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Becoming Teresa Teng, becoming-Taiwanese

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Becoming Teresa Teng, becoming-Taiwanese

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BECOMING TERESA TENG,
BECOMING-TAIWANESE

By
Trong Shawn Ta

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF ARTS
(EAST ASIAN AREA STUDIES)

December 2009

Copyright 2009 Trong Shawn Ta

ii

Acknowledgments
I am indebted to a number of people for giving me the opportunity to do my
research. To start, I must thank my teachers who guided my work, especially my thesis
committee members, Professors Brett Sheehan, Bettine Birge, and Joshua Goldstein.
With a dearth of scholarship on Teresa Teng, I most certainly benefitted from my
committee‘s patience, expertise, and invaluable responses to early drafts of this thesis.
Additionally, without Caroline Cartier‘s inspiration and tutelage, I would not have
engaged critical social theory in my work. Special thanks are also due to Stanley Rosen
and the hard-working staff at the East Asian Studies Center at the University of Southern
California.
I am deeply thankful of my wonderful colleagues and fellow teaching assistants,
John De Perczel, Mary Lagdameo, Seungha Lim, Chelsea Mason, Laurie Stahle, Julianna
Wiesenhutter, Jennifer Chau, Seung Ji Nam, and Ethan Xing for providing the necessary
distractions that kept me sane throughout my graduate program. I must also praise my
dear friend Xiao He for providing me with his unabashed criticism and the occasional
home-cooked meal. For their continued love, support, and understanding, I owe
everything to my family. Last, a fond ― thank you‖ goes to Robert Hitlin.
iii

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ii

List of Figures iv

Abstract v

Introduction 1

Chapter One: Teresa Infiltrates the Mainland 6
The Role of Nostalgic Discourse 7
Reading Teresa in the Chinese Media 10
The Fight for Peace Denied 13

Chapter Two: The Fight over China, Taiwanese History 1895-1995 19
Democratic Reforms in the 1980s 27

Chapter Three: Teresa‘s Induction into the Business of Music 29
Modernity and Chinese Identity 32

Chapter Four: Subversive Spaces in Taiwanese Literature and Music 40
Music for a New Generation 42
Co-opted by Popular Music 45
Identity and Empowerment – Theorizing the Nativist Movement 48
The Native, Interrupted 50

Chapter Five: Soft Authoritarian Hegemony 54
The Allure of Assimilation 57
Becoming- 59

Chapter Six: The Resurgence of Nationalism 63
―When Will You Return?‖ 67
Authenticity in the Early 1980s 70
Poetic License and Reterritorializing the Classics 73

Chapter Seven: The Global Chinese 82

Conclusion 86

Bibliography 88

Appendix A 98
Appendix B 104
Appendix C 105
iv

List of Figures

Figure 1: Teresa competing at singing Huang-Mei opera 31

Figure 2: Teresa pictured with her parents 31

Figure 3: Teresa posing for an ad for National home appliances, 1960s 34

Figure 4: Performing the operatic song ―Visiting Yingtai‖ 38

Figure 5: Performing the operatic song ―Visiting Yingtai‖ 38

Figure 6: Teresa dressed as the maid for the song ―Interrogating the Maid‖ 38

Figure 7: Teresa in aboriginal Thao (Ngan) tribal dress 56

Figure 8: Teresa in aboriginal Thao (Ngan) tribal dress 56

Figure 9: Teresa performing in traditional geisha costume 60

Figure 10: Teresa performing in kimono 60

Figure 11: Teresa signing autographs for KMT soldiers 65

Figure 12: Teresa posed in battle-gear for her television special 65

Figure 13: Teresa posed in battle-gear for her television special 65

Figure 14: Cover art from the 1980 album ―On the River‖ 70

Figure 15: Early Republican Dress for ―Light Exquisite Feeli ng,‖ 1983 71

Figure 16: Tang Dynasty Costume for ―Light Exquisite Feeling,‖ 1983 71

Figure 17: Tang Dynasty Costume for ―If We Could Only Live Longer‖
music video 71

Figure 18: Song Dynasty Costume for ―If We Could Only Live Longer‖
music video 71

Figure 19: Teresa singing before her tribute to Stevie Wonder 83

Figure 20: Teresa singing during her tribute to Stevie Wonder 83
v

Abstract

Teresa Teng was loved by millions of Chinese across the world, and after her death,
the People‘s Republic of China expropriated her music to symbolically herald a united
Chinese identity under the ―One China‖ policy. Although Teresa had once protested
against the PRC, the PRC strategically expropriated Teresa‘s mass appeal to millions of
Chinese (in the Mainland and the Chinese Diaspora) to assert its centrality over Chinese
culture. This myopic scope frames Teresa nostalgically so that alternative narratives are
subsumed by PRC official histories. By controlling Teresa‘s image and the information
concerning her, state-sponsored media grants leisure while distracting consumers from
discovering the inconstancies between its rhetoric and policies. My research examines
Teresa in relation with Taiwan‘s historic experiences outside the nostalgic narrative to
reclaim her from the PRC‘s propaganda. Additionally, it offers opportunities for
informed audiences to challenge modern technologies of governmentality perpetrated via
state-imposed cultural identities and histories.
1

Introduction
Teresa Teng (Deng Li-jun 鄧麗君, 1953-1995) is remembered as one of Asia‘s
favorite late-20
th
century pop icons whose rise in popularity correlated with Taiwan‘s rise
in economic prosperity after the 1960s.
1
Her music appealed to a broad spectrum of
Chinese populations spread throughout East and Southeast Asia. For many, Teresa‘s soft
voice, demure stature, and optimistic naiveté provided comfort and escape for her fans in
times of socio-political unrest during the 1970s and 1980s. Her music spoke to the
yearnings of a generation of young adults in China and Taiwan who were eager to
urbanize and vocalize their desires and aspirations in an age of increasing global
interaction. Her deep impact on Chinese popular culture is evidenced by the enduring
presence of her romantic and folksy music.
2
It is due to this mass appeal, that both the
Republic of China (ROC) and the People‘s Republic of China (PRC) have used Teresa‘s
music to influence their respective Chinese populaces in nationalistic struggles.
3
The
contribution of my thesis exposes the ways in which Teresa‘s legacy becomes the
contested territory where the PRC and ROC continue to wage their political battles and
offers opportunities for the general public to use music to disrupt state-imposed cultural
identities and histories.
In using Teresa Teng‘s popular music to illustrate the contestation between the PRC
and ROC in popular culture, I make an attempt at two main goals: to discuss the

1
Between 1942 and 1966, Teresa released over one-hundred albums, many of which have gone platinum,
see appendix A.
2
See the feature film ― Comrades, Almost a Love Story‖ 《甜蜜蜜》Tian mimi directed by Chen Ming-wen
陳明溫 (Peter Chan), DVD, (1996; Tai Seng Entertainment, Hong Kong, 2001), starring Li Ming 黎明
(Leon Lai) and Zhang Man-yu 張曼玉 (Maggie Cheung).
3
For brevity‘s sake, I do not focus on the discourses of Chinese in Hong Kong or Southeast Asia.
2

problematic framework in which the PRC renders Teresa‘s music as nostalgic and most
importantly, to call forth the history which this contemporary nostalgic discourse
attempts to mask. In Chapter One, I discuss the shift in national rhetoric regarding
Teresa after her death by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as well as discuss the
meaning of Teresa‘s music to her Mainland audiences. In the late 1970s, when China
opened its doors to the world, the CCP immediately banned Teresa‘s music. Asserting
that her music was ―yellow ,‖ ― pornographic,‖ and ― decadent‖ by CCP authorites,
Teresa‘s fans on the Mainland were forced to listen to her recordings in secret.
4

However, Teresa‘s music would not be buried for long as her death in 1995 reignited
debate over her public persona and brought her music back into the foreground of popular
culture. Since then, the CCP has accepted Teresa‘s music as an aspect of its popular
media, however, the regime continues to suppress and censor information about the
music‘s politicized nature.
What must be noted is that this censorship on Teresa does not limit the volume of
information presented to the public. In fact, there is a vast amount of literature in the
popular press written on Teresa‘s iconography in Chinese pop culture, focused,
oftentimes on the sweet sentiment, romance, and lightness of her music.
5
What is

4
Andrew F. Jones, Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age, Durham:
Duke University Press, 2001, p.6.
5
There are multiple biographies of Teresa Teng, see Yong-gang Shi 師永剛 and Jun Zhao 昭君, compilers.
Deng Li-jun Quan Zhuan: Deng Li-jun shishi shizhounian diancang jinian ban 《鄧麗君全傳: 鄧麗君逝世十
週年典藏紀念版》, Xianggang: Ming Bao Publishing Co., Ltd. 香港: 明報出版社有限公司, 2005; Arita,
Yoshifu 有田芳生, Wo de jia zai shan de na yi bian: Deng Li-jun di shinian de zhenxiang 《我的家在山的那
一邊: 鄧麗君第十年的真相》, translated by Guo Lilan 郭麗蘭, Taipei: Pujin Chuanbo, Ltd. 台北: 普金傳播,
2006; Hiroshi Nishida 西田裕司, Meili yu gudu: he Deng Li-jun yiqi zouguo de rizi 美麗與孤獨: 和鄧麗君走
過的日子, translated by Long Xiang 龍翔, Taipei: Storm & Stress Publishing Co., Ltd. 台北: 風雲時代出版股
3

censored is the content and context. Outside of personal accounts on the affect of her
music, there is surprisingly very little critical writing on her.
6
Moreover, articles written
about Teresa from the Mainland are almost always biased accounts perceived through a
lens of sentimental nostalgia. By only discussing the affect of her audience, the
officially-sanctioned narrative confines Teresa‘s significance as a consumable product,
reiterating the current market economy philosophy. Yet what is particularly ingenious of
this tactic is that the underlying notion suggests that as the CCP is now openly discussing
Teresa and her music, whereby the government postures as more progressive and
forgiving; as if censorship of popular culture was something of the PRC‘s distant past, as
if it no longer existed in the present. That is the danger of this ruse.
With October 1
st
, 2009 being the sixtieth anniversary of the PRC‘s founding by
Chairman Mao Ze-dong 毛泽东 (1893-1976), it has been sixty years since Taiwan
separated from the mainland. The re-emergence of Teresa in the PRC public must be
understood as a technique to selectively incorporate Teresa‘s music and diasporic
Chineseness for its own political gain. This tactical reframing of Teresa depoliticizes her
public persona, bleaches out her ―yellow‖ elements, and expropriates her for public
consumption, a process not unlike the PRC‘s treatment of the Tiananmen ―Incident.‖

份有限公司, 1997. For this paper, I follow Shi and Zhao‘s biography which is reconstructed from news
articles and primary sources from Hong Kong-based Mingbao 《明報》(Ming Pao), Taiwanese Shibao
zhoukan 《時報週刊》(China Times Weekly), and archival material from the Deng Li-jun wenjiao jijinhui
⌈ 鄧麗君文教基金會⌋ (Teresa Teng Foundation) in Shanghai.
6
Although Andrew F. Jones and Andreas Steen have commented on Teresa, there hasn‘t been research
devoted specifically to her musical legacy. See Jones‘ Yellow Music, p.151-2 and Like a Knife: Ideology
and Genre in Contemporary Chinese Popular Music, Ithaca: Cornell University, 1992, p.15-7; see also
Steen‘s article ―Tradition, Politics, and Meaning in China‘s 20
th
Century Popular Music: Zhou Xuan:
‗When Will You Be Back Again?‘‖ in Chime – Journal of the European Foundation for Chinese Music
Research, No. 14-15, 1999-2000, p.124-53.
4

Remembering Teresa as merely a product of nostalgia is a dishonor to her memory. To
see Teresa more holistically, audiences must question the distribution of information and
see past the institutional propaganda. In subsequent chapters, rather than tread familiar
ground and relate a nostalgic account of Teresa‘s rise to fame, I counter-balance PRC
narrations of Teresa‘s significance by examining Teresa‘s significance outside Mainland
China in a Taiwanese context. This way, I remove Teresa‘s music from Mainland biases
and discuss Teresa‘s legacy in a more comprehensive framework which allows
alternative narratives of Teresa‘s importance to surface in the Chinese community.
Furthermore, deconstructing the PRC interpretation of Teresa‘s music allows me to point
out how, despite their opposition, the PRC and ROC both treat popular music in similar
biased fashions to govern their populations.
Starting in Chapter Two of my thesis, I recount Taiwan‘s basic political history
from 1895-1995 in order to give a context to why Teresa‘s music becomes so problematic
to the PRC after Deng Xiao-ping‘s 邓小平 (1904-1997) economic reforms. This chapter
traces Taiwan‘s colonial experience and introduces the ROC Nationalist rhetoric and
martial law that suppresses local identities with which Teresa grew up. Chapter Three
introduces the musical background and economic situation when Teresa enters the stage
and rises to stardom in overseas Chinese communities. Chapter Four elaborates how,
particularly for the young adults in Taiwan during the 1970-80s, the position of
―Chineseness‖ in Teresa‘s music was emblem atic of the hegemonic order of the
Kuomintang (KMT) Nationalist regime. Under martial law, local Taiwanese identities
were violently suppressed. Instead, college students created their own music and opened
5

new channels of expression, which were ultimately appropriated by the KMT regime.
Chapter Five continues with the discussion of Teresa‘s global marketing and elaborates
how although her music gave native Taiwanese populations visibility in the mainstream,
it did not reflect nor change the social realities of these local peoples but worked to
exclude them from having a real voice in society. Chapter Six discusses Teresa‘s music
in the context of the rise of Taiwanese nationalism in the late 1970s when the
international community abandons the ROC and recognizes the PRC. Chapter Seven
revisits Teresa‘s global concept of Chinese identity and questions the stability of the PRC
and ROC‘s claims to Chineseness.
Lastly, since written language constitutes such an important role in the distribution
of information, I have striven to recognize the various Chinese written languages and
identities by incorporating local Romanizations of the languages used (where possible),
accompanied by ―standard‖ Romanizations. In this regard, phoneticization of important
local Taiwanese terms will be in Wade-Giles phonetization whereas all other expressions
will be rendered in hanyu pinyin 汉语拼音; Japanese will be in rōmaji ローマ字.
7
On the
same token, traditional characters fantizi 繁體字 will be used to reflect Taiwanese and
Hong Kong texts and sensibilities while simplified characters jiantizi 简体字 will be used
to refer to Mainland Chinese texts and sensibilities.

7
The specific rōmaji style used will be the officially-sanctioned Kunreishiki rōmaji 訓令式ローマ字 style of
the Monbukagakusho 文部科学省 (Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, and Technology).
6

Chapter One: Teresa Infiltrates the Mainland
When Mainland China opened its doors to the world after the Cultural Revolution
under Deng Xiao-ping in 1978, one of the first imports was Teresa Teng‘s music.
Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) believed that Teresa‘s ―decadent‖
western ideas of freedom and bourgeois capitalism undermined their socialist ideology
and banned Teresa‘s music from the public sphere.
8
Her music was first repudiated in the
late-1970s and again several more times in the Anti-Spiritual Pollution Campaign of the
early 1980s.
9
However, to the youngsters coming out of the Cultural Revolution, Teresa
was the ―first Taiwanese to become popular in the People‘s Republic‖ and her music
represented an epoch of social, sexual, and economic reforms the CCP was not yet ready
to handle.
10

Mainland Chinese audiences were flabbergasted by the novelty and expressive
force of Teresa‘s use of electrified instruments and modern recording techniques; the
Chinese on the Mainland were no longer only exposed to the State‘s mass music which
existed solely to produce, perform, and distribute ―Maoist ideals of class st ruggle,

8
― Bashi niandai qingchu jingshen wuran: Jin Yong he Deng Li-jun doushi ‗Ducao‘‖ ⌈ 八十年代清除精神污
染: 金庸和邓丽君都是― 毒草‖ ⌋ (― 1980s Anti-Spiritual Pollution: Jin Yong and Teresa Teng are both
‗Poisonous Weeds‘‖), Waitan Huapao 《外滩画报》(The Bund), 8 May 2005,
http://news.163.com/ 05/0508/10/1J7LONPO00011247.html (20 March 2009); see also ―Deng Li -jun de ge
hui bei guanfang chengwei ‗mimiziyin, huangse gequ‘‖ ⌈ 邓丽君的歌曾被官方称为― 靡靡之音，黄色歌曲 ⌋
(―Teresa Teng‘s Music Was to Be Declared ‗Decadent Yellow Music‘‖), Wangyi Lishi 《网易历史》(Net
Ease History), 8 May 2005, http://news.163.com/05/0508/10/1J7KT6F200011247.html (Accessed 20
March, 2009).
9
―Peking Suppresses Teresa Teng‘s Music,‖ United Daily News, October 25, 1980.
10
Robinson et al., Music at the Margins, p.134; ―When Will You Be Back‖ Heri jun zailai 〈何日君在來〉
had already been circulating in other parts of Asia for two years when the PRC ―discovered‖ it. In her
―New Year‘s Eve Special Interview with Glenn Busby,‖ Teresa expressed that she was shocked to learn
that Chinese audience on the Mainland accepted her ―western‖ music, International Community Radio
Taipei (ICRT) FM100, 1 Jan 1983, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKC1bzDibyk (Accessed 10 May
2009).
7

revolutionary fervor, and self-abnegation in the face of the demands, ideals, and authority
of the CCP.‖
11
Aided by the technological influx of cheap radios, cassette players, and
television sets, Mainland Chinese encountered a re-articulation of the individual with
Teresa‘s soft sentimental shuqing 抒情 music.
12
Teresa Teng‘s entrance into the
Mainland had a profound effect on popular music in the 1980s: on one hand, Teresa
introduced concepts of romance, and on another, she introduced new styles and genres of
music. Love songs on the Mainland proliferated and mimicked gangtai 港台 (Hong Kong
and Taiwanese) models. After nearly thirty years of Maoist isolationism, sentimental and
romantic love songs shuqing gequ 抒情歌曲, disco disike 迪斯科, and energetic/up-beat
jingge 精歌 genres of Euro-American-inspired music became hugely popular in the public
sphere.
13

The Role of Nostalgic Discourse
Teresa‘s hit song ―Unforgettable First Love‖ Nanwang chulian qingren 〈難忘初戀
情人〉can best sum up the nostalgia of her legacy in the Mainland Chinese imagination:
14

我是星你是雲總是兩離分,

11
Mao Zedong’s Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art as cited in Jones‘ Like a Knife,
pp.14-16.
12
―Lyrical‖ shuqing is often feminine crooning style popularized by Teresa versus ―energetic‖ or ―hard‖
(jingge, ying, 硬 masculine rough tone of the group ―Northwest Wind‖ ⌈ 西北风⌋, Andrew Jones, Like a
Knife, pp.16, 23. For a study on the effect of cassette technology on a similarly hegemonic music industry
see Peter Manuel‘s work on India, Cassette Culture: Popular Music and Technology in North India,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, pp.21-35.
13
Jones, Like a Knife, p.17.
14
Teresa released two versions of this song in 1971, one in Mandarin and another in Hokkien.
8

I‘m a star and you‘re a cloud always separated,
希望你告訴我初戀的情人,
I hope you can tell me, my first love,
你我各分東西, 這是誰的責任。
Whose fault is it that you and I are separated in the East and West.
我對你永難忘, 我對你情義真,
I will never forget you, I love you with all my heart,
直到海枯石爛, 難忘的初恋情人。
Until the seas dry and stones crumble, my unforgettable first love.

為甚麼不見你再來我家門,
Why don‘t I see you come by my home anymore,
盼望你告訴我初戀的情人,
I hope you can tell me, my first love,
我要向你傾訴心中無限苦悶。
I want to confess to you about the endless agony in my heart.
只要你心不變, 我依舊情意深,
If your heart never changes, I will always remain true to our love,
直到海枯石爛, 難忘的初恋情人。
Until the seas dry and stones crumble, my unforgettable first love.

Like the song, Teresa is ever-present for her audience to claim, all they have to do is
embrace her and she was theirs, even across time and space. The nostalgia and
sentimentalism that Teresa introduced are found in recent interviews where fans
recounted how Teresa‘s music ―was something we‘ve never heard before, thi s was a [real]
woman,‖ and ―it was the first time I heard gendered music, it was as if she was speaking
to you.‖
15
These accounts described how her music was declared pornographic ―yellow
music‖ huangse gequ ⌈ 黄色歌曲 ⌋ and labeled ―decadent sounds‖ mimi zhi yin ⌈ 靡靡之音 ⌋
and how her music was said to extinguish the radical fighting spirit of the youth. Afraid

15
―Lingting Deng Li -jun de rizi‖ ⌈ 聆听邓丽君的日子⌋ (―The Days We Listened to Teresa Teng‖) , Wangshi
〈往事〉(Was), Shanghai dianshi jishi tai 《上海电纪实视台》(Shanghai TV Documentary), Shanghai, 22
November 2005, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-OibfqkWRU (accessed 20 May, 2009).
9

of persecution, the youth listened to her music in secret. Since the government banned
her songs, to keep Teresa alive in their hearts, fans made copies of cassette tapes
recordings smuggled into the Mainland through friends and relatives living in Hong Kong
or abroad. Young radical men and women gathered at underground venues (in basements
and empty homes) and danced to Teresa‘s music, where they experimented with the
newly exposed concepts of romance and femininity. For many, the breakdown of Maoist
concepts of gender was attributed to Teresa‘s influence; the Chinese in the late 1970s re-
articulated their sexuality publicly through fashion and new patterns of behavior.
Teresa‘s effect on the affect of the generation of youths in the late-70s and early-80s
resulted in a ― modeng shidai‖ ⌈ 模邓时代 ⌋, or ―period of modeng-nity,‖ where, in the
process of ‗modernizing‘ and industrializing on a global scale, young Chinese women
began imitating Teresa Teng and where expectations of a womanhood adapted Teresa‘s
soft feminine characteristics.
16

The proliferation of Teresa‘s music via underground channels from such acts as
singing, cassette duplication or secret assembly can be seen as ― counter-conduct‖ or
miniature protests against the policing order of the PRC.
17
This type of politicized action
is logical when scholars consider China‘s modern history when the Chinese became a

16
While women imitated Teresa, men also imitated another Taiwanese pop icon, Steven Liu Wen-zheng 劉
文正, who was also known as ―the White Prince‖ ⌈ 白馬王子 ⌋, ―Lingting Deng Li -jun de rizi,‖ Wangshi,
STV Documentary.
17
Michel Foucault defines counter-conduct as ― movements that have a different conduct as their goal,
which means wanting to be conducted differently, by other conductors [conducteur] and by other pastors, to
different goals and to different forms of salvation, by means of other procedures and other methods‖ and
― an aspect of the search for a different conduct, for a being-conducted-differently, by other people, to goals
other than that which is provided for by the official, visible and recognizable governmentality of society‖ in
Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the College de France, 1977-78, translated by Graham
Burchell, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, p.282-88.
10

disciplined population of the ―masses‖ under Maoist Communism, which, combined with
the concept of ― proletariat revolution,‖ had positioned the population as militant
minorities which were continuously fighting against capitalist exploitation.
18
Only now,
the politicized youths of the 1980s subverted Maoist sensibilities and concepts of gender
and gender performativity.
19
With the modern Chinese populace inheriting Maoist
concepts of revolution and Deng Xiaoping‘s self-serving market practices, it is little
wonder why issues of piracy and copyright infringement persist today.

Reading Teresa in the Chinese Media
The availability Teresa‘s popular music in the public sphere today is meant to
symbolize an enlightened CCP government which is past its Maoist doctrinism and
allows its citizens the ―freedom‖ to engage in the open market. With her messages of
urban consumption and practices of leisure, Teresa Teng is manufactured as the product
to sell nostalgia. The music itself yearns to relive and recoup the past and now that
Teresa is also gone, her music is doubly removed from her audience, yet at the same time,
it is still so readily available and continues to tantalize audiences with sentimental
longing.
20
Teresa‘s music becomes a vehicle for modern escapism that aligns with CCP
technologies of propaganda which can be read as a return of Maoist sensibilities, where

18
Foucault, ―Meshes of Power,‖ p.161 -2.
19
This new gendered sensibility is radical in the sense that it destabilized notions in the PRC where gender
equality meant allowing women to be like men. After Teresa, youth culture reterritorialized spaces for
feminine expression, though institutionally, women continued to be marginalized. See ―Pre -Marital
Preoccupations‖ in Harriet Evans‘ Women and Sexuality in China, New York: Continuum Publishing Co.,
1997, pp.82-111; and chapters 4-5 of Tani E. Barlow‘s The Question of Women in Chinese Feminism, Duke
University Press, 2004, pp.190-301.
20
Ban Wang, ―Reenchanting the Image in Global Culture: Reification and N ostalgia in Zhu Tianwen‘s
Fiction,‖ in Writing Taiwan: A New Literary History, edited by David Der-wei Wang and Carlos Rojas,
Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, p.377.
11

akin to the yiku sitian ⌈ 忆苦思甜 ⌋ (―Recall the bitterness but savor the sweet‖) programs
of the past, Chinese people are encouraged to be optimistic and put their faith in the
Party.
21
However, whereas past campaigns have failed because the government could not
supply the population with what the people needed or wanted, the state media‘s new
attempts of savoring the sweetness through selections of Teresa‘s music highlight the
abundance of sentiment and nostalgia readily available for purchase. Chinese people
now can actualize their basic needs as well as desires.
22

On the nation-state scale, the public acceptance of Teresa by the PRC after 1997
signified a kind of tolerance over Taiwan‘s claims to Chinese authenticity. In fact, this
recognition of multiculturalism is precisely how the PRC frames the discourse to re-
integrate Taiwan as a province into the mainland.
23
As the PRC has managed to integrate
Hong Kong under the ―One China, Two Systems‖ policy, it will not hesitate to entice the
ROC to return to the mainland with that model of special administration as well.
24
Thus
the commodification and availability of Teresa Teng on the Mainland also serves to
market the PRC as the sole embodiment of Chinese authenticity to the general population.
This functions to subsume other expressions of Chinese identity and legitimize the PRC‘s

