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Listening to the World Locally – The Homecoming Tour of Taiwanese Musicians

Publication date: 20 Aug 2024
Author: Lee Yi-ling, Wang Li-Chiao | Staff member at the Archives of Institute of Taiwan History

Ninety years ago, in August 1934, a group of young Taiwanese musicians embarked on the first Western music concert tour in Taiwan’s history. The Homecoming Concert Tour began with great fanfare during the scorching summer of the South Island, kicking off at the Taipei Medical School Auditorium. With a packed itinerary, the tour traveled southward, stopping at public assembly halls in Hsinchu, Taichung, Changhua, Chiayi, and Tainan, before culminating in a final performance at the Kaohsiung Youth Hall. Despite the demanding schedule, the musicians delivered exquisite piano melodies and harmonies to audiences across Taiwan, sparking widespread acclaim.

This article focuses on Taiwan’s first “Homecoming Concert Tour,” which was rapidly organized in just over a month. The program primarily featured Western musical compositions. During the scorching summer of the South Island, this grand musical feast unfolded with enthusiasm, traveling from north to south with seven performances. It offered audiences across Taiwan an auditory delight, broadened their horizons, and brought Western music closer to the local population. This tour marked the beginning of Taiwan’s musical diversity and led to Taiwan’s music being recognized on the Olympic stage, where Taiwanese music shone brightly on the global scene.

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II. Professionalization of Medical Education

When the Medical School of the Taiwan Government General was first established, it accepted Taiwanese public elementary school graduates. Hence, the level of its curriculum was close to high school. It had more regular subjects and basic medical subject than the medical training institutions in Japan. The regular subjects were: Ethics, Geography, History, Mathematics, Japanese, Physics, Chemistry, and Gymnastics. The basic medical subjects were Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, Pharmacology, and Hygiene. Therefore, medical students could not have enough time to learn professional medical subjects. They could only learn major clinical medicine subjects such as General Medicine, General Surgery, Ophthalmology, and Gynecology.

After 1919, the Medical School of the Taiwan Government General was upgraded to the Medical College of the Taiwan Government General and the Taihoku Medical College of the Taiwan Government General. These colleges also raised the admission requirements to accept only high school graduates. They added professional medical courses on Forensic Medicine, Dermatology, Otolaryngology, and Psychiatry. The courses were more challenging than before and even included subjects like Tropical Medicine address medical issues stemming from the climate in Taiwan.


Figure 7: Miyahara Atsushi, a professor of Taihoku Medical College of the Taiwan Government General, teaching Yaws in a Dermatology class. Several Paiwan children infected with Yaws used as case studies in the class. Miyahara Atsushi visited Paiwan tribes three times to study Yaws. He also published his research results in the Journal of the Formosan Medical Association.  This photo was collected from the 1930 yearbook published by Taihoku Medical College.
Source: Identifier: T0744_0002, Education Records, Taiwan Archival Information System

Figure 8: Professor Tsukahara Yoshio giving an Ophthalmology treatment. Students were apprenticed to him. This photo was collected from the 1929 yearbook published by Taihoku Medical College.
Source: Identifier: T0744_0001,
Education Records, Taiwan Archival Information System


Figure 9: Students carefully observing biological tissues in a class on Histology Practice. This photo was collected from the 1936 yearbook published by Taihoku Medical College.
Source: Identifier: T0744_0003, Education Records, Taiwan Archival Information System

Figure 10: Ye Sheng-ji’s notes taken in a Neuroscience class at the medical school of National Taiwan University in August, 1946.
Source: Identifier: YSJ_03_02_0005, Ye Sheng-ji Papers, Taiwan Archival Information System

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