My thesis defense was scheduled for Thursday, June 25th, the last major step in the process of completing my MFA degree from Chung Yuan University, where I’ve been studying for the last two years.

Weirdly, the university’s graduation ceremonies, with all the robes, tassels, handshakes and whatnot, were held on the 6th. Chenbl and I took a train out to Zhongli early that morning, splurging on a taxi to campus rather than taking the usual bus or Youbike. I changed into a snazzy blue suit in the department research room, which has become like a little dormitory for our department’s students as it’s where we all keep stuff in our lockers, hang out between classes, work on compositions or other homework, chat and discuss projects, eat bentos bought from nearby alley food stalls, and sometimes even sleep. Although the room isn’t actually in our department building, it has a nice balcony that overlooks the campus greens (the balcony doors are locked shut, alas).

We arrived early because I was being inducted into the Phi Tau Phi Honor Society for graduating at the top of my class. I’d collected some other phi’s in college back in the day but I forget exactly what phi’s they were…Beta something or Sigma? Phi Tau Phi is a Taiwanese honor society, though it was founded in China in the 1920s. As with the other Phi’s, I hadn’t heard about it before I was invited, and to be honest I’m not exactly sure what they do, get together and play greek letter word games over drinks at literary bars? No idea. Anyway, I walked across the stage in the campus cathedral performance space and was given another little key/pin thingy, waving to Chenbl, who was taking pictures from the balcony as I took my seat to listen to the various speeches.

Class of ’26

Next was our department graduation, which was almost concurrent with the PTP event but luckily in the same building, so we rushed over to find my fellow graduates and their families sitting and watching our department heads, Harvey Chang and Emily Chen, giving inspirational speeches about how our careers would still thrive in the coming age of AI. I managed to throw my graduation robes and hat on in time for the tassel-turning ceremony, after which we took group pictures, ate pizza and chatted about how strange it was to be “graduating” before we’d done our thesis defenses, and some, including me, having not even done our graduate recitals at that point. Yet here we all were, the seven of us, less than half of the number of students who entered the program two years ago, wearing our graduation robes and munching on Dominoes in the same room where we’d undergone those awkward, anxious first interviews for entrance to the program. I remember being disappointed with my interview, thinking I’d bombed and that I wouldn’t be accepted, and subsequently surprised to find that I was third on their list of accepted students.

Full of pizza, we had some time before the big general graduation ceremony in the big auditorium. There’d been rehearsals the day before, but I hadn’t bothered wearing my robes as I didn’t want them to get dirty (The Humanities College hood/tassel color happens to be an easily sullied white). But I was all decked out now, so Chenbl and I walked around the campus, as many other graduates were doing, taking pictures in various spots, in various poses.

Chenbl again ascended the balcony of the auditorium for the main graduation ceremony to take pictures. I was representing our department as it wasn’t practical for every single graduate to cross the stage. There were more speeches, and the music, provided mainly by professors in our department including Professor Luo Ming-fang’s vocals and Professor Jian Shan-ken with a string quartet, was quite nice. We filed onto the stage, stood at attention and saluted. It’s been a minute since I actually saluted anyone, so this was a bit surreal. I got a nice fist-bump from Professor Chang on my way back to my seat.

I had gone through all the pomp and circumstance and fineries of graduation. Now I had to do the Actual Graduation Things, i.e. my recital and thesis defense.

My graduate recital was held at the Feng Ya Song Arts Salon space on the 13th. I engaged the services of the Ramblers’ favorite driver, Mr. Gao, who was waiting for us at Guting Station in the morning to drive us out to the campus. I was once again reminded how lucky I am to have so many talented friends who have been willing to help me make this show into reality. Not just my fellow ramblers David and Andrew, who have been generous with their time and advice, but also long-time friends of the Ramblers like the amazing vocalist Olivia Yan and drummer par excellence Carol Huang, and newer friends like vocalist Jason Wang, who is a street performer, pianist Will Tsai, who is also a master’s music student but at NTNU, and singer Tristan Ai, whom I was introduced to by Luke Deming when I was teaching at Shih Hsin University.

When we got to the arts salon, my junior Manfred Sun, a first year student in our program, was already busy setting up the space. Manfred, who is from Hong Kong, knows his stuff and made sure that most everything sounded good. In addition to this, Manfred is also an excellent improvisational piano player, which came in handy as Will was switching to violin for several of the songs that still required piano. Early on I’d considered using the washtub bass, but it really didn’t fit, so David and Andrew traded off using a cute li’l electric bass guitar that did the job.