21
See Xinran‘s introduction and ch.9 in China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation, translated by Julia
Lovell et al., New York: Pantheon Books, 2009, pp.1-12, 259-306.
22
See Jun Liu‘s article couched in terms of yiku sitian, ―Future Tastes Sweet for New Generation,‖ in
China Daily, 9 August 2007, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/entertainment/2007-
08/09/content_6019344 .htm (accessed 28 June 2009).
23
Cal Clark, ―Taiwan Enters Troubled Waters: The Elective Presidencies of Lee Teng -hui and Chen Shui-
bian,‖ in Taiwan: A New History (Expanded Edition), edited by Murray A. Rubenstein, New York: M.E.
Sharpe, Inc., 2007, pp.496-535.
24
See Michael C. Davis, ―Tiananmen in Hong Kong,‖ in, The Aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Crisis in
Mainland China, edited by Bih-jaw Lin et al., San Francisco: Westview Press, 1992, pp.364-85.
12

sovereignty.
25
The PRC recognizes Teresa as a product of one of its provinces and
strategically uses the rhetoric of gangtai relations to emphasize that Hong Kong and
Taiwan are Chinese peripheries to its ―co re‖ in the pan-Chinese community.
26
By
couching Teresa‘s music in the language of tolerance and multiculturalism in the way
ethnic minorities are treated, Taiwanese culture and the contemporary calls for Taiwanese
independence are discursively swept aside. By unquestioningly consuming this narrative,
audiences unwittingly allow themselves to be controlled by the media and remain
ignorant.
An example of how the nostalgic discourse reconstructs Teresa‘s importance is
found in Teresa‘s biography by her Japanese manager and close friend Nishida Hiroshi 西
田裕司. In 1996, Nishida published his memoir Tsuioku no Teresa Tan: to mo ni ayunda
9 nenkan no hibi 『追憶のテレサ・テン: ともに歩んだ 9 年間の日々』(Reminiscing on
Teresa Teng: Our 9 Years Together) and the following year, it was translated in the ROC
as Meili yu gudu: he Deng Li-jun zouguo de rizi 《美麗與孤獨: 和鄧麗君走過的日子》
(Beauty and Loneliness: My Days Spent With Teresa Teng) in Taipei. In 1999, the
memoir was approved for release in the Mainland.
27
What is so noteworthy about
Nishida‘s memoir is that the PRC edition had the entire chapter on Teresa‘s participation

25
See Nimrod Baranovitch‘s ―Popular Music and State Politics: Hegemony, Resistance, Symbiosis, and
Unity,‖ in China’s New Voices: Popular Music, Ethnicity, Gender, and Politics 1978-1997, Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 2003, pp.190-272.
26
Baranovitch, China’s New Voices, p.230.
27
See Nishida Hiroshi‘s Beauty and Loneliness: My Days Spent with Teresa Teng, translated by Long
Xiang, Taipei: Storm & Stress Publishing Co., Ltd., 1997, and its PRC version released by Shenyang:
Liaoning Educational Publishing Co., 1999.
13

in Hong Kong‘s Pro-Democracy Concert and her support of the student protests at
Tiananmen Square censored.

The Fight for Peace Denied
The CCP carefully censors information that casts the PRC in a negative light,
especially in regards to the student demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989. By
only portraying Teresa as a romantic songstress, most of Teresa‘s fans on the Mainland
are not exposed to the fact that she openly criticized the CCP during and after this period.
On May 27
th
1989, Hong Kong held the fundraising benefit ―Concert for Democracy in
China‖ minzhu gesheng xian zhonghua ⌈ 民主歌聲獻中華 ⌋ in support of the students
protesting at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The 12-hour marathon concert was held at
the Happy Valley Race Course on Hong Kong Island with an estimated 200-300,000
sitting in the attendance.
28

After being introduced, Teresa walked on stage with two arms raised, waving a mic
in one hand and a peace sign in the other. Like the performers and MCs, she wore the
pro-democracy tee-shirt but in addition, she sported sunglasses with a white bandana tied
around her forehead, which read ―Long Live Democracy‖ minzhu wan sui ⌈ 民主萬歲 ⌋.
As if that were not enough to make her point, Teresa carried a handwritten placard tied

28
The Tiananmen Papers accounts for 200,000 attendees while sources such as the footage from Hong
Kong estimate over 300,000 attendees; Andrew Nathan and Perry Link, ed., The Tiananmen Papers,
compiled by Zhang Liang, New York: Public Affairs, 2001, p.316. Other famous artists who performed
included BEYOND, Zhou Hua-jian 周華健 (Wakin Chau), Zhang Xue-you 張學友 (Jacky Cheung), Mei
Yan-fang 梅艷芳 (Anita Mui), Hou Dejian 侯德健, and Ye Qing-wen 葉蒨文 (Sally Yip). The documentary
―Gate of Heavenly Peace‖ reports that the e vent raised millions of dollars and sent supplies such as tents to
the students at Tiananmen Square.
14

around her neck that read ― Oppose Military Control‖ fandui junguan ⌈ 反対軍管 ⌋.
29
Once
on stage, Teresa addressed the audience‘s welcoming applause and cheers, saying:
Thank you very much, everyone is so warm-hearted, we‘re all gathered
together in Hong Kong striving to fight for democracy. I‘ve been
practicing a song and this song is something I‘ve never performed before;
I think very few people have even heard it before. I hope that once you‘ve
heard it, you will understand what my heart is trying to say.
30

Accompanied by a single piano, Teresa sang a song from the 1958 black and white
Taiwanese film, ―Love Story of Uncivilized Girls‖ Shui Bayi zhi lian 《水摆夷之恋》,
named ―Home Is On the Other Side of the Mountain‖ Jia zai shan de na yi bian 《家在山
那邊》.
31
The film was produced under martial law and had cleared the KMT‘s national
censorship by promoting underlying themes of ROC nationalism and self-sacrifice in the
face of communist enemies. In the context of this pro-democracy concert, Teresa used
the song to criticize the CCP as rodents who stole away the land from the poor Chinese
folk. The lyrics are as follows:
我的家在山的那一邊, 那兒有茂密的森林, 那兒有無邊的草原,
My home is on the other side of the mountain, where there‘re lush
forests, where there‘s boundless grassland.
春天播種稻麥的種子, 秋天收割等待著新年。

29
The concert was also broadcasted in Canton so cameramen at Television Broadcasts Limited (TVB, 電視
廣播有限公司) purposefully angled their cameras in long-shots and close-ups to avoid capturing the
message on film in concern that it would enflame the CCP and damage TVB‘s mainland broadcasting
ability.
30
⌈ 非常謝謝, 大家這麼熱心, 在香港大家聚在一起, 努力爭取民主, 我練習了一首歌, 這首歌是從來我也沒唱過,
我想也很少人聽過, 希望大家聽了一後, 就知道我心理想說些甚麼。⌋
31
The film, directed by Tang Shaohua 唐紹華, revolves around indigenous minority women of the Bayi
tribe in remote Southern Yunnan (bordering Burma, Laos and Vietnam) illustrates the Sinocentric attitude
of the KMT with the insensitive translation of these women as ―uncivilized.‖ The music was written by
Zhou Lan-ping 周藍萍 with lyrics by Wang Chen 王琛 (translations are my own).
15

In spring we plant wheat seeds, in autumn we harvest and await the
New Year.
張大叔從不發愁, 李大嬸永遠樂觀。
Uncle Zhang is never depressed, Auntie Li is ever optimistic.
自從窯洞裏鑽出了狸鼠, 一切都改變了。
But ever since chipmunks burrowed out of the trenches, everything has
changed.
他嚼食了深埋的枯骨, 侵毒了人性的良善。
They‘ve chewed up the old skeletons buried deep, they‘ve poisoned
human kindness.
我的家在山的那一邊, 張大叔失去了歡樂, 李大嬸收藏了笑顏，
My home is on the other side of the mountain, Uncle Zhang has lost
his joy, and Auntie Li has hidden away her smile,
鳥兒飛出溫暖的窩巢, 春天變成寒冷的冬天。
Birds fly away from their warm nests, spring has become harsh winter
親友們失去了自由, 拋棄了美麗的家園。
Families and Friends have lost their freedom, having abandoned their
beautiful homeland.
朋友！不要貪一時歡樂, 朋友! 不要貪一時苟安。
Friends! Do not covet a moment of happiness, Friends! Do not covet a
moment of frivolous comfort.
要儘快的回去, 把民主的火把點燃,
We must go back immediately, to light the fire of democracy,
不要忘了我們生長的地方,
Do not forget that place where we were born and raised
是在山的那一邊, 山的那一邊。
It is on the other side of the mountain, on the other side of the
mountain.

Through the song, Teresa placed a call-to-action from the Chinese communities abroad to
―fig ht back to the Mainland‖ and rescue their oppressed kin.
32
Yet interestingly enough,
while Taiwan only recently embraced democracy (the first direct presidential election
happened a year after her death), Teresa is never reported to have spoken out against the

32
Teresa had an arsenal of patriotic KMT songs such as ―Taiwan the Great‖ 〈台灣好〉, ―Song of the Great
Wall‖ 〈長城謠〉, and ―Plum Blossom‖ 〈梅花〉which all echoed the sentiment of re-taking the Mainland.
16

KMT‘s use of violence in its recent history; she only criticized the authoritarianism of the
CCP.
Nonetheless, the bloody aftermath of the student protests at Tiananmen Square is
well documented, and Chairman Mao‘s giant portrait that overlooks the square now
symbolizes CCP surveillance and policing gaze over the Chinese people. The ― people‘s
square‖ was no longer owned by the Chinese masses and loitering or assembling on its
grounds was illegal. The popular protest by student vanguards of revolution was
dismissed as ―counter -revolutionary‖ and subsequently officially expunged from public
consciousness.
33

However, outside of the Mainland, Teresa‘s active involvement against violence at
Tiananmen Square stayed in the consciousness of her fans. In fact, one of the many
books commemorating the ten years after Teresa‘s passing was journalist Arita Yoshifu‘s
有田芳生 release of a new biography on Teresa, Watashi no uchi wa yama no mukou –
Teresa Ten jūnenme no sane 『私の家は山の向こう― テレサ・テン十年目の真実』
(translated in 2006 as 《我的家在山的那一邊: 鄧麗君第十年的真相》My Home Is On The
Other Side of The Mountain: The Reality of Teresa Teng Ten Years Later), which was
titled after Teresa‘s performance at the Pro-Democracy Concert. In the book, Arita
recounted the numerous times Teresa mentioned how she longed for reconciliation
between the Mainland and Taiwan. In one interview, Teresa had stated ―the smallest act
of violence will transform into a full-blown war, I detest war which is why I am willing

33
See the edited volumes, The Broken Mirror: China after Tiananmen, edited by George Hicks, Chicago:
St. James Press, 1990, and The Aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Crisis in Mainland China, edited by Bih-
jaw Lin et al., San Francisco: Westview Press, 1992.
17

to dedicate my strength for peace.‖
34
At another backstage interview on October 24
th
,
1994 in Sendai at the Miyagi Prefecture Auditorium, Teresa elaborated that ―the primary
goal of my life after this is to strive for peace in China.‖
35
Teresa didn‘t live long enough
to see that peace but worse still is that her audiences in the Mainland are denied access to
Teresa‘s messages of peace and dreams of reconciliation.
Instead, Mainland audiences are exposed to articles that obfuscate Teresa‘s social
significance. China Daily (the official ―voice of China‖) recently lauded Teresa‘s music
for touching so many lives and selling so many albums, which exemplifies the PRC
media‘s role in molding public consciousness by masking her potentially subversive
elements to fit in line with the PRC‘s official rhetoric.
36
This new article served to
reconcile the government‘s past censorship with new state policy and public opinion,
since, as scholars such as Barry Naughton have pointed out, market economy is no longer
the enemy of the Chinese proletariat.
37
The article reaffirmed Teresa‘s positive legacy in
Chinese popular culture by projecting the idea that lifting the ban on her music was
evidence of social reform and the increased civil liberties in China. The article listed that
Teresa was a secret agent for the KMT, was too liberal, and that she opposed the CCP by
performing for the KMT military as several myths of why Teresa was blacklisted. Rather
than addressing these issues it glossed over them and concluded that ―the many myths
have yet to be verified, but ‗lifting the ban‘ [on Teresa Teng] was an unmistakable

34
Arita, My Home, pp.124.
35
Arita, My Home, pp.125.
36
―Pop diva Teresa Teng lives on in Chinese hearts,‖ China Daily, 12 May 2005,
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-05/12/content_441430.htm (Accessed 20 April 2009).
37
See ch.3-4 of Barry Naughton‘s The Chinese Economy: Transitions and Growth, Cambridge:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press, 2007, pp.55-110.
18

truth.‖
38
Having labeled Teresa‘s subversive elements as myth, the PRC media was able
to get away with censoring sensitive information and avoided addressing criticisms
against its state sovereignty.
Moreover, the distribution of information and disclosure of Teresa‘s full
discography continues to remain censored in the PRC. The article predominately
highlighted Teresa‘s wish to return and perform for the ―Motherland ,‖ which
overshadowed her ties to the KMT and ROC. In this way, the PRC treated Teresa as a
product of Taiwanese provincial culture that the state could use rhetorically to legitimize
its own central authority. For example, the article only focused on Teresa‘s career
between 1978-1984 and 1992-1995, completely obscuring the years 1985-1992 when
Teresa publicly spoke out against the CCP. Of her many protests against CCP
authoritarianism, her participation at Happy Valley in 1989 and performances of pro-
ROC songs for the KMT military in Taiwan is public knowledge outside the Mainland.

