You can find almost anything in Taiwan — which is another way of saying that the Taiwanese will put their hands (and invariably their minds and hearts as well) to just about anything. This is certainly true in the musical sphere.
Forum Music specializes in abstract percussion, one of the most austere, not to say abstruse, musical genres. But there’s a way that Taiwanese amiability and good-natured confidence can tame even this. Toneless, tuneless and even clueless it may be to some, but the atmosphere at the Music Forum 2008 Annual Concert (十方樂集2008年度公演 — 時空交擊) held at Taipei’s Zhongshan Hall on Saturday evening was so congenial that the idea that this music might actually be fun appeared to be, if anything, actually taken for granted.
On stage were gongs, tubular bells, xylophones, sheets of metal, and more kinds of drums than I could count. Six items were performed, two of them announced as world premieres, and the number of players ranged from 13 to one. Most surprising of all, the average age of the instrumentalists looked to be mid-20s at most.
Historically, this kind of music began as an aspect of early 20th-century modernism, an equivalent of cubism and abstraction in art and every sort of non-realism in literature. It was as far from lush romanticism as it was possible to go, aspired to be all head and no heart, and attracted a determined few who wanted to have no truck whatsoever with the past.
Yet a century later, in modern Taipei, several hundred followers showed up and applauded wildly. Three of the composers gave brief speeches, all of which provoked appreciative laughter and more applause, and the items themselves were in the event very varied.
One premiere, Chang Chao-jan’s (張超然) Beyond the Boundary (極限之外), was played solo on a gigantic xylophone, a Lyoma Marimba, with ambient sounds drifting from two large speakers. Another, Li Yuan-chen’s (李元貞) Ring (鐘), required four players, each with a mass of equipment, and made a strong impact.
The lasting impression was that you can do whatever you want and call it music if that’s what it is to you. This, I’d have thought, is as democratic and liberating a message as anyone could wish to come away with from any performance.
Meanwhile, at the 9th Taipei Poetry Festival, a simply-staged show was on offer at the Guling Street Avante-Garde Theater. Called Midaregami — Tangled Hair: A Poem of Light and Shadows, it featured a worried, alienated youth and a kimono-clad female shamisen player. Simple cutouts and silhouettes were projected onto a white sheet, along with fragments of poetry by, I was told, two poets. Almost the entire audience of perhaps 60 consisted of women, and all the featured poets this year are female as well.
The tiny, attractive auditorium was sold-out, and all I could gather of the show’s import was that the progressive women of Taiwan are gathering in remote locations on every hand. Lacking identifying insignia, they are engaging in occult rituals, exchanging cabalistic signs and preparing to assault the heights. I was all the more grateful, in these circumstances, for being silently handed a free ticket.
When nature calls, Masana Izawa has followed the same routine for more than 50 years: heading out to the woods in Japan, dropping his pants and doing as bears do. “We survive by eating other living things. But you can give faeces back to nature so that organisms in the soil can decompose them,” the 74-year-old said. “This means you are giving life back. What could be a more sublime act?” “Fundo-shi” (“poop-soil master”) Izawa is something of a celebrity in Japan, publishing books, delivering lectures and appearing in a documentary. People flock to his “Poopland” and centuries-old wooden “Fundo-an” (“poop-soil house”) in
Jan 13 to Jan 19 Yang Jen-huang (楊仁煌) recalls being slapped by his father when he asked about their Sakizaya heritage, telling him to never mention it otherwise they’ll be killed. “Only then did I start learning about the Karewan Incident,” he tells Mayaw Kilang in “The social culture and ethnic identification of the Sakizaya” (撒奇萊雅族的社會文化與民族認定). “Many of our elders are reluctant to call themselves Sakizaya, and are accustomed to living in Amis (Pangcah) society. Therefore, it’s up to the younger generation to push for official recognition, because there’s still a taboo with the older people.” Although the Sakizaya became Taiwan’s 13th
Earlier this month, a Hong Kong ship, Shunxin-39, was identified as the ship that had cut telecom cables on the seabed north of Keelung. The ship, owned out of Hong Kong and variously described as registered in Cameroon (as Shunxin-39) and Tanzania (as Xinshun-39), was originally People’s Republic of China (PRC)-flagged, but changed registries in 2024, according to Maritime Executive magazine. The Financial Times published tracking data for the ship showing it crossing a number of undersea cables off northern Taiwan over the course of several days. The intent was clear. Shunxin-39, which according to the Taiwan Coast Guard was crewed
For anyone on board the train looking out the window, it must have been a strange sight. The same foreigner stood outside waving at them four different times within ten minutes, three times on the left and once on the right, his face getting redder and sweatier each time. At this unique location, it’s actually possible to beat the train up the mountain on foot, though only with extreme effort. For the average hiker, the Dulishan Trail is still a great place to get some exercise and see the train — at least once — as it makes its way
RSS