Taiwan in Time: Sept. 7 to Sept. 13
Less than a year after he ignited Taiwan’s campus nativist folk song movement by proclaiming “sing our own songs” (唱自己的歌) on stage during a Western folk music event, Lee Shuang-tze (李雙澤) drowned on Sept. 10, 1977 at the age of 28 attempting to save a fellow swimmer.
After Lee’s death, his friends and fellow folk singers Yang Tzu-chun (楊祖珺) and Ara Kimbo, commonly known as Kimbo Hu (胡德夫), premiered an unreleased song, Formosa (美麗島), at his funeral.
Photo courtesy of Tamkang Time
Lee wrote the melody, but the lyrics were adapted by Liang Ching-fong (梁景峰) from an earlier poem, depicting the beauty of Taiwan. However, the song became forever politicized and was even banned by the KMT due to its name being used for Formosa Magazine (美麗島雜誌), a magazine created by the opposition to Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) one-party rule.
The 1979 raid on the magazine’s headquarters and arrest of opposition politicians would become known as the Kaohsiung Incident, also known as the Formosa Incident (美麗島事件), but that is another story.
In the 1970s, Western folk music was popular in Taipei coffeehouses, but there was also a nationalist and nativist sentiment brewing as Taiwan was gradually losing its international political status to China while opposition grew against the KMT regime. Part of this sentiment included many young Taiwanese involving themselves in the “Safeguard the Diaoyutais Movement” (保釣運動). Back then, even though Lee would often sing in Hoklo (commonly know as Taiwanese), he still used “Chinese” (中國人) to describe the people of Taiwan because of the political climate.
Author Ma Shi-fang (馬世芳) retells the incident in his book Subterranean Homesick Blues (地下鄉愁藍調). Lee reportedly took the stage with a guitar and bottle of Coca-Cola during a folk music festival in 1976 at Tamkang University (淡江大學), where mostly Western songs were performed. He wasn’t even originally invited — he came as Ara Kimbo’s replacement, who was unable to sing due to a broken tooth.
There were no recordings or photos of what happened next, and the performance gained legendary status in campus circles, and became immortalized as the “Tamkang Incident” (淡江事件).
When Lee took the stage, he allegedly criticized the previous performer for playing English songs. He had just returned to Taiwan after spending time in the US, Spain and Philippines. Why can’t we sing in our own language, he wondered.
“Before we are able to write our own songs, we should sing the songs of our predecessors,” Lee said, and proceeded to smash the Coca-Cola bottle, a symbol of Western globalization, on the floor.
He then sang the then-banned Hoklo song Mending the Net (補破網) and other classics of that time. The crowd mostly booed him. He switched to English, sang Bob Dylan’s Blowing in the Wind, and reportedly proclaimed, “We should sing our own songs!” before storming off the stage.
The performance was not exactly successful. Many people, Ma included, say that the story is likely to have been embellished as it spread. And whether Lee smashed the bottle remains a point of contention.
But the impact of the incident was significant, as it sparked discussion in campus publications about the lack of and potential for Hoklo-language folk songs. It also inspired college students around the nation to pick up a guitar and start writing their own songs.
Taiwan in Time, a column about Taiwan’s history that is published every Sunday, spotlights important or interesting events around the nation that have anniversaries this week.
To the consternation of its biological father — China — the young nation of Taiwan seems to prefer its step-dad, Japan. When the latter was forced out, a semi-modernized iteration of the former returned. And just as some people thrive as adults, despite an unstable childhood, Taiwan has become a democratic success. Unfortunately, the island’s biological father behaves like a parent who is no use, yet who continues to meddle. A combination of rose-tinted retrospection and growing mutual respect has given many Taiwanese a highly positive attitude toward Japan. Physical reminders of the 1895-1945 period of Japanese rule are treasured,
Last month China lashed out at Taiwanese agricultural exports again, banning grouper imports. This event marked the ignominious end of what was once the star agricultural product of the ill-starred Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA). Local media quoted the Fisheries Agency as saying it was a turning point in Taiwan’s grouper history. Spurred by the signing of ECFA, by the spring of 2011 grouper had become the leading agricultural export, driving profits for middlemen and food price inflation. Grouper exports were among the few products whose market grew, enabling then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to
A year before Britain handed Hong Kong to China, then-president Jiang Zemin (江澤民) hailed the “one country, two systems” plan for the city as a model for the country to one day unify with Taiwan. Taiwan would get “a high degree of autonomy” — the same pledge China used for Hong Kong — while keeping legislative and independent judicial power, and its own armed forces, according to Jiang’s speech, copies of which were distributed at Hong Kong’s handover center in 1997. For Taiwan though, the proposal has never been an option. Even the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — a vestige of
How does Hong Kong look to people born in the year of the handover — for whom the city has always been under Chinese sovereignty? Some feel their fate is tied to Hong Kong’s, while others feel like bystanders as Beijing tightens its grip. Many plan to leave sooner or later. We spoke to six 24 and 25-year-olds about the Hong Kong they grew up in, and the one they expect to exist in another 25 years. THE RETURNING PROFESSIONAL “I feel helpless witnessing the changes that Hong Kong has been through,” said Keanne Lee. “At the same time, I want to keep
RSS