Was talking to Kevin and Yvonne, two friends from Taiwan, about Singapore singers when I asked them about 望春风. I first came across the song in an entry on Colin Goh’s blog, somehow I had totally missed it when I was watching Singapore Dreaming. I asked my friends if it can actually be thought of as the unofficial national anthem of Taiwan, something like what Waltzing Matilda is to the Australians, and Yvonne said that people in Singapore must have a very strange perception of Taiwan.

However, the lyrics is indeed very nuanced. 独夜无伴守灯下，冷风对面吹. The loneliness of nightfall gives the song a somber beginning. More than a hint of resignation is perceptible in 十七八岁未出嫁, but the jadedness quickly gives way to something more playful, reminding us that the song is really about a young lady and her pining for a lover. 何时君来采，青春花当开, she asks. Touches like 心内弹琵琶 makes her innocence and guilelessness endearing. She is enamored, besotted and nervous about romance, she can’t hide her bashfulness nor her being smitten by 果然标致面肉白，咱家人子弟. Ultimately, she is angsted that her sweetheart doesn’t come. The song ends off with 听见外面有人来，开门该看觅/ 月娘笑阮憨大呆，被风骗不知, an allusion to 隔墙花影动，疑是玉人来 from the classical Chinese romance 西厢记.

The song came about in the early 1930s, even before the Kuomintang’s exodus from the Chinese mainland; Taiwan, or Formosa, was then under Japanese colonial rule. Till today, 望春风 is widely acknowledged as the emblematic product of the regeneration that was going on in the Taiwanese music scene. Her music was composed by 李临秋 and her lyrics written by 邓雨贤 at a time where film and broadcasting was taking off in Taiwan; and whereas the music scene used to be a motley mix of tribal hill-songs, folk music, instrumentals and operas of southern Chinese genres, with 望春风came a form that is distinctly Taiwanese and pop.

An MP3 of the song can be downloaded from Colin Goh and Woo Yenyen’s blog.
Here is a link to David Tao’s rendition of the song.