If you’re taking a vacation in Taitung, here’s a tip for an unmissable local highlight. Kuo Chih-hsien is a hand flute virtuoso! Hand flute is a way to make music by blowing into your own cupped hands. It sounds like a flute, although there’s no instrument involved. A gifted musician, Kuo learned the technique almost overnight and since then has developed an astonishing repertoire of tunes. He can be found performing – and teaching the skills – online and in one of Taitung’s public parks.

If you pop down to Taitung’s Haibin Park, you might come across this special show: a young man playing cheerful music with his own hands.

He doesn’t have an instrument. He’s making a resonant chamber with his hands. When he blows into it, the air vibrates in the space and produces a sound. By opening and closing his fingers, he creates different notes. As a keen music student, in high school Kuo first learned about it when he saw a classmate showing off the skill.

Kuo Chih-hsien
Hand flute player
A classmate beside me played the trombone. He taught me to make a sound by blowing using his method. I think he was shocked. He said, “How did you learn it so fast?” I could do it as soon as he showed me. I went home and I was fascinated by it. I would practice all the time, even in the shower and just before going to bed.

Kuo’s mother is from Hong Kong. Like his dad, she worked in education. Seeing how much their son enjoyed the hand flute, they encouraged him to get a street performance license. Whenever he performs, astonished tourists gather to watch. And he’s happy to teach anyone how it’s done.

Yang Cheng-ta
Tourist
It’s really quite impressive. He’s got so much skill in his hands and mouth. I don’t know how he does it. I tried it myself in the hotel, but I couldn’t do it.

Kuo says he can produce almost any tune, so long as he knows the melody. The hardest tune he knows might be piano classic “Mariage d’amour,” with its fast pace and wide range – but it doesn’t beat him.

Apart from his street performances in Taitung, Kuo also teaches his skills online. He hopes that more people will, like him, become enamored with the beautiful music they can make with their own two hands.

This story was provided by the program "We Are Family"
Funded by New Immigrant Development Fund

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