Heritage Award

As mentioned above, the Heritage Award set up by the MOE was held from 1985 to 1994. In its first few years, the awardees only received the honor without a monetary prize; in the latter years, each awardee was given an honorarium of NT$50,000 (Li 1997:61;

Yin 1991:6).²⁵

24. For example, nanguan was presented in the music festival held in Taipei in 1980 (TCB 2002a:106). In 1984, Changhua County Government commissioned Hsu Tsang-houei to carry out a one-year survey of folk arts in the county, including its nanguan clubs (Chinese Folk Arts Foundation 1999:30-35).

25. The exchange rate between US and New Taiwan dollars from 1990 to 1994 averaged around US$1=NT$26 (see Guo 2002).

Among the 132 individuals and 42 groups who received the award, six nanguan groups and six nanguan musicians were awarded in the category of traditional music and narrative singing, and two nanguan opera performers were awarded in the category of traditional opera.²⁶

From the nanguan groups and musicians and opera performers awarded, we can make the following observations:

i. Among the six nanguan musicians and two nanguan opera performers awarded, only three of them were born in Taiwan.

This was in stark contrast to the other awardees of the other local genres, who were all born in Taiwan. This reflects the ambiguous identity of nanguan as neither completely Taiwanese nor completely mainland Chinese, as mentioned above.

ii. All of the six nanguan musicians awarded were active in Taipei (except for Lao Hong-gio , who lived in the Philippines). Thus we see a concentration of state resources

26. The nanguan musicians and music clubs that received the Heritage Award include the following: 1985: Nansheng she (nanguan club in Tainan, founded around 1910); 1986: Yazheng zhai, Juying she (nanguan clubs in Lukang, with the former founded around mid-18th century and the latter in the late 19th century);

1987: Yu Chengyao (nanguan musician, 1898-1993, who was born in southern Fujian and moved to Taipei after 1945), Li Xiangshi (nanguan opera performer, 1911-2003, who was born in southern Fujian and had been living in the Philippines until he moved to Taiwan in the 1980s); 1988: Huasheng nanyue she (nanguan group in Taipei, founded in 1985 by Wu Kunren

), Wu Suxia (nanguan opera performer and veteran nanguan musician, born in 1940s, active in Taichung area in mid-Taiwan); 1989: Tsai Tianmu

(nanguan musician, 1913- , born in Taiwan, active in Taipei area); 1990 : Wu Kunren (nanguan musician, 1917- , born in Taiwan, founder of Huasheng Nanyue she, active in Taipei area); 1990: Cheng Shujian (nanguan musician, 1918- , born in southern Fujian and moved to Taiwan after 1945, active in Taipei area);

1991: Lao Hong-gio (nanguan musician, 1907-2000, who was born in southern Fujian and lived in the Philippines); 1992: Hantang yuefu (nan-guan group in Taipei, founded in 1983 by Chen Mei’e ); 1993: Minnan yuefu (nanguan club in Taipei, founded in 1961, mainly consisting of musicians who moved to Taiwan after 1945); 1994: You Qifen (nanguan musician, 1924-1999, born in southern Fujian and moved to Taiwan after 1945).

in the Taipei, where the state government is located.

iii. Among the six nanguan groups awarded, four of them were presented or researched by Hsu Tsang-houei in the late 1970s, as mentioned above.²⁷ Thus we see an example of how scholarly patronage had important influence on the dis-tribution of state resources on nanguan groups.

iv. The other two groups, Huasheng she and Hantang yuefu , were all very young groups, with the former found-ed in 1986 and the latter in 1983. In addition, Huasheng she and its founder Wu Kunren were both award-ed (with the group awardaward-ed in 1988 and Wu himself in 1990). This indicates the rising status of these two new groups (see below).

Since the MOE stipulated that the candidates for the Heritage Award must be nominated by only certain qualified organizations, this award not only created a sense of competition among musicians and groups but also enhanced the reliance of musicians on scholars or other cultural bureaucrats as their mediators and patrons.²⁸ Qiu Kunliang also observed how this award became a mere for-mality (Qiu 1997a:238-41). The Heritage Award was finally terminat-ed after 1994 and was replacterminat-ed by a similar award held by a private foundation.²⁹

27. Again, this refers to Yazheng zhai and Juying she in Lukang, Nansheng she in Tainan, and Minnan yuefu in Taipei.

28. I myself was asked by a nanguan musician to recommend him in this award. Li Xiu’e (1997:61) also reported that it was Hsu Tsang-houei who helped Yazheng zhai get the Heritage Award, but this prompted Juying she (which has been Yazheng zhai’s rivalry) to find ways to get the award as well; in the end both groups were awarded in the same year.

29. This is the Global Chinese Culture and Arts Award

organized by the Republic of China Jaycees Club . This award was originally started in 1993 and was entitled Ten Outstanding Youth Heritage Award . In 1995, it was renamed The Third Outstanding Chinese Culture and Arts Award . In 1996, it was expanded to accept candidates from the Chinese diaspora (including main-land China) and was renamed The Fourth Global Chinese Culture and Arts Award . This award has continued up to the time of this

Even though the Heritage Award was terminated in 1995, it con-tinued to function as an important credit for its recipients to get social recognition as well as governmental patronage. Meanwhile, governmental funding on artists often used this award to determine the grading of artists in terms of their hourly payment and future prospects for gaining governmental funding.³⁰