Taiwan's Campus Folk Song Movement

On December 3, 1976, at a concert at Tamkang College of Arts and Sciences,¹ a young man of Philippine Chinese heritage walked onto the stage holding a Coca-Cola bottle and a guitar, and asked the audience in fury: "Why do we have to sing foreigners' songs?" He hurled the Coke bottle to the ground.² The shattering crash broke not only glass — it broke the era's musical colonialism. His name was Li Shuangze, and that moment became known as the "Tamkang Incident" — the most symbolic origin point of Taiwan's Campus Folk Song Movement.

Why should young people sing their own songs? As Taiwan faced one diplomatic crisis after another in the 1970s — withdrawal from the United Nations, the breaking of US-ROC relations — young people began asking a fundamental question: in this rapidly changing world, what is truly our own voice?

The Turning Point: Why "Sing Our Own Songs"?

Before the 1970s, Taiwan's musical landscape was dominated almost entirely by Western pop music. From campuses to cafes, English-language songs were everywhere. Young people knew the melodies of Bob Dylan and Joan Baez but knew nothing of the stories on their own land.

This cultural rootlessness became even more acute under the shock of international events. Nixon's 1972 visit to China, the 1978 US-Taiwan severance of diplomatic relations, the Diaoyutai Islands movement — these events drove Taiwanese youth to ask: who are we, really? Where is our voice?

It was in this historical backdrop that "sing our own songs" ceased to be just a slogan and became a movement of cultural self-awakening. Young people were no longer satisfied being listeners of Western music; they wanted to use their own language and their own stories to create a sound that belonged to this land.

Three Pioneers: Yang Xian, Hu De-fu, Li Shuangze

Yang Xian: The Sower of Modern Folk Songs

On June 6, 1975, Yang Xian, a student at National Taiwan University's Institute of Oceanography, held a "Modern Folk Song Composition Concert" at Zhongshan Hall in Taipei.³ He set Yu Guangzhong's poem _Nostalgia in Four Verses_ (鄉愁四韻) to music, introducing for the first time the concept of "modern folk song."

Yang Xian's innovation was combining contemporary Chinese poetry with American folk and country music to create a form never heard before. This concert is regarded as the formal starting point of Taiwan's Campus Folk Song Movement, and Yang Xian is honored as "the father of modern folk songs."⁴

Hu De-fu: The Original Voice

Indigenous singer Hu De-fu was another pivotal figure in awakening this movement.⁵ His performances at the Columbia Cafe were not mere entertainment — they were cultural transmission. Hu De-fu began singing ancient melodies of the Puyuma people, letting urban youth hear for the first time the most original and purest sounds from Taiwan's land.

In 1974, Hu De-fu held the "Beautiful Ears of Rice" concert — also the occasion where Yang Xian first publicly performed Nostalgia in Four Verses, planting the seed for the Zhongshan Hall concert the following year.

Li Shuangze: The Revolutionary's Call

If Yang Xian was the sower and Hu De-fu the awakener, Li Shuangze was the call to revolution. December 3, 1976's "Tamkang Incident" was the most dramatic moment of Taiwan's Campus Folk Song Movement.

This young man, recently returned from study in Spain and the United States, was originally supposed to fill in for an injured Hu De-fu. But he chose the most intense method — to throw a question into the audience's soul: "Why do we have to sing foreigners' songs?"

The moment Li Shuangze smashed the Coca-Cola bottle was not just a personal emotional eruption — it symbolized an entire generation's resistance to cultural colonialism. His cry of "Sing our own songs!" rapidly became the spiritual slogan of Taiwan's campus folk movement.

🎵 Listen: Li Shuangze's _Beautiful Island_ (美麗島) — sung by Yang Zu-zhen

Commercial Fuel: The Golden Melody Award and Folk Song Restaurants

The Tamkang Incident ignited the flame of "sing our own songs," but what truly brought folk songs into the broader public to form a social movement was the intervention of commercial forces.

In 1977, New Format Records launched the "Golden Melody Award" (金韻獎) singing competition; in 1978, Hai Shan Records founded the "Folk Wind" (民謠風) competition.⁶ These two competitions were not merely talent shows — they became the incubators for folk song singers. Chen Ming-shao, Bao Mei-sheng, Li Jian-fu, and Wang Hai-ling emerged from the Golden Melody Award; Tsai Chin and Ye Jia-xiu were representative voices of Folk Wind; Qi Yu and Su Lai were stars who spanned both camps.

Simultaneously, folk song restaurants sprang up everywhere. From "The Wooden Boat" (木船) and "The Scarecrow" (稻草人) in Taipei to cafes across the country — all became stages where folk singers honed their craft and exchanged with audiences. These venues were not merely performance spaces; they were places of cultural exchange, carrying folk songs from campus into society.

Golden Era Stars

The Intellectual School

Represented by Qi Yu, the intellectual school of folk songs sought the union of poetry and philosophy. Qi Yu's crystalline voice interpreted classics like _The Olive Tree_ (橄欖樹) and Walking in the Rain, displaying folk music's literary dimension.

The Rural School

Ye Jia-xiu's _Country Path_ (鄉間的小路) and Pan An-bang's Grandma's Penghu Bay represent the purity and warmth of the rural school of folk songs. These songs depicted the hometown in everyone's heart, touching the hearts of those who had left their homelands.

