14 書香人生 B O O K S & R E V I E W S SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES Softcover: UK CD reviews Taiwan China today, the world tomorrow

By Isabel Hilton The Guardian, London Publication Notes t’s always wise to be careful what you wish for. When China was poor I and communist, its government disdained consumption and castigated the evils of capitalism, while in the West we argued that happiness lay Baby (寶貝) in the joy of stuff. The good news The Choshui River Has Taken Like I Said 莫文蔚 is that China now agrees about the (濁水溪出代誌) Queen Suitcase (皇后皮箱) Karen Mok ( ) a Wrong Turn Universal Records stuff, embracing a strange hybrid of Himalaya Records Various Artists Princess Tone Ai (跳痛) capitalism with distinctly Chinese Gamaa Music characteristics. But that is also the bad Tai Ai-ling (戴愛玲) Sony Music news, as Jonathan Watts explains in When a Billion Chinese Jump. The title derives from a boyhood nightmare: the Chinese, Watts thought then, were so numerous that if they all here are no sappy ballads on this he 1960s and 1970s are fter two albums of folk espite promising so much jumped together they could knock the When a Billion Chinese Jump 15-song compilation, and that’s sounding fresh again. Queen and opera aria covers, when she delivered the world off its axis. Now that most of By Jonathan Watts exactly the way Gamaa Music Suitcase (皇后皮箱), the winner the immensely talented power ballad The Right China’s 1.4 billion people prefer to live Twants it, says the label’s founder and ofT this year’s battle of the bands Asinger-cum-actress Karen Mok DOne (對的人) on her debut better today than to trust the promise 483 pages rock singer Nuno Chen (陳信宏). competition at the Ho-Hai-Yan (莫文蔚) returns to songwriting album, Aboriginal pop siren Tai of a socialist paradise tomorrow, faber Chen, who runs the Taichung-based Gung-Liau Rock Festival (貢寮國際 with Baby. Ai-ling (戴愛玲), also known as the shock to the world’s economy, indie label, has been fighting Mando- 海洋音樂祭), is in love with rock’s A collaboration between Princess Ai, failed to live up to atmosphere, soil, water, forests and pop power since 1999. Gamaa started golden age, and that affection Mok and producer Zhang expectations. But with Princess natural resources seems set to trigger particulates are carried on the winds out as a distributor for underground shows on the group’s first release, Yadong (張亞東), her rumored Tone Ai (跳痛), her fifth outing, his boyhood terror: the demands of to other countries and China’s rock bands from abroad and Like I Said, a five-track EP. boyfriend, the singer co-write Tai proves that A-mei (張惠妹) a billion Chinese bent on becoming contribution to the great brown cloud introduced Taiwanese record buyers Many indie pop bands have all the album’s 10 tracks. is not the only Aboriginal pop prosperous consumers could indeed, helps to create a giant smog blanket to groups like Australia’s Dirty Three. a penchant for psychedelic Baby, a collection of princess worthy of adulation. on China’s present trajectory, knock even over otherwise unpolluted areas Nowadays Gamaa is devoted to atmospherics and Beatles-style romantic odes inspired by Previously pigeonholed as a the world off its axis. of Asia. promoting non-mainstream rock bands chord changes, but this five- mundane experiences, steers singer with an “iron lung” (鐵肺) Each industrial revolution has been In Beijing there are efforts to turn from Central Taiwan. This collection piece group gets it right. clear of the conceptual ballads who squandered her explosive dirty and environmentally damaging to a less destructive course. Sustain- contains a fair amount of hard rock and The keyboardist and lead of Mok’s past output. The vocal powers on hackneyed and the cumulative unintended able development is now the mantra metal, a few punk tunes and a rock-rap singer, Carla Chung (鍾卡菈), quietly beatific title track Baby songs, Tai makes up for lost time consequences include changing the of government policy and China is song. Most of the performers are up- has a sultry voice that does well (寶貝) sees Mok coaxing her by delivering her most satisfying climate on which human civilization committed to a low-carbon economy, and-coming bands, which is painfully even when drenched in reverb lover to fall asleep in a lulling pop album to date. depends. But while industrialization not least in order to dominate the apparent in a handful of songs that are and electronic effects on the title voice, while in Song to Sing in Tai’s voice is her best asset. was confined to a handful of relatively technologies of the future. But as rough around the edges. But the bands track. This playful song is full the Shower (洗澡時唱的歌), the Even in the title track, Jumping small countries, the environmental Watts discovers, to accomplish this make up for their lack of finesse with of sonic references that bring singer croons about her various Pain (跳痛), she elevates cliched impacts, climate aside, were relatively unprecedented feat at this stage of youthful and energetic performances. to mind different eras of rock: elations while taking a shower. lyrics such as “the pain is deep, local. In China, though, carbon-fueled development requires more than Chthonic’s Freddy Lim (林昶佐) it’s driven by a 1960s-sounding The album breaks new the injury is heavy” with her industrialization and unsustainable shaky legislation and a fiat from the might be heartened by Metal Blood’s (鐵 organ, noirish post-punk guitars ground by paying pop music bravura vocals. development has metastasized by virtue top. It requires a profound cultural 血政策) speed metal romp Nationality and swooshing, high-pitched tribute to classical poetry. In Elsewhere, unimaginatively of its scale and speed into the global shift away from the entrenched idea (民族), in which the singer belts out in electronica effects. It won me Holding Thine Hands (執子之 titled songs, such as Plus, Minus, game-changer of Watts’ title. The West that nature exists to be exploited and English with a gut-wrenching scream, over at the start with a sample 手), a phrase borrowed from Multiply, Divide (加減乘除) and invented unsustainable living; China plundered and that any environmental “I am, I am, I am independence/I am, I of screeching elephants that The Book of Songs (詩經), Mok Future Tense (未來式), do little to has taken it up with enthusiasm. problem can be fixed by engineering. am, I am freedom.” launched the band into its outer offers her pledge to grow old show off her vocal prowess. We are barely three decades into Watts’ journey takes us to nature And what metal fan would not be space rock groove. with her beloved, and in Eat Tai delivers fireworks on the China’s industrial and consumption reserves where the animals are served curious to hear a song from a band On the piano-driven rock Drink, Men Women (飲食男女), opening track Close My Eyes revolution. There are still hundreds up in official banquets, to the tragic called Groin Destroyer (鼠蹊部破壞者)? ballad I Won’t Forget You (不 inspired by The Book of Rites to Love (閉上眼睛愛), her soaring of millions of poor Chinese who wish province of Henan, once held up as an Damnkidz, a Taichung group, 會忘記你), the band is clearly (禮記), she explores the joys and voice swirling and plummeting to prosper and consume in a country exemplar of Maoist development, now offers I Can’t Wait to See You Again, channeling the Beatles, but complications of sex. around the infectious chorus. that wastes so much energy that its stricken by poverty, soil exhaustion, an athletic demonstration of happy- almost a little too much. Roaming the stylistic The album’s highlight is Just average per capita carbon emissions corruption and an AIDS epidemic go-lucky emo punk. It’s a silly but Queen Suitcase, which spectrum, the album is musically Another Glance at You (只要再看 already equal those of France. The traceable to an official blood-selling catchy tune. formed in 2005 and has gone adventurous. 你一眼), a duet with Roger Yang most worrying thing about the Chinese scheme. Then there is Linfen, a coal Another reason Chen created this through a few lineup changes Though none of its tracks (陽陪安) that pays tribute to industrial revolution is not the appalling town in Shanxi Province, said to be collection is to encourage younger rock over the years, clearly showed comes across as a radio-friendly and even rivals A-mei’s Within damage that Watts meticulously the most polluted place in the world, bands to compose their lyrics in Hoklo its mettle at last week’s anthem, Baby is a candid a Glance (一眼瞬間). The pair’s chronicles, but the capacity for more where birth defects run at six times (commonly known as Taiwanese), and competition. But it’s hard to and touching work from the voices hover and flirt with that is still in the system. the national average which, in turn, is challenge the common perception that imagine that it could capture on perennially professional Mok. each other like two fluttering Few were counting the cost in three to five times the global norm; and only old-fashioned crooners sing in stage the exquisite dreaminess — ANDREW C.C. HUANG butterflies. the first giddy decades of China’s where