer than 10 copies of Longing for the Spring Breeze and Flowers in the Rainy Night, and fewer than five copies of Four Seasons of Red.
Due to the rising popularity of academic research on Hoklo songs and the collection of old records and phonographs, association president Huang Shih-hao (黃士豪) said he has asked association members for copies of the original vinyl records and selected the four that were, to his knowledge, in best condition.
After more than six months of effort, association member Chiu Ming-chin (邱明進) has duplicated the original records.
The sound on the duplicated vinyl is richer and clearer than the original, Chiu said.
Many people want the original version of April Rain reissued, Huang said, adding that they need to overcome copyright issues before that can happen.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater