Taiwanese Hakka Music: From Mountain Songs to Lin Sheng-xiang's Award Refusal and the Politics of Language

30-second overview: From Hakka mountain songs and eight-tense ensemble traditions, the Labor Exchange Band in 1999 fused the spirit of mountain songs with electric guitar rock. In 2003, the 14th Golden Melody Awards established language-based categories for the first time, and Hsieh Yu-wei won the inaugural Best Hakka Vocalist award in 2004. In 2007, Lin Sheng-xiang refused the "Best Hakka Singer" award on the Golden Melody stage, calling for music to be classified by genre rather than language. This act of refusal became the most powerful statement at the intersection of Taiwan's language policy and music culture.¹

Traditional Roots: Mountain Songs and Hakka Eight-Tone Ensembles

Mountain Songs: Poetic Expression in Labor

Hakka mountain songs originated in the agricultural life of early Hakka settlers and represent the oldest surviving form of Hakka-language music. Whether picking tea, farming, or going about daily life, Hakka people have long used song to convey emotion. The defining feature of mountain songs is improvisation: lyrics often reflect the immediate moment, and while the melodies are simple, they carry deep emotional resonance.

Traditional mountain songs fall into three categories: lao shan'ge (old mountain songs), shan'ge zai (mountain song tunes), and Hakka xiaodiao (Hakka ditties). Lao shan'ge have free rhythm and wide melodic range, suited to expressing deep feeling; shan'ge zai have regular meter and are easy to learn and pass on; Hakka xiaodiao absorb cultural variations from different Hakka communities.

Hakka Eight-Tone Ensembles: Instrumental Tradition for Celebrations and Ceremonies

Haka eight-tone ensembles (Hakka bayin) are the instrumental tradition performed at Hakka weddings, funerals, and festive occasions, centered on the suona (double-reed horn) accompanied by gongs, drums, and strings.² The term "eight tones" borrows the eight-material classification concept from the Rites of Zhou, but in practice Hakka eight-tone music is built around the suona lead and percussion rhythm rather than literally eight material categories.

Eight-tone troupes are important cultural organizations in Hakka communities, with skills typically passed down through oral instruction from master to apprentice. Traditional pieces include Da Kai Men (Grand Opening), Xiao Kai Men (Small Opening), and Feng Ru Song (Wind Through Pines), each with specific ceremonial contexts and symbolic meanings.

Modern Transformation: The Breakthrough of the Labor Exchange Band

Lin Sheng-xiang: A Modern Practitioner of Hakka Music

Lin Sheng-xiang was born in Meinong, Kaohsiung. In the early 1990s, he co-founded "Guanzi Music Pit" with Chung Yung-feng and others, beginning to explore the modern possibilities of Hakka music. His music's greatest hallmark is the fusion of mountain song spirit with rock arrangements: electric guitar, bass, and drum kit carry contemporary timbres, while melody and vocal delivery retain a distinctly Hakka flavor.

The Labor Exchange Band: Music as Social Movement (1999–2003)

In 1999, Lin Sheng-xiang, Chung Yung-fung, Chung Cheng-ta, Guo Jin-tsai, and others formed the Labor Exchange Band ("交工" from the Hakka phrase meaning "working together"). The band focused on environmental issues, rural problems, and marginalized communities, using music to speak for society.

The album We Are Going to Sing Mountain Songs (1999) won Best Composer and Best Producer at the 11th Golden Melody Awards in 2000.³ Its musical style fused Hakka mountain songs, Taiwanese folk elements, and rock, and live performances often moved audiences who did not understand a word of Hakka.

After the Labor Exchange Band disbanded in 2003, Lin Sheng-xiang formed "Sheng-xiang & Band," continuing to experiment with jazz, blues, and world music while always maintaining a Hakka cultural core. Representative works: Wilderness, Book of the Earth, My Village.

Golden Melody Awards Hakka Categories: Establishment, Controversy, and Transformation

The 14th Awards (2003): Hakka Categories Established for the First Time

The 14th Golden Melody Awards in 2003 were the first to subdivide performance categories by language, establishing the "Best Hakka Vocalist" award (alongside Taiwanese and Indigenous language categories), a departure from the previous "Best Dialect Vocalist" concept.⁴ From the 18th Awards in 2007 onward, it was renamed "Best Hakka Singer."

At the 15th Awards in 2004, Hsieh Yu-wei won the inaugural Best Hakka Vocalist award with the album Yi Chai, Hua Shu Xia, marking an important milestone in Hakka pop music entering the mainstream.⁵

2007: Lin Sheng-xiang's Refusal — The Most Powerful Policy Statement

At the 18th Golden Melody Awards in 2007, Lin Sheng-xiang won both "Best Hakka Singer" and "Best Hakka Album" with Planting Trees. He refused both awards on stage, donated the prize money, and issued a public statement: music should be classified by genre; classification by language puts the cart before the horse. He challenged the system: "Why can Best Producer cross language boundaries, but albums cannot?"[^^6]

This incident ignited a public debate over the Golden Melody Awards' language-based classification system and directly led to the Ministry of Culture establishing the Golden Indie Music Awards in 2010, which replaced language categories with genre-based ones—rock, folk, hip-hop, electronic, jazz, and others. In 2017, the Golden Melody Awards added a language-neutral Album of the Year award, which can be seen as a partial response to Lin Sheng-xiang's declaration.

Lo Szu-jung: Hakka Music Through a Female Lens

Lo Szu-jung brings a different color to Hakka music with her gentle, nuanced voice and poetic lyrics. Her representative work Lan Hua Qu (Best Hakka Singer and Best Hakka Album at the 23rd Golden Melody Awards) portrays the lived experiences of Hakka women from a female perspective, filling a relative void of women's voices in Hakka music.⁶

Hsieh Yu-wei: A Pioneer of Hakka Pop Music

Hsieh Yu-wei is a singer, actor, songwriter, producer, and painter who has promoted Hakka-language music for decades. In 1992, he won the National Music Composition Competition with Wen Bu Ge, the first time Hakka pop music received a national award; he went on to win the inaugural Best Hakka Vocalist award in 2004.⁵

Infrastructure of Dissemination: Hakka TV and the Hakka Affairs Council

In 2001, the Hakka Affairs Council was established under the Executive Yuan as the Taiwanese government's dedicated agency for Hakka affairs. In 2003, Hakka TV launched, becoming the world's first 24-hour television channel broadcasting entirely in Hakka, dramatically expanding the reach and audience base for Hakka-language music.⁷

Lien Chian-yu: Another Path of Traditional Creation

Lien Chian-yu is another important figure in Hakka music. His representative work Shan Ge Yi Tiao Lu (A Road of Mountain Songs) rearranges traditional mountain songs with modern instruments, preserving traditional flavor while adding a contemporary sensibility. With a deep understanding of Hakka culture, he has long served as a promoter of Hakka culture in addition to his own creative work.

Contemporary Challenges and Opportunities

The core challenge facing Hakka music is the continued decline of the Hakka-speaking population: urbanization and the spread of Mandarin-language education mean that many younger-generation Hakka people can no longer speak the language fluently, let alone create in it. This structural problem of language loss is the inescapable backdrop for all Hakka-language music.

The digital age also brings new opportunities: streaming platforms allow Hakka music to reach international audiences, lower barriers to creation, and enable a new generation of Hakka musicians—such as Misa and Chiu Hsin-yi—to build loyal followings online.

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