[78-L] record industry in Taiwan

[Ying-fen Wang]

Many thanks for asking and for sharing your experiences. It's amazing to
know you were in Taiwan in the 1960s.

Here's a brief outline of Formosan record industry before 1945:

1910: Nipponophone opened a branch in Taiwan.
1914: The first records of Taiwan music were made, with recordings done in
Japan. Sale was bad and they stopped making more.
Mid-1920s: Taiwan music records were again made and started to grow.
1930-1937: The boom of Taiwan record industry but it waned down after the
Sino-Japanese war broke off in 1937.

The largest two companies were Nipponophone (later changed its label to
Columbia) and Victor. But there are also many other smaller Japanese and
Taiwanese companies.

Most recordings were done in Japan. Pressing was also done in Japan.

Now, all the motherdiscs (?) of the Columbia records issued in Japan's
colonies (Taiwan, Korea, Manchuria, Shanghai) are now stored at National
Museum of Ethnology in Osaka. A research team has been working on them and
has produced several catalogues. The team has also held three conferences.
The first two were held in 2006 and 2007 in Osaka (they are the ones that
Hopkins referred to in his message). The third one was hosted by my
institute in Taiwan last Dec.

Beside National Museum of Ethnology, Chinese University of Hong Kong has a
large collection of 78s issued in China. They are also digitizing them.

Now 78s collecting is having a boom in Taiwan, as Taiwanese people are
eagerly trying to discover their colonial past, something they have not been
allowed to do until recent years.

BTW, I myself has just published a CD set which contains recordings made in
1943 by a team of Japanese musicologists in wartime Taiwan. Most of them are
aboriginal music. But there are also six tracks of Han Chinese music, which
are preserved at the National Sound Archive and have never been published
before.

I also wrote a book on these recordings and why and how the team carried out
the survey under the wartime condition.

The CD-set, entitled Sounds from Wartime Taiwan, has a three-language liners
notes (English, Japanese, and Chinese). The book, entitled Listening to the
colony, is in Chinese though and is already out of print.

Sorry for the long post and the self-advertising.

Best, Yingfen





On 2009/5/12 10:29 PM, "Bob Rice" <bobrice at snet.net> wrote:

>   Interesting Post, as I spent some time in Taiwan, 40 plus YEARS ago.
> Friends DID have a wind up player, I don't THINK it was a Victrola, but
> MAYBE victrolas were common in Taiwan? Or Japanese equilivents. as Taiwan
> was part of the Japanese Empire, starting in 1895?
> 
>     So, was thinking? WAS there a record industry in Taiwan , YEARS ago?
> Locally made 78's? I'm glad to see Yin Feng doing R and D into the
> subject.I'm sure there were alot of Japanese offerings back then, but a
> Formosa, as it was called back then, industry, would be of interest?MUST
> have enough Taiwanese tunes to support a record  industry?
> 
>     Seeya
> 
>     Bob
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "I. Cubillo" <i.cubillo at telefonica.net>
> To: ".78L" <78-l at 78online.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:37 AM
> Subject: Re: [78-L] cleaning and digitizing 78s
> 
> 
> What I recommend to you is to search through Google. There are myriads of
> websites devoted to these subjects. Try to attach to official websites, like
> the ones sustained by national archives, The Library Of Congress (US), The
> BBC, British Sound Research Institute (into the British Library) and the
> like. You'll find lots of information about the matter.
> 
> You'd better try first websites devoted to recordings, like IASA
> (International Association for Sound Archives), IARSC (International
> Association for Recorded Sound Collections) and the like.
> 
> Sure you'll have lots of documents on the subject to study thoroughly!
> 
> Iñigo Cubillo
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ying-fen Wang" <nanguanl at ntu.edu.tw>
> To: <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 2:31 AM
> Subject: [78-L] cleaning and digitizing 78s
> 
> 
>> Dear list,
>> 
>> As a new subscriber to the list, I am writing to seek your advice on
>> cleaning and digitizing 78s.
>> 
>> I am a faculty member at National Taiwan University. We just purchased
> about
>> 550 78s of Taiwan music and some records recorded in Amoy.
>> 
>> We are now looking for ways to clean and digitize these records. The goal
> is
>> to set up a digital archive of these records (and hopefully with more to
>> come).
>> 
>> I wonder if there has been discussion on this on this list. I tried to
>> search for this on the list's archive. But there are too many of them, and
> I
>> don't have time to go through each of them.
>> 
>> Any help and advice would be most appreciated.
>> 
>> One thing I would add is that the condition of the records collected in
>> Taiwan are usually rather bad.
>> 
>> Best regards,
>> 
>> Ying-fen Wang
>> 
>> --
>> 
>> 
>> 
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