Yen-j (嚴爵) is that rare newcomer to the Mando-pop scene who possesses both good looks and talent in spades.
The singer/songwriter and producer’s debut album Thanks Your Greatness (謝謝你的美好) brilliantly combines jazzy flourishes and catchy pop for ebullient musical musings on romance and other meaningful pursuits. It peaked at No. 2 on G-Music’s Mandarin album chart after its release last month and has been lauded by veteran entertainers Dee Hsu (徐熙娣), better known as Little S (小S), and Wang Lee-hom (王力宏). Two tracks became theme songs for TV soap dramas My Queen (敗犬女王) and P.S. Man (偷心大聖PS男).
“I spent 20 months recording this album,” said Yen-j, whose concert tomorrow night at Riverside Cafe (河岸留言) has already sold out. “I went through a period in which I wrote one song per day and I must have accumulated a hundred songs.”
“My label trusts me enough to allow me to produce my own album the first time out. In order to come up with the best result, I re-recorded all the songs numerous times.”
Yen-j performs two sets at Riverside Cafe tomorrow night in an evening titled Yen-j “I Like … No, I Love Yen-j” Concert (嚴爵“我喜歡…不,我愛嚴爵”演唱會) as a warm-up for his first stadium gig, Yen-j 「Endless Beauty Version」 Concert (嚴爵“無限美好版”演唱會), at National Taiwan University’s Sports Center (台大綜合體育館) on July 18. At Riverside, Yen-j will spend one set performing unplugged versions of songs from his album and the next set paying tribute to his idols, who include Jay Chou (周杰倫), Wang Lee-hom, Khalil Fong (方大同) and Stevie Wonder.
A native of Kaohsiung, Yen-j moved to the US to attend school at the age of 10. He took up piano and trombone early on and started performing in San Francisco’s jazz bars with his high school teachers.
“I did not have the typical high school years because I was busy performing,” Yen-j said in an interview earlier this week. “I was lucky to have that opportunity to perform, though.”
After high school, he moved to Los Angeles to study music at the University of Southern California. Already a prolific songwriter with a demo in hand, he made the unusual decision to withdraw from USC after his first semester and move back to Taiwan.
“I figured I would only steer away from the opportunity of becoming a [career] singer if I stay for four years in college,” Yen-j, now 22, explained. “My father was understanding enough to support my decision.”
It took Yen-j only three months to land a record contract. In January this year, he released the EP Trapped in Taipei (困在台北) and embarked on a 44-gig live-house tour throughout the country to cultivate audiences and get used to performing live alone.
“I was a jazz instrumentalist in the beginning and learned to sing later on,” Yen-j said. “Performing live wasn’t that enjoyable in the beginning because I was just learning the ropes. Gradually,
I learned to enjoy it and interact with the audiences.”
Yen-j continues writing songs every day as a way to relieve stress, even during his current hectic promotional schedule.
“Either the beat, some lyrics or a segment of melody would appear, and I continue to finish the song,” he said.
“I have accumulated a whole bunch of songs for the subsequent albums,”
he laughed. “But the label says they won’t listen to the new songs until I finish the promotion and concert [for] the current album.”
July 1 to July 7 Huang Ching-an (黃慶安) couldn’t help but notice Imelita Masongsong during a company party in the Philippines. With paler skin and more East Asian features, she did not look like the other locals. On top of his job duties, Huang had another mission in the country, given by his mother: to track down his cousin, who was deployed to the Philippines by the Japanese during World War II and never returned. Although it had been more than three decades, the family was still hoping to find him. Perhaps Imelita could provide some clues. Huang never found the cousin;
Once again, we are listening to the government talk about bringing in foreign workers to help local manufacturing. Speaking at an investment summit in Washington DC, the Minister of Economic Affairs, J.W. Kuo (郭智輝), said that the nation must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high end manufacturing by 2040 to offset the falling population. That’s roughly 15 years from now. Using the lower number, Taiwan would have to import over 25,000 foreigners a year for these positions to reach that goal. The government has no idea what this sounds like to outsiders and to foreigners already living here.
Lines on a map once meant little to India’s Tibetan herders of the high Himalayas, expertly guiding their goats through even the harshest winters to pastures on age-old seasonal routes. That stopped in 2020, after troops from nuclear-armed rivals India and China clashed in bitter hand-to-hand combat in the contested high-altitude border lands of Ladakh. Swaths of grazing lands became demilitarized “buffer zones” to keep rival forces apart. For 57-year-old herder Morup Namgyal, like thousands of other semi-nomadic goat and yak herders from the Changpa pastoralist people, it meant traditional lands were closed off. “The Indian army stops us from going there,” Namgyal said,
A tourist plaque outside the Chenghuang Temple (都城隍廟) lists it as one of the “Top 100 Religious Scenes in Taiwan.” It is easy to see why when you step inside the Main Hall to be confronted with what amounts to an imperial stamp of approval — a dragon-framed, golden protection board gifted to the temple by the Guangxu Emperor that reads, “Protected by Guardians.” Some say the plaque was given to the temple after local prayers to the City God (城隍爺) miraculously ended a drought. Another version of events tells of how the emperor’s son was lost at sea and rescued