My fellow student Nicky Lee was already at the space as well, joining some of my photography students who had come to help set up chairs, etc. The show involved an interaction between my photography and music over the course of 14 (yes, 14!) songs that I composed, so Chenbl played a presentation consisting of videos he’d taken of me out photographing, along with a pre-recorded voiceovers, in between songs. For the actual songs, our friend Lu Bin-hao had helped me make some animations for the audience that really added to the whole effect.

I did screw up on several occasions during the show, though most people (were probably being polite and) said they didn’t notice. I’ve noticed that the less I screw up in rehearsal, the more I do so in the actual show. And I’m not alone in that observation. Still, I’m not new to performing, and I long ago realized that working through mistakes and integrating them into the performance is far more productive than getting bent out of shape about it. To keep it a buck, though, many of my music professors being in the sizable audience didn’t really help my nerves.

Still, we not only got through it, some of the songs did actually bang, if I do say so myself. I thought, somewhat incredibly as I sang the last verse of the last song: This is the last verse, after this, it’s done. I thanked my professors and everyone else for coming, was assaulted by multiple bouquets (I now have an impressive collection of teddy bears holding tiny diplomas), and we embarked on another round of group photos as I breathed an hour-long sigh of relief. The audience, including my professors and their families, were ebullient about the show and how well the presentation and pacing (thanks to Chenbl’s direction via his notebook), enhanced not just the music but the photography, combining them into the whole experience. All in all it was incredibly satisfying and gratifying.

But I wasn’t done yet. The next Wednesday night was our last production class, in the recording studio beneath the university library. The class itself was ordinary, but the atmosphere was different, almost pre-nostalgic, if that can be a thing; we were all aware that this would be the last time we’d be in class together, or at least I was. I’m going to miss the camaraderie of being part of a group of students, all of us sharing similar trials and tribulations, getting assignments done, complaining about this professor or that, or the system in general. Even though I’m older than most of them, and I haven’t been living on campus or even in town, I’ll miss being part of something like that. After class we all walked out of the familiar glass doors, stood chatting for a bit, and then we went our separate ways. And that was that.

But I still wasn’t done. As I mentioned before, I had to defend my thesis in front of a panel of experts on the 25th, and luckily for me the typhoon that had been threatening to derail this plan veered northward towards Japan instead. As for the experts: In addition my department head, Professor Chang, who was also one of my thesis advisors, there was Professor Chiu, my filmmaking/video arts teacher and my other thesis advisor, as well as Professor Jang, who is a production professor in our department, and Professor Kenjo Tan, a noted Malaysian music producer who has been teaching courses at Chung Yuan as a guest lecturer. All of these dudes are highly accomplished industry professionals, and as Chenbl and I were setting up in the conference room on Thursday morning, I had a brief moment of panic that I would freeze up and make a complete idiot of myself in front of them.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen. When the professors arrived and sat down, I remembered that I’ve known all of these guys for a while, and while they are accomplished players in the industry, I’m not exactly a newcomer myself. After we’d chatted a bit, I started the presentation, but it felt like we were just still chatting, just with me going through my presentation as I did so, discussing an interesting topic rather than me trying desperately to get my point across. The session even went over time as the discussion went off on various tangents about music and image creation, how they relate and support each other, what kind of impact AI will have, how we can/should deal with it, etc. It was an intriguing conversion and honestly quite gratifying to be able to discuss these things with a group of such accomplished individuals.

I should note that, due to the unofficial theme of this program being “Me Doing Too Damn Much”, my masters thesis is nearly 700 pages long, a huge, daunting tome (I still feel that the premise is simple enough and that it’s actually quite readable, but then again I would think that, wouldn’t I?). While part of the length derives from the fact that I wrote it in both English and Chinese, it’s still by far the longest thesis this year, and possibly ever in the program. “Surely this is no master’s thesis!” the printer in Gongguan had said when I picked up the copies to give my professors. “This has got to be a doctorate thesis!” So it was a big ask for all of my defense panel experts to read all of that. I should also note that the faculty and staff at Chung Yuan have been amazing, always ready to help and generous with their time and experience.

