Them aboriginal Taiwanese sure could show up today’s sorry excuse for “talent” in Taiwan
Pretty powerful stuff. You can see how Polynesian culture could have developed from this.
Except the areas of Taitung city and Hualien city that fall under the jet path- daily low flying air force jets doing their training. It is insanely loud and fucked up to live with.
No I haven’t but South Korea and Japan have always interested me.
I think we have all “actually heard Chinese.” This (whether you like the way a language sound) can be a very subjective thing. I like the sound of Mandarin. Japanese can sound nice, but give me Pusan (in the south of Korea) dialect any day over Japanese the way it’s spoken in Tokyo. Getting back to Chinese, I like the sound of Cantonese, but not Taiwanese. Here’s some Pusan dialect- in your face, intonation all over the place. Love it.
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That was a funny question. I think the sound of Chinese is nicer that Japanese or English or Spanish. French is better, though. Korean is just a noise for me.
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Can you imagine how deep their knowledge of song is?
How far back does this go? Thousands of years? I’ve never seen anything like it. I come from country with very deep musical roots too. My grandfather could happily sing songs unaccompanied and men would hold hands also when singing to support or bond with the singer . But that’s all dying out now.
Taiwanese Aborigines traditionally spent much of their day singing when working or out and about. They probably learned this skill whole growing up with their mothers.
The Bunun / Rukai seem to specialise in this kind of polyphonic singing. They seem to listen carefully to the other singers and improvise.
https://worldmusiccentral.org/2003/11/28/music-of-the-bunun-taiwanese-aboriginals/
This one seems to be for tribal male elders only. (But I have seen their choirs with both male and female members).
Some kind of bonding ritual. They hold hands behind their backs in a distinctive way. They jig left and right slowly. Also they seem to go into a trance during it as the tone rises. Would love to understand the significance of this.
I dig the sound of Taiwanese language. I’d prefer to learn it over Mandarin.
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That should come with a warning. Not cool man to post that kinda stuff. Harsh
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It reminded me of this:
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Have you ever actually spelled it?
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Taiwanese is the loving tongue
Soft as music, light as spray
'twas a girl I learned it from
Living down Pingtung way
Well I don’t look much like a lover
Still I say her loved words over
Mostly when I’m all alone
我的愛，我的心
(with apologies to Robert Zimmerman)
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Well, you got the “spray” part right.
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Sometimes its a red spray, that’s doublegood.
Just as long as it’s not coming from the lungs.
I once travelled to a village squeezed deep inside mountains in Taidong-Hualien border. In the inner corner of the village, there was pop music blasting to the peaceful air, shattering it into pieces.
No place is quiet in Taiwan. Sorry not to say you are wrong but just wanting to express my frustration.
I could hear a pin drop in my Kaohsiung apartment right now. It’s a brief mid afternoon lull when all the construction workers outside are taking their half an hour nap. 
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Good idea. Between similar gaps in our neighborhood, I will try to drop a pin to see if I would hear it. May Boeing not fly and the psychic canine not agonize.
There are no gaps in my neighborhood. Sometimes there is a lull, maybe around 10-10:30, but then the model parent who lives above me comes home with her kid who then has to run, stamp his feet, and create as much noise as possible until the model parent gets around to putting him to bed. That often is after 11. If the husband is around she plays the piano poorly for him, and sometimes they yell at each other.
mate, what? its the most spoken language in the world. and if you actually knew what you were talking about you would know that taiwan mandarin sounds nice, compared to say north china mandarin. which most would agree does sound harsh.
Fair enough if you are not feeling taiwan, most foreigners come and go anyway, but to act like you have seen it all in a few months isn’t going to go down to well on a forum of people who have been here for years on end. and i don’t know how taipei could ever be considered boring, based on density alone i think that would just not be possible. there are so many different shops, restaurants and food vendors packed so close to each other you can usually find what you need in a 10 minute radius.
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