It must be an extraordinary scene. Every six months a host of aspiring musicians, standing about three metres apart, line up before officials of Taipei's Bureau of Cultural Affairs, raise their instruments, and play - simultaneously. The occasion is the audition for the city's licensed buskers, and the resulting cacophony must be remarkable indeed.
About 150 to 200 players currently have permits, but there are still complaints from those who fail to obtain the precious name tag. But even with permits, buskers still have to register every day at the venue where they choose to play. At subway stations the procedure is notoriously time-consuming. Only at Danshui, the terminal of the longest line, is it easy. There, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, eight to 10 artists compete for the public's favour.
Busking can be worth the trouble. One fellow, an American horn player, said that at the Lunar New Year in Keelung, in 1991, he made a staggering US$460 in about 90 minutes. Busking was illegal then, which made it edgy work: you played as feverishly as you could, then ran.
No one would tell me how much they made in a month, but my American friend did admit he had stopped all other work, except on an occasional basis. Although busking was harder than teaching English, he said, on balance it was more lucrative. But then, he is an old hand at the business: classically trained, with experience playing on the streets in places such as Hungary, Austria and Slovenia.
Some foreign musicians refused to busk in Taiwan, he said, because they believed citizens saw it as a form of begging. Locals he had spoken to, however, were very receptive: sometimes they bought his CDs and a book he has written on busking, and donated between NT$10 ($2.40) and NT$100. His feeling was that people appreciated him and would like to see more buskers.
There is an art in how much money a busker leaves in the hat for the public to see. Received wisdom has it that you begin by putting some money in yourself - an empty hat fails to give the appropriate encouragement. Then you take amounts out from time to time, both for safety and to keep the public from knowing how much money you are really making.