38
― Deng Li-jun xiang hui da lu,‖ Singtao huanqiu wang.
19

Chapter Two: The Fight over China, Taiwanese History 1895-1995
To offer an alternate reading of Teresa Teng outside the PRC narrative, I will
examine Teresa‘s music through a Taiwanese context. However, to do so necessitates an
understanding of Taiwan‘s political history. This knowledge bridges the connections
between PRC and ROC that contextualize contemporary narratives on Teresa Teng. At
the beginning of the colonial period, the local Taiwanese were governed by foreign
powers such as the Japanese and then Mainland forces. Yet throughout these periods of
cultural domination, the local Taiwanese managed to find spaces to express their cultural
heritage. In the present, especially in the face of the PRC‘s discursive encroachment of
Taiwanese identity and culture, the KMT has strategically abandoned it‘s ―fight back to
the Mainland‖ ideology and adopted the policy of localization to maintain power in
Taiwan. Effectively, the KMT‘s claims of legitimacy have discursively changed from
subsuming Taiwan under pro-Chinese authority to being independence-minded and
inclusive of local Taiwanese identities, to which the CCP lays claims of sovereignty.
In 1895, Imperial Japan colonized Taiwan. By that time the island was already
inhabited by Taiwanese aboriginals, Portuguese and Dutch settlers and Chinese migrants
from the Mainland (predominately from Fujian and Quanzhou beginning in the 15
th
C.).
39

At the outset, local Taiwanese banded together to fend off the Japanese, but this only led
to the death of twelve-thousand ―bandit -rebels‖ between 1898 and 1902.
40
At the same
time, under the Governor-general Kodama Gentarō‘s 兒玉源太郎 (1852-1906)

39
For a historical account of early colonization, see Tonio Andrade‘s How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch,
Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century, New York: Columbia University Press, 2008.
40
Harry J. Lamley, ―Taiwan Under Japanese Rule, 1895 -1945: The Vicissitudes of Colonization,‖ in
Taiwan: A New History (Expanded Edition), edited by Murray A. Rubinstein, New York: M.E. Sharpe,
2007, p.211.
20

administration of Taiwan (1898-1906), chief civil administrator Gotō Shimpei 後藤新平
(1857-1929) fitted out the Taiwanese landscape with the infrastructure (including schools,
hospitals, roads, etc.) needed to develop its natural resources. One such area was
agriculture which helped increase the livelihood of the Taiwanese as well as support
Japan‘s growing industrialization.
41
To quell local resistance and promote peace, Gotō
imposed a boundary for the various Taiwanese mountain tribes and set up a reservation
for them. This mountain seclusion, however, was disrupted by General Sakuma Samata‘s
佐久間左馬太 (1844-1915) succeeding regime (1905-15) when the military subjugated the
mountain tribes and destroyed their villages for timber.
42

The period from 1915-1936 remained relatively peaceful and the Japanese
colonizers engaged the Taiwanese with assimilationist kyōka ⌈ 教化 ⌋ indoctrination.
43
In
the 1920s, the locals were imbued with the ―Japa nese spirit‖ yamato damashii ⌈ 大和魂 ⌋
and subjected as one national ethnic group under the civilizing and acculturating dōka ⌈ 同
化 ⌋ policy.
44
In the 1930s, the Japanese metropole escalated its imperialist campaigns in
East Asia and the colonial government enacted the kōminka ⌈ 皇民化⌋ project in Taiwan.
45

This social program was initiated under the guise of granting the Taiwanese the privilege

41
Lamley, ―Tai wan Under Japanese Rule,‖ p.209; ―This is a Shame,‖ TIME, 10 June, 1946,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,792979,00.html (accessed 29 March 2009).
42
Lamley, ―Taiwan Under Japanese Rule,‖ p.211.
43
Lamley, ―Taiwan Under Japanese Rule,‖ p.2 21.
44
Leo T.S. Ching, Becoming ― Japanese:‖ Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity Formation, Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 2001, pp.107-13, 168-9; see also ―The Emergence of a Singular
Taiwan Consciousness‖ of chapter 6 in Hua-yuan Hsueh et al., Is Taiwan Chinese? A History of Taiwanese
Nationality, Taipei: Taiwan Advocates, 2005, pp.114-24.
45
Ching, Becoming ― Japanese,‖ pp.137-140.
21

of becoming loyal Japanese imperial subjects, but in actuality, functioned to supply
Japan‘s war machine with more troops and materials. It was in this last decade of
Japanese rule, that Taiwanese residents saw the resurgence of military crackdown on
expressions of local identity and conditioned the local Taiwanese to become Japanese.
46

Yet despite the increased policing of local identities in the 1930-40s, expression of
native culture did find an outlet in popular music. Officially, Japanese was instituted as
the official language in schools and the local Taiwanese adopted Japanese names and
customs to please the colonizers under the kyōka policy. Songs traditionally sung in local
Hakka, Mandarin or Hokkien languages were banned and the musical content of
Taiwanese songs were limited only to themes on love and romance with strict aversions
to sensitive and socio-political issues.
47
However, new musical notation methods and the
advent of the phonograph led to the emergence of a local recording industry in the 1930s.
The production of local Taiwanese music was initially subdued but due to the ―colonial
regime‘s greater interest in promoting a profitable business,‖ this industry was allowed to
survive as a source of revenue towards the war effort, so long as the content wasn‘t
seditious.
48
Thus one characteristic of the locally-produced Taiwanese during this period
was that it incorporated both Japanese and local elements and became a Japanese-styled
Taiwanese music.

46
Comparative studies of the kōminka system show that the Japanese were much harsher in Korea than in
Taiwan, see part one of Peter Duus‘ The Abacus and the Sword: The Japanese Penetration of Korea, 1895-
1910, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998.
47
Jen-chi Wang, The Transition of Popular Music in Taiwan towards Globalization in the 1980s and 1990s:
An Analysis of the Process, Characteristics, Theoretical and Social Implications, MA Thesis, State
University of New York at Buffalo, 2001, pp.18-9.
48
Pat Gao, ―Music, Interrup ted,‖ Taiwan Review 57:11, 1 November, 2007.
http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=24780&CtNode=119 (Accessed 1 March 2009).
22

Japan was defeated in the Pacific War in 1945 and Taiwan retroceded to the
Chinese Republic under the KMT. The liberation of the Taiwanese, however, was short-
lived because not long after retrocession, the truce between Mao Ze-dong and Chiang
Kai-shek 蔣介石 (1887-1975) fell apart. In 1946, civil war between the Nationalists and
Communists reignited, which led to tensions between the locals and the KMT. While the
KMT troops were ordered to fight the CCP on the mainland, KMT soldiers in Taiwan
confiscated land and property, stripping the locals of their resources.
49
The local
Taiwanese – whose ancestry now included Indonesian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch,
Fukienese, Cantonese, and Japanese blood – accused the KMT of corruption and grew
resentful towards the new settlers (among whom were Teresa‘s parents from Hunan).
50

This resentment exploded in 1947 during the February 28
th
Massacre, where excessive
military force was used to subdue the popular uprising to solidify KMT control.
51
The
violent crackdown on the Taiwanese population thereafter signaled the military
authoritarianism (reign of ―white terror‖) of the KMT to come.
52

The KMT fought a losing battle on the mainland and having gained control over the
local Taiwanese, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek funneled reserves from the mainland.
The KMT lost the war and he relocated the Nationalist government to Taiwan. When

49
Steven Phillips, ―Between Assimilation and Independence: Taiwanese Political Aspirations Under
Nationalist Chinese Rule, 1945-1948,‖ in Taiwan: A New History (Expanded Edition), edited by Murray A.
Rubinstein, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007, pp.281-4.
50
Hsueh, Is Taiwan Chinese, p.121. A popular slogan at the time was ―the dogs have left but the pigs have
come‖ which compares to the civilized but villainous Japanese ‗dogs‘ to the uncouth, ragged KMT ‗pigs‘
after decolonization. The mainlanders are still commonly called ―outsiders‖ wai sheng ren ⌈ 外省人⌋ in
relation to the lasting tensions, ―Tug of War : The Story of Taiwan.‖ Dir. Judith Vecchione. PBS, Nov. 30,
1998; Phillips, ―Between Assimilation and Independence,‖ p.291.
51
Peggy Durdin, ―Terror in Taiwan,‖ The Nation, May 24, 1947; see also Phillips, ― Between Assimilation
and Independence,‖ pp.292-6.
52
Phillips, ― Between Assimilation and Independence,‖ p.302.
23

Mao Ze-dong declared the founding of the People‘s Republic of China (PRC) at
Tiananmen Square on October 1
st
, 1949, Chiang Kai-shek in December of that year
announced that the capital of the ROC would temporarily relocate from Nanjing to Taipei.
As a ―temporary‖ retreat, Chiang and his army vowed to ―fight back to the mainland‖ and
reclaim China.
53
Although this goal was never realized, Chiang manipulated Cold War
anti-Communist fervor to garner official support of his ROC government from the United
Nations and the United States.
In 1949, on the verge of the Korean War, Chiang issued a state of emergency and
implemented martial law under the guise of internal and external Communist threat,
which effectively stifled local dissent against the occupying Republic. With American
aide and intervention in Asia, Chiang ruled Taiwan with an iron fist, put down mass
public protests through military force, asserted cultural-linguistic domination by
suppressing local culture and practices, and used secret police headed by his son, Ching-
kuo 蔣經國 (1910-1988).
54

Under martial law, the government made major changes with the Taiwanese
education system, where, much like the Japanese kyōka project before them, the KMT
banned local expressions of ethnic identity using the rhetorical logic of nation-building.
In the 1953 ROC reprint of the Three Principles, Chiang Kai-shek criticized that
contemporary literature and art of his time were produced for the market and were
influenced by considerations of market demand, which was why the quality of literary

53
Vecchione, ―Tug of War.‖
54
Phillips, ―Between Assimilation and Independence ,‖ pp. 277-303; and Peter Chen-main Wang ―A
Bastion Created, A Regime Reformed, An Economy Reengineered, 1949-1970,‖ in Taiwan: A New History
(Expanded Edition), edited by Murray A. Rubinstein, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007, pp.321, 325, 335-6.
24

and artist works suffered.
55
Martial law thus expanded the military‘s powers into the
civil sphere and allowed the KMT to reform the Taiwanese education system and police
the ― progressive decadence of literary and artistic standards.‖
56
By 1968, local
Taiwanese and Mainlander children were fully integrated into the mainstream
compulsory public school system, learning to speak only in Mandarin.
57

To the world, Chiang Kai-shek and his regime championed the greatness of the
democratic system, but the selective inclusionary practices of the government
compromised their lofty ideology. Chiang had legitimized his position claiming that
even under martial law, the ROC operating doctrine came from Sun Yet-sen‘s (1866-
1925) ― Three Principles of the People‖ sanmin zhuyi ⌈ 三民主義 ⌋ which promoted
―Government of the People‖ minzhu ⌈ 民主 ⌋ (Nationalism), ―Government by the People‖
minquan ⌈民權⌋ (Democracy), and ―Government for the People‖ minsheng ⌈民生⌋ (Social
Welfare).
58
However, in practice, local Taiwanese culture, practices and identities were
subsumed under the rubric of the ROC ‗citizen.‘ Under martial law, what the ―Three
Principles‖ really meant was a systematic negation of the Taiwanese individual since the
locals were not considered as part of ―the People‖ unless the y became Chinese subjects of
the ROC. The strict reforms on education institutionalized cultural erasure and thus

55
Frank W. Price, San Min Chu I: The three Principles of the People with two supplementary chapters by
Chiang Kai-shek, Taipei: China Publishing Company, 1953, pp.270-1.
56
Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006, p.5; Price, San Min
Chu I, pp.270-1.
57
John Fairbank et al., East Asia: Tradition and Transformation, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1989,
p.902.
58
Hungdah Chiu, ―An Assessment of Political Reform and Development in the Republic of China,‖ in
Postwar Taiwan in Historical Perspective, edited by Chun-Chieh Huang and Feng-fu Tsao, Bethesda:
University Press of Maryland, 1998, pp.71, 87.
25

assimilated generations of local Taiwanese children. So despite the fact that all school-
aged children memorized and could identify the ―Thr ee Principles of the People‖ and the
state‘s democratic rhetoric (using state-approved Mandarin, of course), the exercise of
ethnic expression and artistic freedom remained elusive.
59

In the 1960s, America helped Taiwan industrialize and its economy experienced the
―Taiwan Miracle.‖
60
During this time, the KMT government emphasized domestic
growth and economic freedom over democratic ideals. The Taiwanese government
restructured its economic model towards an international Western-directed economic
system that focused on import-substitution and export-goods.
61
The party-state ruling
system at the time did not tolerate opposition to the KMT-regime and local representation
of the Taiwanese people in government was ―frozen‖ due to the convenient fact that ther e
could be no free elections under martial law.
62

In this respect, the local Taiwanese who greatly contributed to the economic growth
were institutionally disenfranchised from partaking in the central government. In fact,
the 380 members of the ROC Legislative Yuan (Parliament) that was supposed to be
representative of the nation were all Mainlanders who were voted into office in 1948

