Wrong; not because Taiwan doesn't lead the world in a whole range of IT manufacturing fields, but, thanks to a group of enthusiasts who graduated from the same downtown Taipei high school, Taiwan is now also making a name for itself on the international choral stage.
The Taipei Male Choir, which was founded by Tang Tien-ming in 1997, was this year placed No. 1 on Musica Mundi's world ranking list of the top 50 male choirs, as well as seventh on its list of the 1,000 best choirs overall. Moreover, this was despite the fact that the TMC did not compete at the latest World Choir Games held in Xiamen, China, July 15-26. Based on performances over the last five years, the Musica Mundi rankings cover the period when the TMC first came of age, winning three gold medals at the 2002 Choir Olympics in Busan, South Korea.
Lin Jyung-long, who is TMC's choral leader when not at work in a Taipei foreign representative office, has bittersweet memories of that event.
"The secretariat never expected us to win, so they had not even prepared our national flag and song," he recalled, explaining that, as the team collected their medals, the organizer's own flag flew overhead.
"Moreover, when the master of ceremony announced our name in English, the choirs from China cheered and waved their red flags with five stars, to make people believe that we were a part of China," Lin said of his first experience of unification warfare.
Even on subsequent occasions when organizers have been better prepared, Taiwan teams have not been able to fly their national flag but, rather, must use the Chinese Taipei Olympic flag foisted on them under pressure from the PRC.
Looking back on happier times, Lin said his happiest memories of his high school days were when they were learning choral singing. Like the TMC's other members, he attended the prestigious boys' Cheng Kung Senior High School, located just five minutes from Taipei Railway Station. Gathering in one of the school's oldest buildings, they practiced vocalization before classes, group singing in their lunch break and choral singing after school, Lin explained, commenting that although it might sound more like a strict boot camp, in fact it had generated a strong sense of camaraderie among the members.
Tang, who after leaving the school had gone to study agriculture at National Taiwan University and then taken a master's degree in choral music education at National Sun Yat-sen University, returned to his alma mater in 1991 to lead the school's choir. This was then called the Vocal Sound of La Cian. "La Cian" refers to the coolies who "pulled the towropes" to haul boats upstream on the Yangtze River and is, therefore, a metaphor for the group's unity and pursuit of success despite the heavy current facing it. Under Tang's leadership, the "towropers' sound" won five national choir competitions.
This was the foundation from which the TMC sprang, with choristers keen to continue their hobby after graduation. The choir now has around 30 members aged in their 20s and 30s. Meanwhile, they have broadened their repertoire, no longer limiting themselves to the folk songs that formed the standard choral fare for local groups a decade or two ago. Tang claimed that, while pleasant enough, such music was not capable of demonstrating and stretching his teammates' vocal talents. He therefore started to introduce the "heavier" Western sounds of Renaissance, Baroque, Romantic and gospel music, as well as modern choral masterpieces such as that by British composer Edward Elgar.
It was from this initial motivation in 1997 that Tang, Lin, school counselor Chou Wen-an, banker Deng Jhih-ming and their fellows set off to pull the boat of vocal music upstream to the top of the choral world. It was only five years later that they achieved their unexpected success in Busan, where they won gold medals in the folk music a cappella, musica sacra a cappella and male chamber choir categories.
"The first time we entered a world contest, that held in Korea, we were just a group of excited boys. We hugged each other and cried when we won the first prize. We couldn't even stop ourselves shouting out our old school motto," recalled 27-year-old Huang Shih-shong, another of the choir's founding members.
"Ever since high school, we'd been dreaming of performing in concert, touring Taiwan and competing with others abroad. When all these dreams finally came true, of course we were overjoyed. Finally we could put behind us all the miseries: borrowing money to go overseas, searching for places to practice, having the police called by neighbors for making too much noise ..." continued Huang.
One benefit of their overseas success was that the TMC was recognized by Taiwan's Cultural Affairs Council. Not only did this provide it with sponsorship but, perhaps equally importantly, ended the nightmare of trying to find a suitable rehearsal space. "We were even thrown out of our own alma mater due to the 'noise' we created," Lin said with a tinge of sadness.
Another benefit is that the choir is now invited to perform and compete around the world. In 2003, it won two more gold medals at the Takarazuka International Chamber Chorus Contest in Japan; in 2004, it won two gold and a silver at the 3rd Choir Olympics in Bremen, Germany; in 2005, it took part in the 7th World Symposium on Choral Music in Kyoto, Japan; and this year the TMC was invited to perform in Malaysia and Singapore, where audiences 800-strong enjoyed the group's renditions of folk songs in Taiwanese and Mandarin.
Clearly, semiconductors and other IT products are not the final word in Taiwan's successful exports.