SUNDAY PROFILE:
By God and Taiwan
Joyce Chiou's massive new opera, 'The Black Bearded Bible Man,' depicts the life of George MacKay, a 19th-century Canadian missionary to TaiwanBy God and Taiwan
By Bradley Winterton
CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Sunday, Nov 09, 2008, Page 14
To view the original Taipei Times article, go here.
A note on typography first. Titles of novels, operas, films are commonly set in italics. However in newspapers and other daily media publications quotes are used instead, as around The Black Bearded Bible Man.
Note, titles are usually italicized; however, when the entire text is in italics (as here), titles are then offset by Roman (regular, non-italic) type instead (as when I typed The Black Bearded Bible Man above).
Also note that "black-bearded" would formerly have received a hyphen to separate the two adjectives "black" and "bearded," but this style seems to have changed recently. (We used to write, for example, "African-American," but now write "African American" instead.)
The writer begins with a direct quote. He thought the quote significant enough because it had drama: the composer almost rejected the project now being staged in Taipei. Note how he includes important information in parentheses (Joyce Chiou's Chinese name, the full name of the orchestra). "Stylish" is a general and vague word, but it fits; it's all we need, because the focus is one a person, not her place. If the place were not stylish but "shabby," that would have been enough too. But actually this is arbitrary; another writer might have done something with the word "stylish" or "shabby," if they chose, and broken that word down into more specifics. But it would have been a different kind of essay, focusing on how "stylish" or "shabby" the person herself was.
Note how simply the writer situates the interview "in Taipei" by simply using "Taipei" as an adjective for "premises" (working quarters). A student would have used a lot of words and lost coherence too: "The composer works in Taipei." Note coherence: the writer mentions that Chiou is also the orchestra's "Executive Director," following mention of her "stylish office" at NSO's "Taipei's premises." Finally notice how the writer breaks up direct dialogue with description.
This is a primary goal of the profile writer: to be sure the profile doesn't read like a transcript of an interview, but reads like a profile. This means the writer must balance direct quotes with narrative and description. Sometimes this is done simply by breaking up the direct quotes with attribution, as below ("said Joyce Chiou in her stylish. . . ."). The second paragraph develops an antithesis (she resisted writing about George MacKay BUT. . . .).
"When the composer first asked me to write the libretto for an opera he had in mind about George MacKay, I declined. I think he thought of me because I'd combined music and theater as double majors for my degree in the US, as well as because of my experience with opera here in Taipei. But I sensed he also wanted a Christian to do the job, and I knew I didn't fit that requirement," said Joyce Chiou in her stylish office at the National Symphony Orchestra's (NSO, 黑鬚馬偕) Taipei premises. Together with her other work she's the orchestra's Executive Director.
"Later, though, I had second thoughts, largely as a result of discovering MacKay's support of the education for women here in Taiwan. I'd assumed beforehand that everything he did was really a part of his wider program as a missionary — basically that he wanted people to be educated in order to make them Christians. But once I got to know more about him I saw he was a more complex figure, and I so changed my mind."
Now the writer breaks up direct quotes with narration: Chiou puts on a CD. Then he uses apposition to "define" The Black Bearded Bible Man as "the massive opera. . . ." etc. A relative clause mentions the world premiere of the opera in Taipei. Notice how well the writer controls his long sentence, including a long appositive and a relative clause. Then he continues with another direct quote:
Chiou puts on a CD of some early work on The Black Bearded Bible Man, the massive opera about the 19th-century Canadian missionary to Taiwan, George MacKay, that will be given its world premiere in Taipei with the NSO on Nov. 27.
Notice the writer's coherence, moving from narration of putting the CD on to dialogue describing the singing. The dialogue is rather banal, and the adverb "excitedly" is not interesting, but somehow it works to capture who Chiou is and how she talks. Nothing in writing is good or bad, so long as the reader feels there's a PURPOSE behind the choices made in the writing. Macbeth's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" would be poor writing if writing a memo to one's boss "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow you appointment schedule is all full") but is superb writing when having a murderer (Macbeth) speak about how empty his life has become! As for the quote, the writer SELECTS a quote that names the singer (Thomas Meglioranza) who will perform; so that's important information:
"That's an American, singing in Taiwanese!" she said excitedly. "Isn't that amazing? It's Thomas Meglioranza from New York. OK, his wife's Taiwanese, but he'd never attempted to learn the language until he got this part.
