Hello! You are listening to WREK Atlanta on 91.1 FM. Today we will look at music from Taiwan. You can listen to the recording of the episode here.

Here is the playlist (the last two songs were not played on the episode and thus is a bonus to the reader).

Indigenous Music

Indigenous people of Taiwan make up 3% of the current country's population. The tribes located in mountains did not mix with Han culture as much, and thus preserved more of the culture (as it does happen with a lot of mountain nations). Some of the tribes are: Amis, Bunun, Paiwan, Rukai, Tsou.

Difang (Circle of Life)

Difang Duana and his wife Igay Duana were a famous couple from the Amis tribe that performed traditional chants. This album is mostly sang by Difang and a choir, we will hear 2 songs from it.

So, this album came out in 1988. What happened in 1987? The martial law that was supressing the appearance of music not in Mandarin was lifted, and that basically cause a renaissance in Taiwanese music industry.

David Darling & Wulu Bunun (Mudanin Kata)

The album by David Darling (Grammy nominated cellist) and people of Wulu Bunun tribe is reinterpreting the ancient chants. I really like this take on the traditional folk singing.

Enigma (Return to Innocence)

The song "Return to Innocence" was made by Enigma (famous music project) as a theme for Olympic Games of 1996. I think the story goes: Enigma found the chants (by the Amis couple we listened to at the beginning!) and thought it was in the public domain. It got sampled, and when Difang and Igay heard about it, they sued. It got settled outside of the court for an unspecified amount of money (but I hope they got a lot of money).

And the sample if from Elders Drinking Song (the first song of today)!

Hokkien Pop

Sang in the native dialect, it is a favorite genre of older working-class people (and now me). It has strong influences from Japanese enka.

We will listen to Chris Hung's song "One Small Umbrella" (一支小雨傘).

More

Chen Ying-Git (who has Hakka heritage!) is a famous female singer and we will listen to her song 海海人生 (Sea life).

An extremely famous Pan-Asian singer is, of course, Teresa Teng. Even I heard of her in my Chinese 201 class. We will play an indisputable classic by her called Moonlight represents my heart (月亮代表我的心).

Fun fact: in 1980s, 90% of all Mandopop (pop music in Mandarin) of Southeast Asia was produced in Taiwan!

Pop

A-mei is called diva of Mandopop. We will hear her song "Calling your full name" (連名帶姓). This translation is not faithful to how it is translated elsewhere, but hopefully gives more context. And apparently it was written by Jay Chou! I am so glad I got to put something by him into this playlist.

Indie pop

1990s and 2000s saw the rise of all kinds of genres in Taiwanese music scene, including Indie. We will listen to Sodagreen's very cute song "Little Love Song".

Metal

The Black Sabbath of Asia = CHTONIC. They are really good. We will listen to their song Takao.

Rap

MC HotDog sings in duo with Eve Ai on the song Unhappy couple.

Bonus Album!