Saga的異次元空間

Publication Date：07/01/2008
Byline：PAT GAO

The long, colorful career of one of Taiwan's foremost female Holo singers reflects the history and development of the genre itself.

"Gorgeous Taipei City glittering in neon light,

tonight who do you put on makeup for?

You are full of unfeeling people.

Love is always an orphan.

Don't want to awaken Taipei from its dream.

It looks prettier from my hometown.

Ah, Taipei, Taipei, sayonara,

the heart broken for you will stay here forever."

--Huang Yee-ling's "Taipei Sayonara," 1998

Fans of veteran Holo pop singer Huang Ming-jhu, who performs under the stage name of Huang Yee-ling, were thrilled this year when she released her 28th album, Speaking to Oneself, her first release since winning a Golden Melody Award for best female Holo-language singer in 2006. Huang won an earlier Golden Melody Award in the same category in 1999 as part of a career spanning nearly 30 years. Her career reflects many of the ups and downs of the genre's 75-year history and her work is one of the reasons Holo pop now poses a strong alternative to Taiwan's mainstream Mandarin music market.

Listening to the 24 songs of Huang's two-CD album Famous (2002) is like hearing a short history of Holo pop, as the best-selling album contains cover versions of well known songs by other Holo stars released over the years. The first song features Huang singing "Farewell Coast," which was originally released in 1984 by Chiang Huei, who is arguably Taiwan's best-known female Holo singer.

Popular Holo music first began to flourish in the 1930s under Japanese colonial rule and is reminiscent of the Japanese enka style of melodramatic singing. An early Holo pop high tide occurred in the 1950s and 1960s, when many Holo songs were borrowed from or influenced by Japanese enka melodies. In fact, the influence was so strong that the first songs Huang Yee-ling learned to sing for public performances during her childhood were in Japanese.

In the 1960s, Holo popular music moved to Beitou in northern Taipei. Famous for its hot springs, Beitou has also been shaped by the entertainment industry and it was a major center for Holo musicians and performers. Between 1962 and 1969, the high-water mark for the Holo movie tide with an average of 100 films produced each year, Beitou became Taiwan's version of Hollywood and was frequented by film production teams and actors.

However, in the 1960s, the government's policy of promoting Mandarin resulted in the imposition of rigorous censorship on the entertainment business. The censorship came in the form of restrictions on the release, sale and broadcast of "improper" pop songs--mostly Holo--and imposed a tight grip on the new media that began to dominate the pop scene during the decade. Established in 1962, Taiwan Television Enterprise became Taiwan's first television station and was joined by two others within 10 years. The three government-owned stations were subject to quite a few programming restrictions, including a limit of two non-Mandarin songs for the three stations combined per day. Holo movies continued to be released, but some were heavily censored.

Born in 1969 in Taipei County, Huang began singing in Beitou at the age of nine. Echoing the theme of inescapable destiny that pervades many of her songs, Huang says that while she loves singing now, her music career began because she felt she needed to do something to support her family, although she was very young. "Singing might be the job I was predestined to do," she says.

Still, the environment of the 1970s was not conducive to the development of a career as a Holo chanteuse. The genre declined during the decade, partly due to the demise of the two major media outlets for Holo songs--Holo movies and TV shows featuring Holo-language glove puppetry--in the early 1970s. While parts of Holo movies were censored by the government, censors banned the televised glove puppet shows outright, claiming that their huge popularity disturbed citizens' daily lives and work. However, many believed that the shows were banned as part of the government's plan to suppress the language and culture of non-Mandarin-speaking ethnic groups.

Itinerant Lifestyle

With the government's restrictions on broadcasting non-Mandarin songs still in effect, Huang moved from hotel to hotel in Beitou as a young singer in a nakasi group, which typically also included a guitarist and drummer. Derived from a Japanese word meaning "flow," the term nakasi describes the musicians' mobile lifestyle and a musical genre characterized by strong tempo and accompaniment by a guitar, or sometimes an accordion or harmonica. Like many other Holo singers leading a nakasi lifestyle in Beitou in their teenage years, Huang remained on the move, singing in hotels, restaurants and small performance halls.

 

Huang's career spans 28 albums and nearly 30 years. (Photo by Huang Chung-hsin)

"Because of her early beginnings as an itinerant singer, Huang has seen a lot and mingled with people from all walks of life," says Lyu Ciou-yuan, a blogger who often comments on music and is also a lawyer with a doctoral degree in political science from National Taiwan University. "That's why she can present so many different life themes in her songs with such confidence and style," he says. Lyu believes that Huang's singing reveals a hidden melancholy feeling shared by many Taiwanese people.

 

Martial law was lifted in 1987, creating a more open society, and it is no surprise that Huang finally settled down that year to record her first album, The Vow Allegedly as Solid as Mountain and Ocean. The album sold well and she began to attract fans that had not seen her sing in person.

 

Going Mainstream

 

A great surge of interest in Holo pop songs occurred in the 1990s as censorship came to a gradual halt and the enka style was recognized as an integral part of Taiwanese pop music instead of a product of low culture. Huang received her 1999 Golden Melody Award for the album Thank the Unfeeling Person, which includes the classic "Taipei Sayonara." At a time when Holo was still considered by some to be a "regional dialect," Huang's song about a southern girl suffering the aftermath of a failed romance with a Taipei man resonated around Taiwan. The singer's depiction of Taipei as a city of unfeeling people and broken hearts was seen by many as a reflection of the social tension between the capital city and other parts of the island.

 

Lyu describes "Taipei Sayonara" as a Holo version of "Taipei is not my home," referring to a famous line in the Mandarin song "Small Town of Lugang," which was recorded by Lo Ta-yu in 1982. A landmark work for Taiwan's modern pop music scene, "Small Town of Lugang" presents the story of another stranger in Taipei, one who also gets stuck in a disillusioned city. Its motif of ruthless social critique, however, differs from a forlorn picture of secret heartache that takes shape in "Taipei Sayonara" and many other Holo songs.

 

As the genre grew in popularity during the 1990s, it also began to change. A large amount of music was released during the period that departed from Holo pop's typically slow and sad tunes. Holo songs were also gradually influenced by the lyrical, urbane mode of many Mandarin songs, partially as a result of creative singers and musicians crossing over from Mandarin pop.

 

Since then, Holo music has seen the introduction of new styles such as the energetic rock of Wu Bai, a songwriter and singer who became Huang Yee-ling's counterpart at the 2006 Golden Melody Awards when he was selected as the best male Holo singer. However, the early influences of enka and the somewhat underground, itinerant environment of Holo music production and circulation before martial law was lifted give many songs a world-weary, melancholy aspect that persists today.

 

Huang's new album Speaking to Oneself continues to explore the potential of Holo music. The album's first song, for example, presents ancient Han Chinese poetry that dates back to the 10th century, but the words are pronounced in literary Holo, not Mandarin. "We consulted historical linguists," Huang says, "to learn the way to pronounce an ancient text in Holo." Retaining seven of ancient Han Chinese's eight tones--Mandarin has only four--t is believed that Holo usually can better reflect the original phonetic quality of ancient Han Chinese poetry.

 

"The musical arrangement of this song is great," says Kung Ming-sio, a music critic and former radio host who writes regular reviews of newly released Holo albums. As Holo is now taught, chanted and sung in schools, Kung says that the song "gives Holo pop music another way to inspire students."

 

Huang's transformation from a local nakasi singer into a pop star with nationwide fame has played a major part in fueling the Holo music renaissance. Even today, after releasing just shy of 30 albums, she shows no sign of slowing down. As for the future, Kung suggests that Huang follow the lead of Chiang Huei and become more involved in the production of her own albums. Still, he praises the steady improvement of Huang's singing and believes she will continue to be a leading force and bellwether of Holo pop development.