My Daddy taught me to make a kite. He said, do you know? In our lives we fly like kites. / Fly, fly! The stronger the wind, the higher you fly. Sometimes you fly into fog. / Fly, fly! The stronger the wind, the higher you fly. Sometimes the wind tricks you. / My Daddy took me to fly my kite. He said, one day you'll fly like a kite. / Fly, fly, higher and higher! Everything you see gets smaller and smaller. / Fly, fly, higher and higher! Don't forget the pair of hands holding the string. / Fly, kite! Fly, kite! Fly over my childhood dreams. / Fly, kite! Fly, kite! Fly over my childish dreams.

This song was sung by the children's choir that represented Taiwan at the concert for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. Their young voices brought back vivid childhood memories.

Democratic signature tune

When Cheng Chih-jen began writing songs in Taiwanese in 1992 he had just become a father himself, and was deeply exercised by the question of how to bring up a child in a time when Taiwanese society was riven with contention over Taiwan's national status. He thought back to what his own parents had taught him in the far-off past, and after long rumination he finally wrote one song after another in the language of his mother, to give to his child.

"After becoming a parent at a late age, when I spoke to my child in terms of endearment or wrote him lullabies, what came out was naturally Taiwanese," says Dr. Cheng with a smile.

His appealing melodies attracted the attention of Lin Ti-chuan, a member of the student movement generation who was running for election to Kaohsiung City Council. She begged Cheng to allow her to use his songs for her campaign, and after this they began to be played on underground opposition radio stations. At that time the most requested number on the Voice of Southern Taiwan station in Kaohsiung and the Greenpeace station in Taipei was his "Formosa Song."

Political figures from Taiwan's "native-soil" faction are fond of mentioning how former president Lee Teng-hui was moved to tears when he sang "Formosa Song" with Taiwanese expatriates during his visit to the US in the year 2000. The number also became a nostalgic song of home for expatriate supporters of the faction.

For many years, Cheng Chih-jen has allowed election candidates to use his works as their campaign songs free of charge. But he says that his songs merely express his concern for his native land. However, at election time, if such concern is promoted in this "softer" way, it is actually more effective than overtly political material.

Modern folk songs

Apart from intensive broadcasting of his works by radio stations and election loudspeaker vans, Cheng Chih-jen has occasionally been invited to speak at campaign rallies of candidates he supports. He has also made audio tapes to donate to fundraising auctions. But his songs have never been commercially released by record companies.

To date Cheng Chih-jen has written 60 to 70 songs, mostly in Taiwanese, on such themes as affection for native soil, family, and the natural world. Among them, children's songs about Taiwan's endemic animals, plants and insects are very popular with youngsters, and are widely taught in Taiwanese elementary schools.

Classical singer Chen Shu-chiao, who spent many years studying singing in Italy, says that both the melodies and the lyrics of Cheng Chih-jen's songs are extremely simple; yet their simplicity is part of what makes them so moving. She has taught Cheng's songs to schoolchildren of all ages, and some are overcome with emotion as soon as they learn the words. "Even primary school kids get choked up before they have even opened their mouths to sing. That gives you an idea of how emotionally infectious his songs are," says Chen. When she performs Cheng's songs herself she has to exercise a greater degree of self-control than usual, to find the right emotional balance.

Cheng Chih-jen, who is a physician in his day job, has had no formal musical education. So how did he acquire his songwriting skills?

Cheng, who comes from a long line of doctors, is especially grateful to his parents. "When I was little, you could buy a whole house for NT$5-6000, but a piano cost NT$28,000. But to cultivate our interest in music, Father bought us a piano to play on for fun, even though there were next to no music teachers in the countryside at that time." Cheng says that in this way an interest in music was implanted in his heart at an early age, and when he was older he taught himself to play the guitar and electronic keyboard.

A song a year

He spent his college years at Chung Shan Medical and Dental College in Taichung, where he began to come into contact with Western pop music, and played with a professional band at a US forces' club. At the time he wondered why Taiwanese popular music was not as appealing to the ear as Western music. So he began to study and analyze songs by groups such as the Beatles and the Bee Gees to understand their musical structure and form. Later, he applied his insights to his own creative work.

Cheng Chih-jen is not a prolific songwriter. He describes his own approach to songwriting as "crafting the lyrics word by word." He often takes one or two years to finish a song. But he is proud that when his songs are sung, listeners can understand every word.

"When writing lyrics, most people only pay attention to rhyme and to matching the inflection and structure of the lines to each other. But lines written in this way don't necessarily fit well with a tune." Cheng says that Taiwanese has seven tones, and this affects meter and rhyme. He pays particular attention to rhyme in his songs, but the way he matches the music to the words is a vital element in bringing out the poetry of the lyrics.

As an example, he quotes his song "Street Angel," which commemorates Lai Ho, the father of Taiwanese literature. When spoken in Taiwanese, the words chau-ke-a sian (street angel) have the melody la so la la, but in the song he set them to la mi la la. This makes listeners apt to mistake the meaning, but in the following phrase the words are repeated to mi la mi mi, which dispels the conflict between the musical and spoken melodies.

First flush of love

Cheng Chih-jen's songs sound simple, but they are rich in musical variation. Comparing Cheng's works with those of Hsiao Tai-jan, classical singer Chen Shu-chiao says that Hsiao's lyrics are all Taiwanese poems, and the melodies are in an orthodox Western classical form. When performed in the classical style they are extremely beautiful, but they are a little too difficult to be widely sung by ordinary people. Cheng Chih-jen's phrasing and lyrics are simpler. For example, in "Eagle" he makes much use of syncopation. This makes the tune very lively and easy to learn, yet it is still very challenging to the vocalist if one tries to sing it to a serious professional standard.

In recent years, Cheng has also begun to write songs in Mandarin. They include several poems written by the late legislator Lu Hsiu-yi, that Cheng was invited to set to music. When the songs were premiered at Taipei's Novel Hall on 1 March 2002, everyone in the audience was deeply touched, and Lu's widow, Council for Cultural Affairs chairwoman Tchen Yu-chiou, was moved to tears.

"There shouldn't be language barriers in music," says Cheng Chih-jen. The protest days are over now, and language should not be politicized.

Cheng was invited to perform at a banquet held on 20 May 2001 to mark the first anniversary of President Chen Shui-bian's inauguration, but he preferred instead to attend the anniversary concert of Ilan's Huiteng Middle School, which was held on the same day.

"Perhaps my songs were once constantly sung for political reasons, but I always think back to what motivated me to begin writing songs in Taiwanese in the first place." Cheng says that nowadays he spends most of his spare time going to schools and juvenile detention centers to teach children to sing, because just as in his song "Daddy's Kite," his father taught him "not to forget the pair of hands at the other end of the string."

On the day we interviewed Dr. Cheng, two taxi drivers-a Taiwanese in Kaohsiung and a mainlander in Taipei-on hearing us chatting about him, both asked where they could buy his albums, which they had long been looking for.

Mr. Chen, the Kaohsiung taxi driver, says that whenever he hears a radio station play Cheng's "Where Have the Fireflies Gone?" he is transported back to childhood evenings spent hunting for fireflies, and he feels like a newborn child filled with imagination and goodwill for the world.

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From children's songs (facing page, top) to choral pieces (facing page, bottom), Cheng Chih-jen's works all express a moving emotional tension. (photo by Pu Hua-chih)