Classical Music in Taiwan’s Daily Life
Sometimes we forget that many adjustments are involved in moving to a new country. These adjustments are the most basic everyday things we have been accustomed to since forever. Still, we suddenly become conscious of experiencing them in a whole new way. For example, in Indonesia, we are used to listening to music in public only on special occasions such as events and not outside of it. While studying in Taiwan, I had to adjust to immerse myself in music, classical music at that, in my everyday life. It was one adjustment that I was experiencing as awe for me. If you try to picture what I am feeling, imagine a child being serenaded with an ice cream truck tune that, over time, it becomes something to look forward to. So, when I tell you that I had never been more conscious of activities as menial as managing waste and waiting for trains as I was studying in Taiwan, prepare to get your key in G-sharp.
I had never imagined the Taiwanese would be able to solve waste by injecting classical music into it. For instance, there were hardly any public trash cans across the streets in Taiwan. At the designated locations and times, we had to load our own waste into the garbage truck. That was something that I had a hard time adjusting to, as did the Taiwanese at the beginning of the implementation of the policy. However, people simply knew when to dispose of their waste in the trucks by the sound of classical music playing for them to hear. That was unlike anything I had ever experienced in Indonesia, and with the tune of music, I was ready to empty my waste.
Though it has become something rather unsophisticated for many in Taiwan, the melody of Für Elise by Beethoven represents the country’s waste management. That is, despite our imagination in the rest the world that the composition reminds us of fancy piano lessons or sweet ice cream truck delivery. Another melody, such as A Maiden’s Prayer by Tekla Bdarzewska-Baranowska, a 19th-century Polish composer, is also played to notify residents to carry their waste outside to the canary-yellow automobiles. Why classical music was selected as a waste notification in Taiwan is still unclear. According to some reports, a health official overheard his daughter playing Für Elise on the piano, while other reports contended that the trucks were pre-loaded with the music already. Either way, I did not associate classical music with something as distasteful as waste in Taiwan; instead, I was reminded of how waste was elevated with the tune of classical music for us to be more conscious of managing it.
Not only waste management, they also always played music to accompany us while waiting for trains at MRT stations. While most people can tell the train’s arrival by looking at the time or signals such as flashing lights, the Taiwanese had us beat by playing music to announce the trains’ schedule. Western classical music was chosen and always played in the MRT stations so that the people could ‘feel’ the arrival of the trains without having to check the schedule every time. For example, a famous classical piece, Nocturnes, Op. 9: №2 by Frederic Chopin graced every arrival of the Xindian-Songshan Green Line MRT with a touch of jazz to create a calming and beautiful passage melody that would help us unwind as we stepped inside the train. That was something new for me because I had never before used my hearing to perceive a schedule at public transportation infrastructures. It was a fascination that I had eventually adjusted to whenever I stepped inside the MRT station, expecting to be accompanied by flowing, underground melodies of string instruments.
At first, I did not question why Taiwan was thoroughly attached to Western classical music despite being a Far East nation. Since my curiosity grew amidst my new adjustment to living there, I began to wonder why the Taiwanese were eager to co-live with tunes from the other side of the world. As it turns out, classical music, primarily European ones, has long been taught as an integral part of music subject in higher education institutions. Countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan which have been under Western influence (art and technology) in recent history, have made classical music an inseparable component of daily life (Chen, 2021). Consequently, Taiwanese people have become accustomed to and even integrated Western classical music into popular culture. On the other hand, they do not entirely erase their culture of traditional Chinese music in place of Western classical ones; instead, they weave them beautifully together to produce a harmonious coexistence in today’s Taiwanese daily life (Ho, 2007). This tapestry of musical amalgamation is further celebrated in numerous Taiwanese art forms.
These art forms were constantly on public display, from streets to schools. Wandering around the capital, Taipei, we could find many posters promoting classical music concerts or symphony orchestra events held at different venues or coincidentally close to each other. For example, the genre of classical musical amalgamation included Guoju ”national opera” (specifically ”Peking opera”), Guoyue “national music” (westernized Chinese instrumental music), and Guohua ”national painting” (brush painting in conjunction with the music). Through numerous initiatives, these were heavily promoted in schools and the public with full government support (Wells, 1997). The government’s push for musical modernization and assimilation also inspired the establishment of a state symphony orchestra and adopting a music curriculum that mainly included Western arts on top of the existing local music. As such, it was difficult to imagine a life without classical music in Taiwan, even for me as a foreigner who was there only for a while.
The constant exposure to classical music was the one thing that required quite an adjustment for me, in a very good way. I felt that Taiwan was like a nation-wide livable orchestra that chimed its tune wherever people go during my stay there. The use of Western classical music is not only a sign of the Western influence on Taiwan. It also serves as a unique move to ease the life of the Taiwanese people by utilizing public infrastructure as harmonious as the flow of the jazz saxophone on a midsummer night.
References:
Chen, J. Y. (2021). Western Music History as a Teaching Topic in Taiwan: Pedagogy as Transculturation. In Listening Across Borders (pp. 11–22). Routledge.
Ho, W. C. (2007). Music and cultural politics in Taiwan. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 10(4), 463–483.
Wells, A. (1997). The international music business in Taiwan: the cultural transmission of Western and Chinese music. Media Asia, 24(4), 206–213.
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