Taiwan Today

In 1962, a film entitled Endless Love became a hit despite its unusual origin in the lyrics of a song by the same name that had been released two years previously. The song’s composer was Hong Wen-lu (1927–2010), who performed under the stage name Hong Yi-feng. Hong also played the role of the movie’s male protagonist, a music teacher who falls in love with a girl from the community where he teaches. The movie ends with the hero becoming a popular singer, much as Hong was at that time.

Endless Love is notable because it ushered in a golden era for films that feature characters speaking in Holo, the language most widely used in Taiwan before the government began rigorously enforcing the use of Mandarin as the national language in the 1970s. The high tide of Holo movie production from 1962 to 1969 saw the creation of an average of 100 films each year, making Taiwan one of the most vibrant filmmaking countries in the world at the time.

Featuring more than 10 songs composed by Hong, Endless Love was the first of many locally produced movies to feature music as a central element. Such films were designed chiefly as vehicles for pop songs and for the promotion of pop music in general.

Most Dynamic Sector

In the postwar environment of the 1950s, Taiwan was home to one of the world’s most dynamic entertainment sectors. One reason for its growth was that the Kuomintang government, which relocated to Taiwan in 1949 following the Chinese Civil War, had yet to impose its authority upon the cultural and creative industry, according to Stone Shih, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Soochow University in Taipei. Shih has led a government project to set up a virtual music museum dedicated to Hong. The academic points out that during this golden era, talented singers and musicians displayed a wide range of creativity by writing new musical arrangements with Holo lyrics, or by singing in Holo to the accompaniment of older Japanese, Western or Mandarin melodies.

Among the composers and singers of that era, many of whom seemed to emerge “from out of nowhere,” as Shih puts it, Hong Yi-feng stands out as one of the most brilliant. In the late 1950s, Hong and lyricist Yeh Jun-lin (1921–1998), another legendary figure in Taiwan’s pop music history, began turning out what would become time-honored classics like Endless Love and The One Adored, among others, marking a renaissance of local creativity after the end of Japanese colonial rule (1895–1945).

In a 2000 poll organized by the Taipei City Department of Cultural Affairs that covered a century of Taiwanese songs, Endless Love and The One Adored claimed the first two places in the category of postwar tunes from 1945 to 1980. In 2007, a poll conducted by the National Cultural Association resulted in the selection of Endless Love as one of Taiwan’s top 10 songs of all time.

Two weeks after Hong passed away on February 24, 2010, President Ma Ying-jeou issued a commendation honoring the singer’s achievements as an independent musician who promoted local culture and Taiwanese ballads. “We are mourning for our country’s loss of an artist and a national treasure,” the president said in his address.

The presidential commendation noted that Hong was one of the first members of Taiwan’s arts and entertainment circle to develop a following in Japan. Proof of the singer’s impact on that market came in 1959, when Hong was invited to Tokyo to sing at one of the country’s most fashionable theaters. Japan’s influence on his career began nearly two decades earlier, however, when Hong gave his first performance on a Japanese stage, albeit one in Japanese-controlled Taiwan. The year was 1941 and Hong had just graduated from an elementary school in Taipei, where he had learned to sing and play violin. He performed as a member of a children’s group at the Taipei Public Auditorium, which was constructed in the mid-1930s to mark the ascension of Japanese Emperor Hirohito in 1928 and is now known as Taipei Zhongshan Hall.

Japanese patriotic songs were popular in Taiwan at the time, and Hong’s performance of them at the Taipei Public Auditorium marked the beginning of the singer’s long love affair with performing. In 1944, after finishing the equivalent of today’s junior high school and laboring briefly in a lumber mill, he began to work as an itinerant singer, giving roadside performances and moving to and fro among eateries and bars. Hong found inspiration in performances by established Japanese pop singers such as Haruo Oka (1916–1970), a forerunner of the modern Japanese enka style of sentimental singing. Following Oka’s example, Hong set his mind on becoming a professional singer.

In 1946, Hong wrote and composed his first song, Butterfly in Love with a Flower, under the stage name Hong Wen-chang. Hong often performed at venues along the Danshui River in Taipei, accompanied by a small group of singers he had organized. The group was dispersed in 1947, however, due to the social turmoil following the February 28 Incident. The incident was a major anti-government uprising that led to a large-scale crackdown on dissidents around the island through measures such as bans on public gatherings and performances in specific locations. Hong extended his itinerant singing journey southward to the Tainan region, selling songbooks that he had written and illustrated. In the meantime, he also helped form groups for the purpose of teaching music and conducting musical research.

Before the advent of domestic television shows in 1962, radio was the leading entertainment medium in Taiwan, and radio shows featuring Holo songs became an integral part of local culture. In 1948, Hong and other singers affiliated with his group were approached by several radio stations to perform on the air. His singing partners included Chi Lu-hsia and Chang Shu-mei, both of whom went on to become some of the most fashionable stars of the 1950s.

