Taiwan’s Hear Here World Music Festival Celebrates The Old & The New
Celebrating the Old and the New and Stimulating All Your Senses at the Hear Here World Music Festival.
Celebrating the Old and the New and Stimulating All Your Senses at the Hear Here World Music Festival.
Taiwan is surrounded by the ocean, has a unique geographic landscape and climate, and brims with rich cultural features. Its southernmost region, the Hengchun Peninsula, juts out into the waters of the Taiwan Strait, the Bashi Strait, and the Pacific, giving it a special climate. It also boasts Kenting National Park, praised in many places around the world as a great place for a vacation.
The peninsula is named for its principal town, Hengchun, where Fulao (Hoklo), Hakka, Paiwan, and Amis people live side by side. As the land is not very fertile, many people in earlier times left in search of better livelihoods, but while away and homesick, they would write songs about their hometown, most of which involve emotional expression and historical events and have been passed down for over a century. Now a cultural asset and source of pride for the locals, they are kept alive through conscious effort, and some who sing these songs have even been named living national treasures by the Taiwanese government.
To keep these songs of the past alive and connect tradition to the world, the Pingtung County Government held the first Hear Here World Music Festival in 2018. Held in the old-town area of Hengchun, it has not only won a Good Design Award from Japan and been inscribed onto the Taiwan Design Best 100 list but also led to connections bringing local performers to Chicago, New York, Japan, and Edinburgh.
With its extremely unique flavor, the event blends world music sets of vocabulary from around the globe. Each year, this highly talked-about series of events attracts people from all over Taiwan and other countries. Near the centuries-old walls of the town, local folk musicians, big jazz bands, and symphonic ensembles perform (there’s also a fashion show!), and on the nearby roads, creativity abounds in all kinds of tasty foods and clever handmade crafts.
During the five-day event, you’ll see kids with yueqin (a traditional string instrument), adults singing folk songs that define different eras, young surfers grooving to the music, locals with their beloved dogs, and tourists enjoying the local cuisine. Amidst a backdrop of all different kinds of beauty, you’ll experience both the traditional and the new.
All of these unique factors have made it the most popular music festival in southern Taiwan. People make sure to leave a few days open each October to come for not only the festival, but also, either a few days before or after, to take some time to visit the beaches of Kenting and enjoy the unbelievably delicious food.
This year’s Hear Here, takes place in mid-October, bringing together rap-infused hip hop and yueqin-seasoned Hengchun folk music on an outdoor stage alongside other programs with the flavor of local culture and a street fair, bringing the seventh edition of an event that attracts an average of 70,000 visitors to Hengchun to a superb climax.
2025 is Hengchun’s 150th anniversary. As a music festival that exhibits the local music culture, Hear Here won’t fail to put on yet another event bursting with creativity. Plan your trip as soon as possible, because you don’t want to miss this town that showcases the new alongside the old while stimulating all your senses.
2025 Hear Here can’t wait to see you!