After our discussion, I was politely told to skedaddle while they discussed their joint decision. It didn’t take long; I was ushered back in and told that I’d passed the defense, and the professors even talked about how the research could be continued and utilized in practice. We kept on chatting until, one by one, they left, each congratulating me. Then it was just me and Chenbl packing up our things. Through the typhoon wasn’t going to hit Taiwan, its effects were beginning to make themselves known in the form of heavy wind and rain that rocked the 1818 bus as we headed back to Taipei.

That night was also my last official class at Chung Yuan, albeit online. I attended it on my phone on the subway home, and then finished it in front of my iMac at the Water Curtain Cave. As Professor You signed off from somewhere in Beijing, I realized I was DONE done, shouting it out in such a gleeful fashion that my neighbors were probably wondering what the hell was going on in the Water Curtain Cave this time.

Tonight was the Golden Melody Awards. This time last year I was walking the red carpet there; now I’ve got a Master of Fine Arts degree in music production with a concentration in photography.

Interesting times await.

So I recently concluded the first year of my master’s program at Chungyuan U. I’ve learned quite a bit, and it’s been a fascinating change of pace in general, but I’m not gonna lie; it’s also been a bit of a slog, not only rushing to catch trains back and forth from Zhongli several days a week, but at the same time teaching the community college photography course as well as the university photography course, working my day job and other gigs, and also Rambler gigs, all at the same time. I really need to cut down on all of this somewhere if I’m going to keep up this pace. However, I do now have, including the required courses for the second year, more than enough credits to graduate (with, if I may say so myself, a pretty damn high GPA), so next I just need to get working on my thesis, album, and performance, all of which are going to be difficult enough without having to worry about other classes.

The community college course concluded last week, after I had some great online discussions with my friends and excellent photographers Blake Andrews and Nikita Teryoshin about my students’ work this semester. Well, besides the meeting with students to discuss their photobooks yesterday. And online meetings with other students that should happen this week. Then it will have concluded (I think).

Our latest album, Jug Band Millionaire, having been nominated and not winning a Grammy, was also nominated for a Golden Melody award, thanks to the inspiring work of our friends at Onion Design. Stuff I’ve worked on has been nominated a few times over the years, and the first time the Ramblers were nominated, for Medicine Show, I thought it would be fun to do the whole red carpet thing. And it was, but it was a little awkward as we didn’t really know anyone, the chairs were uncomfortable, and we didn’t win. So the next time we were nominated for Tiger, I thought: Meh, maybe skip it. And then we actually won. So we all went again this time, and things weren’t nearly as awkward as before, possibly because over the intervening years we’ve met and know more people in those circles, and also just one of the few perks of getting older: Just not giving a fuck.

We met up in the hot sun outside the Taipei Arena, feeling odd to be dressed up with no instruments, and then went down into the backstage area where police were leading sniffer dogs through the long crowded hallway that leads to the stage. Presenters were getting makeup done, and various groups

milling around in various regalia. The chairs in front of the stage were much more comfortable than last time, nice and padded. They put us in a luxury van to drive us around the block so we could get out and wait to walk the red carpet. As we set out, I was just about to say something snarky like, “And now cue the awkward silence as people try to figure out who the hell we are,” when actual applause and cheers came from the crowd, surprising me. In addition to my ever-present Leica, I was also modeling my equally well-worn Taiwanese Wotancraft messenger bag, not out of any sense of fashion, but rather simply a lack of space anywhere backstage to put stuff. At the interview spot I couldn’t help but take a photo of the wall of photographers opposite, many of whom made the de rigueur peace sign in response.

Inside the arena, the sound and light shows were much more intense than I recall from last time, and I had to don sunglasses and air pods to make it through the show without being overwhelmed. As it turns out, we didn’t win, but the show was fun, there was witty repartee in some of the speeches, and it was nice to see some old friends.

Our next show was last Saturday night on the tiny stage at Craft House,  a tight fit as we were joined not only by violinist Moses, who is leaving for the States soon, but also Andrew, who is our incoming saxophonist. The show was raucous as only a Ramblers-With-New-Members-Figuring-Shit-Out can be, but also a lot of fun. Amazing to think we’ve been doing this for 20-very-odd years.

