The Journey of the Maiden’s Prayer

Around four or five times a day, Taiwan hears one of two tunes: While one is the instantly, universally recognized Fur Elise by Beethoven, the other is much less familiar. Both are blasted monophonically in loud, abrasive, ice-cream truck tones through makeshift megaphone-based PA systems, attached to garbage trucks. I asked Nina, my Taiwanese cousin-in-law, if she knew what the other song was. The melody remains calm and reassuring in spite of the odd method by which it is played – one note at a time, out of a megaphone. She replied, “I don’t know? ‘Trash Song?’” It turns out the melody has a much more poetic name, “Maiden’s Prayer.”

No doubt, Beethoven was a character far-removed from the everyday lives of the 21st Century Taiwanese. But it is safe to say that the composer of “Maiden’s Prayer” would be even more surprised to hear his tune being played so loudly, so frequently, so far away from home. Indeed, though the title has that needlessly abstract, visual quality that is characteristic of translations, it is originally English. The Prayer is an American folk and Western swing standard, recognized by few other than fiddle and mandolin players in the rural U.S. The man who made the song famous, Bob Wills, supposedly wrote lyrics to a fiddle melody he picked up in Roy, New Mexico. Now it exists as part of every day life throughout Taiwan.

As I have done in the past, as recently as three weeks ago in my post on the outward movement of Western culture, I could read this as neo-colonialism, American soft power, as Westernization. I could also read it as part of the death of music in modern times; a carefully-crafted, human piece of art reduced to the announcement of a garbage receptacle. However, I find myself sick of intellectuals and their negativity. It seems that whenever cultural critics analyze some social process or another, underneath the surface (where everything appears harmless and at ease), we reveal a horrifying reality of dehumanization, alienation, superficiality, ignorance, and hollowness.

In the case of Maiden’s Prayer, I would fund such a reading arrogant. Again: we ma call it Westernization; but using famous, culturally or spiritually important Eastern songs to warn people about oncoming trash trucks would be both irreverent, and would not allow the tune to be adequately distinct. We may say it destroys the purity of the tune’s original, beautiful aesthetic: but can we expect the Taiwanese to pour extra money into the trash-truck sound systems?

Maiden’s Prayer has managed to accomplish something that virtually no other art has: It has become directly linked to a tangible, physical necessity. It has become part of the soundscape of an entire country (read: province), just as much as scooter engines, typhoon winds, and Chinese chatter.

To say otherwise is to ignore the reality of this piece of music. It is to discuss something else, a musical concept rather than the use of the music itself. It is to suggest that theoretical, non-playing music is more important than that which we hear several times a day. It is to unfairly treat trash collectors and government officials as music aficionados.

Here are two versions of one piece of music, “Maiden’s Prayer.” They are played on opposite ends of the world, for different reasons. But it’s still “Maiden’s Prayer.”

Taiwan:

US:

PS: As proof for my claim of what type of Americans are familiar with this tune, just read the YouTube comments for the US version:

FACT: Hicks drags hairs on guts smooth as greasy ice.

I’m going to use my fiddle as fire wood after hearing that.

Amen to that! He’s dead on, and clean as a whistle!

Tear jerkin at its best.

Umbrella -ella

Rihanna in Taipei during Typhoon Morakot

There is something about me that used to be inconsequential but is now a serious problem: Every time I see an umbrella the Rihanna song comes into my head. Also whenever it ‘pours rain’  I get the line at the end of the song where she goes “oooh yeah it’s pourin’ raiiiin” in my head, which then leads me into singing the rest of it.

So why has this escalated from a funny oddity to an all-out personal issue? Let me just say that Rihanna fans would do well to avoid typhoons. Morakot didn’t hit Northerners (read: Taipei) nearly as badly as the south, but the conditions were bad enough to leave me thankful that Rihanna didn’t write any lyrics about strong winds into ‘Umbrella.’

We in Taiwan have passed the typhoon off to the Chinese, and I’m busy listening to ‘Umbrella’ on repeat to try to remove it from my head, which generally works for me. If you don’t believe me, here are my last.fm stats:

Also, of course, you can listen to the track right here. Damn it’s good:

Rihanna feat. Jay-Z / Good Girl Gone Bad / #1 – Umbrella (2007)

Why We Like the MRT

There are a lot of things we could say about Taipei’s mass rapid transit system, the MRT (um… this stands for Mass Rapid Transit). I’ve noticed some key differences between it and the other public transit systems I’m familiar with, most notably New York’s MTA, Chicago’s CTA, and Quito, Ecuador’s CrazyPrivatelyOwnedBusGuyShoutingAtYouFromAcrossTheStreetTA. We can drop Quito from the discussion because it’s so chaotic and incomprehensible that it doesn’t really offer any benefits that the others don’t, except that you can get off an on whenever you want, that is, if you’re willing to take the risk of jumping off before the bus actually comes to a stop (one time I had to do a roll to break my fall).