The Urban School

Tsai Chin, Zheng Yi, and others represented the refinement and maturity of urban folk songs. Their vocal technique was more professional, their musical arrangements richer, infusing folk songs with the color of modern city life.

The Birth of Classic Works

This period gave birth to countless classics:

• _Dragon's Descendant_ (龍的傳人) (lyrics and music by Hou De-jian, first sung by Li Jian-fu): Expressing Chinese cultural identity, this was a song of its time, born in the context of the 1978 US-Taiwan diplomatic break.
• The Olive Tree (Qi Yu): The longing for freedom, "for the birds that fly in the sky"
• _Just Like Your Tenderness_ (恰似你的溫柔) (Tsai Chin): Urban love's delicacy and depth
• Country Path (Ye Jia-xiu): The perfect union of nostalgia and innocence
• Grandma's Penghu Bay (Pan An-bang): The poetry of childhood memory and ocean
• Autumn Cicada (Yang Fang-yi, Xu Xiao-jing): The grief and beauty of youth
• If (Shi Bi-wu, Tai Zhao-mei): Romantic imagination of love

🎵 Classic Folk Song Selection: Pan Yue-yun's _Wild Lilies Have Spring Too_ (野百合也有春天) | Hu De-fu's _Pacific Wind_ (太平洋的風)

The Curtain Falls and Transition

In the early 1980s, Taiwan's campus folk song movement began to decline. This decline had multiple causes.

A Talent Gap

The main figures of the folk song movement left for overseas study or military service after graduation, creating a talent gap. Yang Xian went to the US for Chinese medicine study after releasing West of Yang Pass in 1977; many folk singers also temporarily or permanently left the music stage due to career planning.

A Changing Social Atmosphere

In the late 1980s, Taiwan's social atmosphere underwent a dramatic shift. With the lifting of martial law, the nativist movement rose; the campus atmosphere turned toward critiquing mainland Chinese cultural hegemony. Locally rooted grassroots cultural styles began to replace the fresh-styled campus folk songs.

The Double Edge of Commercialization

Although commercialization spread folk songs widely, it also caused musical creation to become formulaic, losing the purity and experimental spirit of the early days.

Legacy and Influence: The Rebellious Inheritors

Though the campus folk song movement ended, the legacy it left has deeply influenced subsequent Taiwanese popular music.

Lo Ta-yu: Folk Music's Rebellious Heir

Lo Ta-yu can be considered the most important rebellious heir of the folk song movement. He inherited folk music's spirit of "singing our own songs" but rejected folk music's gentleness and innocence, instead using a sharper, more critical approach to address social realities. From What Is This (之乎者也) to Home (家), Lo Ta-yu opened a new era for Mandarin pop.

The DNA of Modern Independent Music

Today's independent acoustic singers — Chen Qi-zhen (Cheer Chen), Chang Hsuan (Deserts Chang), Lu Kuang-chung — all inherit the DNA of the folk song movement. They equally use their own language and their own stories to create music, equally address personal emotions and social issues, only with more diverse and more personal expression.

The Eternal Spirit of "Sing Our Own Songs"

The folk song movement's greatest legacy is the eternal spirit of "sing our own songs." Whether the later new folk songs, rock music, or today's independent music — all in some sense continue this spirit: expressing your own voice through music, responding to the questions of the times through creation.

Revival and Remembrance: Folk Song 40, Folk Song 50

Entering the 21st century, as the folk song generation reached middle age, nostalgic feelings began to ferment. Commemorative events like "Folk Song 40" and "Folk Song 50" were held one after another, bringing these classic songs back into the public eye.

But this nostalgia is not pure sentimentalism — it is also nostalgia for the ideal of "using music to change the world." In today's commercialized, digitized music environment, the innocence and idealism that the folk song movement represented appears all the more precious and moving.

Closing Thoughts: The Meaning of Sound

Taiwan's campus folk song movement lasted only a short decade, yet it changed the entire face of Mandarin-language music. It proved one thing: sound is not merely sound — it is also a carrier of identity, cultural self-awareness, and the spirit of an era.

When Li Shuangze smashed his Coke bottle at Tamkang, the question he asked was not only "why do we have to sing foreigners' songs" — he was asking "who are we" and "what kind of people do we want to become." This question remains valid today, still worth every creator's deep reflection.

In a globalized world, we perhaps need more than ever to ask: in this world overflowing with every kind of sound, what is truly our own voice? How do we remain open while finding our own cultural roots?

Taiwan's campus folk song movement gives us an answer: do not be afraid to create with your own language, your own stories. Because only in this way can we leave a sound in this world that is truly our own.

References

• _Taiwan Popular Music Memorandum_, Taipei City Open Data Platform
• Wikipedia: Campus Folk Songs (zh)
• Nanfang Zhoumo: Taiwan Folk Songs 30 Years — Key People and Events
• Tamsui Wiki: Tamkang Incident entry
• "Sing Our Own Songs! Li Shuangze, Gone Too Young, Influenced Generations of Creators," Fount Media
• Straits Exchange Foundation _Exchange Magazine_: Folk Songs at Forty
• National Cultural Memory Database: Hu De-fu and Folk Song Awakening