From ‘Blue and White Porcelain’ to ‘Island’s Sunrise’: Young Audience Perceptions of Chineseness and Taiwaneseness in Taiwan’s Popular Music

This article explores how Chineseness and Taiwaneseness are constructed in Taiwan’s popular music and the ways in which young audiences in Taiwan make sense of the music to which they listen in their everyday lives. Focusing on two songs, Jay Chou’s ‘Blue and White Porcelain’ (a China Wind pop song in Mandarin Chinese) and Fire Ex’s ‘Island’s Sunrise’ (an indie rock song sung in Taiwanese Hokkien), an analysis of the lyrics, styles and settings identifies the textual and contextual characteristics that shape and signify their Chineseness and Taiwaneseness. In-depth interviews with their 18–25-year-old audience and several music industry workers were conducted in Taipei to understand how these young audiences reflect on their experiences and identities in relation to these songs. Arguably, popular music can be implicated in the politics of identity through performing and listening. Constant negotiations of Chineseness and Taiwaneseness are taking place in both the creation and the consumption of music, thereby Taiwaineseness and Chineseness can be seen as a continuum rather than a dichotomy as they are not mutually exclusive in their historical contexts, but rather are two sets of ever-changing narratives. The usefulness of ethnographic methods in this study should be noted as the diverse personal experiences and views voiced in the interviews illustrate clearly how the dichotomy between the two is an over-simplification.