the other night, the public television station here showed tsai ming-liang's the river. no english subtitles of course, but since there isn't that much dialogue, and i've seen it before it, it wasn't too much of a problem. i only caught the last part of the film, but the odd thing i noticed was that when the film was over, all the credits were in english. there were no chinese characters at all. peter said that was because it was made for foreigners, not for taiwanese to see. he's fond of saying that taiwanese art house films are made for westerner's or just for money because if they win an award overseas the government here will pay them some sort of cash reward as well. i disagree of course. i don't think it's a given that anyone can win awards overseas at film festivals and the such. and to bank on such money would be rather foolish.

taiwanese films tend to be a bit more personal and less commercial. and so the audience here would for the most part reject them just because of that. taiwanese tend to like things that are commercial or succesful in other countries. it's almost like they need the validation of someone else saying its good for them to admit they like it. i've been told by some of my students that some people have this condition where they think anything foreign or western is better than what they can produce themselves. i think this can be extended to local cinema as well.

when peter and i went to pick up that record we'd bought for george, the man told us that most of the people who'd bought things were from outside of taiwan, that taiwanese aren't interested in those old things. he asked why we'd picked it up, or why we like these old singers, and peter said that they're more interesting, that the new singers all sound like western or japanese bands but not nearly as good.

there's a weird attitude that some people here have about music. a taiwanese friend of mine told me that in the west it is common to trade live recordings of various bands among the fans. but here in taiwan, if there is a live recording someone did of a show in taiwan, they might trade that show with people in the west, but they wouldn't trade it with other taiwanese here. i'm not exactly sure why. does it make it more special if you have something your neighbors don't have? there is a singer that was popular about 20 years ago that peter really likes. her music hasn't been re-issued, nor has it been bootlegged. but you'll see people selling her cd for 100 or 200 u.s. dollars. i think if this was the same case in the west, someone would of bootlegged it or you'd be able to find it for download on some ftp or p2p network. but here no such thing. i don't really understand this attitude, i like to be exposed to new music, and i like to share new music with my friends. when i discover some new band, often the first thing i want to do is share it with other people. not horde it to myself so others can't hear it.