the miners’ death rate per tonne the language. With his own group, The of a song like Let’s Go Outside, Tai stretches her musical industrial revolution, but in the past of coal is 30 times that of the US. Tonic (主音), Chen composes many of with its quiet, hypnotic drum muscles on rap number 10 years, the bills have begun to come The Yellow River is all but his lyrics in Hoklo. In Trial (審判), he loops and Chung’s ethereal vocal Yesterday’s Tomorrow (昨天的明 in: they include acute and chronic destroyed. The government has laments global warming and climate harmonies. The EP is worth 天), a song about frazzled love water shortages, toxic algae blooms, encouraged people to move west from change, backed by a rousing, anthemic getting for this song alone. performed with Paiwan reggae desertification, acid rain, dying the overpopulated heartland into the hard-rock arrangement. Queen Suitcase’s next rocker Matzka, and Good and grasslands and angry people. The arid and mountainous lands of the The most promising music on scheduled performance is at Bad (好壞), a disco rouser about new middle classes in the prosperous Uighurs and the Tibetans, places able this compilation doesn’t come from Legacy Taipei on Aug. 6. misspent love. cities of eastern China now want dirty to support sparse populations but guitar-wielding, distortion-loving — david chen Tai is known for starting off factories closed or cleaned up, but where ecosystems rapidly collapse metal heads or punks. Chen named songs mildly, then thundering the inland provinces further back in under the weight of numbers. the album after the track from into climactic highs. However, the queue for prosperity are keen to If this is a bleak story, it is because acoustic folk rockers Country Boys on Princess Tone Ai she shows welcome them. In 2007, the World the prospects are bleak. Watts tries to (農村武裝青年). Their song, also sung in restraint by not galloping full Bank conservatively estimated the cost balance this journey through dystopia Hoklo, decries how the Choshui River pelt into the upper octaves. of Chinese pollution at 5.8 percent of with signs of hope, but we sense he (濁水溪), which “flows from Nantou — ANDREW C.C. HUANG GDP. (Others have put it as high as 8 would wish to be more convinced to the flatland plains of Changhua” percent to 12 percent.) If we subtract than the evidence allows. This book (從南投流出彰化平原), has been sucked these sums from China’s headline is not simply an indictment of China’s dry by industrial parks that dump growth, the present looks substantially development path: it is a lesson for us “poisoned water” into the oceans. It less impressive and the future more all in the dangers of how we live. Will is the spirit of this song that perhaps worrying still. Illegal deforestation we heed the lesson and will China’s embodies Chen’s vision for the future in China continues, despite belated bid for sustainability prove more than of rock ’n’ roll in Taiwan. prohibition; the pollution carried a rebranding exercise? Any reader of — david chen down China’s rivers poisons the sea When a Billion Chinese Jump must from the Bohai Gulf to the Pacific; hope so. Softcover: UK Genius as an infinite capacity for taking pains Though missing morsels of literary insight, ‘The Orwell Diaries’ reveal the prosaic details of a life spent pursuing truth and honesty

By BRADLEY WINTERTON there’s no reference to the writing imagination, he was the ultimate he believed Marxist societies disguise his origins, walking in the in the cold endured by the people Contributing Reporter of his books. There’s very little stickler for a record of what had Publication Notes routinely indulged in (“All animals rain between towns in the North of he spent months living with, in I haven’t always taken kindly that throws light on his personal actually happened. These diaries are equal, but some are more England on blistered feet when it the austerity he endured along to Orwell. Animal Farm and relationships either. Instead, there’s are full of the prices of things, equal than others,” and so on). would have cost him very little to with the rest of the British during Nineteen Eighty-Four excepted, a huge amount about gardening how many eggs his hens laid, how These diaries are nevertheless take a bus, running a neighborhood and after World War II, and in his novels appear two-dimensional — growing his own food was one much people earned (in the UK and extraordinarily dissimilar. At the store selling, among other things, the horror and sorrow he forced and lightweight, in addition to of Orwell’s passions, and