So, as classes and things are wrapping up, I am, to be honest, kind of burnt out. My mind resists thinking about things I have to do next; I haven’t even looked at the photos I’ve taken since February FFS. I need a break, some time and place to rest and recharge before everything starts up again in the fall. In the past I would have loved to just take a solitary trip to Japan and just space out there for a week or so, to regain my mental footing, but circumstances are different now; I’m going to have to be creative in making this happen somehow. There’s supposed to be a ferry from Keelung to Ishigaki starting in September, but that’s not soon enough (I am still interested in that, though). I do miss riding the crazy bike along the riverside paths as I did back in the day; I need to dig it out of the depths of the garage and take it for a spin. Not immediately, as the first typhoon of the season, Danas, has us in its rear view mirror at the moment, having taken an unusual path up the Taiwan Strait, and providing us with hopefully enough water to make it though at least part of the summer without a drought. But the trails might be a bit of a mess right now and need some time to recover. I can relate.

During our photography class last Friday, Chenbl made the unusual move of slipping out of the classroom, leaving me to navigate his computer while we were looking at students’ photos. He had hinted to the students about a “special secret guest” coming to the Rambler gig I had the next day, and I’d wondered if it might possibly one of Chenbl’s mysterious alter-egos, a la Captain Chaos but Actually Fabulous, but when he came back I was surprised to see he’d brought our old friend Junku Nishimura with him. Junku was our gracious host when we visited Yamaguchi in 2017. I greeted him with a friendly WTF? and introduced him to the students, some of whom knew him from the BME workshop we’d done in Taipei several years ago.

After class we met up in Ximen and went to a stir-fry place to catch up while enjoying plates upon plates of various meats and other fried things before I had to catch the last train back to Xindian.

Saturday was the first time the Ramblers have played in a while, and to be honest things haven’t been the same since our beloved Paradises left our fair island for the dubious wilds of the Floridian panhandle. Our latest album, Jug Band Millionaire, having failed to win the Grammy it was nominated for, is now up for a Golden Melody award, and we plan to be at the ceremony. It will be my second time walking that red carpet, and should be fun.

On Saturday, however, we were playing for a graduation celebration of the Art Department of Fu Jen University. Soundcheck was supposed to be at noon, but as Ramblers will Ramble, we only got started at around 12:40, after a bit of hand-wringing by the staff. Chenbl and Junku showed up, Junku armed with (he claimed) the required traditional bottle of Shaoxing wine necessary for such events. It was a traditional show, and I sang Four Seasons of Red (四季紅) with, according to Chenbl, a bit more stridence than the song merits. “It’s like you’re worried that people won’t understand your Taiwanese pronunciation,” he told me afterward.

“But I am,” I said.

“Your pronunciation’s fine; don’t let that get in the way of actually singing the words!” Now, as Chenbl can SANG sang, this is no doubt good advice and something I need to work on.

I won’t be able to make the next show due to having class out in Zhongli that day, so I left the washtub bass stick for David, and headed out into the Plum Rain-soaked avenues with Chenbl, Junku and several students. We took the metro to the Songyan Cultural Park, where Junku bought a film cannister-adorned belt-hook, and then out to Xinzhuang, because Junku wanted to see some place with “old streets”. He was staying at that one old guest house in Wanhua because Of course he was.

It was raining even harder in Xinzhuang, but we braved the wetness and walked down the old street, lined with traditional shops, exploring alleys and temples and stopping for snacks along the way. I’d been pulling all-nighters trying to get homework done so I was rather tired, but some coffee jelly did the trick. Night fell, and the students bade us farewell, after which Chenbl followed his nose into an alley where we found an old-style restaurant, its walls yellow and cracking from decades of cooking smoke, adorned with signs forbidding the consumption of alcohol on the premises due to “that one time”. Nonplussed, Junku pulled out a green bottle of “medicinal” spirits he’d purchased. I could smell it from across the table (“Minty, not mediciny!”).

But it was getting late, I was tired, and the rain relentless. We parted ways back at Ximen Station, where Junku and I performed the traditional farewell ceremony of Photographing Each Other from Opposite Subway Trains.

Today, it’s back to the pleasantly forested campus of Chungyuan amid the last of the rainy season, before Dragonboat Festival and the arrival of spectacular summer heat. Classes are ramping up as we approach the end of my second semester; my digital music production class is even requiring me to reacquaint myself with my old nemesis, the bass clef (odd thing for a bass player to say, I know, but in my defense, I never use sheet music for Rambler bass lines). Also, my video production class is delving into the uncanny valleys of AI, and my other classes have so much homework that I’m no longer able to audit the second-year classes I’d been enjoying up to now. Last weekend my recording class took a field trip out to Yuchen Studio, where we recorded Millionaire; it was good to see Andy and learn a bit more about the place’s functions and history. Apart from the photography class, however, my own photos have just been piling up on my hard drive for the last few months, and will likely continue to do so until the end of the semester.

