"Our Journey to Find Music" - Treasure Island youth record the story of mainland travel with songs

Taipei, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- In 2013, 20-year-old Zeng Bolun and 19-year-old Lin Pinzong came to Beijing from Taiwan through the "Beautiful China Creative Tour" to record a song "Alive" sung by ordinary people living in the city.

Five years later, they found seven of the original ten choruses and invited them to participate in the lyrics of the new song. "Instead of writing a song and then looking for a confidant, we hand over the creative rights, hoping to show what young people in this era have in common and what they want to make." Zeng Bolun said.

Since 2012, Taiwan's Travel to China magazine, which focuses on the life of cultural tourism in the cross-strait and Hong Kong and Macao, has launched the "Beautiful China Creative Tour" activity, advocating that Taiwan participants propose creative travel plans to the mainland, which will be selected by the activity selection committee, and the winners will receive sponsorship support, implement the plan and complete related works.

Zeng Bolun and Lin Pinzong, two music-loving treasure island youths, signed up for an event in 2013 for a recording project in Beijing. They hope that through the participation process of collective music, they will show each person's different interpretations of life, and show the city impression of Beijing while achieving the purpose of communication.

Lin Pinzong said that they initially walked around Beihai Park, Ditan Park and other places, singing the works of Jay Chou, Wang Lihong and Mayday, hoping that someone could participate in the recording, but found that things did not go smoothly. By chance, they were introduced to a coffee shop and given the opportunity to work for a night. At that time, the boss arranged for them to live with the coffee shop staff of "North Drift", and there were six or seven people crowded in a small room.

Based on the "North Drift" clerks of this coffee shop, they found ten young people from the mainland to talk about the original intention of coming to Beijing to work hard and talk about future ideals. The journey was made into a documentary, "The City," which captured the brave expression of ideals by this group of young people.

Five years later, Lin Pinzong has become a professional resident singer and music creator, and Zeng Bolun has also become a video creator and set up a studio. They decided to find these people with the footage they had filmed, to record their recent situation again, and to cut the footage from the past five years into a new film.

Five years ago, chances took them everywhere, and because of the uncertainty, most of the time both of them were anxious about how to make a difficult recording plan.

Five years later, in order to find the people who helped record, they traveled to most of China. The goal was clear, and the pre-arranged itinerary greatly reduced anxiety.

In the past five years, new formats such as the mainland's sharing economy, mobile payment, artificial intelligence, and big data have risen, and the speed of change is so fast that people are caught off guard. "In the face of change, every mainland friend who helps us write songs feels more or less wandering. But from another perspective, we can find the answer together. Zeng Bolun said.

Faced with uneven lyric materials, they thought it would take a lot of time, but they didn't expect that the creative process was completed in one go. In the end, they decided to name the song "Unguided Pilot". Because in their view, everyone's life is ultimately explored by themselves, and no one teaches or guides them.

"You go straight to me, I unfold the historical folding fan, and close the song of loneliness." Here are their favorite lyrics in this song. "When I sang this lyric, my heart was full of emotion." Lin Pinzong said that the two journeys to the mainland made him understand that everyone will embark on their own journey and face their own life experiences.

After returning to Taiwan, every bit of the trip was hidden in the dream and became the nourishment of their creation.

Our Journey to Find Sound, which documents this year's summer journey, won the Travel Talent Category Winners Award in the "Creative Travel to China" magazine in early November. In recent years, under the organization of the magazine, they have held about ten campus events to share their mainland travel stories with Taiwanese students.

"At first, the students were not very serious, but after the film was played, they immediately quieted down and felt like they melted in." Zeng Bolun said that Hua Yuxuan and Liao Hongxu, authors of "Xiamen Riyi", who won this year's Best Event Spirit Award, listened to their sharing before signing up for the competition.

"Travel is like a regulator of life, giving us not only personal growth and appreciation, but also leaving unique nutrients and poetic memories." Zeng Bolun said. (End)