Mando-pop singer Roger Yang (楊培安) belongs to a special breed of pub-trained crooners who are highly revered on the TV talent show circuit but who have yet to demonstrate the ability to fill venues. Dubbed the “high-register prince” (高音王子) by the media, Yang is known for his powerhouse delivery of inspirational, octave-jumping anthems such as I Believe (我相信) and See the Whole World (看見全世界), chosen as theme songs for a Taiwan Beer advertising campaign and the 2009 Kaohsiung World Games, respectively.
On Wednesday, Yang will test his commercial appeal by holding his first large-scale solo concert — Roger Yang: 2010 Back to the Ego (楊培安【2010 Back to the Ego:回歸自我】演唱會) at Legacy Taipei.
Yang will be putting his story to music — his 12-year struggle on the pub circuit before landing a record contract and the release of his debut album at the age of 35.
“I want to present my story,” Yang, now 39, said in an interview. “I’ve always believed that, besides hitting the right notes, music has to tell a story for it to linger in audiences’ hearts.”
Yang won the best vocalist award at the Yamaha National Pop Music Contest at the age of 19. At the age of 23, he started performing as a pub singer in Kaohsiung. “Those years in the pubs were formative because I was immersed in a lot of music,” he said. “In southern Taiwan’s pubs, we often had to continue singing when fights broke out in the audience or sometimes even when people pulled out guns. It was scary at the time, but fun thinking back on it.”
Acclaimed for his Mariah Carey-esque multi-octave delivery, Yang considers himself blessed. “I was lucky because after puberty, I didn’t lose my higher registers but instead broadened my range by gaining some lower registers.”
“When my friend Chen Kuo-hwa (陳國華) contacted me to tell me that his label wanted to sign me, I was initially hesitant,” Yang recalled. “I told them I don’t have the looks or the networking skills. All I have is this voice. It turned out that they wanted this voice, so I became a record newbie at the age of 35.”
Yang released his debut album 2AM After Midnight (午夜兩點半的我) in 2006 and has gone on to release two more studio albums. His live album 10,000 Thanks ... Live & More garnered him a nomination for best male Mandarin singer at the 2008 Golden Melody Awards, the same year he served as a judge on the hit TV talent show One Million Star (超級星光大道).
Yang became friends with Ricky Hsiao (蕭煌奇) while performing in Kaohsiung’s pubs. The two later joined forces to stage the best-selling joint tour Ricky Hsiao & Roger Yang 2008 Tour (蕭煌奇 & 楊培安 2008巡迴演唱會). “As soon as I heard Ricky’s voice, I was bowled over by his passion,” Yang said.
“Even though Ricky is blind, he doesn’t let anything get in his way,” said Yang. “His optimistic and warm personality has affected my outlook a lot. We chat on MSN every day.”
“For my future albums, I would love to try recording with a live band because that’s the most real and direct experience,” said Yang. “Even though there will always be some minor flaws, that will only make it more human.”
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