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Related Pieces
Piece Description
An audio postcard with sound on location in Taipei, Taiwan recounting the search for the White Temple. A personal essay with a sound-rich score of field recordings from Taiwan in two minutes.
Transcript
DMAE: A hot, muggy day in February, just outside of Taipei, Taiwan, climbing up the rock steps to the white temple. I hear about a hundred voices singing far away: Ami Tofa.
SOUND: WOMAN CHANT
A woman at a temple in the middle of downtown Taipei sang this song to me:
WOMAN: NAMU AMI TOFA, NAMU AMI TOFA
DMAE: She kept singing it over and over. I was wondering if she was trying to teach it to me. At the time, I didn't know it was a chant. And I didn't know what "Ami Tofa" meant. Then the woman told me about another temple, high in the clouds, where she said people sing and chant every night. I hop on a bus with Chinese map in hand, and keep pointing to the location the lady marked on the map. The Taiwanese like Americans, and whether you ask for it or not, people always help you in Taiwan. In my broken Chinese I ask for directions and point to the map. When words fail,...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
Program Title: Temple in Taiwan
Program Length: 2:00
In: A hot, muggy day...
Out: ... There are a hundred people singing.
Additional Files
- (description) (3temple.jpeg)
- (description) (3temple.jpeg)
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Michael Joly
Posted on October 07, 2003 at 01:25 PM | Permalink
Review of Temple in Taiwan
Wonderfully big and sound-rich stereo ambience contrasted with intimate voice-over. Beautifully present sense of place free from cause & effect storytelling linearity.