A Mix Between East and West Wang ’s Music

1. A Mix Between East and WestWang’s Music 線上英語自學中心 會話小老師Christine Hsieh 製作

2. Starting Questions • Do you listen to (Chinese) pop music? Why? Why not? • Who is your favorite singer in Taiwan? Why? • Can you think of a product that is the mix of the west and the east? (e.g. rice burger)

3. Wang Lee Hom Talkasia (CNN) • Lee Hom, it's so good to see you! Thank you. (WL: It's great to see you again.) Thanks for coming in. Your music, a blending of east west. You also sort of embody this mix. How would you describe your style? • WL: Um, actually I call my style -- and I hope I don't offend any of the viewers -- but I call it "chinked out." • LH: I'm glad you said it and I didn't. • WL: Well, the "chinked out" style is a school of hip hop - that's the way I like to think of it - that incorporates Chinese elements and sounds. Uh, I started it off in my last album called Shangrila. And this album incorporated the music of ethnic minorities, in China, in Tibet, in Mongolia, Shenzhen. There's 50 some odd --some people say 54, 55 different ethnic minorities -- tribal music. It's a -- beautiful and original to Chinese culture. And this new album called Heroes of Earth incorporates Peking Opera and Quen-chu which are thousand year old traditions that are also unique to Chinese culture. Very unique instrumentation, costumes, singing styles. And it invigorates hip hop music. I don't think anyone has ever done this before in hip hop, in the hip hop world…..

4. Chinked-out? • “Chink” is an insult word from an earlier era, when Caucasians in North America often referred to Chinese people as “chinks”, and yes, it was and is a slur word. But now an “ABC” singer from Taiwan — that’s “American-Born Chinese” person, or ABC, sometimes called ABT for American-Born Taiwanese — named Lee Hom Wang (stage name just Lee Hom) is releasing an album called Unparalleled Hero that calls itself “chinked-out” music. • Apparently, Chinked-Out is a new musical style created by Lee Hom himself, which blends Chinese traditional music with Western hip-hop rhythms. • Wonder what the PC police will say about this new term? • Then, I coined the term “chinked-out”. Derived from the historically derogatory racial slur “chink”, used to out-down Chinese people, “chinked-out” repossesses the word, turns its negative connotationsupside-down, and uses them as material to fuel the new sound of this music. The term describes an effort to create a sound that is international, and at the same time, Chinese. — Wang Lee Hom

5. Blending Mix Embody Offend Viewer Chinked-out School Hip pop Derogatory Connotation Fuel Upside-down Incorporate Album Ethic minorities Tribal Instrumentation Costumes Invigorate Caucasians Rhythm Out-down Repossess Coin words Vocabularies

6. About Japundit • JAPUNDIT is a social bookmarking(網路書籤) site that gives you an instant overview of the most popular English language articles about Japan and the other countries of East Asia. Basically, social bookmarking allows members to post links to articles or sites so others can view and evaluate them. In many ways, JAPUNDIT is similar to the popular Digg.com site. • Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata. • In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share.

8. References • CNN http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/06/16/talkasia.wang.script/index.html • Japundit http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/06/16/talkasia.wang.script/index.html • Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_bookmarking