Panai (巴奈) A Piece of Blue (那片藍)
Crowd Lu (盧廣仲) 100 Ways of Life (100種生活)
88 Balaz (八十八顆芭樂籽) The 44 Stone Lions (肆十肆隻石獅子)
Wu Bai (伍佰) Spacebomb 太空彈
TC Yang (楊祖珺) A Voice
That Could Not Be Silenced: The TC Yang Collection 1977-2003 (關不住的歌聲—楊祖珺錄音選輯1977-2003)
While politicians bicker endlessly and people eye the economy nervously, Taiwan’s music scene seems like the only thing that’s moving along these days. To be sure, the Mando-pop industry keeps churning out new stars and regurgitating the old ones, but the gems lie in a new generation of independent-minded musicians with a polish and sheen of their own.
If you buy only one CD by a Taiwanese artist this year, make it Panai’s (巴奈) A Piece of Blue (那片藍), a dreamy and sublime collection of acoustic songs spiced with jazz, Brazilian folk and reggae rhythms. This long-awaited second album — inspired by a group of artists in Taitung County’s (台東縣) Dulan Village (都蘭) — shows the 37-year-old singer-songwriter at her best. She naturally draws from her Amis and Puyuma roots, but doesn’t let traditional music dominate her original songs, mostly penned in Mandarin. The various island music grooves sprinkled throughout the album bring a lighter shade to Panai’s melancholy-tinged voice, which sounds both detached and intimate. The result is a beautiful balance: soulful, poetic reflection at a drifting, beachside pace.
There’s a near-magical energy to 23-year-old Crowd Lu (盧廣仲), whose guitar-fueled, sunshine pop is winning the hearts of college kids in the Chinese-speaking world. His full-length debut, 100 Ways of Life (100種生活), sounds as inspired as his personal story: he was in a serious car accident, and while recovering in the hospital he resolved to learn to play guitar. The instrument turned out to be a good match for his agile and highly capable voice; his geek-chic charm and earnest songwriting glued the rest together. Lu’s tunes are about exams, making breakfast and toy robots, which haven’t sounded like so much fun in a long time.
Special mention goes to 88 Balaz (八十八顆芭樂籽), whose solid debut album, The 44 Stone Lions (肆十肆隻石獅子), is full of punk verve and rock ’n’ roll heat, but best of all captures the zany spirit of Taiwanese rock. On the other side of the taike (台客) spectrum is the venerable Wu Bai (伍佰), who has gone into outer space with his latest, Spacebomb (太空彈), a sci-fi concept album that stuffs light social satire into a rock party.
In light of this fall’s Wild Strawberry student protests, TC Yang’s (楊祖珺) retrospective album of folk and protest songs is timely. A Voice That Could Not Be Silenced: The TC Yang Collection 1977-2003 (關不住的歌聲—楊祖珺錄音選輯1977-2003) is a collection of the folk singer-turned-college professor’s recorded output, which includes her renowned version of Formosa (美麗島), a tune that rang throughout various protests by the Dangwai (outside the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party, KMT) movement of the late 1970s and 1980s.
Another of this year’s best albums was Gaga, the first full-length release by 54-year-old Atayal (泰雅) singer Inka Mbing (雲力思), which includes traditional Aboriginal songs as well as original works. The album has an intensity of deeply felt experience, and can be seen and enjoyed as a musical portrait of a people, one that takes in the children’s playground as much as the vast prospects of the mountains which many Atayal call home.
Sodagreen’s third album, Incomparable Beauty (無與倫比的美麗), continues the band’s transition from indie to the pop mainstream without totally selling out its roots. Lead singer Wu Qing-feng’s (吳青峰) voice continues to define the band’s sound, but the album has tight arrangements and good lyrics as well. Sodagreen likes to show its sentimental side, yet never forgoes charm, and often flirts with cute, but is thoughtful enough to avoid insulting the listener’s intelligence.
Oct. 21 to Oct. 27 Sanbanqiao Cemetery (三板橋) was once reserved for prominent Japanese residents of Taipei, including former governor-general Motojiro Akashi, who died in Japan in 1919 but requested to be buried in Taiwan. Akashi may have reconsidered his decision if he had known that by the 1980s, his grave had been overrun by the city’s largest illegal settlement, which contained more than 1,000 households and a bustling market with around 170 stalls. Fans of Taiwan New Cinema would recognize the slum, as it was featured in several of director Wan Jen’s (萬仁) films about Taipei’s disadvantaged, including The Sandwich
“Wish You Luck is not just a culinary experience, it’s a continuation of our cultural tradition,” says James Vuong (王豪豐), owner of the Daan District (大安) Hong Kong diner. On every corner of Kowloon, diners pack shoulder-to-shoulder over strong brews of Hong-Kong-style milk tea, chowing down on French Toast and Cantonese noodles. Hong Kong’s ubiquitous diner-style teahouses, known as chachaanteng (茶餐廳), have been a cultural staple of the city since the 1950s. “They play an essential role in the daily lives of Hongkongers,” says Vuong. Wish You Luck (祝您行運) offers that same vibrant melting pot of culture and cuisine. In
Much noise has been made lately on X (Twitter), where posters both famed and not have contended that Taiwan is stupid for eliminating nuclear power, which, the comments imply, is necessary to provide the nation with power in the event of a blockade. This widely circulated claim, typically made by nuclear power proponents, is rank nonsense. In 2021, Ian Easton, an expert on Taiwan’s defenses and the plans of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to break them, discussed the targeting of nuclear power plants in wartime (“Ian Easton On Taiwan: Are Taiwan’s nuclear plants safe from Beijing?”, April 12, 2021). The
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