LAST WORDS OF UNCLE DIRT by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
An abandoned limestone statue chronicles centuries of adventures through and beyond the Chinese diaspora.
Written by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
Directed by Michael Roth
Kok-Hwa Lie - Uncle Dirt
Music Composition/Arrangements/Sound Design/Editing by Michael Roth
Final Sound Mix and Mastering by Jessica Paz
Pipa
Wu Man
Violin
Batya MacAdam-Somer
Acoustic/Electric Guitars
Peter Sprague
All Vocals by Kok-Hwa Lie
Dialogue and vocals recorded and engineered by Jasper Kerkhof, Utrecht, Netherlands
Music recorded at SpragueLand Studio, Encinitas, California, by Peter Sprague, Engineer
Production and Sound Assistant: Meghan Roche
Series Line Producer: Alison Koch
Intro Music by Emily A. Sprague
In the late 1980's, Taiwan launched a national lottery called "Everybody Happy." Thousands of superstitious locals purchased idols associated with Taoist folk deities, hoping these gods would help them pick winning numbers. Many gamblers who failed to win took their anger out on their newly acquired idols smashing their bodies and throwing them into the island's rivers and fields. In the decades afterwards, hundreds of these castaway gods were found by fishermen and hikers, who turned them into local temples and police stations. Out of fear that an evil spirit might have taken up residence inside the recovered idols during their period of abandonment, very few were rehomed. Instead, they were incinerated or stored in local temples, separate from the resident idols.
