June 06, 2005
News | Taiwan Chronicle #2: Hunting Vinyl among Ghosts & Owls |
For used vinyl hunters, the rainy, semi-tropical isle of Taiwan can seem like an arid desert. My own efforts are illustrative: though I came equipped for the hunt with the Mandarin Chinese phrase “second-hand records” (er shiow chang pien), two weeks of its frequent use reaped only a bounty of earnest head scratching. People understood what I was asking for, but had no idea where to find such a thing.
The explanation for the lack of vintage LPs is simple: the Taiwanese don’t like anything old. When an object has outlived its usefulness in the cramped condo or apartment of the average Taiwanese family, it quickly finds itself out in the alley for garbage pickup. (And as a minor unintended consequence, foreign, tail-chasing miscreants—er, visiting teachers of English as a Second Language—are able to furnish their apartments for free.) But it’s not simply an economy of high disposable income vs. low personal space that sends lao dongxie (old things) to the alley. Despite being a sophisticated population and unsung heroes of the silicon age, the people of Taiwan do honestly—and fearfully—believe in ghosts. In fact, during my stay, a newspaper survey of college students confirmed my years of anecdotal experience: 90% admitted a belief that spirits roam the island.
How does this affect the supply of old records you ask? Well, people spend a whole month every year feeding, paying, entertaining and otherwise appeasing gwei so that the spooky bastards will just stay where they belong. After going to all that trouble, a Taiwanese person is not about to attract their attention by wearing their shirts, eating out of their plates or listening to their creepy old records. “Second hand” is suspect because the first hand may be that of a dead man.
(And yet it should be noted that this is the anthropological theorizing of a loving outsider; the local explanation would probably be brief, simple and rhetorical: “Why would you want to buy some old junk?”)
Thus it was by accident and not by asking around that I came across my first stash of er shiow chang pien. While meandering down a little back street in the cheerful neighborhood of National Taiwan Normal University (home to the Mandarin Training Center, a language-study school which attracts hundreds of foreigners each year), I came across Owl Listen Space. Run by audiophile and music collector John Chen, Owl looks and feels like someone’s living room, especially when Mr. Chen is graciously playing record after record upon request while Mrs. Chen brings you a complimentary cup of hot tea. The small, comfy shop sells used CDs and vinyl as well as coffee, tea and snacks.
As if to underscore the fact that I’d found a special place in Taipei, a group of young film makers were shooting a DV movie there. They graciously let me come in anyway and I quietly got my first look at Owl’s LP stacks. They weren’t that extensive, mind you, but after two weeks of finding nothing, they looked like a mother lode. I decided to return when I could do some listening. When I did, this time with fellow Asian oldies enthusiast William in tow, we found an eclectic collection, including a substantial number of Taiwanese and Japanese oldies (which I promptly cleaned out). Mr. Chen was a patient and edifying presence, playing records and teaching me as much about record collecting in Taiwan as my Chinese level would allow.
Some of the best finds were volumes from a “Dancing Music” series released by the Hwa Sheng Record Co. These 60s LPs feature renditions of famous Chinese melodies performed in a variety of dance styles, including tango, cha cha, waltz, samba, blues (?) and something called “geluba.” But while most Chinese instrumental albums of this era seem to prominently feature the electric guitar and organ, these records are made special by their acoustic arrangements. In fact, though they are set to “modern” drum beats, the melodies are often voiced by traditional Chinese instruments.
I also picked up several 60s records by the Taipei Hilton Orchestra Two Organ (sic). While not nearly as musically enjoyable as the Dancing Music (this is more like Snoozing Music), they are excellent examples of the Asian lounge organ phenomenon. I can just imagine some Vietnam War-era CIA agent staying at the Hilton, walking into the lounge for a drink with an colleague and hearing this weirdness. Served him right.
In all, I picked up ten LPs at Owl. Prices were reasonable at around US $3 to $9 per disc--not bad, considering the scarcity. However, William soon turned me on to a cheaper and wilder source for Taiwan dusties. I'll tell you about that in our next installment.