The writer chooses to use a long quote without breaking it up. How much of a proportion of direct quotes to descriptive writing is relative. In a "strong" writer, direct quotes will be fewer than descriptive or narrative writing; the emphasis will be on the writer rather than the profile subject, or the interest will be equally shared. But in a less strong writer, the focus will be on the profile subject (person) and the writer will try to disappear behind the subject, as here. The coherence in the final part of this paragraph is superficial: the speaker moves from her own knowledge of Taiwanese to MacKay's writing of a Taiwanese-English dictionary; but the writer leaves it in, apparently thinking this bit of information about MacKay is important for the reader and writing about the opera:
"The opera's almost all sung in Taiwanese, with only 10 percent in English, such as when MacKay first arrives on the island and doesn't yet know the language. Actually, this was also part of the problem for me in accepting the commission. I'd spoken Taiwanese as a child here in Taiwan, but I wasn't too confident about writing in it, especially with rhymes. Did you know MacKay himself wrote a Taiwanese-English dictionary, using the Roman alphabet for Taiwanese?"
Here the writer forces the speaker to focus on the opera instead of MacKay by interjecting a comment about the opera's music, using the CD as a coherence device. Note how the writer sets up an antithesis, taken up by Chiou. The writer then economically includes the name of the composer, controlling his long sentence very well ("referring to the opera's composer. . . ."), again using parentheses to include the composer's Chinese name as well:
I said that judging from the CD, the music was going to be lyrical rather than abstruse.
"I think Gordon wanted it to be more contemporary, but then when he saw my words he realized it was going to have to be more accessible," Chiou replied, referring to the opera's composer Gordon Shi-wen Chin (金希文).
Here the writer uses background information to insure coherence from one idea to another: Chiou's background includes popular books, so that explains why her opera libretto is also popular:
As well as producing and helping direct operas, Chiou has written a guide to Broadway musicals, and another called Behind the Mask: Phantom of the Opera, so I guessed in advance that her approach would probably be fairly lyrical and popular.
Notice by the way that the profile writer never directly quotes himself, because he or she is not the focus of the profile! Never quote yourself as writer; only indirectly quote yourself. Note also that coherence is not that difficult to insure, because one need mainly use indirect quotes to change the subject ("I asked whether. . . ."), though care must be taken that the change in focus not that too abrupt. Note how "conflicts" leads coherently to the direct quote by Chiou:
I asked whether, if MacKay wasn't going to be presented only as a missionary, he was going to be shown as a man with conflicts.
"Oh yes," she says. "I actually had a church service in the first draft, but it didn't seem very dramatic so I cut it. Instead, I concentrated on the theatrical values of conflict and tension. The opera opens with his death, and all the rest is flashback, until you come to his death again at the end, and then in essence we repeat the first scene."
I don't like the following paragraph; it's telling, not showing. The writer here is too intrusive and he loses focus on the profile subject (Chiou), bringing focus to himself (and his views) instead. The reader's focus should be exclusively on Chiou:
This is a powerful technique, showing something that the audience doesn't understand the first time round but which, by the time it repeats itself, is understood by everyone; this bodes well for the opera.
Coherence could be improved in the next paragraph, which seems forced following the paragraph before ("Among the other important characters. . . ."), especially since there's no mention of the word "character" before (the focus was on MacKay the man, not the "character"). But the writer again makes good use of parentheses and modifiers ("Korean tenor") to give the reader important information. He also economically tells the reader important information (how long the opera is, who conducts the orchestra, etc.). These are questions the reader wants answered, especially if the reader plans to see the show:
Among the other important characters are MacKay's Taiwanese wife (sung by Chen Mei-chin, 陳美津) and two of his male followers, sung by the Korean tenor Choi Seung-jin and Taiwan's Liau Chong-boon (廖聰文). The opera, over three hours long and with two intervals, will be directed by Germany's Lukas Hemleb and conducted by Chien Wen-pin (簡文彬).
