![]() ![]() With a line of vision ten to fifteen feet above the pavement, I could see over walls, down into ditches, and over industrial sites, and could survey fairly large areas. The campaign trucks covered all neighborhoods, all the major streets, and many tucked-away lanes, from city center to semi-rural margins. For at least twelve full days in the months of December 1992 and January 1993 I rode on a campaign jeep or truck, waving and smiling to residents and passersby. This is livid prose, following on recent vivid experience. The sunset on the heavily-industrialized southwest coastal strip, from Tainan to Kaohsiung, lingers with a sullen, solid blood-red glow each evening as if to portend an approaching apocalypse. One might imagine the inhabitants of the four-story luxury apartments frantically shoving the detritus of their privileged consumption out of the windows onto a growing heap of filth, a heap that seems destined to engulf first their less-privileged neighbors, and then eventually themselves. It is development run amok, without rhyme or reason except for the profit and pleasure of the moment. Taiwan exhibits an anarchy of development, almost literally palaces springing up on trash heaps. Taiwan may be Asia's richest dragon, but the once-pristine island is also the region's dirtiest". In the words of the Far Eastern Economic Review, "(T)he by-product of these boom years is environmental degradation of historic proportions. Year after year Taiwan, with a per capita GNP comparable to that of these two neighbors, is more congested, more polluted, and more piled with garbage. By reviewing policymaking and cross-disciplinary collaboration, a new range of values may present itself, as well as a new sense of belonging, to enhance the development of the identity of the beiguan community. ![]() What kind of changes could be accepted by people within the process of transition, from emphasising the authentic and traditional to a more innovative outlook? How do people position themselves on the dynamic continuum between tradition and innovation? In what position do we find traditional music after it has been affected by globalisation? Answering these questions will help us explore and discover different potential methods for maintaining beiguan’s cultural heritage. The approach outlined in this thesis may be used to survey the development of traditional beiguan music. Possibilities for culture conservation in the future will also be suggested. We will focus on several beiguan communities selected from folk groups (both professional troupes and amateur clubs) and their related government organisations (such as the education system), in order to trace the trajectories of phenomena connected with these changes. Comparison will be presented in the form of fieldwork and theoretical analyses. Several questions are apparent: how can traditional modes of performance sustain their original values and identities while society moves into modernity? How can the beiguan subculture remain relevant, by finding new niches within the shifting cultural landscape? This thesis examines the formation of beiguan culture long before 1960 and compares it with beiguan’s contemporary situation in order to investigate changes in performance and community identities. The identities of beiguan communities have altered under the influences of shifting social and governmental pressures. Its development has also been influenced over time by environmental effects. During this time, the music’s character and its eco-system have been in constant change, due to its multi-cultural and hybrid nature. Traditional beiguan opera (and its music) has been performed for over three hundred years in Taiwanese society. ![]()
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