Like I said, there are quite a few differences between the different systems. The MRT charges based on how far you travel, for one. Thus, you have to scan going in and out, which prevents people from being able to sleep there for long hours. If you don’t scan out for a few hours, you get a hefty fine. Other things, too, like the fact that you can’t consume any food or drink (including water) while on the train, or that cell phones work underground because of some relay station things they have installed.

This image isn't mine, but it's great. Please see below for artist info.

All of these listed above are controversial, and don’t necessarily make any one system better than the other. However, there is one aspect of the MRT that is so obviously a good idea that it’s almost shocking other systems don’t have it: the “Waiting area for female passengers at night.” Just when you read that, you thought, wow, what a good idea. The area has a little emergency call button, and a security camera (the Taiwanese government is a fan of security cameras as a method of crime prevention).

This would no doubt be an extremely cheap, easily-implemented policy for other public transit systems to adopt, so why is it such a novel idea? We can imagine that such a policy has even been suggested to the MTA or CTA, and ultimately rejected, but on what grounds? Perhaps that it assumes a danger of violent crime that the city doesn’t want to admit? Or, the feminist answer, that the decision to reject the policy was made by men who deemed it unnecessary, not understanding the danger, or the feeling of being a woman, at night, in a dank subway stop. Or maybe statistics were cited that showed violent crime against women was no higher in the subway than anywhere else in the city.

Let me do the social philosopher thing for now and completely ignore statistics: Regardless of how many rapes there are in CTA/MTA stops compared to throughout the rest of the city, there is a feeling in both of these cities, particularly among women, that taking public transit, alone, at 3am, should be avoided if possible. Public transit aims at being accessible. It aims to be affordable for anyone living in the city, it aims to get people from anywhere they are to wherever they need to go. Subway stops are equipped with elevators for disabled passengers. But here we have something prohibiting women from riding at night – physical violence – with a simple solution, that has not been taken up.

Everybody knows, deep in their egalitarian hearts, that big cities are less safe for women than men. Physical safety is the one thing that pretty much all political theorists think the government should play a role in maintaining. The recognition of this, in short, is one of the reasons why I like the MRT.

Flickr / Creative Commons Info for Tarrega.Chang:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tarrega/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Cool Shit: No longer just in the USA

Have I just always lived in bumfuck, MI, or is Taipei really that interesting? I’m at Cafe 26 in Ximen, the “Japanese” area of the city. I’ve never been to Japan, but from its stereotypes, I can recognize the influence.

During the Japanese occupation, Ximen was the center of imperial Taiwan. 150 years later and Japanese pop-art, fashion, and design are still obvious here. This influence, despite its being made on conditions of military rule, reminds me of something I’m going to call American cultural arrogance. Visiting my brother in Manhattan, the purported world center of everything cool and original, I wandered for 3 days looking for a place like Cafe 26, to no real avail. Every “cafe” was a high-end restaurant.

The walls of Cafe 26 are filled with original artwork, there are splendid pale whitewashed schooldesks for seating, juxtaposed with Murakami-esque superflat patterned couches. There are kleenex boxes covered in original fabric from the housewares art gallery/shop below. The music is in English, but to order I have to point to #2 on the English menu the barista pulls out from underneath the counter. There are little design magazines inside the schooldesks with that matte-paper feel characteristic of good arty magazines. And my iced coffee is at least as good as anything I’ve had in the US.

America is great, and so is New York City. But an hour in Ximen and I’ve seen more creativity than months in Manhattan. It may be that, to my fresh eyes, everything that seems original to me is redundant and predictable to locals. But it seems more likely that the US takes its place as world-cultural-generator for granted.

The real disaster of American ignorance in this respect is that we refuse to be influenced or inspired by external innovation, particularly in the arts. How many US indie-rock musicians listen to stuff made outside North America? In my experience studying philosophy at Michigan State University, a relatively open-minded department, I was exposed to maybe one or two non-Western thinkers, even in courses on contemporary issues. Globalization, even by the definitions of radical American leftists, is understood as the outward explosion of Western values.

I have hope for the US, but it seems that unless Americans begin to comprehend the value of a two-way global culture, the country might lose relevance to creative, original people altogether.

Cafe 26 gives me a little white ceramic plate with my coffee. It has a deep, espresso brown “2,” cookie, a pale green “6,” and a cold chocolate dot: “26.” It’s a color scheme out of a (good) web designer’s portfolio. American culture does spread outward, but all of these other countries are sharing with each other, exchanging ideas, coming up with new stuff. Things are happening here, whether people on the other side of the world recognize it, or care.

edit: somebody’s cell phone just blew up with Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.”