Coherence to the next paragraph could have been stronger; instead the writer jumps from the show to whether there are photos of MacKay. Then there's no coherence in Chiou's quoted dialogue. The fact that she speaks like this does not justify the lack of editorial selection on the part of the writer. The writer should have imposed coherence on the direct quote, posssibly by editing the quote accordingly. Note how the second sentence ("MacKay had always wanted. . . .") has no relationship with the first. Then in the paragraph after this there's no coherence either: "There's a lot of choral writing in the score." The writer is not shaping the material but allowing the material to take over; so this begins to read like it has less focus than it should. The second paragraph below, in fact, has no coherence at all, and seems to jump from one idea to the next without control. Chiou refers to "choral writing in the score." Then how Taiwanese acted "in groups." Then The fact that Gordon Chin has "written a lot of choral music. . . . " Finally, where she found inspiration (from Greek tragedy and Les Miserables). Of course the speaker can't be faulted; but the writer should have exercised more control over the material:
"There's no extant film of MacKay, but I believe the production will use a lot of film nonetheless, made up from the many black-and-white still photos of him that do survive. MacKay had always wanted to come to the Far East, but he wandered around a lot — Fujian Province, Guandong, southern Taiwan — before settling in Tamshui. He said it was the sight of Guanyin Mountain (觀音山) that convinced him it was the right place," Chiou said.
"There's a lot of choral writing in the score. I had the sense that, with some important exceptions, the Taiwanese tended to act in groups rather than as individuals in those days, and as Gordon Chin has also written a lot of choral music in the past, there's a lot in this opera. I took my inspiration for how to use people singing in groups from ancient Greek tragedy and from Les Miserables."
The following paragraph seems completely out of place. This seems to be realized by the writer himself, who quickly returns to his main focus in the paragraph after: "But The Black Bearded Bible Man. . . ." Background information is valuable and interesting; but it should have been included at the beginning, not here. The quote about Chiou's research, in the third paragraph below, also seems out of place, as does the reference to MacKay's death at 58:
Chiou started to work in her present position with the NSO in June, 2006. She had worked for the National Chiang Kai-shek Cultural Center in various roles before that, and had gained extensive experience in university administration during a long stay in Vancouver from 1997 to 2004.
But The Black Bearded Bible Man seemed a more interesting topic than administration, so we returned to that.
"I did a lot of my research about MacKay at Oxford College in Tamshui," Chiou said. "They have a small library devoted to him. He died in Tamshui in 1901, aged 58."
Note how the writer fills in details, by narration and indirect quotes, that otherwise would take too long in direct quotes, at one point indirectly quoting Chiou, but, for the most part, just filling in the details himself. Then in the paragraph after this he nicely (coherently) links a direct quote from Chiou herself:
He'd been there 29 years, apart from a brief period in Hong Kong. His last six years in Taiwan were during the Japanese occupation, but Chiou said she hadn't included this as the opera was long enough as it was. But anti-foreigner sentiment during the Sino-French war of 1884 to 1885 formed a potent element in the plot, she added.
"Essentially I present MacKay as a man who wanted to improve the lot of the Taiwanese people in any way he could. The villagers were afraid of him at first so he began learning Taiwanese from the children. He practiced dentistry and founded hospitals. All in all, the more I read about him the more I came to admire him," Chiou said.
The writer doesn't seem to know how to end his profile, so he ends it rather weakly, referring to possible attendance at the performances of Chiou's opera. He could have had a stronger ending. Surprisingly, the writer ends on a negative note and tone ("How many affluent modern Taiwanese will be interested").
As I left, I found myself wondering how many affluent modern Taiwanese will be interested in seeing a stage show about their under-privileged past. But it was too late to ask Chiou her opinion on the matter. She'd obviously be optimistic anyway, I decided. The attendances at the four performances at the end of the month will settle the question one way or the other.
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