Nakasi in Longtan
I was admitted into the “Nakasi academy” – figuratively – last Sunday. The sound of a horn drifted across the pond reaching us visitors at the Longtan 龍潭 Temple in Taoyuan. I hurried across the bouncy suspended bridge to the other side of the pond to find a middle-aged, bearded man playing an alto saxophone to a karaoke track coming out a single-speaker PA system.
A musical cowboy, the bearded saxophonist was wearing a white straw cowboy hat decorated with eighth-note figures, treble clef, and other symbols of musical notation, and a pair of matching white-framed glasses. His indigo blue jeans, tugged into his shiny white ankle boots, were similarly adorned with music notational figures. He danced around a stage enclosed by waving flags. These are greeting flags made by the artist himself: “Welcome!”; “Come and dance!”; “Listen with joy; No worries; world peace.” The heavy afternoon shower quickly put a pause to the concert.
I asked to buy the homemade CD-Rs. Another man asked me if I wanted the shakuhachi or the saxophone CD-R. I said, “Both!”
“Here you go. I’m sure your parents would really enjoy these CD’s.” The man happily handed me both CD’s and then explained that he’s the shakuhachi player on the recording. President Wu is the president of the Taiwan Shakuhachi Society and gave me his business card. He was surprised that I knew how to say shakuhachi in Japanese. He asked where I come from. I said that I’m Hakka and was visiting Longtan because this was where my grandparents grew up.
“How old is your father?” The musical cowboy asked.
“Fifty something. Fifty-six or fifty-seven?” I replied.
“Ah, he’s like me. I’m fifty-seven. I’m sure he listens to this music.” He assured me. He said, “You can go on my blog and check out my music and art. I’m an artist by day. I go by Mei-xi Shan-ren.” (梅溪山人, “Meixi Shanren” could roughly be translated as “Plum Creek Mountain Person.” A very artsy name in Chinese.) Meixi Shanren handed me his business card. “I’m here every Sunday because I have a license to perform. I had to apply for one. Not just anyone could play here.”
“Are you half Japanese, half Hakka?” President Wu asked me.
“No, I was born in Taiwan and my father is Hakka.”
“Oh, I thought you were half Japanese because you know how to say shakuhachi.”
“I see. That’s because I study music.”
“Where do you study music?”
“I study ethnomusicology in the U.S.”
“You’re still a student!”
President Wu showed us an enormous straw hat that covers his face, neck, and upper shoulder. He explained that his wife made it using instructions found on the Internet. After posing for photos, he handed me the straw hat for me to try on. The rain subsided. The shakuhachi man exclaimed, “Let’s do a special performance just for you!” He donned a Japanese-style hand-dyed dark blue robe. The musical cowboy put on a red robe that he brought back from Tokyo.
I followed President Wu to his set-up. His PA system is a CD playback karaoke machine. He quickly skipped over “Guitar of the Hot Springs Village” (溫泉鄉的吉他). I started humming it. Excitedly, I identified the song, “What a great tune. I love that song! My band plays that song too!” He seemed surprised by my comment.
The karaoke machine began playing back the instrumental introduction of a song. He picked up his shakuhachi and marched, in character, to the area between the trees next to the pond. He held his shakuhachi stately with his elbows squared and open. He played along doubling the melodic line of the accompaniment track. During the interludes, he danced. The samurai extended his right arm while pointing with his index finger and thumb, at the same time, exhaled thunderously, “Ha!” We captured every moment of this special performance with our various recording devices.
After his performance, President Wu said to me and my camera-wielding friends, “You should record this performance and then put it on Youtube-i. We have to depend on you younger generation.”
Against the lake as a dropback, Meixi Shanren took centerstage wearing his Japanese-made red robe. He took off his white cowboy hat now wearing only a rope around his forehead. His friend President Wu tried to put his cowboy hat for him and then exclaimed, “I think it (he) looks better without the hat.” Meixi Xanren played a tune with extended verses and choruses. He danced to the rhythm of the instrumental track, bending his knees, drawing half circles with his toes, and turning his body spontaneously. A woman who seemed to be his partner recorded the performance as video on her handheld camera.
Unfortunately we had to leave this party to join my father who was waiting inside his parked car. I felt like the party with President Wu and Meixi Shanren had only begun. They invited me to bring my guitar and play with them next Sunday. President Wu asked, “do you play mu-gi-ta (“wood guitar” or acoustic guitar) or dian-gi-ta (“electric guitar”)?”
I said, “dian-gi-ta.”
“Oh oh, that sounds loud! Come play with us,” President Wu said.
“But make sure you only come play on Sunday when I’m here because you need a license,” the musical cowboy echoed.
“Sure thing. I will do my best.”
Notes
