Hailed as one of the premier vocal spokesmen of his time, today, Li is being rediscovered by a new generation, impressed by his lyrics that cover the full gamut of emotions. On April 22, Li would have been 100 years old and it is fitting the melodic strains of his famous works, such as “Expecting the Spring Breeze,” can now be fully appreciated.
This process of rediscovering Li’s work began late last year when the lyricist’s son, Hsiou-jian, presented his father’s manuscripts and other personal items to Taipei City Government cultural officials. Li’s home, which is tucked away in the backstreets of Dadaocheng, was also renovated and re-opened as a memorial.
Born and raised in Dadaocheng, Li never called any other place home. After completing his Japanese-style education, he took on various jobs while teaching himself the finer points of literature. Around 1924, Li landed a job serving tea during intermissions at the Yongle Theater—one of the most famous artistic havens in the area. He would spend hours listening to music between serving steaming cups of Taiwan’s finest. Eight years later, Lin was working full time at the theater as an office assistant. And it was at this time that his most prolific period of lyrical writing commenced.
Like many educated elite of that time, Li was influenced by the cultural enlightenment of the 1920s, a period in which Japan adopted a softer integration policy toward its colonial subjects in Taiwan. From 1919 to 1937, local cultural figures and the academia set about protesting against the island’s colonial rules in a non-violent manner. As ardent members of reform-minded literary groups, many Holo Taiwanese lyricists were at the forefront of the movement.
“With political activism taboo, music became an outlet for voicing the feelings of the colonized,” said Huang Hsin-chang, a lecturer at Taipei Municipal University of Education who specializes in Taiwanese literature under the Japanese rule. “It was fitting that a non-threatening vehicle of self-expression such as music carried an oppressed peoples’ message.”
Huang, who recently published a study entitled “Li Lin-chiu and the Age of ‘Expecting the Spring Breeze,’” explained that musical life during this period was dominated by Japanese songs and Western classical music, as well as Peking and Taiwanese opera. “Historians consider 1932 as the year that Holo Taiwanese first became popular in its own right,” he said.
Around this time, a locally made song promoting a Shanghai film, “The Peach Blossom Weeps Blood,” became a nationwide hit. In search of follow-up success, the local subsidiary of Columbia Records commissioned Li to write lyrics for songs for two films produced in Taiwan. Both pieces, set to music by Su Tong, quickly climbed to the top of the charts. Consequently, Li was invited to become the company’s in-house lyricist.
But it was “Expecting the Spring Breeze” that Li wrote in 1933 that established him as a lyricist of high standing. Set to music by accomplished composer Deng Yu-hsian, the song came to be considered by many as the people of Taiwan’s unofficial national anthem.
Alone, of an evening, sitting beneath a lantern, a light breeze on my face.
Seventeen, almost 18, and still not married, but I came across a boy.
His face is fine, his complexion fair, but whose son is he?
I want to ask him, but I am too shy, with my heart twanging like a lute.
I’d like him for my husband, but my affection is trapped inside,
Waiting, wondering when I will be chosen, like a flower in full blossom;
I hear someone approaching outside, and open the door to see if it is him,
The god of love is mocking me, and I am just fooled by the wind.
Li was said to have been inspired by a line taken from a 13th-century Chinese drama, “Romance of the West Chamber” by Wang Shifu, which was based on a popular story about a lovesick couple. Li’s words, however, are from the perspective of the female role and depict her feelings with a wry sense of humor. “The situation might be similar in both texts, yet the moods are totally different,” said Li Hsiou-jian, who serves as head of the Association for Taiwanese Songs.
“The mood is more delightful and witty in my father’s song,” Li said. “It reflects the temperament of contemporary youth living in a society that has accepted modern ideas introduced by Japan for 10 years. It varies greatly from the Chinese setting of constraint through traditional propriety.”
As the song’s popularity grew, a movie of the same name—co-directed by a Taiwanese and a Japanese—was made in 1937 and Li was its scriptwriter. A newly released document showed that the name “Expecting the Spring Breeze” was registered as a trademark and enjoyed full copyright protection throughout the empire.
Li continued to write lyrics that described personal relations, love and the sins contained in urban life. During his lifetime, he released around 50 songs, yet following the recent unearthing of material at his home, it was discovered he had in fact penned almost 200 pieces that were never afforded the opportunity to be set to music.
According to Li Hsiou-jian, his father was a romantic person who in his leisure hours enjoyed visiting bars and restaurants in Dadaocheng where literary personalities liked to gather. Making a decent living from his regular jobs, Li spent the proceeds from his writing exploits on drink. “Nighttime, wine and fragrance of magnolia” were his muse, the son recalled.
The fate of those songs, however, rose and fell with the changing political scene. During World War II, Japanese colonizers transformed many Taiwanese popular songs into patriotic tunes. “Expecting the Spring Breeze,” for example, became “Call of the Land.”
After the war, many of Li’s songs, including “Expecting the Spring Breeze,” were censored for different reasons. The Kuomintang government banned “Mending the Broken Net,” another of the lyricist’s works, because of ideological opposition to its message.
The heart-wrenching song describes how a fisherman’s wife, with feeble health and inadequate sewing equipment, feels helpless having to mend a torn fishing net. She ends up making do and works on the net to the best of her abilities. In Huang’s opinion, the song reverberates with sentiments of the time and expresses hope for reconciliation in the aftermath of 1947’s February 28 Incident.
The space for the creation of popular songs in Taiwan was significantly constrained, not only because of policy intervention, but because copied foreign tunes with revised lyrics began to inundate the local market. It was not until the late 1970s, when censorship began to be relaxed that old-time lyricist and composers were reintroduced to a new generation of songwriters trying their hand at making original music. Yet by that time, Li was suffering from the ravages of old age and died Jan. 12, 1979, at the age of 71.
On the significance of commemorating Li and the creative virtues of the era in which he lived, Huang said the centennial celebrations of the lyricist’s birth offered the people of Taiwan a chance to gaze into the past, remember and recognize. “With these melodies, we have often known them since childhood, but seldom knew who made them and in what context,” he said.
“Ethnic tensions and political history have mostly erased the memory of this period of Japanese occupation,” Huang said. “Preservation efforts of today can hopefully make up for the loss and help the new generation to see those authors and their time as they were.”
Write to June Tsai at june@mail.gio.gov.tw