Effects of State Intervention on Nanguan and the Reasons behind Its Failure

How has state intervention in nanguan since 1980 affected nanguan groups and nanguan music in terms of quantity and quali-ty? Has it achieved its goal to preserve and transmit nanguan for future generation?

Compared to the situation of nanguan twenty years ago,⁷⁵ the past two decades of state intervention in nanguan certainly has increased the number of nanguan groups in total,⁷⁶ stimulated the

75. For a review of the development of nanguan in postwar Taiwan, especial-ly in the past two decades, see Lü 1994, Wang 1995, Li 1996, and Chou in press.

For an overall review of nanguan and its interaction with cultural policy and socio-political change in Taiwan history, see Wang 1997.

76. According to Hsu’s research on nanguan in 1979, there were about 64 nanguan clubs known to have existed, with 12 that were active, 20 less active, 14 barely alive, 8 extinct, and 8 unclear (see Hsu 1982:8-10). The list of nanguan groups compiled by Lü Chuikuan in 2002 shows 80 clubs in existence (Lü 2002:133-35). However, according to the estimation of Chen Xinping based on the groups that had participated in the nanguan activities from 1996 to 2000, only 41 nanguan clubs were active (Chen 2000).

formation of new groups, and greatly expanded the number of the people exposed to nanguan either through taking training courses, attending concerts, or learning about nanguan through written or audio-visual materials produced by state agencies or by private nan-guangroups. It has also raised the visibility of nanguan in the inter-national art scene through subsiding nanguan performances abroad.

Thus, state intervention has indeed succeeded in disseminating nan-guan to a wider public and in keeping alive the activities of nan-guangroups.

The increase of the number of nanguan groups, however, should not be interpreted as an increase in the number of veteran nanguan musicians. On the contrary, a closer look at the member-ship of each group shows that it has become common for members of different clubs to overlap, a practice that was once prohibited by traditional nanguan clubs. Such a prohibition was still largely in effect during the early 1980s but was gradually loosened with the rise of the new groups in the 1980s, such as HTYF and Huasheng she, which were mostly one-man companies that relied on the assis-tance of musicians from other clubs. By the 1990s, such overlapping had become prevalent in the Taipei area (see Wang 1995). Thus, although the number of nanguan groups and nanguan novices have increased, the actual number of veteran musicians has decreased. Now, senior musicians are passing away, yet the number of younger musicians who are mature enough to succeed them is much smaller. Consequently, the total number of experienced nan-guanmusicians is in serious decline.

Beside the decline in quantity, the quality of nanguan musi-cians and groups have also deteriorated. First of all, state interven-tion altered the social workings of nanguan groups. Twenty years ago, nanguan groups still mostly relied on their leaders and finan-cial supporters to sustain the finance of the clubs. Now, with gener-ous subsidies available from state agencies and with enterprises opt-ing to support modern art forms instead of local traditional ones, vet-eran nanguan clubs increasingly depended on state funding as their major source of financial support. In addition, state subsidies stimu-lated the formation of new groups which relied on offering training

courses or putting on performances to gain state funding. With the rapid increase of state funding in the fourth stage of state interven-tion, such mechanism of operation began to be adopted by an increasing number of veteran nanguan groups and consequently led them away from their nature as amateur music clubs.

State intervention has also altered the mentality of nanguan musicians. Twenty years ago, nanguan still remained largely a self-cultivating pastime. Now, nanguan has become a commodity with which to make money, achieve fame, tour abroad, and a recognized cultural heritage. Nanguan groups are frequently paid by state agen-cies and private organizations to perform on various state functions and social events or to teach training courses, and musicians often compete for “who gets to play for how much money” during a teaching or a performance engagement. Thus, money and fame brought by state intervention has resulted in the deterioration of the identity and perceived integrity of nanguan musicians as amateur musicians.

In addition to altering the mentality of nanguan musicians and the nature of nanguan clubs, the money and fame brought by state intervention have become major sources of conflict among nanguan groups and among individual musicians, and have contributed to a deterioration of the relationships within the nanguan community.

