The Ministry of the Interior yesterday looked back at songs banned during the Martial Law period ahead of Freedom of Speech Day on Sunday next week.
In a post on Facebook, the ministry listed song names and the reasons they were banned, with its entry for Passionate Desert (熱情的沙漠) drawing the most attention from social media users, being banned for containing the lyric “ah” (啊).
Censors said the modal particle was “too coarse,” the post said.
Screen grab from the Ministry of the Interior’s Facebook page
“The ‘ah’ is my favorite part,” one commenter wrote.
“This reasoning is too hilarious,” another wrote.
Another song that censors banned was Teresa Teng’s (鄧麗君) When Will You Come Again? (何日君再來). Censors banned the song due to the use of the polite form of “you” in the title — “chun” (君) — which is a homophone for “military” (軍).
“It was definitely intended to express patient longing for the arrival of the communists’ Eighth Route Army,” the ministry wrote of the censors’ decision.
A song titled Accidental Trio was banned because its original Chinese title, Today I Will Not Return Home (今天不回家), was taken by censors to imply that the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) would not take China back from the communists.
A Hoklo — commonly known as Taiwanese — song entitled Mother, Please Take Care of Yourself (媽媽請妳也保重) was banned because censors thought soldiers would think of their mothers and would therefore become demoralized, the post said.
“How can you still be a momma’s boy at that age?” the ministry wrote.
Another Hoklo song titled Four Seasons of Red was banned because it was believed it “might allude to the Chinese Red Army,” the post said.
Hoklo song Roast Meat Zongzi (燒肉粽) came to the attention of censors as they believed it was critical of the government, accusing it of corruption and leaving the common people in poverty, the post said, while a folk song titled Black Dog on the Hilltop (山頂的黑狗兄) was banned as it was thought to promote frivolity at a time when “the nation was being rebuilt, and the army was struggling for the people.”
All forms of expression, including music, were repressed during the Martial Law era, the ministry said, adding that today’s freedoms show how far the nation has come.
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