Taipei: He has won five Golden Melody Awards, the equivalent of the Grammys in the Mandarin pop world, and earned songwriting credits on albums released by Andy Lau, Vivian Hsu, and many other superstars. But 56-year-old singer-songwriter Hsieh Ming-yu says his days of writing love songs are well behind him, as he has discovered that his true passion lies in writing about the land he lives in and the changes that are taking place around him.

According to Focus Taiwan, that focus has motivated Hsieh to tackle an unusual theme in popular music: the character of the Taiwanese people as seen through Taiwan’s pro-democracy movement pioneers. His moving tributes to those pioneers run through three of four successive tracks on his latest Hokkien album “phien-lSm”, “Skewing South”), which he calls the “scars” section of the album that has secured five Golden Melody Award nominations.

The track “i-hiong-lSng”, “Alien”), for example, tries to decode the inner conflict of Peter Huang during his 26 years in exile after
a failed attempt to assassinate then Vice Premier Chiang Ching-kuo. The song depicts Huang in his solitude, pining for the “island” on his mind, separated by vast ocean, while lamenting the future he envisioned is languishing in exile with him. He also begs for the forgiveness of his parents.

The piece’s arrangement involves a piano, a bandoneon, and a string section that are sparsely played, imparting a stripped-down feel that allows the music to communicate directly with the listener. It’s a quality present on the three songs in “Skewing South’s” “scars” section, with each track featuring an extended instrumental break that further accentuates the moods.

In another of those songs — “guá si siáng”, “Who Am I”) — Hsieh sings about 228 victim Tang Te-chang’s lifelong struggle for identity, which he sees as a parallel to Taiwan’s bid for international recognition. Born during Taiwan’s Japanese colonial period, Tang found himself at the center of the 228 Incident, a brutal crackdown on anti-government protes
ts. Before his execution, Tang reportedly shouted in Hokkien and Japanese, expressing his troubled identity.

Hsieh believes Tang’s last act of defiance might have been to keep his last bit of dignity. “To have a name, to become a person” should be the most basic form of dignity that every human being should have, not something one should have to fight for, Hsieh said. He also found parallels between Tang’s fate dictated by two regimes and Taiwan’s situation today.

Hsieh suggested that things might be changing for the better. “Due to some chaos and conflicts in recent years, more and more people know that Taiwan is a country,” Hsieh said. “We must be very patient and seize our opportunity … just like Peter Huang seized his when he delivered the most important line: ‘Let me stand up like a Taiwanese.'”

As Hsieh said: “After I finished writing this album, I felt truly grateful to these individuals who fought for the dignity of all the people on this island.”