Lead Writer_Huang Changcheng Intern Reporter_Li Jiali Reporting in Guangzhou
Photography_ Lu Huiming
Hudev, 65, sat in a back chair and chatted with a reporter about his hometown in Tainan. His voice was slightly hoarse, but deep enough. The sentences that flowed out of his mouth were not only clearly expressed, but also exuded prose-like beauty. We listened to it for a long time, as if on a CD player and listening to his Chinese new album "Fragrant Valley" - this is Hoodoff's second Chinese album, produced by Star Alien Records, the full album of ten songs, is the epitome of his 65-year-old life.
It's time for the interview appointment with us. The old man, who often appears as a "child" in music, got up from his chair and greeted us and shook hands. Although it was the first time they met, they got along like old acquaintances. He has bronzed skin, even his eyebrows are white, he wears a black short-sleeved shirt on his upper body, and a silk gray scarf around his neck, the most eye-catching thing is that he pinned a large bowl of lilac silk flowers on his chest.
"In my hometown, this is planted on the fence of my own home, and wearing a flower represents being close to people and not alienating."
On the new album, Hood includes the already widely sung Olive Tree. The reason why he made such a decision is, on the one hand, to commemorate the arrangement of this song and his close friend Lee Tae-hsiang, and on the other hand, this song also tells his own life of wandering away from home for more than 50 years.
Back in 1962, more than 50 years ago, 12-year-old Taitung Jialan tribe teenager Hu Defu, wearing a new khaki uniform shorts, dark neck hanging from the leather shoes that had not yet been worn, clutching a wooden suitcase and tending to follow the blind big brother, from Taitung to the south to connect kaohsiung, and then catch the north overnight express to reach Tamsui.
"You have to study well." The eldest brother said this when he waved goodbye. The teenager was undefended, and since then he has been sinking and floating with the waves of the times, far away from his hometown for fifty years.
Hu Defu still doesn't know what the olive tree looks like, but the betel nut tree is really the nostalgia of his and Li Taixiang's two Taitung disciples. "'Olive Tree' is just about a person's wandering, Sanmao wrote, what we miss is the betel nut tree, the betel nut in the hometown tribe seems to be the pacesetter, the aroma of flowers, filling the whole tribe."
Returning home became one of the most critical theme words for the 65-year-old Hudev. Today, hudelfu, the youngest child in the family, has become the oldest man in the family, like the head of a family, and the younger generation of the family will inform him about matters big and small.
Earlier, he and his wife returned to Taitung to open a noodle restaurant, and the business was booming, which was considered to have taken root in their hometown. A few months ago, with throbbing thoughts of his dead mother, surging praises of the earth, lamentations about nostalgia, and choking and sighing at the age of sixty-five, he completed the self-playing and self-singing One Take recording and launched his new album "Fragrant Valley".
On the eve of his mother's death in 2000, Mr. Hood wrote "The Fragrant Valley" for his mother's funeral, and chanted the first, second and last paragraphs of "The Fragrant Valley" when sending off his mother.
This song in praise of motherhood and hometown has always haunted Hudev's mind. It was not until February 2014 that the National Concert Hall in Taipei performed for the first time in its entirety, "Seed Songs – Songs: Hudelph Concert". However, Hudev's strong longing for his mother is still overflowing. Until the recording of the album, the lyrics were constantly revised and interludes were written.
In the autumn of Taipei Tianmu, Hu Defu sat alone in the dark recording studio, closing his eyes and singing "Fragrant Valley" over and over again, and the studio's keen amplifier also heard the sound of the piano that was abruptly stopped by choking. The one take version that is finally included today also faithfully retains the throbbing and sentimentality of the scene:
"If you follow the Taimali Creek and go up to the seven-kilometer outlet, you will see the Ka-aluwan tribe in the arms of Mount Dawu. That's my hometown: Garland. Lying in the fragrant valley full of mountain peach blossoms and flying butterflies. ”
Every time I sing, my song evolves
Nandu Weekly: Your new album is out, compared with the previous first Chinese album "Hurry", what is the biggest difference?
Hudev: In the past, when Singing "Hurry", it was more urgent. At that time, I didn't think about publishing, I ran to the school where I used to sing to record, although it was indoors, but there were a lot of cicadas there in the summer, and I couldn't sing until the cicadas didn't crow, and sometimes the recording was more hasty, really more "hurried".
