‘Why are Elder Lee and Captain Chen in this?’ I demanded of V a few minutes into the new feature film installment of Taiwanese television series Black & White (Pizi Ying Xiong). ‘They’re meant to be dead!’

‘That’s because it’s a pre-quel,’ explained V patiently.

Originally, when director Tsai Yueh-Hsun began planning a feature film as a sequel to his high rating 2009 police action series, he was successful in signing both leads, Vic ‘Zai Zai’ Zhou Yu Min (周渝民) and Mark Zhao You Ting (趙又廷 ) to reprise their roles as Pizi and Ying Xiong, respectively. Soon, however, Zai Zai dropped out of the project and apparently thereafter withstood several entreaties for him to return. Tsai and his co-writer may have seized upon the idea of a prequel as a clever solution to this dilemma, while leaving the proverbial door open for further collaboration between Mark and Zai Zai in a future sequel as originally intended.

The pre-quel concept brings along its own irritations, however. Some viewers may find themselves distracted by already knowing the fate of some of these characters in the television series, especially when these outcomes involve injury, death or betrayal. And they may also notice that many actors in the original cast look quite a bit older, even though the time frame of the film is meant to be earlier than that of the television series.

Mark Zhao (Chao) You Ting in a trailer for Dawn of Assault shown on SETTV.

Mark Zhao, now 26, definitely looks more mature than he did in the series, but this suits him. A short haircut casts his chiselled features into relief, making him look more like an action hero than the sweet faced Canadian university student he was only a few years ago. Mark is more than idol material: he can really act, and even in a story told at a breakneck pace with only a few pauses for character development, he manages to put some clothes on the bare bones of the reckless yet honourable Wu Ying Xiong. (Watch out for the scene in which Ying Xiong has to attend an anger management session with a smarmy psychologist: it is a gem).

Fiercely loyal to Zai Zai and his role of Chen Zai Tian, I admit I turned up to see the film fully prepared to dislike Chinese actor Huang Bo (黄渤) as San Lian Hui member Xu Da Fu. (When Ying Xiong attempts to arrest him and they become unwilling sidekicks). Huang is somewhat periodontally challenged, but his face is very mobile and after a time, I found him funny and likable. The chemistry between the leads is never very dynamic, however. Huang’s characterisation is sympathetic but it seems contained within its own silo without much reference to what Mark Zhao is doing on screen. Some viewers may also find Huang’s pronounced mainland accent disconcerting. Da Fu is meant to be a local gangster from Harbor City, not an international one.

Huang Bo (黄渤) stars as Xu Da Fu in Black & White: Dawn of Assault

Image link: here

And what is it about Black & White, both the series and this new film, that they can’t seem to develop a decent female lead? (A forensic officer in the series played by Janine Zhang (張鈞甯) was promising, but they did not give her enough to do and disappointingly, she has only a voice cameo in the film). I fear I am not alone in being pleased to hear that the few scenes in the film involving boring, cutesy-pie Ivy Chen were edited out. Hong Kong model Angelababy (Angela Yeung Wing), a skinny, bland beauty with a bee-stung lower lip, is hardly an improvement. Her scenes, like Ivy’s, could equally well have fallen under the editorial delete button and it would have made very little difference to the trajectory of the plot or to the emotional engagement of the audience. Terri Kwan, who memorably played the obsessive Katrina in Heaven’s Wedding Gown, on the other hand, is regal and controlled in a small but significant role.

Although the film clearly belongs to the action genre, Tsai and his team do give a few nods in the direction of deeper meaning. The plot from time to time shows us an increasingly borderless world, in which even federal agencies nominally in charge of national security and defense become increasingly implicated in transactional criminal deals involving arms, drugs, cash and terror. In an understated role, Leon Dai (戴立忍), a regular in Tsai projects, is perhaps the most successful in bringing some of these ideas to life.

In the end, however, none of the nuances of characterisation or of thematic development matter very much at all. Crime writer Raymond Chandler once said that whenever he felt a plot was sagging, he would bring in man with a gun. Tsai and his writers do the same, but on a grander scale: they tend to bring in a paramilitary hit squad. At one point, V and I counted at least six gun toting forces in action. They all have a tendency to spray around what must be the most wildly inaccurate automatic weapons fire in the history of urban assault. Occasionally, however, the violence departs from the cartoonesque world of spectacular firefights, crashes and explosions, where the protagonists always emerge unhurt, and it becomes more personal, sadistic and deadly. In Taiwan the film is rated PG, but in Australia it certainly would have scored an MA.