Certainly, conflicts among nanguan groups and musicians were not unheard of in the traditional context, but these were mostly caused by competition in artistry rather than fighting for personal gains (see, for example, Shi 1965: 19). Traditionally, nanguan musicians put much emphasis on mutual assistance. Hence nanguan musicians often say: “dingguan xiangteng; xiaguan xiangpin” ,

(“dingguan xiotiã, eguan xiobiã” in Minnan dialect, mean-ing that the music clubs help one another, while the martial clubs fight with one another).⁷⁷ Nanguan musicians also often emphasize

77. I should thank Chen Xinping for telling me about this saying. For a more detailed explanation of this proverb as it is known in the Pescadores (Penghu

), see Hong 2001:109. That dingguan refers to quguan and xiaguan [eguan] to wuguan was also mentioned by Chou (in press).

the nature of nanguan as a “liyue” (“music of rites”), which demands proper conduct and etiquette in human relationships both within a club and among different clubs. The inter-club relationships were maintained through mutual visits (known as baiguan ) and through the holding of annual gala concerts. It is through such mechanism of networking that nanguan clubs maintained a commu-nity of their own with close connections among groups (even within the greater nanguan diaspora). Such a sense of community was still well maintained up to the early 1980s. By the end of the third stage of state intervention, however, there were already open conflicts among nanguan groups, as exposed by the roundtable discussion in the 1994 nanguan art festival held by CCCB. During the fourth stage, with tremendous amounts of money involved, the conflicts have continued to worsen.

Furthermore, the quality of nanguan musical artistry has also been going downhill if compared with the situation twenty years ago. This is mainly due to the decrease in the younger musicians’

knowledge about nanguan and its cultural practices, the shrinking of the repertoire that can still be played, and the decline in the quali-ty of performance. To take the shrinking of repertoire as an exam-ple, traditionally every nanguan club should be able to play the five basic instrumental suites, known as the wudatao (literally

“five big suites”), but now there are only a few veteran musicians in Taiwan who can perform them all from memory. With regards to singing, traditional gala concerts required that a song should not be sung twice within the same day,⁷⁸ but now it is common for a song to be repeated several times by different singers in state-funded gala concerts, since most singers are beginners and have a limited reper-toire. As for the quality of performance, the deterioration of the nan-guan community as a whole has greatly reduced the chances for musicians to keep up their artistry through interaction with other vet-eran musicians. The demands for teaching in the proliferating

train-78. This is to show respect for the other singers. Thanks for Chen Xinping for adding this comment.

ing courses further deprived them of their time for practice. Most importantly, nanguan as an ensemble music requires the subtle interaction and close collaboration among the musicians, and it is through years of practicing as a group that the playing can achieve nanguan’s ideal of “ harmony in differences” (known as he ).

Such an ideal has become increasingly difficult to achieve now.

In addition to the lowering of the quality of nanguan perfor-mance in general, state-sponsored presentation of nanguan on con-cert stages has also contributed to a change in the nature of nan-guan music, from a self-cultivating pastime to an art form designed to appeal to an audience unfamiliar with it.⁷⁹Traditionally, nanguan was meant to entertain oneself or deities; even during traditional gala concerts, which are comparabel to modern concert settings, everyone on stage and off stage was familiar with nanguan music and its cultural practices. When put on a contemporary concert stage and performed for unfamiliar ears, however, nanguan’s introspective nature, slow tempo, subtle dynamic contrasts, and the static poise and expression of its musicians, all contribute to the common impression that traditional nanguan looks and sounds monotonous when compared with its western musical counterparts. Consequently nanguan musicians began to think of ways to adapt nanguan to the modern concert stage. Some groups, such as HTYF, take the elitist route and transform nanguan into a modern theatrical art form, with nanguan subjugated as an accompaniment for dance rather than remaining a self-contained art form. In the eyes of most nanguan musicians, such theatricalized performances are no longer nanguan and therefore they seldom attend such performances. In contrast to the elitist route, some other groups take the populist route to appeal to the taste of the general public. They add simple acting and danc-ing or combine nanguan opera into the program in order to make it more interesting and lively. Such modifications are taking nanguan away from its introspective nature and bringing it closer to

populari-79. For an analysis of the unfeasibility of presenting nanguan music in a mod-ern auditorium, see Wu 1996.

zation or even vulgarization.⁸⁰

From the above, it is clear that, although state intervention in nanguan has succeeded in disseminating nanguan to a wider pub-lic and in keeping alive certain kinds of nanguan activities, it has achieved limited success in preserving and transmitting nanguan both in terms of its musical traditions and its cultural practices.

