The following is an assessment of the impact on Taiwanese dialect (台語,Taigi) by the late, great Taiwanese comedian Chu Ke-liang (豬哥亮), who will be referred to by his Taiwanese name Ti-ko-liōng, written by Taiwanese American engineer Sean Su. A native Mandarin speaker, Su taught himself Taiwanese dialect using the internet so he could communicate with his grandparents.
My memory of Ti-ko-liōng largely consists of his club show ads in between innings when I used to listen to baseball games on the radio as a kid. I did not have the Taigi (Taiwanese dialect) skills to know that khū-lōo-pōo means club, nor the English skills to know what a club is. Even with my improved Taigi later on in life, I could only take in his innuendo-filled comedy a couple minutes at a time. Suffice it to say I am not really a fan of Ti-ko-liōng's comedy.
With Ti-ko-liōng's recent passing, many different commentaries of his life and art surfaced. Plenty like me did not really appreciate his style of comedy, however, when some goes as far as suggesting that Ti-ko-liōng was one of the main factors for Taigi to be considered as crass, I think that's akin to victim blaming.
Chu Ke-liang over the years. (CNA image)
The real culprit for Taigi being considered as a second tier, rude and crass language, was the KMT dictatorship. Throughout the Martial law period, not only was Taigi and other native languages of Taiwan forbidden or discourage in schools and public offices, the KMT dictatorship and its followers actively tried to discredit Taigi, in order to dislodge Taigi as the lingua franca.
They also helped their cause by killing most Taigi speaking elites during the 228 incident and subsequent white terror. That's the backdrop of Ti-ko-liōng's raise to fame. Taigi was already considered as crass and low-class by those in power and that mentality seeped into many Taigi speakers, instilling them with a lack of self-worth and causing them to devalue their native-tongue.
Sure, a lot of Ti-ko-liōng's content was crass. He objectified women, many of his jokes were borderline sexual harassment. However, his style of comedy developed back when even Taigi opera (kua-á-hì) and puppet shows (pòo-tē-hì) were considered crass.
Images of Chu Ke-liang during his heyday. (CNA image)
During those oppressive times, whenever a form of Taigi entertainment became too popular, the KMT will shut it down. That included Taigi movies, once much more popular than any Mandarin movies, and televised puppet shows.
At the same time, average aboriginal and early immigrant Taiwanese were kept from all public jobs, including teaching and public official positions. All the resources were controlled by the KMT, meaning it was also hard for non-Late Immigrants to be entrepreneurs or start businesses.
All the frustrations of the Taigi-speaking public lacked an outlet. Many people could not even disparage the dictatorship in the privacy of their own homes, in fear of their children repeating what they said in schools.
During the white terror era, you say the wrong things, the KMT would be coming for you. So people more or less gave up on their aspirations and indulged themselves with whatever money they come by. That gave crass entertainment an opportunity to take hold.
In an environment simply hostile to Taigi, Ti-ko-liōng's crassness basically kept the transmission of Taigi through entertainment under KMT's radar. In doing so, he kept Taigi and Taigi entertainment alive. His club shows at first targeted at low income workers were essentially the only form of Taigi entertainment allowed.
That remained the case even after Ti-ko-liōng came to fame in the mid 80s. Many Taiwanese born in the the 70s or early 80s would say their interests in learning Taigi were kept alive because of Ti-ko-liōng's shows.
Despite his crassness, Ti-ko-liōng was not oblivious to his influences and the predicament Taigi was in. He had a deep appreciation for the Taigi language and Taigi entertainment.
Ti-ko-liōng would deliberately work in a lot of traditional Taigi art into his shows. That included traditional folk songs, old location names, differences of Taigi between regions, and old Taiwanese customs. Many Taigi singers also only had his club shows as a performance outlet.
The theme song to Ti-ko-liōng kah Ka-khiànn-kun (豬哥亮與嘉慶君) series is a comparison between present and historical Taigi location names.
Ti-ko-liōng performed the song with an extended version of the lyrics during the Golden-Bell awards. Plenty of Ti-ko-liōng's early jokes involve him making innuendos at his young female guests which they would pretend to not understand Taigi until they snap and get back at him with fluent Taigi themselves.
The fun isn't just Ti-ko-liōng verbally taking advantages of young women, it's these young women having none of it and throwing insults back at him. It's riffing on language and culture barriers experienced by average Taiwanese people and usually self-deprecating. Watching him act embarrassed or speechless after an edgy burn by his female co-stars is his charm.
Ông Tshái-huâ (王彩樺) taking advantage of Ti-ko-liōng
When Ti-ko-liōng made his come back after coming out of hiding, his female guests did not have to act like they could not understand Taigi. Thanks to years of the KMT systematically murdering Taigi, most young celebrities flat out don't understand two words of Taigi. So plenty of his shows became Taigi lessons where he would try to teach them to speak the language.
Ti-ko-liōng teaching Taigi
Ti-ko-liōng loved Taigi entertainment so much, he dedicated his efforts to preserving it. He made an album of a selection of classic Taigi songs called "Ti-ko-liōng's Stories of Classic Songs" (豬哥亮故事老歌集), in which he told the history and back stories about the classic songs, bringing them to life. He also lent his voice to a documentary about Taigi songs called 100 years of Taiwan's Songs (台灣歌謠一百年).
It may just be my observation, but there isn't anyone who can do a full hour standup show in Mandarin in Taiwan. It's almost as if that kind of culture does not exist.
In the realm of Taigi or Taigi/Mandarin pidgin, we used to have a bunch of them, Ti-ko-liong, Peng-chia-chia, Hsu Hsiau-Shuen, Wu Zhong-Hsian, etc...
If the younger generation rejects them on a wholesale basis that they are crass, that ability to utilize the Taigi language for comedy fluency dies.
Learning Taigi Resources
The writer of this article, Sean Su, suggests using this National Taichung University of Education website to learn the phonetics of the language. A YouTube channel with free lessons Su recommends is Anyong Teaches Taiwanese.
Once an understanding of the phonetics is achieved, Su then recommends listening to Taigi songs to better understand the grammar and pronunciation. Next, he recommends reading lomaji articles or han-lo (half hanji, half lomaji), as well as watching Taigi dramas and listening to Taigi news.
The next step he suggests is trying to write in Taigi using an Taigi input method editor (IME) such as FHL Taigi-Hakka IME.