Concerts and large gatherings of any kind are cancelled across Taiwan to stop the spread of COVID-19. That’s left many musicians at a loss for what to do. But one popular singer has seized the opportunity to get back to his roots.
A soaring song resonates across a forested valley. The voice belongs to Sangpuy, a musician from Taiwan’s indigenous Puyuma community. His album Pulu’em is nominated for eight prizes at Taiwan’s biggest music awards. But with all his concerts postponed due to the COVID-19 outbreak, Sangpuy has headed home for the harvest.
Wearing a bamboo hat in the hot summer sun, the celebrated singer gets down to work picking mangoes at his family’s farm in Taitung County.
He says coming home to help with the harvest is nothing special for him. He says it just happened that he had time off because of the Covid outbreak.
And after mango farmers in neighboring Pingtung County saw mass cancellations of orders, Sangpuy decided to help with marketing on Facebook. In less than two hours, all 300 boxes were completely sold out.
He says there was an explosion in orders. Sangpuy says he wants to thank everyone for buying the mangoes, and he hopes there will be enough to meet demand.
And Sangpuy’s mother Tawan says she is glad he is back. She says she doesn’t know what she’d do without him.
Sangpuy hopes to be back performing once restrictions are lifted. So despite the singer’s success as a mango dealer, he won’t be giving up music any time soon.