In the summer of 2006, Lin was awarded a grant by the Council for Hakka Affairs to go to Saitama Prefecture and the Ryukyu Islands in Japan for two months and study local music and cultures. Afterwards, Hirayasu and Ohtake traveled to Meinung, Taiwan, to work on the album Planting Trees. They stayed for nearly a month, experiencing the unique culture of this small Hakka town.
The first exchange:
Sanshin with Takashi Hirayasu
The collaboration between Lin and Hirayasu came about after the 2003 Migration Music Festival, when organizer Chung Shefong specially chose Lin to be Hirayasu's local guide and the two hit it off. "I felt their music had similar textures," Chung says of the pairing.
Lin says that when Hirayasu performs, the thing that grabs audiences the most is his ability to enjoy himself and be completely at ease on stage while keeping a perfect rhythm. Lin, who'd always been reserved on stage, had never seen anything like it.
During his trip to Japan, Lin wrote in his diary: "One night last week, Takashi stayed really late explaining to me how Okinawan rhythms are based on the three (they are in 6/8 time, while most music is in 2/4 or 4/4). Sanshin music is uplifting with a driving beat so when Okinawans hear him play they can't help but dance. Takashi showed me how Okinawans dance. It was like gentle ocean waves, and a smile shone from his beatific face.... Takashi said that any Japanese can learn to play the sanshin but only an Okinawan can play Okinawan percussion because it comes spontaneously from their local culture."
Hirayasu helped Lin improve his sense of rhythm and breathing techniques, and though Hirayasu was the master, when it came to recording he was willing to yield. Lin writes: "I've rarely had teachers. It's only now that I realize the importance of having a good teacher. It's bittersweet to have such a basic realization at age 35."
The second exchange:
Ken Ohtake and "fate"
Ken Ohtake, who is still in his early thirties, is a guitarist who often collaborates with Hirayasu. As Hirayasu travels frequently, Lin and Ohtake usually have to tour in support of Planting Trees without him.
In mid-August, as Typhoon Sepat hit Taiwan, Lin and Ohtake braved the wind and rain in shorts and sandals to practice in leisurely style in the courtyard of an old-fashioned home in Wayaokeng, Tanshui.
Lin highly praises Ohtake's guitar playing. "Ken is my guitar teacher. He's given me a sense of security on stage that I never had before," he says. But Ohtake says Lin is his "life teacher": "Sheng-xiang lives simply and comfortably. I've learned a lot from being around him."
As for Hakka music, Ohtake says that "eight-sound" music (so named as it is made with instruments of metal, stone, silk, bamboo, gourds, clay, leather, and wood) and mountain songs are full of power and are steeped in local culture. In order to get a better feel for life in Meinung, Ohtake looked up works by the Hakka writer Chung Li-ho. "Many of the things he writes about in his books about farm life can still be seen in Meinung," he says.
Unable to express his feelings in English, Ohtake takes out his cell phone and types the Chinese character yuan, meaning the fate that brings people together. He says that he's never collaborated for such a long period with a foreign musician--"It's like getting married. It feels right, so you stay together."
Lin says that his experience working with Hirayasu and Ohtake has been precious to him. He doesn't know where the experience will take him, but to him it is the journey that matters. As he wrote in his last diary entry in Japan, "In two hours, a Japanese, an Okinawan, and a Taiwanese will go their separate ways. Maybe they will take with them a sense of satisfaction. Maybe they have found some respite from life's troubles."
