Hakka Pop Music – An Introduction
2012 Fourth Toronto Hakka Conference 29 June to 1 July 2012 Toronto, Canada Nam Low
Summary: Modern Hakka pop musicstarted about 30 years ago in a location that is still in controversies. Inthis presentation we look at the current status of Hakka pop music mainly inareas likes Taiwan, Mainland China, Malaysia and Indonesia. A very briefhistory of the development of Hakka pop music is discussed. From the current Hakka popmusic competitions and awards we scan through 82 masterpieces by modern Hakkamusicians and hopefully we can have a grasp of where the Hakka pop music standsat this point of time. These 82 songsare freely available from the Internet so that every Hakka has an easy accessto them and these songs are in numerate names for folks who do not master thewritten Chinese too well can still organize their thoughts on them and givepreferences. 40 songs from the 2009 First Hakka Pop Music MV Competition, 30songs from one of the final stages of the 2010-2011 First Meizhou Hakka PopMusic Awards, and 12 from the most recent 2012 Hakka “Tong Hua” Pop Music Competition; these 3 sets of songsare numbered as (01) to (39), 611-615 to 661-665, and 01 to 12 respectively as shownin the Figure 1. Figure 2 and 3 show thestamp-size portraits of most the musicians/singers. The linksfor these 3 sets of 82 Hakka pops are given in Table 1. For high-fidelity listening, these songs canbe ordered from the contacts listed in Table 2. In the final section theHakka pop music from Indonesia, Meinong (美浓, a county insouthern Taiwan), as well as the Hakkapop stars' resemblance of (1 ) Zhang Xue You – Hua D (华D),(2) Teresa Deng – Chen Shuang(陈双), and (3) Little Feng Fei Fei – Fang Lin(方寧)are elaborated.
Methods on furtherdevelopments and interchange programs for the Hakka Pop Music Promotion forHakka around the world of all age groups are discussed. The use of Internet forinterconnections and social networking are emphasized.
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