Although always in the thick of the action, Ying Xiong remains virtually unscathed until the final scenes involving an aircraft where he finally picks up a few nicks and scratches. He and Da Fu exhange the usual consolatory buddy flick banter, but I remember wishing Chen Zai Tian would suddenly appear to give him a hug. I liked the television series enough to have sought out the pre-quel, and it certainly was not without its merits, but I’m holding out for a proper new installment in which Pizi and Ying Xiong of the Chinese title will be reunited. And while Tsai and his production team are at it, why not make Janine Zhang the female lead?

Two days ago V, our friend CC and I walked around Dihua Street and environs where the lunar New Year market was even more bustling than I had imagined. V and I even spotted a well known expat blogger doing the rounds. V called out to her that we followed her blog and I added that I found it gave useful advice. Dihua Street was obviously the power place to be for bloggers that day.

We wandered past a calligraphy stall where a master was unremittingly busy writing couplets and adding characters to pre-prepared backgrounds featuring dragons. We spotted several banners with couplets hanging out to dry. CC translated one that was meant to be placed like a roof over two other vertical ones. It read right to left, and had to do with a dragon introducing new ways. CC helped me order that set and we came back about an hour later to collect it. Although tomorrow we are saying a sad au revoir to Taiwan, with a dragon in involved, 2012 promises to be a challenging and rewarding year. Or as a feisty former classmate of mine might put it: quite a ride!

A ceramic dog-lion of Naha near Gibo Monorail Station

A few days ago I set out from Gibo Monorail Station to search for a vegan cafe. While walking along a major road, however, I quickly became distracted from my purpose. Many houses and apartment blocks featured figurines of the Shisa, or mythological guardian spirit of Okinawa, a cross between a lion and a dog. These clearly demanded a closer look. Then, off to my left, I spotted a little prayer station with an incense holder and a broken stela set up near the boarded up mouth of a cave. Nearby there was a set of concrete steps that lured me into the forest.

The forest was rich and dense with vegetation, with a few big trees, many more broad leafed shrubs and an understorey of grasses and ferns. I could hear sudden sharp calls of birdsong unfamiliar to me and there a was a steady soft drizzle that percolated through the canopy. To my naive eye, the geology of the park looked volcanic, with mysterious apertures in the earth and occasional outcrops of rocks with air bubbles in them. Further research has suggested that the island is largely made of coral and limestone, and dripping rainwater causes the fissures.

Before long, off to the right, at the end of small but well trodden path, I saw another little prayer site with an incense burner set up in front of a tiny opening into the earth. The ash in the burner was wet and clotted with rain.There was no stela or board with an inscription but there was something vaguely anthropomorphic about the limestone formations. With the sussuration of rain and leaves and the hum of insects, the place was certainly mysterious and perhaps numinous.

I rejoined the main path and followed it along until it ended abruptly, where a Flinstones-like faux wood fence marked the edge of the precipice. To my right was another, larger site in front of a small grotto, this one with an incense burner and two inscription boards, one now snapped off. This location, too, was impressive. It was a place where the earth, the forest, and the air all met and where across the expanse of low-rise, pastel coloured city of Naha the sea also could be seen.

Later on I discovered that these were Shinto prayer sites and they were all part of Naha’s largest nature reserve, Sueyoshi Forest Park. Two days later V and I set off to find the reserve’s major religious site: Sueyoshi Shrine, sometimes called the Shrine of the Stone Steps. The night before I’d read a blog article that warned visitors that the climb up the hill on the eponymous steps to the shrine was arduous and it suggested other options for reaching it. From my explorations of the previous day, I suspected there would be a way to reach it from up above, over the brow of the hill.

So once again we alighted from Gibo stop, but this time we passed by my original path and made our way across a bridge over a shallow river. V spotted a narrow walkway that began at the edge of a parking lot. ‘Can this really be the way in?’ I wondered.

V forged ahead and we soon entered an area of turtle back graves. A mild sun was shining and peace reigned, but just off the path among the graves, dark holes in the earth opened up ominously. We soon returned to a roadway paved with round, flat limestone cobbles. A few locals passed us, climbing the hill, some of them out of breath. I was beginning to speculate that this road would simply take us to the bottom of the hill, and to reach the shrine we would have to climb up its famous stone steps after all.

