专辑简介

Songs of hope, tragedy, and fate from the Japanese occupation era

Once upon the time the people of Taiwan lived freely under the glittering sunshine. They sang out to their hearts’ content in the mountains and fields, the rhythms of their lives following the seasons, singing their own songs in their own way. But in 1985, after a Japanese military victory over China, Taiwan was ceded by the Qing court to Japan and became part of the empire of the rising sun. (Taiwan would remain part of that empire until 1945, when Japan surrendered to end WWII.) The oppression brought by the Japanese military and colonial regime changed the old way of life. Taiwanese had to disguise their feelings—feelings of hope as embodied in the song “Looking to the Spring Wind,” of sorrow as in “Rainy Night Flower,” and of tragedy as in “A Bird Cries for Help.” Today, these authentic voices record the realities of those dark days, with their ups and downs, meetings and partings, uncertainties and hopes. Creators of this music not only preserved for us our past; they also provided for the future.