By Eryk Michael Smith/KHT Staff. Images courtesy of the artist.
KAOHSIUNG — Independent musician and rapper KE Ko-hsiao (KE 柯蕭) has launched the second season of his podcast Ko-hsiao Bar (柯蕭酒吧), focusing on Taiwanese Hokkien as a language for contemporary culture and creative work.
The new season, titled Taiwanese+ (台灣話+), features conversations with guests from baseball, theater, film, hip-hop, underground idol culture, and sports broadcasting.
Ko-hsiao said he wants the project to demonstrate that Taiwanese Hokkien is not limited to traditional settings or TV drama, but can also be used naturally in contemporary art, performance, music, and sports.
Unlike a standard interview show, Ko-hsiao planned the season himself and prepared the interview outlines. The conversations were recorded with what organizers described as a Kaohsiung local atmosphere, including storytelling and chats in a bar-style setting.
Guests include Chen Hung-yi (陳宏宜), host of the baseball and music program Choo Choo Mike (啾啾麥), as well as theater director Soda (蘇達) and actor Chien-tai (建岱) from the PTS Taiwanese-language channel’s actor training program.
The season also includes Golden Melody-nominated rapper Mark, and Doudou (豆豆), also known as Xiaodou (小豆), who collaborated with Ko-hsiao on the song From TAKAO.
I want the program to respect traditional Taiwanese while also allowing the language to move freely through modern life and the arts.
Ko-hsiao
In the show, he uses older or less common Taiwanese words and pronunciations, while also discussing how the language can handle modern ideas.
Examples cited by the production team include comparing older wording, such as sî-kiânn (時行), with newer terms for “mainstream,” using baseball vocabulary for pitchers, and choosing expressions such as “成做” for “become” and “著磨” for suffering or hardship.
Ko-hsiao said the Taiwanese language evolution he hopes to promote respects local differences while also moving forward with the times.
“We need to preserve the beauty of the past, while also creating more new words and living together with many different communities,” he said.
Ko-hsiao said he spent significant time and personal resources developing the second season because he wanted the show to reflect his own style as an artist.
The second season of Ko-hsiao Bar is available on major podcast platforms and YouTube.