Just then, however, V took off down a narrow and very muddy path that branched off to our right. I followed gingerly and soon was engulfed in the wild forest, where to either side of the trail large trees and vines and wildflowers presented impassable tangles of vegetation. From time to time weird rock formations erupted from the surrounding plant life. The path grew ever narrower, twisting and turning, then suddenly it climbed sharply upward, presenting at first sight a sheer mud face, slick and wet. I  entertained unpleasant thoughts about what a headlong fall into the mud would do to my good wool coat. Taking stock, we spotted two or three rocks jutting out that might provide a foothold. I got a run up, jumped and just managed to clamber up without disaster. I turned, wedged in a foot behind a rock and gave V a hand up.

Around the next bend we came upon an altar with incense holders and a stela with a fine inscription. I knew nothing at all about Shintoism, but V could read the kanji and said the site was dedicated to a fire kami. She explained that there were thousands of kami, many of which belonged  to a single specific locale. Sometimes local kami would be forgotten–she had read manga in which this happened–but others continued to be worshipped across the generations.

I thought about taking a photo, but the path drew us onward. Several meters farther along, we were met with a wall of gnarled and porous rock. There was a subterranean pool of water, its surface as still as a mirror. The water threw our faces back at us and it was impossible to judge how deep it was. There was an altar set up off to the left of the pool where an incongruous plastic mug full of water had been set up. Two plastic scoops dangled from the cliff face on ropes. Evidentally, they could be used to scoop water out of the pool.

An inscription confirmed that this was the home of a water kami. I thought the water in the pool was quite probably potable, but I did not know if any ritual associated with the site involved drinking it. Perhaps leaving a cup of water out in honour of the spirit was all it entailed. Worshippers had thrown a few silver-coloured coins into the pool where they had lodged on an outcrop. There were no bronze ones to be seen, so I dropped in a silver one to join  the ones already there.

The path became broader from this point onwards, and soon we could hear the sound of voices, including that of a tired mother speaking crossly to her daughter in American English. The girl was to cease doing something—we didn’t know what—the mother said she had warned her several times, no, a dozen times already. Then V caught sight of Sueyoshi Shrine itself. Before we visited the shrine proper, though, we clambered up several series of uneven stone steps to prayer sites associated with it, some on either side of it and others up above it. One climb was really treacherous, and for safety we had cling to a tree root and then to a small rusty chain. Another time the cliff face fell away very close to our feet and I had to look away and retrace my steps to stave off vertigo.

Approaching Sueyoshi Shrine, Naha

Finally, we ascended the ceremonial stone steps. The interior was simple, indeed austere, and contained only a few ritual objects such as a small bell and a drum. The shrine and all its surrounds had been bombed into fragments during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, but it had since been restored with great attention to detail, providing a strong sense of continuity.

Sueyoshi Shrine, Naha

On the way down we saw a stand where people had hung up ema or votive tablets. V read a few of them and said some were requests for help in achieving good exam results. We continued to descend the partly paved roadway, sometimes traversing thick rubber mats that had been placed to bridge the muddiest sections. Finally, the park ended and we entered a neighbourhood of pastel and rather Mediterranean style houses with pretty flower boxes and wary cats. When we reached the foot of the nearest monorail station and saw how steep the steps up to the boarding platform were, we rather tamely opted to take the elevator.

One rainy afternoon a few weeks ago V, H and I returned to the heritage mining town of Jiufen. We had vainly imagined that as the day was a Monday and the weather inclement the crowds would be reduced, but in this we were mistaken. The main road into town was clogged with tour buses and Jishan Street was made impassable by a throng of slow moving tourists wielding umbrellas.

Jiufen on a rainy Monday in December

V led the way down a set of stairs to a street a level or two down and as we had done a previous visit, we made our way to Songde Park, leaving the tumult of the tourist district far behind. Suddenly, V spotted a small pavilion on the crest of a hill, and she set off  climbing rapidly up a set of uneven, rough hewn stone steps. H and I followed more cautiously. When we reached the top, we found the floor of the pavilion awash from water streaming down from the hill above and its picnic style table also very wet from water dripping through a number of sizeable holes in the roof.

V and H soon elected to pick their way back down. I tarried for awhile, hoping the mist would clear enough to provide an outlook over the sea. Meanwhile, I heard steady incantations arising from the Buddhist temple on the hillside across the valley, and I watched as the smoke of offerings rose to mingle with the cloud cover.

A view of the north coast from some tearooms

On our return we wandered into one of the town’s tearooms, tacky in decor and a little expensive, but the proprietors were very friendly. The back terrace offered a fine panorama. By now the mist was beginning to lift a little, so that when we insisted to H that ‘the sea really is down there somewhere,’ she was inclined to believe us.

When on 29 December James Zhu (Chu) invited his Facebook friends to a small New Year’s Eve concert at his recording studio, I immediately RSVP’d in the positive. At Zhudong Park earlier in the month on a freezing night, Jacky and James had only sung two songs each, and with the album launch apparently postponed until later this year, I thought they were unlikely to do anything before our imminent return to Australia that would compare to their epic Ximen Red House concert in January last year. Last night’s ‘unplugged’ concert proved I was wrong.

First, we had to find the venue and get there on time. I knew from some previous reconaissance that the Luosifu (Roosevelt) Road studio must be quite small, and it appeared from the Facebook responses that about 25 to 30 fans wanted to attend. So I concluded unless we wanted to sit on the floor or out in the corridor–or even be denied entry altogether–we’d better get there early. So, for a 4 pm start, V and I turned up at the building at 3.45. The doorman seemed bemused to have to deal with two wai guo ren who were asking about entry to the third floor. He insisted on escorting us up to the very door of the suite. He rang the bell and the door was opened by James himself!

I had seen James perform live twice before, but always during winter in heavy clothing, and face to face he seemed a little shorter and much slighter than he did on stage, with small, neat, mobile hands. James seemed at first nonplussed by our sudden invasion of his terrain, but then he recognised us from the Zhudong Park concert. I said we were great fans and he shook hands with both of us. He added that he hadn’t quite finished rehearsing and asked if we could come back at 4.30. (We could hear the sweet strains of an acoustic guitar in the background). V explained why we had come so early, and we apologised for interrupting his rehearsal, and we took our leave. (It turned out I had missed a Facebook update that said the concert had been rescheduled to begin at 4.30 pm).

After a sojourn at a nearby coffee shop, we rolled in at 4.30 exactly, only to find all the actual seats–some storage boxes pulled into a row–were taken. But there were two spaces left up on a wide window ledge, so with a bit of heaving and hauling, we managed to clamber up there. The ledge proved to be an excellent vantage point. I wound up sitting next to a very pleasant woman in my age bracket, while other friends or family members of hers, including a very cute little girl, were also occupying positions farther along the ledge. A similar ledge to our left had been taken over by a group of young women in heavy makeup, dressed to kill: this type of fan, however, were in the minority (and those girls may have been far nicer than they appeared). In front of us there were two young couples, some additional but more sweet looking teens or twenty-something girls, and a couple of young guys. Then an old gent, dressed in an old fashioned suit and hat came in, and everyone on the storage boxes squeezed up to give him a seat, with one of the young couples finally electing to sit on the grand piano bench.

James Zhu (Chu) and Daniel Cheng at Luosifu Road studio

So when by V’s count 22 of us were present, seated, with a few more standing, James, wearing casual clothes and a baseball cap with an enormous bill that shaded his face, sat down next the guitarist, the quiet, serious looking Daniel Cheng (鄭志堅). (James later explained the cap was to cover up a bad haircut). James said in Chinese that he preferred singing in small intimate settings like this one with an acoustic backing and no microphone.

He then sang several soft, romantic ballads in Chinese and English, and one in Cantonese. These included two songs he had written himself: a rollicking one in English, called Good Morning, Baby and a poignant one about coffee in Chinese. Before singing the coffee song, he called out to me and V in English, asking if we liked coffee, and V answered with considerable aplomb in Chinese that she did indeed ‘xihuan‘. Did she drink it every day? he probed. She admitted she did. James said he himself loved coffee and he reminisced about frequenting the original Starbucks when he was a student several years ago in Seattle. His coffee song was both tuneful and charming, about relationships. ‘I want the kafei you want me to want,’ ran the chorus.

To sing with no backing vocals and no special effects to the strains of a single guitar is a courageous act; everything is transparent, every mistake is obvious and there is nowhere to hide. James does not have a big voice, but his phrasing was so musical, his intonation so pinpoint accurate and his delivery so heartfelt that he had everyone captivated. He even managed to carry off a nuanced cover of I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas, even though Christmas was well and truly over and everyone was very tired of endless festive music loops played in local businesses– including the local Starbucks’ mindbogglingly tedious ones.

‘Schmaltzy, but very good,’ I commented to V about White Christmas. ‘All his songs are schmaltzy,’ she responded. She added she had no expectations that he would ever sing anything darker. I, on the other hand, being partial to romantic ballads and acoustic, folkloric songs and so was truly enthralled.

At one point after a short break, a big thickset man in track pants and t-shirt came in: he looked like a bouncer. But James called him Da Shi (大師) and I gathered he was high up in the hierarchy of the studio and possibly a mentor to James. And so the poor couple sitting on the piano bench had to relinquish it and the ‘bouncer’ then sat down and joined Daniel in accompanying James on the piano for two numbers, including James’s sensitive rendition of Almost Over You. Then he wandered off again, first hoisting up the piano bench on high and handing it back over the heads of the front row to the couple who had been sitting on it previously.

About 5.45, the outer door suddenly opened, and in strode Jacky. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, a cardigan, Buddy Holly specs and a hat: the cool nerd. I was at once reminded of that line from the eerie True Blood theme song, ‘When you came in/the air went out’. Of course everyone looked at him.

James looked over and called out in English,’ Sold out! You can’t come in!’

Jacky quipped in Chinese that he had not actually entered yet.

‘You need a ticket!’ growled James.

‘I’ll sneak in without one,’ responded Jacky in Chinese.

So Jacky finally came in and leaned against a wall to listen. I wondered how many songs he would allow James to sing before he interrupted. The answer: about two and a half. In the middle of a ballad where James had shown signs of floundering with the lyrics, he held up a hand and told the guitarist to stop  and he took it over, as if showing everyone how the song should be sung. James took this in a very good natured way. I think he is somehow not jealous of his famous and flamboyant younger brother; he seems proud of him. And as V later pointed out, they are very used to collaborating with each other and exchanging a lot of banter while they do so. Jacky soared through the melody with his strong, colourful voice and James obliged by singing backing vocals.

From left: James Zhu (Chu), Daniel Cheng and Jacky Zhu (Chu) at Luosifu Road

Jacky went on to sing a cover of the Fish Leong classic Ye,Ye, Ye, Ye that he had recently sung brilliantly with an orchestra on TTV daytime television.  Last night he delivered it in a very hammy and operatic way, very loudly, filling the room with his big voice and outsize personality. Despite his familiarity with the song, he somehow forgot the lyrics at one point but was soon prompted by James and the audience. James sang in harmony during the two of the choruses. V managed to videotape it with her new camera and here it is:

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Soon Jacky announced he had to leave to go to another engagement, and all the girls in the front row, including at least one who was part of a couple, and all the girls on the other ledge, followed him and wanted their photos taken with him. He happily obliged, draping an arm around each one in turn, and turning on his megawatt smile. James had to wait patiently while all this was going on. V and I stayed up on our ledge, aloof from all this carry on, and I smiled encouragingly at James.

Once Jacky had departed, it did not take long for us to be drawn in once more by James’s quiet, meditative singing. Finally around 7 pm he announced the very last song, sang it sounding somewhat tired but no one in the audience moved an inch. James then said he was prepared to sing some encores but first he had to go to the loo. The atmosphere in the studio was like an informal family gathering and so I think everyone thought this was amusing rather than embarrassing. In fact, James had to join a queue for his own loo, other fans having gone in there ahead of him. So first he put on Zai Yi Bian, one of 183 Club’s hit ballads, on his laptop during this hiatus. V confirmed this was a song he himself had written and probably produced. When he came back out, he sang it live, but admitted to having become fuzzy on the words. We fans sang along to cover the gaps, with V much more solid on the lyrics than I was.

Before long James’s mobile rang, and  I heard him address someone as ‘Ba’. James confirmed the call was from his father and he said he would definitely have to wrap up the concert. He concluded by saying that of all the performances he had given this year, this one made him feel the happiest and most comfortable. I as a fan felt that way, too. The relaxed and friendly atmosphere framed careful and professional delivery of the songs. There is something about how James conveyed the inner spirit of lyrics and melody that transcended his lack of vocal power and reached his listeners, compelling their attention and cementing their loyalty.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 20,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 7 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

It was Friday night and I had already seen the repeat episode of Bai Wan Da Ge Xing with Sodagreen on it on Channel 38, so I was channel surfing. Suddenly, on one of the SETTV channels, I was drawn into a scene. A sweet looking girl in a wheelchair was shouting in Hokkien at two other women—her mother and sister? -while no fewer than eight other people stood by hanging onto her every word. Lush violin music welled up in the strains of a traditional ballad: no doubt the series’ theme song. Suddenly, in response to the girl’s outburst, there was a hoarse cry of anguish and some muttered words from one of the men: tall, smooth faced, reddish hair with a lot of gel. V said, ‘It’s Sam Wang!’

Sam Wang Shao Wei stars in Holding Hands (牽手).

V was right. There was Sam Wang, the former member of 5566 and 183 Club, and mega star of Oughties idol dramas, wearing a flannel shirt, a cardigan, baggy slacks and slippers: the hero at home. Apparently, in addition to a lead role in the poor rating Fei Xing Shao Nian, Sam is also appearing as a romantic lead in a new multi-episode Hokkien language series called 牽手(qian shou) or Holding Hands. It had been on since October, but somehow I had never stumbled across an episode of it before last night.

Even though until V stepped in to translate, I could understand virtually nothing of what was being said and I could read only a few phrases of the subs, I was immediately hooked. This morning when I went onto YouTube and dipped into the previous episode, I realised that part of the appeal of Holding Hands was that it had all the conventions of a SETTV melodrama of a few years ago, like Heaven’s Wedding Gown, Green Forest My Home and Smiling Pasta, which had drawn me into the luscious, saccharine, contrived world of Taiwanese drama series in the first place: frequent flashbacks in muted colours; medical emergencies; improbable coincidences; and love tokens exchanged or broken or lost, all the while carrying a weighty cargo of sentiment and destiny.

A medical emergency in Holding Hands. ( 牽手)

Sam Wang prays for his wife's recovery in Holding Hands. ( 牽手)

It turned out that we had stumbled onto the series at a critical juncture. V could read the subtitles without any difficulty at all, and she informed me that the girl in the wheelchair had just accused her younger sister of inciting their mother (or perhaps their stepmother?) into running her over in their car. Why, one might ask. Was she jealous of her elder sister who was engaged or already married to Sam Wang? The girls’ father, a lugubrious looking individual with crimped hair resembling a barrister’s wig, was tremendously affected by this accusation, and he said so at length, in a welter of operatic overacting.

The injured girl's father's hair is very intriguing.

Hokkien has always sounded wonderful to my ear, earthy and emphatic and authentically local. Apparently the writers think so too: it soon became clear to me that the point of the dialogue was not to carry along the plot; instead the twists and turns of the plot were all designed to give the characters the opportunity to hold forth in long, sustained arcs of speech. This did not make for a fast pace. “I wonder how many episodes it has taken them just to get to this point?’ mused V. (I am unsure of the exact number but the series has been on since October, and Sugoideas have so far uploaded 18 episodes).

An Ting's family members share a guilty secret.

Will I persist with the series? At the moment, as I have not advanced far beyond the beginner level in my Mandarin studies, I find trying to read subtitles in Chinese characters while listening to Hokkien very disconcerting. What I might do is bookmark the series, both mentally and electronically, for that day in the future when I have a better foundation in Mandarin and can read the subs more fluently. It is a classic SETTV romantic melodrama with a stellar turn from Sam Wang as the lead. In short, it’s too good to give up on.

YouTube link: here Sugoideas link: here

On many visits to the river suburb of Danshui I’d often gazed across the river towards the left bank precinct of Bali (no relation to the holiday island) with a will to go there one day. On Tuesday, the first day without rain in two weeks, we seized the chance to cross the river on a slow moving, stately ferry.We were able to pay the fare with our EasyCards. (I am sure if space travel ever becomes a tourist option, we will be able to swipe onto the shuttle with our EasyCards).

Once we disembarked, the wind was cold and the day already far advanced so we opted not to hire bicycles to make our way to the archaeological museum, bookmarking that excursion for a later day. Instead we prowled around the waterfront for awhile and walked on the boardwalk. V spotted on some tourist signage that there was a Matsu temple a block or so back from the riverbank. Of course Bali, which is located where the Danshui River river meets the Taiwan Straits, would be an obvious place to have a cult centre for a sea goddess.

A view across the Dansui River from Bali

We made our way along a small but lively street market specialising (not surprisingly) in seafood, then reached a noisy, grinding provincial highway. There was the Tian Hou temple on the far side of the road. Perhaps when the temple was first built, it would have been a quiet place offering worshippers a view of the sea, but today its setting is unrelentingly urban.

We decided to have a closer look, anyway. The temple was in some ways unremarkable, but it did have some interesting bas-relief sculptures along the front of the goddess and her good works. What I found especially intriguing was that before now I had always seen Matsu represented as a passive ideal of femininity. She has sometimes been depicted standing on a pier holding out a lantern for fisherman and sailors to use as a homing beacon, but I had never befroe seen her doing anything really proactive.

Matsu rescues seafarers in a panel at Bali's Matsu temple.

This Matsu of Bali, however, is far more assertive. In one panel, she is seen swooping down from on high, actively rescuing fisherman, one who looks unconscious or dead, while the other seems very awake to his miraculous rescue by heavenly forces. The second shows an even more adventurous Matsu, armed with sword and lance, handily skewering a sea monster.

Matsu holds a sea dragon at bay.

I wondered if Bali residents over the years, as they were wracked by typhoons, serial invasions by foreign powers, and while always suffering the vicissitudes of a precarious economy, have had cause to appeal to an unusually stalwart, heroic version of the merciful sea goddess.

Yesterday on Facebook James Zhu (Chu) warned any fans who planned to attend Saturday night’s 100 Anniversary gala in Zhudong to take along some nuan nuan bao, i.e., heat packs. And if a Canadian tells you it is going to be a cold night, then the weather is indeed going to be wintry. After some confusion on my part as to the location of the concert (I had entertained the wrongheaded notion that Zhudong Park was in Hsinchu (Xinzhu) rather than in Zhudong, Hsinchu County) V, H and I finally managed to locate the venue around 6 pm, not long after dusk. Already the temperature was only about 11 degrees with a severe wind chill factor adding to the sense of cold.

We soon saw that a stage under a marquee had been set up on a paved area with no actual riverside to be seen. The stage was flanked by a few small tents; their canvas sides were being whipped about by the wind. Several rows of small plastic chairs were arrayed out in the open air at the front of the stage. The front three rows on the right were at first empty. They were reserved for local dignitaries, who finally turned up after 7 pm. Initially, I was able to find a seat in the fourth row behind these reserved seats, between a diminutive aboriginal woman on my left and grumpy older local woman on my right. When the formalities and speeches were over, and most of the politicians opted to leave rather than listen to the concert, the grumpy woman and I bravely moved up into the second row. She took a strong dislike to the opening act, however, declaring that the youth in the sparkling belt and necktie had sung 很難廳, i.e., very badly. She departed and never returned.

I thought he was an adequate singer (I don’t know what his name was) but I was less pleased with the vast amount of time wasted by the compere with inane chit chat: he was another young man who favoured the sparkles and sagging trousers look. Between acts, he peppered the audience with quiz questions, which many locals did seem to enjoy and try to answer. The winners received something in small boxes, possibly chocolate. Later on, he drew a seemingly interminable raffle, calling out full names rather than numbers. Finally, a woman singer with a local following came on, and picked her way through two ballads, with an indifferent voice and wavering pitch. To be fair, I think she had a bad cold, and the temperature was steadily falling, while drops of rain spattered intermittently.

Jacky Zhu (right) chats with the cheerful compere at the Zhudong Park gala.

At some point during all this country fun, I had caught sight of Jacky slipping past us on our right, clad in jeans, a t-shirt, an open flannel shirt and a leather jacket. He disappeared backstage and I hoped he would be on next, which indeed–finally–he was. The compere gave him a rousing introduction, mentioning 183 Club, which provoked a few squeaks of excitement from an otherwise frozen audience. Jacky at once launched into his signature ballad, Gao Jie. He must have sung it live dozens of times by now, and I’ve heard several recorded versions and one live performance of it, in January at Ximen Red House. Yet he still mananged to bring something fresh to it. Undefeated by the cold, he sang with a full, strong, confident voice. His professionalism and talent were in every way remarkable.

Jacky Zhu sings Gao Jie at Zhudong Park.

After some additional banter with the compere, he took up an old 183 Club favourite, Zhen Ai (貞 愛.) This lilting ballad had served as the closing theme for the 2005 SETTV idol drama, The Prince Who Turned into a Frog. I really enjoyed last night’s rendition. One of the problems with 183 Club–and I hope I will get away with this critique now that the dust has settled–is that often their songs began well when they were opened either by Jacky or by Ehlo Huang–but then they went downhill fast as the raucous voices of the other three members took their turns. So it was wonderful to hear Jacky’s warm and engaging voice carry the melody all the way through.

The compere (left) looks colder than James Zhu at the Zhudong Park concert.

Jacky departed after only two songs, but James was up next. He had taken his own advice about the weather, and was wearing a heavy winter jacket with a faux fur collar. He looked pleased to be on stage, and was absolutely incandescent as he sang a slow, mood piece I had once heard Jacky sing last year on Jin Qu Chao Ji Xing (金曲超級星)–I forget its name. In the instrumental break he came down into the audience and shook the hand of everyone sitting in the front on the left, but then, just as he turned to us politician-seat -usurpers on the right, the next verse came up and he jumped back on stage to sing it from there. So our row missed out on the hand shake. Alas! Nonetheless, I continued to brandish my comped glow stick with enthusiasm.

James then chose to sing a cover of Bryan Adams’s I Do It for You. In the past I have never quite approved of his tackling this song. I am anyway not all that keen on even the Adams version with its grandiose, overly emotional lyrics. And James’s small, intimate, whispery voice sometimes seemed inadequate to carry it off. Last night, though, he sang confidently and with great energy. As I discovered in January at the brothers’ epic Red House concert, James sings really effectively live. He brought considerable depth of feeling to the lyrics. When he sang ‘I’d die for you,’ I almost believed him.

James Zhu sings an arresting cover vesion of 'I Do It for You' at Zhudong Park.

James said a definitive goodbye and as it appeared–sadly–that the brothers would not be called back to do a duet. Just then my two companions appeared at my side and announced they were just about frozen through, so we agreed to depart. Hearing last night’s handful of numbers at Zhudong Park, however, confirmed in my mind that the Zhu brothers charge every song they sing with an intensity of personal meaning, as if each one were the last song they’d ever get the chance to perform. In all of Mandopop, there is no one else who combines feeling and consummate musicality quite as well as they do. It’s therefore not surprising that fans will turn up even at remote country venues in freezing weather to hear them sing.

One late afternoon just after I had finished our final–and very challenging– Chinese language test at Cheng Da, I followed V up into the hills to have a look at Xinhai Cemetery. Originally, this was very much her excursion to do background research for a book, and I had arrived comically ill prepared for a hill trek. I was lugging a backpack containing all my Chinese books and notes, a pencil case full of Muji pens–and a laptop.

First we had to cross the metro station parking lot, then we passed rapidly through a small neighbourhood of down market houses. We soon found a trail with broken down and eroded steps and we climbed into the cemetery proper. We passed a pavilion on our left, which was equipped with a large incense burner surrounded by benches with dilapidated cushions, and was clearly where ceremonies were sometimes held. Some of the graves to our right showed signs of fairly recent attendance and care. Many of the older ones above us, though, had been long abandoned.

Nature taking over at Xinhai Cemetery

Suddenly, someone shouted after us, asking what we were doing. It was a local man who had climbed up behind us. We had passed by his doorstep on our way up from the metro station. V asked if it was all right just to have a look around, and he acquiesced genially enough. I doubt he had any official capacity.

The slope up to the level above us was quite steep and at first I did not intend to go very far, but I became intrigued by the way nature had overrun the memorials, which increasingly belonged to the realm of plants and insects and birds. The autumn sun, the first we had seen after weeks of rainy, dreamy days, shone on the hills opposite and caught the windows of apartment blocks in an elegiac fashion. Of course, surrounded by memento mori, I thought of Horace, and I mentally added the day to the profit side of the margin.

A view from Xinhai Cemetery

On the way back down we chatted with the local man: he and his friends were still sitting outside their homes in the sun drinking beer. Most of the graves were very old, he said. The very biggest ones–this he emphasised: 很大, 很大, were at the very top of the ridge, had we gone up that far?

V replied that the very long grass growing up there had discouraged us. Really, we were both even more concerned about encountering snakes.

The next day, on my final commute to Cheng Da, I happened to sitting in the last car of the metro, and looking up the hillside, I spotted the grand pavilions at the top of the Xinhai ridge. I wondered if one day, maybe in Wellingtons, it might be interesting to prowl around up there and have a closer look.