I tried to adjust my breathing, and the speed of the chant was a little more relaxed, and I put more thoughts and feelings in my heart into the song. You can hear that I have slowed down, and the song mentions eagles in the air, mountains and rivers, and children walking on the earth.
Nandu Weekly: Is the song "Children of the Earth Trance" on the new album in the language of the aborigines?
Hudelfu: That's my own mother tongue, the tribal language of the Beinan people I haven't lived in. It was after a calm review and practice, and ten minutes of writing about the process of growing up in his native language was an epic poem.
On the one hand, this song is a test of my own acceptance of my native language, and on the other hand, it also tells young people that when there are so many symbols and phonetic transcriptions that can be applied now, you don't have to wait for the tribal language teacher to teach you, you can know your own ethnic language.
It's not about getting a pass for the exam, it's about asking yourself from this place how deep you know about your native language. You can't be over there lamenting that your native language is disappearing and doing nothing, you can use your own vocabulary to make songs and praise yourself.
Nandu Weekly: You just said that you didn't grow up in the place where you were born, so how did you learn your native language?
Hu Defu: I studied at Tamkang Middle School with a Beinan senior. Not only did I learn the Beinan language, but I also learned the language of the Ami people well, and I can speak on stage in the words of the Ami people. There are many ways to learn languages, and since you can recite speeches or write for exams in front of others in English, you must be able to speak your own words and write your own words, and you must have this confidence.
Nandu Weekly: People who like you are asking, why have you only released two Chinese albums so far, will there be more in the future?
Hudev: My song is formed differently from others, not with blank staves written on it. The lyrics are formed by the words of my heart that are constantly spoken, the score is formed in the mind, pops out with my hands, and is constantly practicing, and every time I sing, my song is evolving.
Nandu Weekly: That is to say, your song is different from the form of the last one?
Hudev: It's different, and it may be different in the future. If a song is fixed and says that this is my song and is sung to everyone now, this way of composing is not very scientific, but much like the song, it starts with the aria. In the past, our ancestors also began to sing like this, there would be no score, and they would not sing to the piano from a certain tone, no, it is to chant in your heart.
From the youngest child to the oldest
Nandu Weekly: There are a lot of child images in your songs, and this album also has the song "Children of the Earth Trance". Is this kid you?
Hoodev: "Children of the Earth Trance" is not only about me, but also about all the natives who left their hometowns for their lives and for their children to go to the city in the sad days. In the state of a deconstructed tribe, everyone lives from construction site to construction site, seaport to seaport, mine to mine, and like the children of the gods of the earth, they drift outside to live.
Many young people are groping in the city, not just me, but the songs I wrote. I was the earliest group, 11 years old to leave my parents, my family has great hopes for me, sent to a far place to study, but also suffered from such loneliness and loss, often in life to reflect two sides of life, gain and loss, high and low, drifting in the torrent.
But in fact, what makes me strong is this thing, the life of the wind and waves, you will see it more clearly than others. I also want to use words to record a book "Fifty Years of Loneliness", writing how I use my own vision, from the children on the mountain to see the society of the flat earth, how people are gathered, how fraternal, how separated, how there are gaps, where everyone thinks of different places, how much alienation can be talked about, what you can describe.
Nandu Weekly: Fifty years ago, you went from where you grew up to bustling Taipei, and you were a departure gesture. At this time, this album is not the meaning of returning home?
Hudelfu: Everyone hopes to return to their hometown not when their bodies are cold, but when they are still alive, to relive the old dreams of their hometown. Most people want to go back, but I have to go back. My family withered away relatively early, my cousins, big brothers, and uncles were gone, and I was originally the youngest child in the family, and now I am the oldest man in our big family.
Everyone told me they needed an elder at home, and they didn't think it was my turn now. Thinking about the process of our own being accompanied by the elders before, now I am needed in this way, this responsibility on my body, I feel honored, we must face it and accompany them.
Nandu Weekly: What role do you assume in the family now?
Hudev: The younger generation will let me know anything big or small. Although none of my children have children yet, my brothers and sisters' grandchildren have been born, and I am already a great-grandfather. The last person in the family to accompany us was a little uncle, and when he left, it fell on me.
