Taiwan's Soundscape

30-Second Overview

Close your eyes. Can you hear Taiwan? At 6:30 PM, the melody of A Maiden's Prayer drifts from a passing garbage truck, and people in the alley emerge one after another with trash bags. Late at night, the thunderous percussion of Beiguan (northern ritual music) echoes from a temple entrance, while neon lights from electronic floats flicker before the deities. In the mountains, the Bunun people offer their Pasibutbut (eight-part polyphonic singing) to the gods to pray for a bountiful millet harvest—one of the oldest known forms of polyphonic singing in humanity.

Taiwan's sounds are not merely background noise; they are a living set of cultural codes. Every sound carries history, memory, and identity.

Key Sounds:

• 🚛 Garbage Truck Music: A unique urban ritual found nowhere else in the world
• 🏯 Temple Fair Music: Beiguan, Nanguan, and the drumming of Ba Jia Jiang (Eight Generals)
• 🏔️ Indigenous Polyphony: Bunun Pasibutbut (four-part singing producing eight natural overtones)
• 🛵 Sea of Scooters: An engine symphony from the world's highest scooter density
• 🌙 Night Market Cries: The sonic theater of the grassroots economy

Why It Matters

Every city has its own sonic fingerprint. New York has the screech of subways and taxi horns; Tokyo has station departure melodies and convenience store chimes. But Taiwan's soundscape possesses a unique quality: it simultaneously encompasses the ancient chants of Austronesian peoples, the temple percussion of Han immigrants, the school song traditions left from the Japanese colonial period, and the creative sounds of modern urban life.

This is not just one layer of sound; it is four hundred years of sonic archaeology.

To understand Taiwan's soundscape is to walk through its history using your ears. And these sounds are disappearing: some are being swallowed by urbanization, while others are lost due to cultural fractures. Recording them is not just cultural preservation—it is a rescue mission.

Sonic Codes of Urban Daily Life

Garbage Truck Music: The World's Most Civilized Way to Dispose of Trash

A Global Exclusive: Collecting Trash with Classical Music

The two classic pieces played by garbage trucks in Taiwan are part of every Taiwanese person's DNA-level memory:

1. "Für Elise" — Beethoven's most famous piano miniature; primarily used by garbage trucks in Northern and Central Taiwan.
2. A Maiden's Prayer — An 1856 piano salon piece by Polish composer Tekla Bądarzewska; mostly played by garbage trucks in Southern Taiwan.

Interestingly, where you live in Taiwan determines which tune you hear: this may be the only case in the world where classical music defines regional identity. A Northerner hearing A Maiden's Prayer would find it strange, and a Southerner might pause upon hearing "Für Elise."

Since Taipei City implemented its "trash not on the ground" policy in 1997, garbage truck music has become a collective memory for Taiwanese people. This is more than just waste collection; it is a daily community micro-ritual: neighbors meet at the alley entrance, exchange gossip, and take out their trash.

Why classical music? When the Environmental Protection Administration selected the tracks in the 1980s, they considered that the music needed to be "easily recognizable, non-obtrusive, and capable of traveling long distances." Classical piano pieces fit perfectly: simple melodies, high frequency penetration, and no copyright issues.

International Perception: This is perhaps Taiwan's most frequently filmed urban oddity by foreign YouTubers. "You use classical music to collect trash?" — Yes, and the entire nation thinks it's perfectly normal. ¹

Sea of Scooters: A Symphony of 14 Million Engines

With over 14 million registered scooters, Taiwan has the highest density in the world. The moment a red light turns green, the simultaneous roar of dozens of engines is the daily soundtrack for every Taiwanese commuter.

This sound is changing: the proliferation of electric scooters (such as Gogoro) has made cities slightly quieter, but that collective "vroom—" at takeoff may become a nostalgic sonic memory within a decade.

Election Vehicles: The Decibels of Democracy

During election seasons, campaign vehicles equipped with massive loudspeakers weave through streets and alleys, repeatedly blasting candidates' names and numbers at maximum volume. This is perhaps the loudest practice of democracy in the world.

Taiwanese people have a love-hate relationship with this: it is incredibly noisy, but it is also the most direct manifestation of freedom of speech. During the martial law era, even posting a poster could lead to arrest.

Sacred Sounds: Temples and Religion

Beiguan: The Rock Music of Temple Entrances

Beiguan (Northern Pipe) is the most common traditional music at Taiwanese temple fairs, characterized by high volume, intense rhythms, and extreme emotional tension. If rock music is defined as "expressing the strongest emotions at the highest volume," then Beiguan is Taiwan's oldest rock music. It includes instrumental parts (paizi, xianpu) and vocal music (xiqu, xiqu), which uses a form of "standardized Mandarin"—not Taiwanese, but a Mandarin system with ancient rhythmic qualities.