But, you know…so far so good, actually. It’s fun being a student again, interacting with interesting new people, including both my professors and follow students, and I have yet to tire of taking the train to and from Zhongli, though regretfully I have not yet been able to explore that fascinating mess of a municipality as much as I’d like to. Perhaps I’ll have more time during this summer break, though I really need to figure out what I’m going to do for my master’s thesis projects. You’d think I’d have plenty of time to plan that during the hours I spend on the train; in all honesty, I just like to sit and look out the window while munching on a hurriedly-purchased station bento lunch and sipping enough coffee to get me through my afternoon classes. It’s become a kind of necessary meditation amid all of the hustle and bustle of my life these days.

To wit: One day on the train, the rhythm of the sunlight, bouncing as it was off the passengers lost in their dopamine delivery devices, gathered up the previously distinct concepts of imagery and music in my mind, coalescing them into the idea that time is a far more profound aspect of our reality than we recognize. That is to say, photography and music are really both just variants in the expression of time, and the effect they both have on our consciousness and subconscious takes us to very similar places. Perhaps that might explain why music and photography coexist in the lives of so many artists.

Making that into a thesis, though…might need a few more trips.

So last fall I taught, as a kind of experiment, a street photography course at Shih Hsin University, at the invitation of an acquaintance who is one of the instructors there. With Chenbl’s assistance, we managed to fit some amount of instruction in the limited time the students, all seniors, could devote to the class, and had a little exhibition on campus at the end, to some small acclaim.

The folks at Shih Hsin liked what we did, and invited me back to teach in a more official capacity this year, teaching a freshman photography class as an assistant professor. During the vetting process for the position I was required to submit my education credentials, and realized that an actual graduate degree might come in handy in the future. So I started looking at graduate programs in the arts, and found to my dismay that Taiwan doesn’t really do photography majors per se. I looked at filmmaking and other programs but the timing didn’t work. So this spring I applied to a master’s program in music production at Chung Yuan University in Zhongli. To my surprise, I was accepted.

This has resulted in kind of a crazy situation this fall. Starting last week, I’ve not only been teaching the regular community college photography course I’ve been doing since 2015 (Covidian interruptions aside), I’m now teaching the university course as well. And, in addition to my regular jobs and recording our latest album and playing shows with the Ramblers, I’ve also been attending classes at Chung Yuan U several days a week, mostly afternoons. Fortunately for me, the new T-pass system means that my monthly ticket covers all trains all the way from Zhongli to Keelung, so I won’t need to spend extra money, and I’ve always liked train travel anyway. And it’s cool to be in a new place; I’ve been to Zhongli several times over the years; I quite like the vibe there, so I’m looking forward to getting to know it better.

I have to say it’s quite strange, the feeling of déjà vu while wandering around a new campus, looking for the building where one’s next class is, after several decades of not doing that. I have no idea how I’m going to get through all of this (I am so lucky that Chenbl is helping out with classes), but at one point I just decided that the attempt itself is an interesting, worthwhile thing to do, regardless of whether it works out in the end. And if nothing else, it’s an interesting way to shake things up. I haven’t blogged much recently as things had settled into a  kind of equilibrium, but now that all of…this *gestures* is going on, I should have more to write about.

My first week of classes was quite surreal; some of my professors have heard of me, or at least the Ramblers or Panai or Chalaw or other people I’ve performed with over the years, or they’ve heard of my photographic work, or the books I’ve written. But there is so much I don’t know about this subject that it will be quite a challenge to get up to speed in quite a few areas as up to this point I’ve mostly contributed performances and coming up with solo lines etc. rather than being deeply involved in the actual recording process. I’m taking a recording class that requires me to learn Protools, and another one that requires knowledge of Cubase. Another class is on media editing, which I have experience in, and one is concentrated on lectures by experts in music production, which looks interesting. I’ve signed up for a heavier load this semester as I hope to get more credits out of the way so I can have more leeway later on the programs, but we’ll see how that goes.

In any case, it should be a ride. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes.