FEATURE/Singer-songwriter pays homage to Taiwan's democracy pioneers

By Sean Lin, CNA staff reporter

He has won five Golden Melody Awards, the equivalent of the Grammys in the Mandarin pop world, and earned songwriting credits on albums released by Andy Lau (劉德華), Vivian Hsu (徐若瑄) and many other superstars.

But 56-year-old singer-songwriter Hsieh Ming-yu (謝銘祐) says his days of writing love songs are well behind him, as he has discovered that his true passion lies in writing about the land he lives in and the changes that are taking place around him.

That focus, Hsieh said, has motivated him to tackle an unusual theme in popular music: the character of the Taiwanese people as seen through Taiwan's pro-democracy movement pioneers.

His moving tributes to those pioneers run through three of four successive tracks on his latest Hokkien album "phien-lâm" (偏南, "Skewing South"), which he calls the "scars" section of the album that has secured five Golden Melody Award nominations.

"With this album, I wanted to write about the character of the Taiwanese people," Hsieh said.

"Without the 'scars' section, the face of the Taiwanese people -- the ingrained fear that stemmed from unwarranted injustices -- would not be complete," he said.

Chiang's assassin

While other artists condemn dictators in their songs, Hsieh tries to enter the mindset of the democratic pioneers and, with the help of historical accounts, channel what they might have been thinking in their times of despair.

The track "ī-hiong-lâng" (異鄉人, "Alien"), for example, tries to decode the inner conflict of Peter Huang (黃文雄), 87, during his 26 years in exile after a failed attempt to assassinate then Vice Premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國), the son of then President Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), during a visit to the United States in 1970.

The song depicts Huang in his solitude, pining for the "island" on his mind, separated by thousands of miles of vast ocean, while lamenting that the better future he envisioned is languishing in exile with him. He also begs for the forgiveness of his parents, whom he had cut off.

The piece's arrangement involves a piano, a bandoneon and a string section that are sparsely played, imparting a stripped-down feel that allows the music to communicate more directly with the listener.

It's a quality present on the three songs in "Skewing South's" "scars" section, with each track featuring an extended instrumental break that further accentuates the moods that the pieces try to evoke.

In another of those songs -- "guá sī siáng" (我是誰, "Who Am I") -- Hsieh sings about 228 victim Tang Te-chang's (湯德章) lifelong struggle for identity, which he sees as a parallel to Taiwan's bid to garner international recognition and its dilemma over its name.

The quest for name and identity

Born in Taiwan's Japanese colonial period to a Japanese police officer and a Taiwanese woman, Tang changed his surname many times throughout his life.

In 1947, less than two years after the Kuomintang (KMT) took over Taiwan, Tang found himself at the center of the 228 Incident, a brutal crackdown on civilians participating in widespread anti-government protests.

Tang's fate was sealed when he was nominated by the Tainan City Council and Tainan residents as a mayoral candidate on March 9, 1947, after the council had voted to oust KMT-appointed Mayor Cho Kao-hsuan (卓高煊).

He was arrested by KMT military police and secret agents on March 11 on a charge of sedition, interrogated, and publicly executed at a park on March 13.

Before the executioner put a bullet through his head, Tang reportedly shouted in Hokkien, "Japanese blood runs through my veins," and in Japanese, "Taiwanjin, banzai!" ("Long live Taiwanese!").

This shows that even in his final moments, Tang was troubled by his identity, and he probably died feeling "empty" after realizing that the handover of Taiwan from Japan to the KMT could not solve his identity problem, Hsieh said.

Under Japanese rule, Tang eventually worked as a human rights lawyer in his hometown of Tainan. Before he was captured by the KMT, he reportedly burned all the documents at his home containing information on Taiwanese elites in the city, saving many prominent figures and youths from suffering the same fate as he did.

Ironically, Tang's father also died in a major uprising, the Tapani Incident in 1915, in the line of duty. The rebellion saw Han Taiwanese and indigenous peoples join forces to stage a coup against the Japanese colonial government.

Hsieh believes Tang's last act of defiance might have been to keep his last bit of dignity.

"To have a name, to become a person" should be the most basic form of dignity that every human being should have, not something one should have to fight for, Hsieh said.

The singer-songwriter also found parallels between how Tang's fate seemed inevitably dictated by the two successive regimes and the situation facing Taiwan today in the international community.

"Taiwan has always been a 'chess piece,' a matter that can be set aside and not discussed," Hsieh said.

"Only when it becomes useful does it start to gain some leverage. This is still the case today."

Also at play is the awkwardness of Taiwan's official name the "Republic of China" and how it can play into identity issues.

"As [people] get older, they will gradually realize 'my country's name is not its real name, but a substitute. I do not have a clear identity,'" Hsieh said.

Let me stand up like a Taiwanese

Hsieh suggested, however, that things may be changing for the better.

"Due to some chaos and conflicts in recent years, more and more people know that Taiwan is a country and can tell where it is on the map," Hsieh said.

"We must be very patient and seize our opportunity ... just like Peter Huang seized his when he delivered the most important line: 'Let me stand up like a Taiwanese' when he was restrained after firing the shot," according to Hsieh.

As Hsieh said: "After I finished writing this album, I felt truly grateful to these individuals who fought for the dignity of all the people on this island."

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