59
The ROC established Sun Yat-sen‘s speech at the founding of Whampoa Military Academy in 1924 as
the national anthem in 1943. The first line is ― The ‗Three Principles of the People‘ are the foundation of
our Party,‖ sanmin zhuyi, wudang suozong ⌈ 三民主義，吾黨所宗 ⌋ and is sung as part of the morning flag-
raising ritual at school, from ― National Flag, Anthem, and Flower,‖ Taiwanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs
website http://www.mofa.gov.tw/webapp/ct.asp?xItem=26328&CtNode=1022&mp=6 (Accessed 9 May
2009), and ― Guoge de youlai 國歌的由來‖ Sun Zhongsan xueshu yanjiu zhixun wang 《孫中山學術研究資訊
網》http://sun.yatsen.gov.tw/content.php?cid=S01_02_04 (Accessed 9 May 2009).
60
Wang, ― A Bastion Created,‖ pp.326-336.
61
Wang, ―A Bastion Created,‖ pp.331 -5.
62
Wang, ― A Bastion Created,‖ p.336.
26

before Chiang Kai-shek moved the government to Taiwan.
63
What this meant was that
these members of parliament represented constituents of the Mainland and since elections
were impossible while fighting the CCP, the Judicial Yuan voted to establish elections
after the KMT secured the Mainland again. This virtually granted the Mainland officials
lifetime terms.
64
Put simply, the ROC was not of the local people, not established by the
local people, and was certainly not for the benefit of the local peoples.
In the 1971, Taiwan had lost its seat in the United Nations to the PRC. In 1972,
under the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, American President Richard Nixon
(1913-1994) and his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger (b. 1923), began
establishing formal diplomatic relations with the PRC. Later, in December 1978,
President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) reiterated that the U.S. would not recognize the ROC as
the sovereign government of China.
65
Instead, America chose to acknowledge the PRC
and severed ties with the ROC but not before issuing the Taiwan Relations Act, which
allowed the U.S. to supply weapons to Taiwan in the semblance of providing the ROC
with national defense.
66
In the midst of these diplomatic setbacks, the growing
Taiwanese middle class began bargaining for more political recognition. Led by
intellectuals, the resulting ―Nativist‖ movement formed a loosely-knit political faction

63
Chiu, ―An Assessment of Political Reform,‖ p.74.
64
See Rubinstein‘s ―Pragmatic Diplomacy‖ for reforms in the legislative Yuan in the 1970s, pp.439-457.
65
Rubinstein, ―Political Taiwanization,‖ pp.437-41.
66
Wang, ―A Bastion Created, ‖ pp.335-6.
27

under the umbrella term ―tang -wai‖ dangwai 黨外 (―outside the ruling KMT party‖ ) to
hold rallies and protest for political change.
67

Democratic Reform in the 1980s
In 1975 Chiang Kai-shek passed away and his son ascended to the office of
President of the ROC in May 1978. It was under Chiang Ching-kuo‘s presidency that the
KMT‘s Sinocization gave way to a more open dialogue regarding native Taiwanese
consciousness. This rise of Taiwanese Nativism was directly linked to the ideological
struggle of the members of the dangwai opposition.
68
After violent repression of the
opposition in the Kaohsiung protests of 1979, the local Taiwanese became emboldened to
confront the KMT-dominated party-state.
69
In 1986, while faced with ongoing struggles
with the increasingly militant local Taiwanese, President Chiang Ching-kuo
―pragmatically‖ recognized and accepted dangwai parties and their grievances into the
political system.
70
The next year, President Chiang also lifted martial law which resulted
in the proliferation of local Taiwanese culture.
71
The incorporation of alternative and
oppositional ideas into the political sphere destabilized the ROC‘s national identity and

67
Murray A. Rubinstein, ―Political Taiwanization and Pragmatic Diplomacy: The Eras of Chiang Ching -
kuo and Lee Teng-hui, 1971-1994,‖ in Taiwan: A New History (Expanded Edition), New York: M.E.
Sharpe, Inc., 2007, pp.438.
68
Tu, ―Cultural Identity,‖ p.11 26.
69
Rubinstein, ―Political Taiwanization,‖ pp.443 -8.
70
Rubinstein, ―Political Taiwanization,‖ pp.446 -7; see also Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, ―Introduction,‖
Literary Culture in Taiwan: Martial Law to Market Law, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004,
pp.2-5.
71
Tu, ―Cultural Identity,‖ p.112 9.
28

from that point on, the political discourse has become increasingly localized or
―Taiwanized.‖
72

72
Rubinstein, ―Political Taiwanization,‖ pp.436 -495
29

Chapter Three: Teresa’s Induction into the Changing Business of Music
Musically, during the period of transition from the Mainland to Taiwan, there had
been a marked shift in the influx of popular culture. Between 1945 and 1949, as Japanese
music was phased out of the public sphere, music came from the Mainland in the form of
Shanghai and American jazz. When the Nationalists formally retreated to Taiwan, the
source of music began to come instead from Hong Kong as musicians in Hong Kong
continued Shanghai-style music well up until the 1960s.
73
Since Martial Law instituted
pro-Mandarin policies in public media/entertainment, Teresa grew up listening to
Shanghai classics and local Taiwanese music, which had adopted Mandarin lyrics to
Japanese melodies (while Japanese music was officially banned, the locally-produced
Taiwanese music still adopted Japanese-style music as it had done since the 1930s).
74

At the same time, since the United States was supporting the KMT during the Cold
War and set up a military presence in Taiwan, American music also took root amongst
the social elites and rising middle class (such as university students and businessmen who
came in contact with Americans through armed forces radio or in-person through
expatriate acquaintances). From the 1950s-70s, western music dominated youth and elite
culture, while local music, on the other hand, was discouraged from the public sphere as
Japanese poison.
75
One example of this in the 1970s was Bun Ha‘s 文夏 (Wen Xia)
―M om, Please Take Care of Yourself‖ Mama qing ni ye baozhong 〈媽媽請你也保重〉that

73
Masshi Ogawa ―Japanese popular music in Hong Kong: What does TK present?‖ in Refashioning Pop
Music in Asia: Cosmopolitan Flows, Political Tempos and Aesthetic Industries, Allen Chun et al, ed., New
York: Routledge Curzon, 2004, p.144.
74
Wang, Transition in Popular Music, p.19-21.
75
Deanna Campbell Robinson et al., Music at the Margins: Popular Music and Global Cultural Diversity,
New York: Sage Publications, 1991, p.131; See also Yuxiu Chen and Yuxiu Li, ed., ―Taiwanese Music –
General,‖ Encyclopedia of Taiwan Music, Taipei: Yuan-Liou Publishing Co., Ltd., 2008.
30

was sung in Hokkien set to Japanese-styled music.
76
The song was a particular favorite
of soldiers serving away from home, but as Bun Ha noted ―apparently soldiers were
supposed to devote themselves fully to defending the country and should not be
distracted by thinking of their mothers.‖
77
This type of sentimental local music was
rejected by the state for distracting soldiers from their military duties. In fact, the
Cultural Bureau of the Ministry of Education imposed many restrictions, which included
only allowing two songs in ―local dialects‖ (meaning non -Mandarin) to air per day
between three government-owned television stations beginning in 1962 when Taiwan
Television Enterprises (TTV) Taiwan dianshi gongsi 《台灣電視公司》was launched.
78

Teresa joined the entertainment industry during this ethnic repression in 1966 just
as economic conditions softened with the establishment of the first export processing
zones in Kaohsiung.
79
To get her foot in the door, Teresa tapped into the local Taiwanese
channels and with her mother as her manager, stylist, and confidant, Teresa began singing
after-school and in the evenings at bars and nightclubs. The proliferation of these sites of
entertainment were indicative of the capitalist market as they sprang up in the 1960s-70s
in the wake of Taiwan‘s increased industrialization to fill the needs of wealthy Japanese
businessmen who travelled to Taiwan for business and sexual entertainment (brothels

76
Gao, ―Music, Interrupted.‖
77
Gao also writes that local Taiwanese singers like Bun Ha had no other choice but to sing Taiwanese
songs for the Japanese who didn‘t understand the language, ―Music, Interrupted.‖
78
The other two stations were Chinese Television Co. (CTV) Zhongguo dianshi gongsi 《中國電視公司》
which was established in 1969 and Chinese Television Station (CTS) zhonghua dianshi gongsi 《中華電視
公司》which was established in 1971, Wang, Transition in Popular Music, p.20-2; Pat Gao‘s ―Coming into
Her Own‖ in Taiwan Review 58:7, 1 July, 2008.
http://taiwanreview.nat.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=44040&CtNode=119 (Accessed 1 March 2009).
79
Wang, ―A Bastion Created,‖ pp.335-6.
31

were only made illegal in the 1980s).
80
Local musicians catered to them and played enka
艶歌 and other forms of popular Japanese music. Teresa‘s early career followed the
nakaxi-styled ballads that incorporated Taiwanese lyrics regarding the harsh life of the
jiuge nü 酒歌女 bar-girl, though as a minor, her songs were less explicit.
81
Additionally,
Teresa also catered to the taste of Mainlander and teahouse culture with a repertoire that
consisted of patriotic military songs, popular Huang-Mei 黃梅 opera songs, Taiwanese
song-plays ― ko-tsai-hsi‖ 歌仔戲 (gezaixi), and Shanghai classics from the 1920s and 30s.

Fig.1-2. Teresa competing at singing Huang-Mei opera; pictured to the right with her parents (c.1962)
(Source: ―Zishen dianyingren xie Deng Li -jun: Liangshi jiaqi hui chuan duanbei qing,‖ ⌈ 資深電影人謝鄧麗
君: 兩矢嫁期會傳斷背情⌋ (― Seasoned film staff reports on Teresa‘s two failed engagements‖), Renminwang
《人民網》, 19 December 2007, http://tw.people.com.cn/BIG5/26741/6674111.html, accessed 10 May
2009)

80
Gao noted that the ―nakasi‖ singer led an itinerant lifestyle in the 1960s centered around the
entertainment hub of Beitou 北投, Taiwan, which is famed for its hot springs that draws Japanese crowds
and the Taiwanese entertainment industry, ― Coming into Her Own,‖ see also Gao‘s ―Music, Interrupted.‖
81
Jeremy E. Taylor traces the epistemology of nakaxi to the Japanese term nagashi 流し meaning
―wandering musician,‖ and although Taylor identifies the bar-girl as having Japanese origins, there is a
strong resemblance of these singers to the 1920-30s jazz club singers in Shanghai as well, ―Pop music as
postcolonial nostalgia in Taiwan‖ in Refashioning Pop Music in Asia: Cosmopolitan Flows, Political
Tempos and Aesthetic Industries, Allen Chun et al, ed., New York: Routledge Curzon, p.177-8.
32

Modernity and Chinese Identity
As a young girl, Teresa started singing to songs on the radio and her parents
allowed her to take singing lessons from a military music instructor, Li Cheng-qing 李成
清, from the Mainland who lived nearby.
82
Accompanied by her teacher, on the erhu 二
胡, Teresa rehearsed at home, where her mother would often have to drive away
neighbors who loitered at their doorstep to listen. At the tender age of 8, Teresa was
labeled a vocal genius and began to sing at school functions and in amateur competitions.
Unfortunately, Teresa‘s young career took a toll on her education. Her mother frequently
excused Teresa from school to perform at local contests, which caught the attention of
her teachers.
83
In 1966, when she was 14, Teresa‘s all-girls Catholic junior high deemed
her extra-curricular activities unbecoming and requested that she stop performing, but
since Teresa and her family felt the school was being too conservative (after all, Teresa‘s
mother oversaw all her performances), Teresa quit school instead and started pursuing a
professional musical career.
84

Teresa signed with a local Taiwanese recording company named Universal Records
(yuzhou changpian gongsi 宇宙唱片公司) in 1967 and started releasing her first albums.
Her very first album ―Fengyang Flower Drum‖ fengyang huagu 《鳳陽花鼓》, consisted

82
Qingcheng huainian Deng Li-jun ⌈ 傾城懷念鄧麗君⌋ (―The ‗ Fallen City‘ Reminisces About Teresa Teng‖),
Teresa Teng 10 Year Memorial Special, Yazhou dianshi 《亞洲電視》(Asia Television Ltd., aTV), Hong
Kong, May 2005. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmyD8kFQoPU (accessed 31 March, 2009).
83
See interview with Teresa‘s younger brother Jim Teng (―Teng Chang Hsi‖ Deng Chang-xi 鄧長禧) on
Qingcheng huainian Deng Li-jun, Yazhou dianshi.
84
Since Teresa stopped her education in junior high, her formative education was predominately shaped by
the KMT‘s official doctrine, Qingcheng huainian Deng Li-jun, Yazhou dianshi.
33

of popular songs from the Huang-Mei opera tradition favored by her mother and other
Mainlanders. In fact, throughout Teresa‘s career, popular operatic songs, particularly
ones from filmic renditions loved by older Mainlanders rounded out her arsenal of music.
Shortly after in 1969 she was invited to help raise money for a charity concert in
Singapore by Singaporean First Lady Puan Noor Aishah, which was where she
performed abroad for the very first time.
In Singapore, Teresa found herself connecting with the local Chinese community
and remarked: ―It‘s amazing that there are Chinese people even this far away.‖
85
Teresa
felt such pride in being united with so many Chinese overseas that she used her rising
stardom to raise funds for orphans, disaster relief, and the sick and needy abroad, which
reflected the growing transnational market networks.
86
This episode in Teresa‘s life also
signaled her growing consciousness of a diasporic Chinese identity that was removed
from the Mainland and could be re-centered outside its national boundaries. This
iteration of Chinese identity was important as it redefined Chineseness and took sojourn
and migrant experiences into account.
87
It is this pan-Chinese identity that the PRC now
hopes to incorporate by celebrating Teresa‘s music.
Since Teresa grew up in government housing with military families from various
parts of China, she had learnt early on to navigate ethnic, linguistic and culturally diverse
terrains to make cultural connections. Indeed, the mass exodus of the KMT to Taiwan
was the very thing that enabled Teresa to become so popular in her early career. As a

85
Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, p.49.
86
Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, p.52, 64.
87
Ien Ang, ―Can One Say No to Chineseness? Pushing the Limits of the Diasporic Paradigm‖ in Modern
Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory, Durham: Duke University Press, 2000,
pp.285-8; also see Tu Wei-ming‘s edited volume The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being
Chinese Today, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994.
34

young child, Teresa‘s neighbors bribed her with ten-dollar bills to sing their favorite
songs.
88
This forced Teresa to learn a wide range of music as well as trained her in
reading her adult audiences and to cater to their musical tastes. Additionally, even before
working at Universal Records, Teresa had learnt how to work an audience from her
experience performing in singing competitions and at the entertainment halls, bars, and
nightclubs as a young child. Teresa was successful because she recognized that her
Chinese audiences were diverse publics, and using her voice and linguistic capacity,
Teresa charmed the sojourn ― huaqiao‖ 華僑 communities with her urban femininity.