Why did state intervention fall short of its original goal? I pro-pose that it is mainly due to the Nationalist government’s cultural policy to uphold Western and national art forms and downgrade local traditional arts, to the westernized music education in school curriculum in postwar Taiwan, and to the rapid westernization, industrialization, urbanization, and globalization that Taiwan society went through during the past decades.⁸¹These were the reasons that caused nanguan to lose its potential successors and its financial sup-porters and resulted in its gradual decline before 1980. They were also the reasons behind the lack of knowledge and genuine under-standing and appreciation of the nature and value of nanguan by the officials, the scholars, the general public, and even some of the nanguan musicians. Such lack of understanding and appreciation prevented state officials and the scholars involved to devise modes of intervention that took into consideration the nature of nanguan and the ecosystem of nanguan community. The dominance of Western music and the Western concept of modern performing arts also exerted much influence on how officials and scholars evaluated, interpret, and promoted nanguan. As a result, what was meant to help nanguan often became sources of conflict among nanguan musicians and resulted in the deterioration of the nanguan commu-nity both in terms of its musical quality and its members’ integrity as amateur musicians. It also resulted in the commodification, vulgariza-tion, and theatricalization of nanguan music and the

professionaliza-80. As mentioned before, this was also what happened in mainland China since the 1950’s under the influence of Chinese Communist Party’s proletarian cul-tural policy.

81. For similar views on how westernised music education has contributed to the demise of local traditional arts, see Chen Yuxiu 1998:35.

tion of nanguan musicians.

VII. Conclusion

In the summer of 2002, I once had a long conversation with an NCTA official to discuss the problems of state intervention in nan-guan. I compared state intervention in nanguan with feeding a sick patient with lots of rich food or medicine which might, in fact, be against the nature of the physical condition of the patient; perhaps what the patient needs is simply some fresh air, some water, and some loving care. Similarly, state intervention in nanguan has ne-glected the nature of nanguan as a self-cultivating pastime and has imposed upon it large sums of money and promotional activities which are against its nature. These bring more damage to it than benefit.

Fortunately, there remain a few nanguan groups that resist state intervention and still make efforts to keep the traditional practices of amateur nanguan clubs alive. Youchang guang’an nanyue she

in Kaohsiung is a good example. It still maintains its close association with a temple, refuses to apply for state funding, declines invitations to play for money, and insists on maintaining tra-ditional etiquette among nanguan clubs. In the minds of its mem-bers, keeping the quality and nature of nanguan as an amateur musician’s pastime is just as important, or perhaps more important, than increasing the quantity of new musicians for nanguan. “If the result of transmission is to create a generation of new musicians that completely distorted nanguan’s original character, then what’s the meaning of such transmission?” (Chen 2000). Hence, for these

“conservative” musicians, using the theatricalized or popularised nanguan to attract more people to learn nanguan “will only mis-lead the public and quicken the decline and eventual death of nan-guan traditions” (ibid.). Instead, they prefer that nanguan remain practiced by a small circle of musicians who can genuinely appreci-ate nanguan’s quality as a refined art form that takes a lifetime to cultivate and master as an amateur musician’s pastime. After twenty years of state efforts to disseminate and promote nanguan, I believe

that it is time for the state to stop striving for quantity and think about how to help nanguan in a way that can maintain its tradition as a self-cultivating pastime for amateur musicians.

Acknowledgements

Some preliminary ideas expressed in this paper were presented as a confer-ence paper published in the proceedings of the conferconfer-ence (see Wang 1996).

Thanks should go to the officials and staff at various state and private organizations for assisting me in gathering data on state cultural policy and projects on nanguan.

These include Huang Suzhen and Lin Jianhua , Xue Yinshu , and Kong Lingyi of National Center for Traditional Arts ; Chen Shuwei of National Culture and Arts Foundation ; Zhang Meiling of the Nanguan/Beiguan Museum of Changhua County

Cultural Bureau , and Huang Jiaqing of the

Chinese Folk Arts Foundation . Thanks should also go to Qiu Kunliang for sharing his views and experiences; to Chen Xinping (a nanguan musician of Youchang Guang’an Nanyue she in Kaohsiung

) who made valuable comments on the draft of this paper; to Cai Yulin , a fellow nanguan research er, for assisting me with finding relevant informa-tion; and to the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. The writing of this paper was made possible by a visiting fellowship at the Humanities Research Center of the National Science Council ( ), which allowed me to take leave from my teaching responsibilities during the spring of 2003. In terms of orthography, pinyin system is used for all terms unless an author has a customary way of transliterating his or her name.

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