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SUMMARY. Similarities and Differences of the Cultural Contents in the Music Textbooks of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Hong Kong music textbooks focus on Western cultures but Taiwan is likely to focus on Chinese cultures.
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SUMMARY Similarities and Differences of the Cultural Contents in the Music Textbooks of Hong Kong and Taiwan
Hong Kong music textbooks focus on Western cultures but Taiwan is likely to focus on Chinese cultures. Both places like to select songs, repertoires of music appreciation and introduced musicians from Western cultures (mainly from Germany and Austria, so called ‘classical music’). Moreover, Hong Kong music textbooks would like to choose different regional Chinese music, but Taiwanese music textbooks only focus to select Taiwanese local music.
Few Hong Kong textbooks choose to introduce her localHong Kong composers whereas Taiwanese music textbooks are proud of their Chinese cultures as well as local cultures; they introduce a large amount of their local contemporary musicians.
Both places do not like to mention Other cultures. They only select few songs and repertoires of music appreciation as well as introduce few musicians from Other cultures. The only main country introduced from Other cultures is Russia.
Most of the songs in music textbooks of Hong Kong are English and over half of them have also Chinese lyrics. Both English and Chinese lyrics one considered equally important. In Taiwanese books, over 95% of songs are written with Chinese lyrics, only a small number are written in English.
Taiwanese textbooks have their local folk songs in which are sung not only in Mandarin, but also in their local dialects, namely Minnen and Hakka. By contrast, there has not any Hong Kong local folk songs to be sung in music lessons. Instead, their only has a small number of listening repertoire of Hong Kong local folk songs.
Textbooks from both places like to include instrumental listening repertoires instead of vocal listening repertoires in music appreciation. The genres of works are varied from solo and small ensemble to large choral and symphonic works. The listening repertoires in all four sets of textbooks from Western cultures are normally selected from the most famous classical musicians, for example, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart. However, all of four sets of textbook have seldom mentioned contemporary Western musicians.
Textbooks from Taiwan also introduce listening repertoires characteristics of the local culture, for example, little opera (歌仔戲), little mixed opera (雜唸仔調) and Taiwanese local folk songs sung in Minnen or Hakka local dialects. By contrast, textbooks from Hong Kong rarely introduce Hong Kong local cultures in listening repertoires. Also, textbooks from both places little mention the instrumental works from contemporary local musicians. Huang Zi (黃自)is the only Chinese composer whose works are highly regarded by all four sets of textbooks.
There are a lot of common songs and common repertoires of music appreciation between the textbook set A and set B in Hong Kong. Also, there are a lot of common songs between the textbook set C and set D in Taiwan. This phenomenon indicates that each place has its own cultural characteristics as specific songs and repertoires are similar in the same place.
The musicians introduced by those four sets of textbooks mainly come from the Romantic period and the Contemporary period. Taiwanese textbooks have a great emphasis in introducing her local contemporary Taiwanese composers. In contrary, Hong Kong textbooks seldom mention Hong Kong local musicians. On the other side, textbooks from both places are well introduced the classical great and famous musicians, for example, Bach, Beethoven and Mozart.
But, besides Russian composers, for example, Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky in Other cultures are mentioned by those four sets of textbooks, they have not introduced any other musician from Other cultures.
Also, it is interesting that only Huang Zi (黃自)is commonly introduced by those four sets of textbooks in Chinese cultures .Although Huang Zi was born in mainland China and moved to Taiwan later, his works (both songs and repertoires of music appreciation) are appreciated by both places.
Conclusion It is discovered that Western music dominate the contents of Hong Kong textbooks; in contrast, Chinese culture, especially Taiwan local culture, seems to dominate the music in Taiwanese textbooks. This can mainly be explained by influences of the colonial history of Hong Kong and national education system in Taiwan.
Moreover, there are a lot of songs composed by local contemporary Taiwan musicians in the Taiwanese textbooks. In some ways, lyrics in these songs reflect the recent social-cultures of Taiwan. But, musically, many of these musicians learned their knowledge from the Western world and composed the songs in Western techniques and styles. It is therefore questionable whether these Taiwanese contemporary songs truly reflect the emphasis on the promotion of local Taiwanese culture as stated in the syllabus .
The frequencies and percentages of lyrics in English are much higher in Hong Kong than Taiwan. The above phenomenon seems to give Hong Kong a more international image. But, actually, the importance of English as a main factor in becoming an international status is suspected by Johnson (1997). Johnson cited the words of Smith (1985) that the use of English is not so pervasive around the world and it does not demand as high as people normally thinks.
Through a comparison with Taiwan, it can be seen that although Hong Kong has ceased to be a colony, she still has the characteristics of a colony, especially in terms of cultural content as Leung (1996) suggested. first, Western cultures dominates the content; extremely rare mention is made to local Hong Kong/Chinese music, especially the rural music by Punti, Hakka and Tenka villagers; second, the relatively few mention of Chinese cultures may result in ‘bu Zhong bu Xi’ (neither Chinese nor Western); third, the extent of Western-European cultures included in textbooks much exceeds that of the Chinese ones; fourth, the large extent of recognition of various countries may be a way to reduce bias to a small number of countries, e.g. China and Britain, but it is also a cause of low political aspirations in pupils.
This phenomenon seems that there is an augmentation of British influence or a continued outdated British model of education in Hong Kong. Now, there is an urgent need for a revised curriculum which can increase pupils’ awareness of and pride in Chinese cultural heritage as well as enables them to recognize and accept different cultures. This curriculum is not only good for pupils to prepare themselves as citizens of the Special Administrative Region of Hong Kong, but would also allow the Guidelines on Civic Education regarding the need to respect and appreciate different cultures and peoples to be fulfilled.
National education system is used in Taiwan. Taiwanese Government believed that textbooks can, first, play a central role in the reproduction of ideology in education; second, act as a tool for political and other forms of indoctrination; third, act as a tool for screening and selecting students for further educational opportunities in the fiercely competitive ‘entrance examinations’ and fourth, to be some kind of authority, based largely on Confucianist thinking and one is not encouraged to challenge the validity of what is said in text .
Therefore, the Taiwanese government would like to put this ideology in Taiwanese culture through texts or lyrics in music textbooks. But after being expelled from the United Nations in 1971 and challenged at home by activists protesting against the policy of mainlandisation in the 1970s, the Taiwan state began to adopt the policy of Taiwanisation to promote the idea of Taiwan as homeland of, for and by the Taiwanese people. The Taiwan state also redefined the national identity of her people with emphasis mainly on the territory of Taiwan . Moreover, there is a reinforcement of promotion of recognition of Taiwanese local culture in recent syllabus, MOE (1994). Therefore, the national image is more clearly shown in Taiwanese education.
As Morris said, one of the ways to check textbooks is trying to measure a text’s cultural biases . Music has appeared as an important symbol of people and culture through the ages (Campbell 1991:3). Through examining of music textbooks, this can help educators a better understanding the characteristics present of the cultures of the society. Moreover, the perspective educators who gain comparatively may assist them in adopting some of the ideas used in another country to their own circumstances (Lepherd 1985:47).
The cross-cultural comparison indicate that textbooks produced by different societies do carry different messages (especially about different natureandextent of cultures) and hence reflecting the traditions and states of the culture. With these findings of the research, teachers, administrators, publishers, researchers, decision markers, parents and others in Hong Kong and Taiwan will be able to critically examine the cultural contents combined in the music textbooks.
They have the answers to what have been presented. As a result, they will be able to ask further: Why are these nature and extent of cultural contents included? How are they chosen? By whom? Why them? How do the cultural contents in music textbooks relate to their lives and their societies.
Most of the curriculum work has focused on written or textbook curriculum. There is a need to examine taught and learned curricula, since they represent what really goes on in the classroom (Wang 1993:206).
This research discovered certain phenomenon of cultural contents in music textbooks of Hong Kong and Taiwan, laying a ground for investigation into the relationship between these different types of curriculum in cultural teaching and learning, and the implication of such a relationship.
Recommendations include more textbooks most commonly used. Especially, there is a need to choose more Hong Kong music textbooks which follow the coming revised music curriculum and to choose more Taiwanese music textbooks which follow the revised music curriculum in 1994 (MOE 1994) Then the representation of the recent music curriculum and music textbooks can be broader.
The research in the future can be extended to other educational levels such as elementary level and upper secondary level. It would be able to show a more complete picture of a culture’s plan in moulding and shaping its young generation in a continuous aspect (Wang 1993:207).
Another area that warrants further research is the comparison of what the textbookspreach, what the teachersteach, and what the students hence actually learned.
Also, it cannot be assumed that the contents is actually taught or that what is taught is actually learned. It is because the teachers and students in Hong Kong or Taiwan are living in two different societies.
Although these two societies have some similar backgrounds, they are actually influenced by many distinct cultural factors. Research needs to be done in Hong Kong and Taiwan on how teachers and studentsinterpret, accept or reject the cultural values embodied in the contents of the textbooks, theeffect of such process and its implication for curriculum and instruction.
Lastly, it is suggested that the research can be extended to compare Mainland China, Taiwan with Hong Kong. This is because Hong Kong and Taiwan are parts of Mainland China and also they have similar cultural backgrounds. It is therefore worthwhile to compare these three places to allow better understanding the view of the cultures in Chinese societies.
