Gau Gong Band Founded
交工樂團成立
Source: Voices of the Land — the Jiaogong Band
From: Hakka Affairs Council
Date: 2004-07-27 · Author: Liu Kai-nan
In the early 1990s, the government planned to build Taiwan’s second-largest reservoir in Meinong, Kaohsiung; the project would inevitably deal a devastating blow to the ecology of Meinong’s farming communities. Young intellectuals who had grown up in Meinong joined with local villagers to launch an anti-reservoir protest movement, one strand of which was the founding of the Jiaogong Band (Labor Exchange Band), using music as a weapon of resistance. The band drew on local traditional music — gong, drum, suona, moon lute and other traditional instruments — combined with contemporary musical techniques to create a new Hakka folk music that resonated with the realities of social life. The word “jiaogong” (交工) originally referred to the mutual-aid harvest labour pools that farming villages formed during busy seasons when the heavy, repetitive work was too much for any single family: farmers would help each other until the harvest was done. In early 1999, band members returned to Meinong and began recording their “Anti-Meinong Reservoir Album.” Meinong residents treated the recording as a matter of family pride, contributing money and labour in the spirit of the old jiaogong tradition, giving the album its ideal production conditions. On completing the album, everyone resolved to learn more deeply from that spirit — and so named the band Jiaogong Band.
First edition cover of Jiaogong Band’s debut album Let’s Sing Mountain Songs
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External Links
- Meinong Anti-Reservoir Movement (Taiwan Encyclopedia)
- Introduction to the “Let’s Sing Mountain Songs” CD (Meinong Hometown Association)
- The Farmer’s Microphone — the Jiaogong Band (Cheers)
- Hopes for a “Tobacco-Kiln Studio” — Interview with Lin Sheng-hsiang (Hakka Youth e-Newsletter)
- Chung Yung-fong: Romantic in Cruelty — Reflections on the Jiaogong Band’s Reissued Night Patrol with Chrysanthemums (CommonWealth)
- Rock Spirit, Village Undying — Lin Sheng-hsiang’s 20 Years of Music (Newsmarket)