Chinese Music Rocks

Dear people interested in traditional Chinese music, you can’t miss the two concerts on June 1st ! The two main Chinese orchestras in Taiwan: National Chinese Orchestra (NCO)(http://192.192.14.59/) and Taipei Chinese Orchestra (TCO)(http://www.tco.taipei.gov.tw/) are holding two concerts that are both so brilliant that makes me difficult to decide which to go to!


Double Concussion–En Shao and Yiu-kwong Chung, Shanghai Chinese Orchestra and Taipei Chinese Orchestra
2007/6/1 Taipei Zhongcheng Auditorium, Zhongshan Hall 19:30
Prices: 300 500 800 1000 1200
TCO’s concert “Double Concussion” is truly an all-star concert, they invited the ShangHai Chinese Orchestra, which is one of the three main Chinese orchestras in China, and perform masterpieces, such as the erhu concerto “The Great Wall”. This concerto is one of the most important concertos in Chinese music, it is very powerful and strong with feelings, the erhu instrument tells stories and emotions surrounding the Great Wall. TCO invited Master Min to perform the piece, since she was the first musician to perform this great concerto. Ironically, the conductor of that historical first performance was Mr. Chu Chun-chuen, who is now the conductor of NCO.


NCO Concert -Silk Road Fantasy
2007/6/1 National Concert Hall 19:30
Prices: 300,400,500,600,800
While TCO sweeps the audience by their strong cast, Mr. Chu leads NCO performing an exotic concert. The highlight would be “Silk Road Fantasy”, which is a daring piece challenging tradition. Though NCO is not as rich as TCO, being able to invite a whole group of stars from China, their music is usually considered more completed than TCO. Their skills are the same as TCO, but their passion in music is considered stronger than TCO. They don’t have money to advertise their concert, so last weekend the musicians, who mostly have a great position in the industry, decorated their own cars into a “Silk Road” theme, and drove around the city, to introduce their music to everyone.

Personally I would probably go to the NCO concert, I have seen Master Min with NCO a few years ago, and I’m satisfied with that. I believe lots of people would go see TCO’s performance, so I decide to support the people who have real passion and professional attitudes, but if it’s your first time for traditional Chinese music, TCO would also be a good choice.

Lunar New Year: Running around

During my 26 years of life, I spent 23 Lunar New Years on this little island, and never been to Dihua Street (Taipei) until last year. Not until Dihua Street did I discover how vivid the Lunar New Year could be.

My family is the kind of family that we MUST go back to grandma's house every year. According to the tradition, we go to the dad's parents' house on New Year Eve, stay there until we go back to mom's parents' house on the second day of New Year. What's going on the streets? No one cares. We always try to go somewhere during these travelings, like downtown of my dad's mom's city, or a cow farm between the three homes, but unfortunately, it's always packed with people, which are doing the same thing as we are.

During the New Year Eve dinner, mom brought up a question: Watching the news during Lunar New Year, we always see reports about how China Town celebrate New Year, and they always have those lion or dragon dance. But we don't have those kind of things on New Year day, why is that? I thought about the question, and came up to an answer, we usuallly spent time at home practicing the traditions and traveling to grandparents' houses, then go out on outings on the once-a-year long holiday. People aren't interested in seeing lion dances at this time. But on the 5th day of New Year, shops and markets open again, people put out fireworks to celebrate the first day making money, that's when we see the lion and drangon dance, because the dances are supposed to bring luck and fortune.

Unless you have a Taiwanese friend that can let you join their family reunion, it really isn't a good idea to visit Taiwan between New Year's Eve and the 4th day of Lunar New Year. On the first few days everything would be closed (I remember there was one year we decided to come to Taipei for New Year, because that's the only time the city would be empty!), and after the 2nd day of New Year, there would be trafic jams on every tourist spot. You could come after the 5th day of New Year, and stay until the 15th, which is the Lantern Festival. Or else you could visit before New Year, take a look at the New Year markets like Dihua Street.

Dihua Street provides a variaty of new year goods, from dishs for Near Year's Eve, to candies for guests during New Year's time. I squeeze into the crowd, experience the place using my eyes, ears, nose and tongue. This is a place of scent, all kinds of amazing smells occupy the street. Sellers are proude of their products, they beg us to try them, and they seem to be always happy, even if we're not going to buy it. They are extremely friendly to foriegners. I remember there was a family who own a tea farm in Chiayi(which is way down south), and they just rent a space in the New Year market, carry all their beautiful tea to Taipei, and give it a shot.

Thanks to my friend Tomoko again for the photo.

Lunar New Year: Atmosphere

Finally this year's Lunar New Year have ended. There was a special thing about this year's New Year: it was particularly late. Usually it comes in late January or early February, regarding the solar calendar, so the students' first semester ends arround January 20th, and the second semester starts at mid February after the 3 week winter break.

Now look at this year: Lunar New year is on February 18th. And there's an at-least-5-day-holiday following it. From half a year ago, governors and the education circles were scraching their heads out to figure out how to make the school schedules fit the New Year holiday. People are used to prepare for Lunar New Year right after the solar New Year, and now it takes one more month, as the days go by, the anticipation and excitment gradualy turns into impatience. "Why is the fxxking New Year so late, when is it going to end?" I wonder.

I can feel people being a bit more tired this year. Besides of the merry cheery smile on the face of merchants in the New Year market, I can easily find the tireness of facing such a huge amount shoppers everyday. Just like most moms, my mom usually hates Lunar New Year, because there are dozens of things to prepare, lots of tradions to follow, and all the women do the work. But this year she doesn't care, not even my grandma cares. Usually shops play traditional chinese new year music all day long, and they play the same few songs every year, people get so sick about it and can't help complaining. This year, my mother said to me in a sad look, "I think I don't hear those stupid New Year songs that often this year...", I said "You hate it all the time, but now you can't live without it, huh?" She agreed and said it's just not like New Year.

New Year at Taipei 101

I went alone. I guess all my friends got scared by the experience for the 2000 count down, so none of them were willing to come out since then. This is my second time to go out since 2000, it is still extremely crowded, but the city has learned how to handle that much people now.
Mobile communication was still busy, too many phones were trying to call, and the cells got packed. But it is much better than 2000. And the MRT learned to control the amount of people trying to take the tube, now the flow was smoother, and I got home before 1 am, pretty quick.
The fireworks were great, too bad no one to share with.