almost in Morocco, where he spent the BBC he’s chatting about Churchill his own garden produce, and then himself to confront in the USSR. being humorlessly bleak. Many a necessity when he moved to the winter of 1938-1939 for the benefit or Duff Cooper and considering living for two years on Jura, a Furthermore, there’s something of his essays are classics, though, windswept Scottish island of Jura of his lungs), and whether the birds the propaganda value of suggesting Hebridean island 45km long and bleak about his unimaginative and his political writing is never in 1946. There’s also a good deal he saw on Jura were this species or that Japan was planning to invade 13km wide with a population in realism. He tried smoking uninteresting. But these diaries, of the kind of social commentary that, and how they differed. Russia, whereas when picking 1946 of 250. marijuana in Morocco, as he published by Penguin in an edition on the lives of the extremely poor Deviation from this limited hops in Kent and researching the Very few other people, in relates here, but it didn’t have any superbly edited by Peter Davison, found in Down and Out in Paris kind of truth was intolerable to poor in Lancashire he’s staying in other words, were willing to try effect. He’s occasionally hostile to are quite exceptionally readable. and London and The Road to Orwell. A committed socialist, he filthy lodging houses smelling of living there, but Orwell, despite women — one Manchester woman Maybe, despite the possibly Wigan Pier, plus political analysis later became the hammer of the rancid margarine and sleeping four suffering from tuberculosis, here had “adopted her husband’s inflated claims currently being (there’s one section, Diary of the left because he saw for himself to a room, and then on Jura trying thought he could do it. His wife views as a wife ought to.” He made for this author, these diaries Events Leading Up to the War, the suppression of other left-wing to make cress and raspberries Eileen had died on the operating wouldn’t, you feel, have had much are the really classic Orwell. covering July to September 1939). groups by the Communists in grow in the most hideously rainy, table the previous year, and time for the swinging 1960s had he Their texts have already been But above all there’s endless Spain in the 1930s, learned about windy, cold conditions, without Orwell was accompanied in lived to see them. published in The Complete Works observation — of nature, of people the cynical rewriting of history electricity, phone or a car. his desolate hidey-hole by his But depression, though an of George Orwell (20 volumes), and of events. in the Soviet Union, and became It’s impossible not to see a kind adopted son and his sister. He inescapable feature of Orwell’s but not with the detailed Orwell can be considered as appalled by the willingness of the THE ORWELL DIARIES of masochism in Orwell’s character. thought he was escaping the books, features rarely in these notes Davison provides here. the ultimate realist. He wasn’t, British left to turn a blind eye to By George Orwell He won a scholarship to Eton, even modern world in all its forms, marvelous diaries. Instead there’s Furthermore, when put together in of course, because the worlds of such things. He was an enemy of though his middle-class family was but the bleak reality he opted for endless observation and hope. one book like this, they constitute, myth, aesthetics and even music, fascism (he offered his services in 531 pages far from rich, and couldn’t afford was something even he couldn’t “Turnips want thinning ... Put up though with gaps, the beginning so important to many people, the war effort in September 1939, Penguin Modern Classics to send him to any university. Yet manage, and he died in a London place for ducklings ... Spinach of an autobiography for the years were closed books to him. But eventually working for the BBC on he stubbornly dedicated himself to hospital of a hemorrhage of the germinating ... One egg.” they cover, 1931 to 1949. from his practical, no-nonsense, its broadcasts to Asia), but his two investigating the British underclass, lungs on Jan. 21, 1950. A selection of Orwell’s diary Not everything is discussed, down-to-earth point of view, most famous books were attacks assuming a cockney (East London Even that date seems symbolic. entries can be read at orwelldiaries. though. Most disappointingly of all, largely excluding the realm of the on the left and on the dishonesty working-class) accent in order to Orwell’s is a winter world, both wordpress.com.