Imagine a British rock band pulling up its roots and relocating to Taiwan to learn Chinese and in a few short years composing hit songs in Mandarin and collaborating with leading Taiwanese musicians.
Transition (前進樂團) is one of the few Western bands to have achieved this impressive feat and more.
Catapulted into stardom by its first Mandarin hit, Dui Bu Qi (對不起我的中文不好), the band has attracted more than 2.5 million views on its YouTube channel.
More than 100,000 have also viewed a 30-minute online documentary about band members’ lives in Taiwan.
In December 2013, when the band’s album Kua Yue (跨越) was released by Asia Muse in digital format, it stayed in the top five in the Indievox chart in Taiwan for four consecutive weeks.
Transition has also performed on YouTube covers of classic Mandarin hits, such as Ni Zenme Shuo (你怎麼說) by Teresa Teng (鄧麗君), Red Bean (紅豆) by Faye Wong (王菲) and You Are My Flower (妳是我的花朵) by Wu Bai (伍佰).
Composing their own hits in Mandarin was only made harder because they had to do it outside Taiwan.
When applying for new work permits, band members discovered their applications had been blocked because they had performed at a church in 2010 and were given a monetary gift, an action that the government deemed illegal and merited a three-year ban from the country.
The band hails from Bristol, England. In 2002, band members met some Taiwanese who were studying English in Bristol. Their new Taiwanese friends told them that their music would have an audience in Taiwan and encouraged them to search for opportunities to tour Taiwan.
Friends also introduced them to Mandarin music through David Tao’s album Black Tangerine (黑色柳丁), which fascinated them with its blend of Western rock and Eastern melodies and lyrics.
In 2005, Transition took part in the Spring Scream outdoor music festival and immediately felt a sense of connection with Taiwan.
Four years later, the group moved to Taiwan because “first and foremost, it was friendship that made Taiwan feel so much like home,” drummer Josh Edbrooke said.
Moving to Taiwan was a huge learning experience and the band’s members had to unlearn many of their Western habits to embrace the Taiwanese way of doing things.
The leap to Mandarin was a particularly big challenge.
“Singing in Chinese was something that we always felt was out of reach for us. Particularly the idea of writing our own songs in Chinese seemed impossible. But through taking things one step at a time, we found ourselves creating a whole Mandarin album,” Edbrooke said.
His brother Jesse is responsible for guitar and vocals, and Niall Dunne, who was with the band for most of its run in Taiwan until 2013, also handled vocals and several instruments. Another member, Steve Dunne, left the band in 2007 before it settled in Taiwan.
The first step was singing some simple Mandarin covers. After some time, they asked a friend to translate some of their English songs, which they performed. From there, they began to use the simple Mandarin they knew to write songs that reflected their life experience.
In 2012, the band was commissioned to compose the official theme song for the Taiwanese team at the London Olympics.
Having just completed a successful 21-city tour of China, the band is back in Britain putting the finishing touches on a new Mandarin album.
They plan to release the album in Taiwan by the end of this year and hope to perform their new album and hit songs on an nationwide tour in December.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS