Yesterday I attended the first day of the 2011 Hohaiyan Music Festival (海洋音樂祭) at Fulong Beach. The festival, organised by the New Taipei City (formerly Taipei County) Government, has been running since 2000. The festival has two stages with the main stage on Fulong Beach. There are also food stalls and toilets set up on the beach and a huge staff to keep things running smoothly.

When I arrived on the beach I saw members of the No Nukes group (諾怒客) handing out posters and talking to people. It is a reminder that just a few kilometres away from this beautiful beach the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant is under construction.  

The theme of the first day was Taike Rock (台客搖滾) and the first band I caught for the day was rapper MC Hotdog. The final song he performed was his well known hit “I love Taiwanese sisters” (我愛台妹). He was joined by a group of dancers for the song. They definitely added some spice to the show.

Next up were electro-rock riot grrrls Go Chic. It was perhaps a little early in the day for a band that demands its fans to dance. Nonetheless they gave an energetic performance that had at least a few people dancing.

Kou Chou Ching (拷秋勤) took full advantage of the big stage by performing with a total of seven members. They put on a great show of their unique Taiwan style hip hop. It was the first time I had seen Achino and Yobo playing the suona together.

The White Eyes (白目樂隊) were winners of the Hohaiyan Music Festival a few years ago. They have since gone on to bigger things. At the end of their set they invited the crowd onto the stage. They enjoyed a few minutes of dancing and fun.

The members of the crowd weren’t the only ones to share the stage with the bands though. Several bands invited members of No Nukes on stage during their sets. They danced and displayed their signs ensuring that everyone in the crowd knew about the fact that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant was under construction not far away.

The Hohaiyan Music Festival continues until Sunday 10 July with bands including Matzka, Sodagreen, Cheer Chen to play. Entry is free but expect huge crowds if you go on the weekend. For more information about the festival visit www.2011hohaiyan.tw.

*More photos in the Hohaiyan Music Festival set at flickr.

• Bitan Music Festival photos
• What Woodstock means to Taiwan
• Summer of music
• Mazu Festival in Ximending
• Summer of rock in Taiwan

Marc has put a huge amount of working into building up the archive of photos. The website currently hosts about 4,500 images. The site had just 1,000 images when we launched it in March 2008 and 3,200 photos when it was redesigned in July 2010. Please spend some time browsing through the site at taipics.com.

• Taipics.com 3.0
• Images of old Taiwan
• Taipei then and now
• Formosa Betrayed set for February 2010 release
• Links 2 July 2007

Two bands featuring the erhu, a traditional Chinese two-stringed musical instrument, took to the stage of the Emerge Live House in Taichung last night. The Hsu-nami (海嘯樂團) came all the way from the USA and Sun Of Morning (晨曦光廊) are a Taiwanese band. Many music fans will already be familiar with Taiwanese metal band ChthoniC’s use of the erhu. These two bands add a new dimension to the genre of erhu rock. 

The Sun of Morning were first on stage. Their brand of post rock has a distinct groove and is supplemented by samples and the erhu.

Xiao Ye (小曄) is the erhu player of Sun of Morning. She also plays keyboard in the band.

Jack Hsu was born in Taiwan and moved to the USA at the age of 12. He is a great front man and extracts a wide range of sounds from the erhu ranging from haunting to music you can dance to. The Hsu-nami are currently on their first tour of Taiwan with shows at Spring Scream and in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung. With six band members on the stage The Hsu-nami have a full and dynamic sound. There was also plenty of great guitar work by guitarists Brent Bergholm and Tony Aichele to complement the erhu.

At the end of the show Xiao Ye of Sun of Morning joined The Hsu-nami on stage for a jam. It was a fitting finale to the show by two bands pioneering the erhu rock genre.

While many people in Taichung might be disappointed by the demise of 89k Taichung’s live music scene is still alive and well. Emerge Live House, Sound Live House and IGOO all host regular gigs featuring an array of bands from Taiwan and abroad. Retro Cafe and Forro Cafe also have occasional shows. I have compiled a list of live music venues in Taichung at Taiwanderful with more details.

*More photos in the erhu rock set at flickr.

Update: The Hsunami have posted a video from the evening on YouTube: First Ever Erhu Rock Epic Battle.

• Raining and rocking in Taichung
• Xiao Wulai waterfall
• Get ready for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus
• Hiking the historic trail
• Links 10 September 2007

The Mega Port Festival (大港開場) was held over the weekend of 5-6 March in Kaohsiung. The festival featured a few bands from Japan and the UK and some big name Taiwanese stars in Wu Bai and Jeannie Hsieh. However, it was largely a showcase of Taiwan’s best contemporary indie bands.

Bands played on three stages spread out along the side of the harbour in the Pier 2 Arts District (駁二藝術特區). The close proximity to the Love River and the harbour gave the festival a unique maritime feel.

With more than 40 bands playing over the two days it was impossible to see them all. I selected some of my favourites and also took some time to check out a few new bands that I hadn’t seen before. Among the latter category was Selfkill, pictured above, who played some good post-rock.

There was a great diversity of musical styles in the festival. Every band seemed to attract their own crowd of fans too. The festival was well organised with all the bands playing on schedule and few of the technical problems that often occur at these type of events. Full credit must go to the organisers.

One of my favourite bands is The White Eyes. They played a typically exuberant and entertaining set. Lead singer Gao Xiao Gao always looks like she is having great fun when she performs. The White Eyes are heading to the USA later this month to play at SXSW in Austin, Texas later this month. They will be playing a Taiwan showcase event on 18 March. Some other bands who played at Mega Port will also go to SXSW including Aphasia, Tizzy Bac and Orangegrass.

A highlight of the first day was ChthoniC. They are also heading overseas this month to play some shows in the UK.

Tainan band Solemn played their first show with two new members. Lala from the Eye of Violence was filling in on vocals with her awesome scream. The crowd goes wild for some of the metal bands. I have some video of the circle pit and moshing that I will eventually upload to YouTube. (Update: Video of Solemn now on YouTube and Vimeo.)

The final performance of the festival that I saw was English post-rock band 65daysofstatic. They put on a powerful and polished performance. They barely paused as they shifted from heavy guitar-based instrumental music to percussion, keyboards and sampled tracks.

I didn’t stay to see Wu Bai & China Blue play the finale. Wu Bai is one of the pioneers of live music in Taiwan. He is still hugely popular too. The Mega Port Festival, with its wide range of bands and musical styles, showed that the trail blazed by Wu Bai has borne much fruit. The next generation is more than ready to take over.

*More photos in the Mega Port Festival 2011 set at flickr (to be uploaded over the next few days).

**Uloud Music released a double CD titled “Mega Pride” featuring many of the bands who played at the festival. The CD is well worth picking up as it provides a good snapshot of Taiwan’s music scene. You can also listen to or download tracks from Indievox.

• Justice For All Concert in Pingtung
• Free Burma concert in Kaohsiung on 19 June
• Exploring the city of Kaohsiung
• Riding the Kaohsiung MRT
• Art and architecture in Kaohsiung

The Freak Out Beast (吵年獸) music festival began in 2006. It is held in Taipei each year around the time of the Lunar New Year holiday, when there is usually a lack of live music events. I attended the festival for the last couple of years in Ximending. This year the event moved to Da’an Forest Park.

The amphitheatre in Da’an Park has a big stage where plenty of bands had the chance to strut their stuff. The weekend also had beautiful blue skies and warm temperatures. This was quite a contrast to the typical Lunar New Year weather in Taipei and the crowd enjoyed both the music and the sunshine.

One of the first bands to play on the big stage on Saturday was My Skin Against Your Skin (MSAYS). The band made great use of the big stage with a polished performance. Their new EP sold out at the festival.

The event had several stages set up around Da’an Park in addition to the main stage. The “noise” (吵) stage in the northeast corner of the park also had a market selling food and crafts. The “year” (年) stage was for DJs and the “beast” (獸) stage featured acoustic performances.

As the sun set on Saturday evening the appropriately named Sunset Rollercoaster (落日飛車) took to the noise stage and attracted quite a crowd. The band includes some of the members of BOYZ & GIRL and they put on a great show with their own brand of psychedelic and experimental rock.

On Saturday evening several metal bands with names like Bazooka and Selfish Sucker amped it up on the noise stage. The photo above shows the guitarist of Selfish Sucker.

For those who prefer it a bit quieter the acoustic stage provided some aural relief. The photo above shows the two-piece band Summerbred (夏生). There were many bands playing on the various stages over the two days and there were still many bands that I didn’t get the chance to see. All in all it was a great two days of music.

*More photos in the Freak Out Beast 2011 set at flickr (with more to be uploaded in the next few days).

• Freak Out Beast 2010 edition
• Freak Out Beast in Ximending
• Taipei then and now
• Public art in Nangang
• Trip to Jinguashi

I took the opportunity to do a bit of local tourism today heading out to Dajia (大甲) in Taichung County.  The first place I stopped was the Wenchang Shrine (文昌祠), a beautiful little temple with neatly kept grounds.

Next stop was the Dajia Matsu Temple (大甲鎮瀾宮). The temple is one of the busiest and most important religious centres in Taiwan. It is the starting point of the annual Matsu pilgrimage held in March or April.

The temple was busy with people making offerings and burning incense.

The gods in the temple were bright and colorful.

Outside the temple several new cars were lined up to be blessed. The man in the white vest busily performed a ritual around the cars.

A parade visiting the temple created a noisy scene. I captured some video of the action.

After visiting the temple I headed out to the coast at Da’an (大安). The coastline is dotted with wind turbines, but otherwise quite desolate. I explored the ruins of an abandoned seaside resort. The beach was bleak and windswept.

*More photos in the Day Trip to Dajia set at flickr.

• Links 1 May 2007
• Yuandao Temple
• Links 7 April 2008
• Longshan Temple
• Hongludi trail in Zhonghe

Jason Hu (胡志強), Taichung Mayor and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate for Mayor of Greater Taichung, is using the slogan “Taichung goes global.” I’m not sure which train he’s riding. It’s definitely not the Taichung MRT!

Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) candidate for Mayor of Greater Taichung, is putting out the message that he can do things that Jason Hu has failed to do.

This man is not running in the election. It is actually an ad for a private language school in Taichung. It contains the words “English-language mayoral election” (英文市長選舉). At the bottom of the ad it says there is an online vote where people can win a trip to Shanghai.

Chang Yao-chung (張耀中) is a DPP candidate for Taichung City Council. In this poster he is appealing to Christian voters. There is a cross in the background and a quote from the Bible. The quote is from the Book of Proverbs 14:34, “Righteousness exalts a nation” (公義使邦國高舉).

Yang Cheng-chung (楊正中) is KMT candidate for city councillor in Taichung. This poster doesn’t contain much information, but leaves no doubt about where his loyalties lie.

This poster shows the DPP’s five candidates for the mayoral positions. It was in Changhua County which is not participating in this round of elections. The poster encourages people to call their friends and relatives to remind them to vote on 27 November. Migration to urban centres in Taiwan has weakened a lot of the networks that are used to mobilise voters. This poster shows the DPP trying to appeal to people to use their own personal connections to encourage people to vote.

This poster with a cartoon illustration of the Incredible Hulk is promoting Lin Shui-shan (林水山), a DPP candidate for the city council in Xinbei City. Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is in the foreground.

Lee Da-hua (李大華) is a People First Party (PFP; 親民黨) candidate for Taipei City Council. Both the PFP and the New Party (新黨), which are offshoots of the KMT, have candidates in the elections.

Francis Wu (吳武明) is an independent candidate for mayor of Taipei City. His campaign slogan is “Taipei New Hope” (台北新希望). The banner notes that he beat KMT candidate Hau Lung-bin and DPP candidate Su Tseng-chang in a poll on the China Times website. This result certainly won’t be repeated on election day.

• Election campaign posters in Taichung
• Prediction market for the five cities election
• New photo gallery
• On the campaign trail
• Green Party bike ride

Although the “five cities” elections (五都選舉) are still more than three months away, billboards promoting election candidates have been in place for many months. Over the last few months I have been photographing some of the billboards around Taichung. Some of the photos with comments are included in this blog post. A larger collection can be found in the “Five Cities” Election Campaign Posters gallery at my Taiwan photo gallery site. Although the focus is on Taichung I hope I will get the chance to add some photos from other cities in Taiwan before the elections are held.

Most of the posters tend to have a pretty simple design. There is a large photo of the candidate occasionally adopting poses such as the raised fist.  There are usually only a few words describing the candidate such as their party and the position they are running for. This is also often accompanied by words such as “hard-working”, “capable” and “honest” indicating the candidate’s qualities and also the phrase “earnestly requesting your vote”. A few posters do vary from this theme and get a little bit more creative though.

This poster is for Wang Li-ren (王立任), a DPP candidate for city councillor for Shalu, Wuqi and Qingshui townships. He is promoting the idea of a free bus service from Taichung City to the towns on the coast.

Another DPP candidate Lai Chia-wei (賴佳微) proclaims that she is “the only woman” (唯一女性). This is probably because she is the only female DPP candidate nominated in the North District of Taichung. There is a quota that means a minimum of 25% of candidates elected to city councillor positions must be women.

The DPP’s candidate for Mayor of Greater Taichung, Su Jia-chyuan (蘇嘉全), has adopted a very simple clean style for his campaign posters. His key point is a “new government” (新政) for Taichung. Su also appears alongside many DPP candidates for city councillor in their campaign posters.

I haven’t seen many posters of Jason Hu (胡志強), the current Mayor of Taichung and KMT candidate for Mayor of Greater Taichung. I did find this one of him with a KMT candidate for the city council.

Liu Shih-chou (劉士州),  KMT candidate for city councillor, is proudly wearing an “I love Taichung” t-shirt while meeting some kangaroos in Australia!

Of course ads aren’t just plastered to the side of buildings. The little blue truck is promoting a KMT candidate for city councillor. Of course when it drives around it also broadcasts pleas for votes via loudspeakers.

Of course the election is not just about the DPP and KMT. There are candidates for the Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), other minor parties and independents. The poster above is for a TSU candidate for city councillor in Taichung.

This candidate doesn’t state his party affiliation but he is calling for an MRT in Taichung. I have noticed several campaign posters with this theme around Taichung.

Finally an interesting Chinese character is being put to use on this poster. It combines the left hand radical of county (縣) with the character for city (市) to represent the merger of Taichung City and County. The Zhuyin Fuhao alongside the character indicates that it is pronounced dū. This is probably borrowed from the character 都 (dū) meaning city or metropolitan area.

*Don’t forget to check “Five Cities” Election Campaign Posters gallery for more photos. It will be updated regularly until the election on 27 November.

• More election campaign posters
• Prediction market for the five cities election
• New photo gallery
• A new generation steps forward in the elections
• On the campaign trail

I had a busy day yesterday taking photos around Taichung. The day began at an Aboriginal Cultural Festival organised by the Taichung City Government. The event featured some traditional dancing as well as some fun activities like the three-legged race pictured above and a tug-of-war. There was also a good range of aboriginal style food on offer — plenty of assorted meats on the BBQ and some fresh fruits like grapes and peaches grown in the mountains.

The colorful clothing of the Amis makes for great photos. I have a complete set of photos from this event at flickr. 

In the afternoon I met with Mark and Todd at SOGO for the photowalk. It was only a small group, but that made it easy to wander around and enjoy the streets of Taichung. Mark, a long-term Taichung resident, was a great guide. I am still quite unfamiliar with the streets of Taichung, but the walk helped me discover lots of interesting little streets around the canal district. The photo above is of a vendor in the market on Dalong Road (大隆路). This street is blocked off to traffic where the market selling various handicrafts was set up.

We spotted several VW vans kitted out to sell various kinds of food. This pink one was selling frozen yoghurt. This is in Jingming First Street (精明一街), which is perpendicular to Dalong Road and also has a market. Mark has his photos from the walk in a set at flickr. (Update: Mark has also set up a group at flickr for all the photos from the walk.)

In the evening I went to Emerge Live House, which is located up on the hill near Tunghai University. Emerge has live bands every weekend. The photo above shows Eye of Violence from Taipei. They played with two Taichung bands, Sideffect and Flesh Juicer. Metal seems to be a very popular music style in Taichung. Check my Live in Taichung photoset at flickr for some more photos of live music in Taichung over the past couple of months.

• Raining and rocking in Taichung
• HSR from Taichung to Taipei
• Election campaign posters in Taichung
• Tour de Taiwan races through Taichung
• Falun Gong protests arrival of ‘CCP villain’ in Taichung

Taiwan Pictures Digital Archive is a collection of over 3,200 historical photos of Taiwan that was previously launched as Vintage Formosa in March 2008. All the images were collected by  Marc who has just completed a great redesign of the site.

• Images of old Taiwan
• Vintage Formosa featured on FTV News
• Photos of Formosa from LIFE
• Links
• Push car railways in Taiwan