This is an important task, and the indigenous people will not forget such rules. In addition to culture and language, family reunion is a very important way, so that you can know the traditional culture of your family and the relationship between your own tribe, and the culture of the entire tribe can be passed down, and you will know that we have grown up like this. That's why we still have some traditional stuff. We occasionally have a parent-in-law who has no text, but my mom can sing the family tree very clearly in spoken language, and now we can write it systematically.
Nandu Weekly: Your noodle shop in Taitung is now very famous, why did you open such a noodle shop in the first place?
Hu Defu: We returned to Taitung from Taipei, and we didn't prepare anything, we just wanted to go back. You know hard-working singers like us, with heavy family burdens, are unlikely to have much savings. This is also a worry of friends, they told us what to do with the ancestral ancient food (ancient early taste, a word used by the Minnan people to describe the taste of the old), my wife went to learn for a long time. In this way, after returning to Taitung, there is at least one place where you can cook and eat by yourself, which is a foothold, and everyone can also come to share the food.
Nandu Weekly: Will it be because it was opened by Teacher Hu that everyone especially likes to go?
Hudev: There is more word of mouth, and the noodles themselves are good. Our soup is boiled for a long time, without any seasoning, and the price is not much different from the outside, but the guests know that we boil very seriously, and people who like it will come often.
We had a piano there and would go up and sing one or two to them if I was there, but we didn't have a schedule.
The power of the song comes from someone who minds
Nandu Weekly: As we just talked about, returning home would have been a pleasant thing, but I heard more sad feelings in your new album than in "Hurry".
Hudev: Because of this album, I preset it in a fragrant valley, which is the end of my 52-year wandering career. On the eve of my mother's death in 2000, I was already a singer, but I found that none of the songs were written for my mother. I want to describe completely how a small child grows up under the hem of his mother's skirt: how my mother took my little hand to know our home, our mountains and rivers, our traditional legends, our vocabulary. She didn't just feed me and take care of my warmth and cold, she gave me the richest part of my life.
I will lead my mother when she is still alive, remembering the reluctance when she left, the whole thing is written in a song, you will feel my grief, there will be. But it always has to pass, back home. Mom lay forever in the valley, full of peach blossoms and flying butterflies, although I was describing the scene of ten years ago, but it was also the most beautiful part of my heart.
Nandu Weekly: Your album title is "Fragrant Valley", can it be understood that fragrance is the taste of the valley and the taste of mother.
Hudelfu: The land is the mother, and the mother is the fragrance of the land.
Nandu Weekly: Your songs, whether they are arias or sadness, are very powerful, where does this power come from?
Hudelph: I've always thought that songs have to have power, and that power comes from people minding, paying attention to this thing, having opinions, and these are all manifestations of power.
If the song is just mediocre, talking about something specious, not what you see and feel is real, it is nothing more than a moan without illness. Singing itself is power. When you choose to sing on the right song, or when you create a singing path, it will become like your faith, and you will believe that it is right, just like the power of the painter in his pen and heart. I believe it, because these songs all have some meaning. Later, if you think it is really a song, everyone will surrender to it.
Nandu Weekly: When you were young, you might have been a rebel, someone fighting for more rights for a certain group. Now people may use more pure singers or a nostalgic person to describe you. What do you think of this change?
Hoodev: I still believe what my mother said, saying that I was a person who had been entrusted with a dream. At that time, when we couldn't develop as a tribe, my mother said that.
Nandu Weekly: How old were you back then?
Hudelph: When I was in junior high school. Whenever I came home from outside and was in a little bit of a wrong state of mind, or when the appearance of the problem child was about to come out, she would warn me that you were not simply going out to study, you were entrusted with a dream. Later, I found out that this dream had something to do with the song, and I was noticed because of the song, because someone followed me, whether it was staring at me or following me, anyway, people would mind. Now the song returns me to the position of singer, and the song allows me to tell everyone that the friendship between people, the earth and people can be common, and nature and people can shine together. My mother only said that I was entrusted with a dream, not that I had to use singing to achieve it, but I knew that I had no better dream than this.
Nandu Weekly: Has anyone said you are a heroic person?
HHDORF: No (laughs). My beard is a nonsense, virtue is a virtue without morality, and husband is a coward's husband. How can there be heroic temperament?