Director-General Hsu Yi-chun (徐宜君) of the Ministry of Culture’s Bureau of Audiovisual and Music Industry Development said that Chiu Chen, who passed away this March, made a great contribution to Taiwan’s music culture as he spent his whole life creating music to tell stories about his homeland.
Born a Hakka in 1949 in Taichung’s Dongshi Township (now Dognshi District), Chiu Chen, whose real name is Chiu Hsien-jung (邱憲榮), created many popular campus folk songs when he was in college. He was the leader of a rock band called “Chiu Chiu (丘丘合唱團)” in 1981. In addition to the hit song “It’s Tonight (就在今夜),” Chiu’s representative works include “Little Jasmine (小茉莉),” “The Wind Tells Me Something (風告訴我),” and “Why I’ve a Dream of Him (為何夢見他).”
As his music career reached its zenith in the 1980s when Taiwan was still under martial law, Chiu quit writing censored songs that he regarded as soulless. He started to create his music for social movements, including self-producing an album called “Tefuye (特富野)” to offer his support for the rights of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples; writing songs for the Hakka Restoration Movement in 1988 and for pro-democracy activist Cheng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), who immolated himself in support of freedom of speech in 1989.
Chiu moved back to his hometown after the Sept. 21, 1999 Earthquake which severely devastated the Hakka settlement, putting in considerable effort to rebuild the place where he was born. During that time, Chiu wrote the song “Sunset on Long’an Bridge (日落龍安橋)” in his mother tongue—the Dapu-accented Hakka—for his beloved hometown.