Majors and Minors: 'Friends' to Taiwanese opera with Karen

This is Karen Wu, a first-year from Taiwan who intends to major in international relations. She loves oolong tea, but at Dewick goes for orange jasmine green tea. Karen shared her perspective on the music scene today in Taiwan.

Haruka (H): What’s pop music in Taiwan like? What genre, and which artist, is most popular right now?

Karen (K): Eric is popular today. Jay Chou, JJ Lin and Rainie Yang are from the older generation. Everyone knows them but whether or not people listen to them is a different story. They still produce music today, though, and I like Jay Chou and JJ Lin. I don’t think there is much of a clear genre separation in Taiwanese music. It’s either pop and ballad-type songs or straight-up rap.

H: What’s traditional Taiwanese music like?

K: Taiwanese music sounds like Chinese music in many ways. The music that is distinctly Taiwanese is Taiwanese opera, and it sounds like opera but the way they sing it is different than what you’d imagine based on Western opera. In Western opera, there are different tones. For Taiwanese opera, all the songs are sung in a way that brings up the tone at the end or drags the last syllable out. The variety of instruments we use are also distinct. There’s an instrument called the yehu that’s played like a cello but is very small. There’s also an instrument that sounds like a gong, which is used to build up suspense. The suona is a type of blowing instrument that we use for celebrations at the temple. If artists are going for a soft feel, they use a lute-like string piano.

Indigenous people’s music is gaining attention recently. They sing about nature and the homeland, and have distinct musical styles. There’s a category of music that people play for religious events, which is similar to Chinese opera in that at the end of the phrase the tone rises really high. Most traditional music is used for theatre or for a religious purpose.  

H: Is there a song that everyone knows in Taiwan?

K: Any of the Jay Chou songs. There’s also a Wakin Chau song called “Friends" (1997) that's one of the graduation songs [everyone knows]. Other commonly known songs are from the original soundtracks and theme songs of teen flicks in Taiwan.

H: Does modern music in Taiwan incorporate more traditional styles?

K: It depends on the artist. Jay Chou does it a lot, but Will Pan doesn’t, I don’t think.

H: Is music in Taipei distinct from that of the rest of the country?

K: Not that much. Musical preference depends more on the age group, and for our generation I think the music we know is shared across the country. We don’t have many artists who sing in Taiwanese dialect, so linguistically too the music is pretty uniform. Most people sing in Mandarin, because the dialects are not used as much among the younger generation.