The Campus Folk Music Movement is a cultural phenomenon in Taiwan that began in the mid 1970s and lasted to the late 1980s and the early 1990s. It became a very popular music genre, not only in Taiwan, but spread to South East Asia as well. This year, Taiwan is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the campus folk music and there are concerts being held across the country to honour the lasting impact of those songs.
The campus folk music started as songs written and sung by university students who wanted to assert their own identities, with the logo “Sing Our Own Songs” (唱自己的歌). Those songs then spread very quickly to the mainstream media, and established artists of the time all started to cover those songs and made them popular. Because of that, sometimes it is so confusing as to who was the original singer of a particular song!
Anyway, the reason I wanted to write this post is because I chanced upon some videos of these campus folk songs being sung by the National Taiwan University Chorus recently. I was surprised these songs sound so good being sung as chorus! I have also dug up the original songs… Enjoy!
Below are a few of the classic campus folk songs that most would be familiar with and loved, obviously I can’t list all the classics, LOL…
Update September 10, 2025: Here’s the song written to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the campus folk songs…
50 Years 五十年 – Ching Ching Chu Chu 清清楚楚二重唱 (吳楚楚 & Michael 張明智)
Corner Café 
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