Historical Context: Beiguan was introduced to Taiwan during the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns of the Qing Dynasty, named in contrast to Nanguan (Southern Pipe) which came from Quanzhou. Interestingly, its vocal origins can be traced back to the Luan Tan of Pujiang, Zhejiang, and the Guangdong Qinxi opera, rather than directly from Fujian; today, one cannot find an opera genre in Fujian identical to Beiguan. In Taiwan, Beiguan developed two major schools, Xipi and Fulu (corresponding to the "Xuan" and "Yuan" halls in traditional troupes). Rivalries between these schools (pin guan) sometimes escalated into violent clashes: in Taiwan, disputes over musical taste can lead to bloodshed.

Modern Situation: Beiguan faces a serious crisis of succession. Young people often find it too loud or "uncultured," leading to a sharp decline in students. Ironically, international ethnomusicologists marvel at the complex banqiang (rhythmic pattern) system and melodic structures of Beiguan: it shares roots with the Xipi and Erhuang of Peking Opera, earning it the nickname "Peking Opera's rural cousin."

Nanguan: The Oldest Chamber Music in the East

In stark contrast to the violence of Beiguan, Nanguan is delicate, elegant, and slow-paced. Originally called Xian-guan, it originated in Quanzhou and was brought to Taiwan by Minnan immigrants. A typical Shangsi-guan (upper four instruments) ensemble consists of: a horizontally held pipa (lute), sanxian (three-stringed lute), dongxiao (vertical flute, retaining the Tang Dynasty shakuachi specification of 18 inches), erxian (two-stringed fiddle), and paiban (clappers). In 2009, it was inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity under the name Nanyin. ²

Sonic Characteristics: The melodic lines in Nanguan are extremely long; a single phrase can stretch for several minutes. During performance, there is a sense of "silk and bamboo intertwining"—the strings (pipa) initiate the sound, followed by the breathy tones of the flute (dongxiao), with each part following one another while remaining distinct. It is music that requires you to sit still and listen: in an era of scarce attention, the first thing Nanguan teaches you is to "slow down."

Cultural Roots: Nanguan preserves the stylistic remnants of the Han and Wei dynasties. Its ensemble structure traces back to the Xianghe songs of the Han Dynasty ("Silk and bamboo harmonize, as the player sings"). Scholars call it a "living musical fossil," praised for its "thousand-year clear tones." In Taiwan, Lukang is the most important stronghold for Nanguan.

Uniqueness: To this day, the Nanguan pipa maintains the Tang Dynasty style of horizontal playing, whereas pipas in other genres transitioned to vertical playing long ago. This single posture serves as a thousand-year time capsule.

Electronic Floats: The Collision of Sacred and Profane

This is Taiwan's most magical-realist soundscape: on funeral or temple fair floats, dancers perform under neon lights while electronic synthesizers play music that blends Taiwanese pop, EDM, and Buddhist sutras.

Cultural Logic: It may look absurd, but there is a serious folk logic behind it: the "liveliness" (renao) is for the gods to see, and it serves as the final party for the deceased. "Send them off with grandeur."

International Attention: Electronic floats have been featured in reports by international media such as the BBC and Vice, viewed as one of Taiwan's most unique visual and auditory spectacles of folk culture.

Layers of Chanting and Rituals

The morning and evening services of Buddhist temples, the chanting of Taoist rituals, and the percussion of Mazu pilgrimages: religious sounds form the deepest layer of Taiwan's soundscape. In the city, you might simultaneously hear church bells, temple wooden fish (muyu), and the call to prayer from a mosque: this is Taiwan's religious diversity expressed through sound.

Indigenous Sounds: Memories of the Earth

Bunun Pasibutbut (Millet Harvest Prayer): The Misnomer "Eight-Part Harmony"

The Bunun Pasibutbut is often called "eight-part harmony," but this name is actually a beautiful misunderstanding: it is actually four-part singing (mabungbung, maidadu, mandaza, mahosngas). By emphasizing chest resonance and throat singing, they produce rich natural overtones, which appear as eight parts on a spectrogram. It is not eight people singing eight parts, but four parts producing a physical miracle.

In 1952, Japanese musicologist Takao Kurosawa submitted a recording of this song to UNESCO, shocking the international ethnomusicological community. ³

Sonic Characteristics: Six to twelve men (always an even number) form a circle, holding hands, and ascend from low tones using the vowels "o," "e," "a," and "i." There is no conductor and no sheet music: they rely purely on listening to one another to achieve harmony within the blending sounds. When the overtones align perfectly, you hear more parts than there are singers: it is one of the most mysterious acoustic phenomena achievable by the human voice.

Cultural Significance: Pasibutbut is a ritual to communicate with the god Dihanin, performed only during the millet harvest season from January to March. The more harmonious the singing, the happier the god, and the more bountiful the millet harvest will be. Currently, it is only practiced by the Lushe and Qunshe Bunun communities, not all Bunun tribes.

Origin Legend: Tribesmen heard the resonance of hollow trees and wild bees, the echoes of waterfalls, or the wind in pine forests during hunts, believing these were blessings from the gods; they imitated these sounds to create the song. Different tribes have different origin stories, but they all point to one thing: this song comes from the sounds of nature.

Amis: Songs and Dances of the Harvest Festival

The Amis Ilisin (Harvest Festival) is one of the grandest celebrations among Taiwan's indigenous peoples. During several days of continuous singing and dancing, the "antiphonal singing" between the leader and the group demonstrates the dynamic relationship between the individual and the collective.

Sonic Characteristics: The leader sings improvisations, and the group responds. Lyrics can be improvised, while melodies remain relatively fixed. This style is also common in African music; the similarities between Austronesian and African music remain a subject of ethnomusicological research.

Paiwan and Rukai: Double-Pipe Nose Flutes

The double-pipe nose flute (lalingedan) of the Paiwan and Rukai peoples is one of the few instruments in the world played with the nose. One pipe plays the melody, while the other provides a continuous drone, creating a unique acoustic effect.

Cultural Context: In Paiwan tradition, the nose flute is an instrument exclusive to the nobility, closely tied to the social hierarchy. It is used in important occasions such as weddings and funerals, where the player's breath is seen as an extension of the soul.

Tao: Hand-Clapping Songs and the Ocean

The Tao people of Lanyu are Taiwan's only maritime indigenous group; their music is inseparable from the sea. The hand-clapping songs during the flying fish season and the work songs used when building canoes all echo the rhythms of the ocean.

Writer Hsia Man-lan po-an once said, "The memory of the waves lasts longer than humans." Tao music is the sonic version of that sentiment.

Sounds of Nature

Spring Thunder and the Plum Rain

Taiwan's climate has a distinct seasonal sense in its sounds: the first thunder of spring, the torrential rain of the plum rain season hitting corrugated iron roofs, and the eerie silence seconds before a summer afternoon thunderstorm. Anyone who has lived under a tin roof knows: the sound of rain can be loud enough to drown out your neighbor's conversation.

Cicadas

Taiwan has over 60 species of cicadas. Their summer drone can reach 90 decibels—equivalent to the volume of a vacuum cleaner. Different altitudes host different species, forming a vertical spectrum of sound: the Taiwan Black Cicada in the plains, the Taiwan High Mountain Cicada at mid-altitudes, and the Ezo Cicada at high altitudes, each with distinct timbres and rhythms.

Sounds of Endemic Species

The song of the Taiwan Laughingthrush is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful bird songs in Taiwan. The bark of the Formosan Serow often startles hikers. In the mountain forests at night, the calls of owls intertwine with frog croaks to form a unique nocturnal soundscape.

Vanishing Sounds

The Knife Grinder's Horn

The knife grinder, riding a bicycle and ringing a special horn while shouting "Grind—scissors—" through the streets, was once one of the most familiar sounds in Taiwanese alleys. With modernization, this sound has nearly vanished.

Hardware Store Broadcasts

Hardware store announcements recorded in Taiwanese ("Come, come, everything on sale...") were once the background noise of Taiwan's towns and villages. Now, they can only be heard in some traditional markets and rural areas.

The Radio Era

Before television became ubiquitous, the radio was the sonic center of the Taiwanese household. Taiwanese-language radio dramas, Gezaixi (Taiwanese Opera) broadcasts, and Potehi (glove puppetry) dubbing—these sounds shaped the auditory memory of an entire generation and now exist only in the memories of the elderly.

The Loss of Tâi-gí Tones

Tâi-gí (Taiwanese Hokkien) has eight tones (seven used in practice), making it one of the most tonally rich daily languages in the world. However, with the promotion of Mandarin education, the proficiency of younger generations in Tâi-gí has declined sharply. When a language disappears, it is not just vocabulary that is lost, but also the unique sonic texture and musicality—the inflections of Tâi-gí are themselves a melody.

🚇 MRT Soundscape Project

In 2018, Dahe Music conducted a unique field recording project along the Taipei MRT lines: the "MRT Soundscape Project." Following the MRT network, they recorded the most representative sounds of life near every station. These 8-second snippets serve as an auditory map of Taipei.

📝 Curator's Note: Every MRT station has its own sonic DNA. The chanting and jiaobei (moon blocks) at Xingtian Temple, the buzz of tattoo machines in Ximending, the Lunar New Year shopping cries in Dihua Street—these are not "noise"; they are evidence of a living city.

🎧 Listen: Taipei MRT Soundscape (Recorded March 2018 by Dahe Music)

Contemporary Sound Experiments

Sound Art

Taiwan has an active sound art scene. Platforms such as C-LAB (Experimental Center for Contemporary Culture), local experimental spaces, and the Lacking Sound Festival continuously promote the creation and performance of sound art. ⁴ Works by artists like Wang Fu-rui, Yao Chung-han, and Chang Yung-ta transform Taiwan's environmental sounds into contemporary artistic language.

Field Recording

An increasing number of sound workers are engaging in field recording across Taiwan to document vanishing sounds. From high mountain forests to coastal intertidal zones, and from old markets to industrial districts—these recordings are not just files; they are auditory cultural assets. ⁵

Interactive Sound Installations

Taiwanese new media artists excel in the field of interactive sound installations. By combining sensors, real-time computing, and spatial audio, they transform the audience's physical movements into a sonic experience—making "listening" a full-body engagement.

Soundscape Preservation Projects

Through the integration of resources from the Taiwan Soundscape Association and the Ministry of Culture, efforts continue to record and preserve "endangered soundscapes." The cries of traditional markets, temple fair percussion, and the machinery of old-fashioned handicrafts—sounds disappearing due to urban renewal or industrial decline—are preserved through field recording.

Amazing Facts

• 🔢 Global Exclusive Garbage Music: Taiwan is the only country in the world that uses classical music to remind residents to take out their trash; these two tunes have been used for over 25 years, becoming a powerful trigger for national collective memory.
• 🔢 "Eight-Part Harmony" is Actually Four: The Bunun Pasibutbut is four-part singing that produces an eight-part effect through natural overtones; it shocked the international musicology community after being submitted to UNESCO in 1952.
• 🔢 Nanguan is a Living Fossil: Preserving musical elements from the Tang and Song dynasties, it is one of the oldest surviving chamber music traditions in East Asia and was listed as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009.
• 🔢 Taiwanese Cicadas Reach 90 Decibels: The volume of summer cicadas is equivalent to a vacuum cleaner; over 60 species form one of the world's densest cicada soundscapes.
• 🔢 Tâi-gí Has Seven Tones: It is one of the world's most tonally rich daily languages; changing a single tone changes the meaning, making the language itself musical.
• 🔢 Mazu Pilgrimage Percussion: The annual Baishatun Mazu walking pilgrimage can mobilize over 100,000 people; the sound of firecrackers and drums follows the procession for kilometers, creating Taiwan's largest mobile soundscape event.
• 🔢 Night Market Sonic Layers: An average night market has a background noise of 80–90 decibels—bubbling oil, vendor cries, and electronic sounds from game stalls—making the night market soundscape a dense "compressed file" of Taiwanese grassroots life.
• 🔢 C-LAB Lacking Sound Festival: The Lacking Sound Festival at Taipei's C-LAB is one of Asia's most important experimental sound art festivals, attracting international artists annually and making Taiwan a key node for Asian sound art.

Further Reading:

• Taiwan Soundscape — A sister piece: the same sounds, re-examined from the perspective of "how we listen," co-created with soundscape researchers.
• 🎧 Taiwan Soundscape Recording Project — The audio version of this article: 21 field recordings including garbage trucks, temples, MRT, and nature available for online listening; feel free to contribute your own recordings.
• Wang Fu-rui — Founder of NOISE, Taiwan's first experimental music label in 1993; the source of the lineage of Wang Fu-rui, Yao Chung-han, and Chang Yung-ta mentioned in the "Sound Art" section.
• Indigenous Music Traditions of Taiwan — Traditional sounds like Bunun polyphony and Paiwan mouth harps represent the oldest layer of Taiwan's soundscape.
• Taiwan KTV Culture — From show bars to private rooms, KTV is one of the most common man-made sources of Taiwan's nocturnal soundscape; the sound of five people singing loudly in a room forms a unique sonic fingerprint of Taiwanese nights.
• Development of Taiwan Hip-Hop and Rap — From urban basements to KKBOX charts, the sonic texture of rap has changed the layers of Taiwan's pop music soundscape.

References