Listeners found that the live radio performances provided an alluring alternative to the usual fare of recorded music. With the radio shows boosting his popularity, Hong released his first album, A Handsome Young Man on a Hilltop, in 1957 under the stage name Hong Yi-feng, which he adopted upon the suggestion of a fortuneteller.

A Handsome Young Man on a Hilltop became a moderate sales success by pairing Holo lyrics with Japanese melodies. Borrowing musical arrangements from foreign sources was the prevailing practice in Taiwan at the time, with pop composers adding local lyrics to not only Japanese, but also Western or Chinese melodies. Such “mixed songs” were not entirely derivative, however, as Soochow University’s Stone Shih points out that the adaptations displayed a considerable degree of originality.

Nevertheless, Hong felt that his creativity was stifled by relying on Japanese musical arrangements, which explains why he broke away from the practice by composing original melodies for most of the songs on his second album, Endless Love, which was released in 1960. Qiu Wan-ting, a music critic and current student in the Graduate Institute of Musicology at National Taiwan University, points out that the title song’s divergence from the common pop music arrangement of high and low notes makes it a work full of ingenuity and surprise despite its limited length of 16 measures.

Hong’s urge to expand his creative horizons evidently resonated with listeners who were eager to hear something new, as Endless Love enjoyed immediate commercial success. The record’s popularity cemented Hong’s status as the pó-tó kua-ông, which means Taiwanese king of singing, notes Lin Rui-ming, who has led a biographical project on the life and works of Hong Yi-feng since March 2009. Further testament to Endless Love’s popularity can be seen in its heavy radio play, as well as its leap to the big and small screens, all of which made it one of the most memorable pieces in the history of pop music in Taiwan.

The Holo pop music boom led by Hong and other stars did not last, however, as the government’s policy of promoting Mandarin as the national language led to the segment’s downturn in the 1970s. Alarmed by a pop scene dominated by Japanese and Holo music, the Mandarin-speaking authorities sought to remold Taiwanese culture by limiting such linguistic influences. As a result, tight controls were placed on pop songs, prohibiting “improper” compositions from being released and circulated. More often than not, the censorship standards were vaguely written bans on songs seen as “weird,” “rude,” “frivolous” or “decadent,” which often led to arbitrary interpretation by the censors.

While censors reviewed all songs, including those with Mandarin lyrics, more Holo songs were banned from release and circulation simply because their output was much higher than those in other languages. The sprawling censorship system, together with the government’s decree that television stations limit the number of non-Mandarin songs each day, led to a suffocating environment for Holo pop music. In the face of such difficulties in Taiwan, from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s Hong spent much of his time performing in Japan.

Creativity Picks Up

The creativity and popularity of Holo pop did not pick up again until the early 1980s, when the government began to ease censorship in response to calls for political reform. The beginning years of that decade saw a surge of popular Holo songs including You Must Go On (1983) and Farewell Coast (1984) by Chiang Huei. Chiang received instruction from Hong Yi-feng and went on to become Taiwan’s foremost Holo pop performer, a status that she still enjoys today. A Small Umbrella (1983), another hit from the Holo pop revival of the 1980s, was sung by Hong Rong-hong, the eldest of Hong Yi-feng’s three sons. Hong Rong-hong’s path to stardom was made easier by the rigorous musical training he received from his father from an early age.

Meanwhile, Hong Yi-feng continued to compose songs for himself and Hong Rong-hong. He also became involved in an increasing number of events such as concerts and forums aimed at recognizing the native roots of Taiwanese culture. One career highlight came in 2000, when Hong Yi-feng was invited to sing at a presidential inauguration party. He also garnered other major honors such as the lifetime achievement award from the Chinese Culture Renaissance Movement Association, which is now known as the National Cultural Association.

To honor their father’s career, his three sons founded the Hong Yi-feng Culture and Arts Foundation at the beginning of this year. Among other missions, the foundation will provide long-term support for selected musicians and is currently helping fund Lin Rui-ming’s comprehensive biography about the singer’s life, as well as working on a documentary film that is scheduled for release later this year. Second son Yao Hong, an award-winning music arranger for pop stars including Jay Chou, says that the aim of the foundation is to help sustain the development of local influences in the music industry. Lion Hong, Hong Yi-feng’s youngest son and an award-winning producer of televised music programs, adds that his father “represents the Taiwanese spirit of creating something that you can call your own.”

Perhaps due to the extended restrictions on Holo songs from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, many surviving works of that era and later exhibit a sense of social struggle and a worldly, sad style. Back in the 1950s when Hong Yi-feng was just becoming a star, however, the spectrum of Holo songs ranged from melancholy to upbeat, just as those in any other language. Music critic and graduate student Qiu Wan-ting notes that Formosa Mambo, an energetic, fast-paced Hong Yi-feng song from the 1950s, is a reflection of that lively Holo pop music era. Today, Hong Yi-feng’s works from the high-water mark for Holo pop are not only celebrated for their local roots and creative spirit, but are also seen as a positive model for the future development of Taiwanese cultural creativity.

Write to Pat Gao at kotsijin@gmail.com