Fig.3. Teresa posing for an ad for National home appliances (a subsidiary of Panasonic), 1960s
(Source: Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.34)

Teresa was also great at marketing herself internationally; she learned to perform in
the local languages of the overseas Chinese (which included Cantonese, Malay,
Minnan/Hokkien, Shandong, and Shanghainese). Teresa was privileged with the
opportunity to incorporate these local languages for a couple of reasons. The most
commonly attributed reason was that she had linguistic talent. Another is that she picked
up the various languages from other displaced Mainlanders living in her neighborhood,

88
―Qin gcheng huainian Deng Li-jun,‖ Yazhou dianshi.
35

but what is almost never discussed is the fact that it was precisely because Teresa quit
school that she had the latitude to access and learn non-standardized ―Chinese‖
(Mandarin). Had Teresa stayed in school, she would have had fewer chances to engage
her neighbors or language tutors.
Teresa was ahead of her time for recognizing and celebrating the diversity of the
Chinese population. As I discuss below, Teresa was not only able to represent the image
of a rising (Taiwanese) middle-class, she was able to communicate it to audiences across
Asia and the world. It is no surprise that Teresa became a symbol of glamour and the
beacon of the dream for prosperity, which simultaneously connected her as someone with
whom her audiences could identify (someone also estranged from the Chinese homeland)
as well as someone whom they aspired to be or possess.
89

During the export-led growth of Taiwanese economics, Teresa, as seen in figure 3,
marketed a technologically-advanced Taiwan to itself and to other developing nations in
Asia. From the image, young Teresa Teng embodied a new generation of urban
sensibilities complete with modern electronic appliances to improve the consumer‘s
quality of life. Her early music echoed Taiwan‘s mass industrialization with mass-
marketed songs which included ―Lonely Weekend‖ jimo de zhoumo 〈寂寞的週末〉from
her 1967 album ―Heartbroken Baby‖ xinteng de xiaobaobao 《心疼的小寶寶》and ―He‘s

89
She would later also learn English, French, and Japanese, Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, p.17;
for more on Chinese sojourners, see Wang Gung-wu‘s The Chinese Overseas: From Earthbound China to
the Quest for Autonomy, Harvard University Press, 2002.
36

Not in My Heart‖ wo de xinli meiyou ta 〈我的心裡沒有他〉from her 1967 album ―Hey
Hey A-Go Go‖ heihei a gege 《嘿嘿阿哥哥》.
90

Teresa‘s ―Lonely Weekend‖ and ―He‘ s Not in My Heart‖ are great examples of the
urban youth culture in the 1960s. The songs simultaneously reflected the government‘s
censorship of musical themes as well as illustrated how important themes of love and
romance were to shape youth culture. Specifically, the following two lines from ―Lonely
Weekend‖ depict a teenage girl‘s lament for not having any suitors despite her talents as
a modern woman capable of dancing and singing:
週末的晚上最寂寞難纏的黑夜怎麼過
The nights of the weekend are the loneliest, how do I endure the unshakable black
night
聽什麼音樂唱什麼歌還不是將我更難過
What music to listen, what songs to sing, they just make it even more unbearable

The song established a marked difference between the weekday and the weekend, where
weekends are filled with ―free‖ time for leisure and romance. Modern time for these
youths combine capitalist notions of production as well as liberal notions of pleasure with
weekdays reserved for productivity (work and school) and partitioned weekends reserved
for leisure and rest. Additionally, concepts of loneliness emphasized in the song invoke
the modern myth of love, where individuals are incomplete unless they get married and
establish a nuclear family. At the same time, the song also evoked a sense of boredom or
restlessness in youth culture, which suggests that staying indoors and pining away was

90
―He‘s Not In My Heart‖ was a cover off of famous Mainland singer, Tsin Ting‘s 靜婷 (Jing Ting) 1960
version sung in Mandarin set to the music of ― Historia De Un Amor‖ (A Love Story) by Carlos Eleta
Almaran in 1955. It speaks of the increasing channels of global intersections in popular culture. The song
was first featured in the Mexican film ―Historia De Un Amor,‖ directed by Roberto Gavaldón , (1956;
Internacional Cinematográfica, Mexico).
37

useless and unproductive. Instead, as the upbeat dance tempo of the jazz ensemble in the
song suggests, the youths should go out, congregate, and dance.
At the same time, Teresa‘s identity also personified the inheritance of traditional
Chinese teahouse culture. As figures 5-7 illustrate below, Teresa continued to sing
classical Chinese tales of love and romance such as Liang Shanbo yu Zhu Yintai 《梁山伯
與祝英台》(―The Butterfly Lovers‖) , the 1959 film adaptation of youlong xifeng 《遊龍戲
鳳》(―The Wandering Emperor‖), jiangshan meiren 《江山美人》(―The Kingdom and the
Beauty‖), Tang Bo-hu dian Qiu Xiang 《唐伯虎點秋香》(―The Flirting Scholar‖ ), and
Xixiangji 《西廂記》(―Romance of the Western Chamber‖) in operatic styles of the 1930-
50s. Teresa successfully synthesized positions of modern technological advancement
with traditional culture, a malleable concept of Chinese identity iterated by intellectuals
as far back as the 19
th
century when China was faced with western imperialism.
91

91
See other iterations of Chinese-Western synthesis are the Heavenly Kingdom of Taiping, the ―Self -
Strengthening‖ and ―Ti -Yong‖ ⌈ 體用⌋ Movements, Jonathan D. Spence, In Search for Modern China, New
York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1991, p.139-41, 165-84, 194-9, 224-30; this concept of synthesizing
Eastern and Western elements was also lauded by Chairman Mao in his famous saying: ―gu wei jin yong,
Yang wei Zhong yong‖ ⌈ 古为今用, 洋为中用 ⌋ (―Make the past serve the present and foreign culture serve
China‖). Barbara Mittler, ― Chinese New Music as a Politicized Language: Orthodox Melodies and
Dangerous Tunes,‖ in Indiana East Asian Working Paper Series 10, Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1996, p.15.
38

Fig.4-5. Teresa performing the operatic song ―Visiting Yingtai‖ 〈訪英台〉in Saigon, Vietnam (mid-1970s)
(Source: Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng‘s Biography, pp.24, 66)

Fig.6. Teresa dressed as the maid for the song ―Interrogating the Maid‖ 《拷紅》from the Yue opera 越劇
―Romance of the Western Chamber‖ 《西廂記》in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (mid-1970s)
92

(Source: Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.95)

In 1972, Teresa signed with Life Records (Lifeng changpian gongsi 麗風唱片公司),
where she accessed the strong ties Life Records had with these Southeast Asian
communities and continued to strengthen cultural connections with these communities
despite the threat of war in areas such as Vietnam.
93
During this time, Teresa continued
the tradition of singing nakaxi music, singing songs such as ―A Toast to You ‖ wo jing ni

92
This song was popularized in the 1940s by Zhou Xuan 周璇 in the film dramatization.
93
Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, p.64.
39

yi bei〈我敬你一杯〉, ―You‘re in My Heart‖ ni zai wo xinzhong 〈你在我心中〉), and ―Sad
Lonely Woman‖ xin sui gudan nü 〈心酸孤單女〉, but also fused pop and opera styles,
integrating western jazz to expand her marketability and attract younger, more
contemporary audiences especially with her 1973 film ―Fangirl‖ gemi xiaojie 《歌迷小
姐》. Her repertoire not only represented the aspirations of the new middle-class, but her
image as a vulnerable lovelorn woman of the nakaxi style satisfied the male gaze and the
policing order of these patriarchal societies.
94
For these reasons and because Teresa
represented their earliest taste of love and romance for a generation of Chinese across the
world, her adoring fans became wildly protective of her.
95

94
For more on the male gaze see Laura Mulvey‘s ―Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinem a‖ in Visual and
Other Pleasures, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989, pp.14-26.
95
See Appendix B for an example of this type of sentiment in Teresa‘s music.
40

Chapter Four: Subversive Spaces in Taiwanese Literature and Music
As mentioned previously, students learned to only speak Mandarin at school and by
the late-1970s, ―edu cation, urbanization, and affluence began to create a middle class
ethos in Taiwan and further broke down barriers between Taiwanese and Mainlanders.‖
96

The public education system, however, did not just acculturate local Taiwanese people
with KMT sensibilities but also exposed children of Mainlanders to local peoples. So by
the time the international community rejected Taiwan‘s sovereignty in 1971, many of
these students grew up to be adults who stood by the local Taiwanese and questioned the
legitimacy of the ROC government and its continued use of martial law. Since the
national economy was improving during the 1960-70s, local Taiwanese demanded better
living standards and more political representation.
97
Concerned about the continued
maltreatment of local peoples, local Taiwanese intellectuals criticized the Nationalist
state for not living up to its republican ideals.
Going back to when martial law was implemented, the literary scene of 1950s was
dominated by Mainland propagandist writing. So by the 1960s, Taiwanese writers (some
of whom had trained abroad) tried to rejuvenate literary culture by integrating Western
cultural products such as individualism, liberalism, and rationalism into their work. This
movement came to be known as the ‗Modernist‘ movement in Taiwan and it upheld that
art and literature were products of social criticism of the human experience.
98
Yet while
the Modernists commented on the human condition, they refused to take actions to

96
Fairbank, East Asia, p.902.
97
Murray A. Rubinstein‘s ―Taiwan‘s Socioeconomic Modernizati on, 1971-1996,‖ in Taiwan: A New
History (Expanded Edition), New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007, pp.367-77.
98
Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, ―Wang Wenxing‘s Backed against the Sea, Parts I and II: The Meaning of
Modernism in Taiwan‘s Contemporary Literature‖ in Writing Taiwan: A New Literary History, edited by
David Der-wei Wang and Carlos Rojas, Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, pp.156-60.
41

impact human suffering. Local critics of the Modernists called their political detachment
a ―high culture quest‖ inundated with excessive use of foreign imagery and western
syntax, semantic obscurity, and having an aversion to contemporary local social
realities.
99
In fact, most of the Modernists subscribed to ROC-sponsored ideas of
Chinese cultural narrative and towed the line of the KMT anti-Communist agenda.
100

In the 1970s, triggered by the political setbacks, alternative narratives of Taiwanese
culture emerged to destabilize Modernist positions. Citing examples of devastation such
as the toll of urbanization on farming communities, the Nativist literary movement
argued for a ―self -determining national culture‖ and challenged the Modernists and the
ROC on the basis that western-styled industrialization had caused major socio-economic
problems for the Taiwanese.
101
In this way, Taiwanese intellectuals used literature to
vent their anger and were the first to oppose the KMT regime since martial law. The
Nativists were no longer satisfied with the ―white terror‖ of the policing KMT and
criticized contemporary society for its reliance/imitation of all things foreign, including
its government‘s need to pander to foreign powers.
102
They petitioned society for to
― hui-kui hsiang-t’u‖ ⌈回歸鄉土 ⌋ (huigui xiangtu) or ―return to the native ‖ to reclaim their
deteriorating cultural heritage and political power from the Mainlanders.
103
Is it that this
juncture that the concept of a native culture was established to contend with Sinocization.

99
Chang, ―Wang Wenxiang,‖ p. 157; for more on the huigui xiangtu Nativist versus Modernist debate, also
see her chapter, ―Literat ure in Post-1949 Taiwan, 1950-1980s‖ in Taiwan: A New History (Expanded
Edition), edited by Murray A. Rubinstein, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007, pp.403-18.
100
Chang, Literary Culture in Taiwan, p.99.
101
Xiaobing Tang, ―On the Concept of Taiwan Literature,‖ in Writing Taiwan: A New Literary History,
edited by David Der-wei Wang and Carlos Rojas, Durham: Duke University Press, 2007, p.63.
102
Chang, Literary Culture in Taiwan, p.127.
103
Chang, Literary Culture in Taiwan, p.9.
42

Bound by the commonality of oppression, first by the Japanese and then by the KMT, the
local Taiwanese intellectuals began writing about the nostalgia of a Taiwan before
colonization in journals such as ―Wen -chi‖ 《文季》wenji (Literary Quarterly).
104

Nevertheless, the Nationalist government continued to devalue the experiences and
knowledge of native Taiwanese, which was acquired during Japanese colonization in
terms of language, art, culture, and intellectual traditions.
105

Music for a New Generation
As intellectuals pined over a return to simpler times before the KMT (either with
the Japanese or before that), their students began their own movement of return: a return
to the Taiwan they grew up in before realizing their oppression by the state. When the
intellectuals tried to discuss Nativism and the return of the native in academic journals,
their debates were not widely circulated amongst the general populace until the late
1970s when state-run literary supplements (fu-kan 副刊) and popular media outlets began
covering the topic.
106
However, the intellectuals did mobilize their students to critically
look at the role of the state in their lives. After twenty years of martial law, the students
began to see the incongruity of the KMT‘s definition of national identity. This
negotiation of local and national identities spurred what is now known as the ―Campus

104
Chang, ―Literature in Post -1949,‖ p.414.
105
Chang, Literary Culture in Taiwan, p.138.
106
Fukan expanded the parameters of permissible literary subjects but still avoided directly addressing
topics such as the Localist cause for Taiwanese separatism, Chang, Literary Culture in Taiwan, p.161.
43

Folk Song‖ xiaoyuan min’ge 校園民歌 movement of the 1970s, where students expressed
their frustrations through performing folk music.
107

By the late 1960s, with the institutionalized marginalization of native dialects and
languages, local music was geared towards Mainlanders and older Taiwanese, with the
only other musical alternative being American imports. The youth felt they had no music
to call their own and took actions to translate existing American songs into Chinese.
Taiwanese music scholar Wang Jen-Chi traces the roots of the ―Campus Folk Songs‖
movement to the 1950s ―Friends of China‖ Association , where students from National
Taiwan University and National Normal College gathered with American expatriates to
sing American hits.
108
As time passed, rather than merely accept media as distributed to
them, the students began creating their own music, which gave rise to a host of new
music. Social theorists Jacques Rancière and Michel Foucault would argue that despite
these techniques of government surveillance on the local population, the students
emancipated themselves through counter-conduct. The very act of participating in
alternative practices of obtaining music changed its distribution and production.
109

The anti-establishment nature of this new music confronted the locally produced,
commercialized popular music and gave the university students a venue for freedom of
individual expression. Songwriting became liberated and it seemed, at least for a while,

107
Wang, Transition of Popular Music, p.19-21.
108
Wang, Transition in Popular Music, p.20-1.
109
Jacques Rancière, ―The Emancipated Spectator,‖ Artforum 45:7, 2007, pp.275-6; for Foucault, one‘s
freedom and liberty cannot be taken away as ―liberty is a practice‖ and therefore can be reconstituted
despite technologies of governmentality, Space, Knowledge and Power, in The Foucault Reader, Paul
Rabinow, ed. New York: Pantheon, 1984, p.245.
44

as if anyone could write music.
110
Pioneer writers such as Yang Hsian 楊弦, Hu Te-Fu 胡
德夫, Chen Ta 陳達, and Chien Shang-Jen 簡上仁 of the Campus Folk movement
struggled to convey nostalgia and Taiwanese culture under ―white terror‖ and martial
law.
111
Their music encapsulated their everyday experiences and romanticized the native
placeness of Taiwan, and their music was performed in public for the public. In 1974,
Yang Hsian experimented with music and was one of the first to use poetry as lyrics. He
set Nativist poet Hsu Kwang-Chung‘s 徐光中 ―Homesickness in Four Verses‖ xiangchou
siyun〈鄉愁四韻〉to music and expressed nostalgia for the Native land. In the powerful
poem, the second verse read:

給我一張海棠紅啊海棠紅
Give me a red begonia, oh, a red begonia
那血一樣的海棠紅
That blood-colored red begonia
那沸血的燒痛是鄉愁的燒痛
That blood-boiling burning that is the pain of homesickness
給我一張海棠紅啊海棠紅
Give me a red begonia, oh, a red begonia

Each verse elicited different emotional movements, which paralleled the taste of
inebriation to the taste of homesickness (sadness); the burning red of the begonias
(flowering crabapples) to the burning pain of homesickness (anger); the snow-white letter

110
Popular slogans in the early 1970s were ―Writing our own music using our own words‖ yong ziji de
yuyan, chuangzuo ziji de gequ 「用自己的語言, 創作自己的歌曲」and ―Sing song we write ourselves‖ chang
ziji de ge 「唱自己的歌」
111
Wang, Transition in Popular Music, p.21.
45

to the agony of waiting for correspondence from home (vulnerability); and Fragrant
Wintersweet flowers to the smell of home (nostalgia).
112

The song‘s yearning for a return to nature is evident with the depiction of rivers,
trees, flowers, and snow, and the specific use of blood in the second verse suggests action
and youthful rebellion against the KMT that suppresses local culture. By using locally-
produced literature, Yang Hsian‘s folk song voiced the frustration of the common people
against the policing order of the KMT and expanded the reach of Nativist sentiment.
Similarly in 1975, Yang Hsian‘s close friend, Hu Te-Fu also known by his native name,
―Parangalan,‖ was the first to p en a song in his native Puyuma beinan zu yu 卑南族語
tribal language with the song, ―Beautiful Rice -fields‖ meili de daosui 〈美麗的稻穗〉.
113

Co-opted by Popular Music
While the presence of local identity did emerge in the 1970s, many of the locally-
produced songs lost their political momentum and unique flavor as many native artists
began to integrate with popular musical trends towards the end of the decade. The anti-
commercial message of the music was lost as the folk songs became popular and lyrics
became less confrontational. Musically, songs began incorporating both Western and
Chinese popular trends with touches of Japanese influence; in particular, their music

112
Lo Ta-Yu 羅大佑 also set ―Homesickness in Four Verses‖ to guitar in 1974.
113
Aboriginal languages were oral traditions and had no written script.
46

started using Western instruments whose novelty overshadowed local aspects of Native
culture.
114

Music from the Campus Folk Song movement peaked again in 1978-9 in reaction
against President Carter‘s proclamation, but by then, most Campus Folk songs such as
Hou De-Jian‘s wildly popular ―Descendents of the Dragon‖ long de chuanren 〈龍的傳
人〉were already commercially produced in studios rather than sung on local campuses.
The native in Nativism was no longer the local Taiwanese but the vast majority of
Taiwanese resident of Chinese heritage who saw their ―return to the native‖ as the
heritage from the imperial/heavenly dragon passed down from Chinese antiquity (in the
literal sense of the character chuan 傳, to transmit). What‘s more, the government had
begun redirecting the population‘s focus away from the Nativists by sponsoring official
folk song competitions for college students. Additionally, the campus singer-songwriters
began catering to the general public by appearing on state-run television in variety
programs such as ―Golden Melody Award‖ jinqu jiang 《金曲獎》, where they‘d perform
to live studio audiences and have their work revised by professionals on the spot and then
voted on by the audience.
115

Commercializing campus folk songs effectively deterritorialized the students from
the spaces in that they had established their place associations, leaving them

114
Robinson et al., Music at the Margins, p.131.
115
After the television program was cancelled, the ―Golden Melody Awards‖ (music) was officially
established in 1990 as the most prestigious music award in Taiwan by the entertainment industry to
supplement the ― Golden Horse Awards‖ jinma jiang ⌈ 金馬獎⌋ (motion pictures) and ― Golden Bell Awards‖
jinzhong jiang ⌈ 金鐘獎 ⌋ (television and broadcasting).
47

reterritorialized by the music industry and KMT government. Campus Folk music
thereafter such as Liu Jia-Chang‘s 劉家昌 1980 ―Song of the Republic of China‖
zhonghua min’guo song 〈中華民國頌〉, Huang Ta-cheng‘s 1982 ―Chinese Citizens‖
(literally ―Subjects of Tangshan‖) Tangshan zimin 〈唐山子民〉or Lo Ta-Yu‘s 羅大佑
1985 ―Tomorrow Will Be Better‖ mingtian hui geng hao 〈明天會更好〉no longer spoke
of boiling blood or frustration and angst of the common people but of optimistic
complacency, of lounging around and watching (state-run) television as echoed in the
chorus of ―Tomorrow Will Be Better:‖
唱出你的熱情伸出你雙手
Sing out your warmth and passion, raise up your arms
讓我擁抱著你的夢讓我擁有你的真心的面孔
Let me embrace your dreams, let me receive your sincerity
讓我們的笑容充滿著青春的驕傲
Let our smiles be filled with youthful pride
讓我們期待明天會更好
Let us all hope for a better tomorrow.

It was clear that after the 1980s, the new course of action for the students was of inaction.
The message of the folk song after this period sang out to the students and told them to
just wait until tomorrow and have faith in the policing order for things to get better, or
better yet, join the official channels of music-making for their chance at fifteen minutes
of fame. Although economic success under the KMT did grant the majority of the
Taiwanese people better standards of living, locals continued to be marginalized.

48

Identity and Empowerment – Theorizing the Nativist Movement
Local ethnic and cultural identities in Taiwan are constantly constructed and
renegotiated to fend off totalizing discourses. Identity politics in Taiwan are complex
processes where Taiwanese navigate between various native, Euro-American, Mainland,
and Japanese cultures. Taiwanese identities (or ―Chinese‖ identities for that matter) are
not formalized or predetermined, which means that local identity is a perpetual
―becoming‖ in the Deleuzian sense.
116
Since local Taiwanese identity is not pre-existing
but formed and re-affirmed oftentimes against the KMT Nationalist government, the
Taiwanese residents have potential to destabilize the majority or status quo. If the KMT
state of martial law in Taiwan can be understood through social theorists Gilles Deleuze
and Felix Guattari‘s concept of the ―majority‖ (a state of domination) where ―the
majority in a government presupposes the right to vote, and not only is established among
those who possess that right but is exercised over those who do not,‖ then those
suppressed by the KMT can be read as the ―minority.‖
117

While the KMT majority was able to exercise power over the local Taiwanese using
exclusionary practices (policing technologies which effaced local culture from everyday
life) that minoritized the local populations, the minority however, also has the capacity to
challenge the majority position by ―becoming -minoritarian‖ and deterritorializing the
majority‘s inscription of what it means to be the minority.
118
For Deleuze and Guattari,

116
― Becoming is the movement by which the line frees itself from the point, and renders points
indiscernible…‖ Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia,
translated by Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007, p.294.
117
Deleuze, A Thousand Plateaus, p.291.
118
One way of conceptualizing deterritorialization is when one entity rejects the spatial authority
(sovereignty) of another whereas spatial reterritorializing occurs when one entity claims authority over
another, which Deleuze writes happen simultaneously.
49

The difference between minorities and majorities isn't their size. A
minority may be bigger than a majority. What defines the majority is a
model you have to conform to… One might say the majority is nobody.
Everybody's caught, one way or another, in a minority becoming that
would lead them into unknown paths if they opted to follow it through.
When a minority creates models for itself, it's because it wants to become
a majority, and probably has to, to survive or prosper (to have a state, be
recognized, establish its rights, for example). But its power comes from
what it's managed to create, which to some extent goes into the model, but
doesn't depend on it. A people is always a creative minority, and remains
one even when it acquires a majority it can be both at once because the
two things aren't lived out on the same plane.
119

The Taiwanese locals constituted a ―creative minority‖ who did not have to adopt
imposed definitions of the KMT and could reclaim themselves by becoming a minority to
exercise a voice and becoming-Taiwanese in their own right.
Yet for that becoming to occur, Rancière argues that the Taiwanese minority must
critically rethink the suppositions of inequality which allow the KMT to dictate power
dynamics in Taiwan. Rancière questions the suppositions of privileging certain concepts
or ideas as active such as asking why society identifies being seated motionless as
constituting inactivity or why hearing is passive while speaking is considered active?
Rancière argues that these oppositions are ―partitions of the sensible, a distribution of
places and of the capacities or incapacities attached to those places‖ or ―allegories of
inequality‖ that inform the social order and are maintained by the police.
120
He argues
that by understanding that these ―allegories of inequality‖ can be destabilized by
equalizing the minority with the majority positions, then much like Foucault‘s use of

119
Deleuze, ―Control and Becoming‖
120
Rancière, ―The Emancipated Spectator,‖ pp.274 -6; Rancière defines the police as ― an order of bodies
that defines the allocation of ways of doing, ways of being, and ways of saying, and sees that those bodies
are assigned by name to a particular place and task; it is an order of the visible and another is not, that this
speech is understood as discourse and another as noise,‖ Disagreement: Politics and Philosophy,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1999, p.29.
50

Bentham‘s Panopticon, the power relations become visible and there is a possibility to
break free of the discourses which thrive on binaries.
121

If the minority Taiwanese are able to reject the definition of being ―less than‖ or
―fewer than‖ the KMT, they can become -minoritarian, become-―Taiwanese,‖ and disrupt
the KMT‘s distribution of sensibility and become emancipated. Emancipation, according
to Rancière,
begins when we dismiss the opposition between looking and acting and
understand that the distribution of the visible itself is part of the
configuration of domination and subjection. It starts when we realize that
looking is also an action that confirms or modifies that distribution, and
that ― interpreting the world‖ is already a means of transforming it, of
reconfiguring it.
122

In Rancierian terms, true emancipation for the Taiwanese minority would come from
dismantling the KMT system which originally distributed the sensibility and established
that local culture was inappropriate and unacceptable. In other words, minority
empowerment rises from destabilizing the power dynamics between the minority and
majority so that the policing order, with its spaces that distribute propaganda for popular
consumption, are deterritorialized.

The Native, Interrupted
Looking back at both groups of academics who tried to carve out spaces for the
local Taiwanese, it is clear that these social projects failed because the intellectuals could
not reach a critical mass to incite a revolution and the students could not sustain their

121
Rancière, ―The Emancipated Spectator,‖ pp.274 -6; For a discussion of the Panopticon, see Michel
Foucault‘s ―The Eye of Power,‖ in Ctrl [Space]: Rhetorics from Bentham to Big Brother, edited by
Thomas Y. Levin et al., Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002, pp.94-101.
122
Rancière, ―The Emancipated Spectator,‖ pp.275 -6.
51

musical revolution. For Rancière, political change depended on speech-acts,
disagreements, and confrontational direct-action, yet the intellectuals mostly only
engaged in debate within the established academic system maintained by the KMT
government.
123
Even when the Nativist intellectuals protested against the government
with appeals made on behalf of the Taiwanese minority, they were violently suppressed
before they could provoke change in the distribution of information by the policing KMT
regime.
124
This made it relatively easy for the public sphere to reterritorialize the Nativist
movement when newspaper supplements and literary magazines in the late 1970s and
early 1980s began to publish pseudo-Nativist work that superficially ―displayed
Taiwanese local color but contained little ideological content.‖
125
Such actions by
government-sponsored news outlets severely downplayed the movement‘s political
criticism while still allowing ―Nativism,‖ albeit a compromised version of it, to circulate.
The student movement was more successful than the intellectuals in spreading
Nativist sentiment because their movement incorporated action and modified people‘s
everyday behaviors. Merely speaking up did not deterritorialize or create a fundamental
shift in academia or print culture; to be successful the speech must also be an act. In an
interview with Toni Negri, Deleuze comments:
You ask whether control or communication societies will lead to forms of
resistance that might reopen the way for a communism understood as the
―transversal organization of free individuals.‖ Maybe, I don't know. But it
would be nothing to do with minorities speaking out. Maybe speech and
communication have been corrupted. They're thoroughly permeated by

123
Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, pp.4-5. Footnote when nativism left academia and into the public
consciousness 1980s Taiwanese Consciousness
124
Rubinstein, ―Political Taiwanization,‖ pp.439 -6.
125
Chang, ―Literature in Post -1949,‖ pp.412, 416.
52

money—and not by accident but by their very nature. We've got to hijack
speech.
126

Here, Deleuze uses his own definition for what constitutes a minority and their ability to
achieve equality or freedom.
To gain recognition and establish rights for the local Taiwanese, members of the
academic community become ―Nativists,‖ however, ensuring new forms of resistance
was key to what Rancière called the ―redistribution of the sensible‖ that did not and could
not depend on the KMT hegemony majority.
127
The students Campus Folk Song
movement were more successful in creating a minority and hijacking the modes of
language and expression. By creating their own music and performing it outside the
musical establishment, they challenged the nature of local music and its distribution in
society (at least for a period of time).
The movement in the 1970s ultimately failed, however, because the Campus Folk
musicians reconstituted themselves into the policing order of state-governed technologies
of musical production. Since ―economic freedom… and disciplinary techniques are
completely bound up with each other,‖ it‘s understandable that students would
subordinate themselves for economic gain as they pursued musical careers outside the
academic setting.
128
Despite the possibility for continued resistance, these Nativist
movements were ultimately undermined by KMT-backed media outlets in the late-1970s

126
Gilles Deleuze, ―Control and Becoming,‖ Generation Online, http://www.generation-
online.org/p/fpdeleuze3.htm (Accessed 26 April 2009).
127
Rancière, The Politics of Aesthetics, pp.12, 43-45.
128
Michel Foucault, Birth of Biopolitics, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, p.67.
53

and the ―counter -hegemonic critique of Sino-centrism‖ in the government was swept
aside.
129

129
Weiming Tu, ―Cultural Identity and the Politics of Recognition in Contemporary Taiwan‖ The China
Quarterly No.148, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996, p.1118.
54

Chapter Five: Soft Authoritarian Hegemony
As long as local Native Taiwanese identity was produced and marketed by the
KMT‘s social order, Nativism could be disseminated and consumed. It was not that the
local Taiwanese had no voice; it was that their voices were effectively co-opted. On the
basis of national unity, the KMT asserted itself as the voice of the people and spoke on
their behalf. This reading of the KMT‘s reterritorialization of Native space is how
audiences should read Teresa‘s music between the 1970s and early 1980s. Although
Teresa‘s music from this era reflects the music of the Nativists (her songwriters were
undoubtedly influenced by the movement), she was never part of the Campus Folk Song
movement herself.
130
Functioning within the mainstream channels of musical production
(in collusion with the state), Teresa‘s music positioned the ROC as authentically Chinese,
in which ethnic differences in Taiwan were subsumed once again under the KMT.
Teresa‘s 1972 album ―Selling Meaty Rice Dumplings‖ Sio bazhang 《賣肉粽》(mai
rozong), sung entirely in Hokkien, can be considered an example of cultural
appropriation in three perspectives. First, singing in a local language diversified her
audience and gave them an outlet to express their ethnic difference. Second, singing in
Hokkien marketed Taiwan culturally and economically to developing Southeast Asian
countries with large sojourn Chinese communities. Finally, the album can be read as an
exploitive form of ethnic policing, where Teresa expropriated local language and culture
for market considerations.

130
Teresa did not attend university and did not identify as a local Taiwanese. Furthermore, at the height of
the Nativist movement, Teresa was in seclusion after the passport scandal.
55

Arguably, the KMT allowed expression of local Taiwanese culture but its form was
regulated and dictated by the state. So while there was a presence of local cultures in the
social consciousness, much of the local music was not truly indigenous expressions since
the sounds and images were subsumed by the Mainlanders. For example, in 1972, when
Wan Sha-liang 萬沙浪 (1949-2004), a member of the Taiwanese Paiwan tribe paiwan zu
排灣族 and fellow recording artist at Life Records released ―Nuluwan Love Song‖
naluwan qing’ge 〈娜魯灣情歌〉, Teresa decided to compete with him and release her
own version, ―Nanuwa Love Song‖ nanuwa qing’ge 〈娜奴娃情歌〉, which subsequently
overshadowed Wan‘s version since Teresa had a larger market and more institutional
support in and out of Taiwan.
131
Wan Sha-liang sang other songs such as ―Fine Wine
with Coffee‖ meijiu jia kafei 〈美酒家咖啡〉and ―Where‘s the Wind From ‖ feng cong nali
lai 〈風從哪裡來〉, which Teresa also made covers of and popularized.
What Teresa took from early Nativist discourse was the aspect of ―cultural
nostalgia‖ in which she performed songs that ostensibly commercially exploited
traditional and native cultural signs.
132
During the Nativist movement in the early 1970s,
Teresa performed multiple songs such as ―Nanuwa Love Song,‖ ―Maidens from Ali
Mountain‖ alishan de guniang 〈阿里山的姑娘〉(originally titled ―Tall Lush Mountains‖

131
On Teresa‘s 1972 Hong Kong album released by Lok Fung Records (Le feng changpian gongsi 樂風唱
片公司) co-featured ―Nanuwa Love Song‖ with ―I Want Coffee‖ 〈我要咖啡〉, wheras the Taiwanese Life
Records album was co-featured with ―When I Already Knew Love‖ dang wo yijing zhidao ai 〈當我已經知
道愛〉.
132
Rubinstein, Taiwan: A New History, pp.417.
56

gaoshan qing 〈高山清〉) , or ―Maiden from the South Pacific‖ nanhai guniang 〈南海姑
娘〉, which highlighted native culture not just in Taiwan but also connected them to the
exoticized indigenous cultures of the Pacific Islanders.
However, the natives in popular culture were engaged by the media as cultural
props. The natives in Teresa‘s music were discursively different than from the locals
discussed in the Nativist movement.
133
Rather than portraying the Nativists as urbanized
intellectuals who sought recognition and reparations, those portrayed in Teresa‘s songs
were the perpetually joyous aboriginals, forever tokenized as dancing exotics in ethnic
garb singing in unintelligible indigenous chant.

Fig.7-8. Teresa in aboriginal Thao (Ngan) 邵族 shaozhu tribal dress at Taichung‘s Sun Moon Lake 日月潭
in 1967 (Source: Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, p.31; Shi Yong-gang et al. 师永刚等著, Deng Li-
jun huazhuan 《邓丽君画传》―Teresa Teng,‖ Beijing: Zuojia chubanshe 北京: 作家出版社, 2005,
http://book.sina.com.cn/longbook/1076044083_denglijunhz/21.shtml, accessed 29 April 2009)

As I mentioned in chapter four, by relying on KMT-dominated channels to spread
their message, the Nativists had already conceded to the KMT‘s authority and were thus
reterritorialized for media consumption. It is uncertain whether Teresa performed

133
In fact, some of the music released at this time, such as ― Maidens from Ali Mountain,‖ which was from
a 1949 film ―Wind -cloud of Ali Mountain‖ 《阿里山風雲》, were written by composers prior to the Nativist
movement only to be revived and popularized during the Nativist trend.
57

nativism in this way because the general masses wanted to perceive it as such or if this
image was how the government wanted it to be perceived. Nevertheless, Teresa and the
media could supplant the Nativist call for social equality with romanticized notions of the
idyllic native other within this compromised position. Thus although Teresa‘s music in
the 1970s depicted a consciousness of local minorities, in appropriating their styles of
music with mimetic caricature, she became a vehicle of the hegemonic KMT regime to
subvert Nativist discourse from its socio-political philosophy. Perhaps unknowingly,
Teresa reterritorialized local Taiwanese voices and participated as an accomplice to the
deterritorialization of the native‘s space in the public forum.

The Allure of Assimilation
As I mentioned in chapter three, after the mid-1960s, the consumption of Teresa
Teng‘s music was reflexive of the means by which the KMT was able to expand into new
markets. Her soft allure of femininity transcended the boundaries circumscribed by
nation-states and Life Records would help her promote transnational ties between Taiwan
and Southeast Asia. Teresa‘s music was poised to follow the opening of markets
throughout Asia particularly with the rise of the ―Four Dragons,‖ and Teresa‘s fame grew
as Asian markets grew. Additionally, the rise of standards of living and leisure allowed
the romantic appeals to individual liberty and self-determination to take root in and out of
Taiwan. Teresa marketed herself throughout the Asian world, portraying the image of
modern femininity with traditional values, leisure, and economic prosperity (promises of
neoliberal capitalism and democracy), serving as a mode of escape for her audiences
from work and despair (Vietnam War) with songs of longing and romance.
58

As a product of the mainstream music industry under martial law, Teresa‘s music
reified the Chinese socio-cultural institutions such as gender hierarchy and patriarchy.
Her music reaffirmed ― traditional‖ tropes of femininity in a society whose economic
transitions challenged traditional ways of life. In this sense, Teresa became a ― traditional
woman‖ for modern times; someone who could navigate modern technologies while
maintaining Chinese culture. It was Teresa‘s versatility in invoking a pan-Chinese
femininity by performing in various Chinese languages/dialects and catering to various
cultural tastes that made her a star. One song in particular exemplifies Teresa‘s feminine
allure in assimilating the local Taiwanese. In 1979, Teresa released the song ―Small -
town Story‖ Xiaocheng gushi 〈小城故事〉which refocused the Nativist sensibility and
sold nativism of a Chinese sort. Like the disappearing homeland of the native Taiwanese,
the Chinese homeland was lost to the Mainlanders and the only way to hold onto it was
discursive.
134

人生境界真善美, 這理已包括…
The realm of life is good and beautiful, including this place here…
請你的朋友一起來, 小城來作客
We welcome you to come here with your friends to our small-town as our guests

The ―here‖ in the song is a virtual nowhere. It is a vacuum of space that is ready for
Chinese audiences anywhere and everywhere to fill in and reterritorialize with their own
place ties. This invocation of an imaginary hometown sold the concept that millions of
overseas Chinese were welcomed back to the lost places of their ancestry (if only as
guests). By appealing to her audiences with the promise of homecoming and belonging,

134
Ban Wang, ―Reenchanting the Image ,‖ p.377.
59

Teresa‘s voice invoked a sentimentality of native place which Teresa represented. Her
soft femininity was the voice of social assimilation and functioned as a siren call to
subsume individual sentiment for the purposes of maintaining the social order. So while
the KMT dominated local Taiwanese using violence and military force, Teresa‘s pop
music broadcasted a seductive call to conform to urban middle-class lifestyles which
acquiesced to party-state economic policies and circumvented actual change in the
political system.

Becoming-
Teresa lived her life as a true itinerant nakaxi singer traveling from performance to
performance spreading her sentimental yearnings. Having established a strong following
in the Taiwanese market, Teresa branched out to other profitable markets. Like most of
the successful professional singers and musicians in Taiwan, Teresa started licensing
deals with foreign record companies rather than small Taiwanese branch offices,
especially ones in Hong Kong and Japan.
135
Teresa left Life Records for Polydor
Records, Japan ( ポリドール• レコード) and then joined its Hong Kong sister company
Polygram Records baolijin changpian gongsi ( 寶麗金唱片公司) in the 1970s. During her
tenure at Polydor, Teresa received vocal lessons in Japan and trained in the emotive enka
style as heard in the song ―Ai rport‖ kūkō ⌈ 空港 ⌋ to really capture the roots of the nakaxi
style.
136

135
Robinson et al., Music at the Margins, p.134.
136
Taylor, ―Pop Music,‖ p.167.
60

Teresa‘s career in Japan is indicative of Taiwan‘s post-colonial relationship with its
former colonizer. On one level, Teresa performed music that reified Taiwan‘s
subordinate position to Japan. Since Taiwan no longer held formal diplomatic relations
to Japan, Teresa‘s songs of the heartbroken woman, sung in Japanese, called out to
patriarchal Japanese society to re-establish relations and save Taiwan just as it tried to do
under the guise of the dōka and kōminka policies mentioned in chapter one.
137
On
another, Teresa‘s flexible Chinese identity can again be read as de-centered thus allowing
Teresa to incorporate local identities and cultures into her pan-Chineseness.

Fig.9-10. Teresa performing in traditional geisha costume and in a kimono on Japanese variety shows
(Source: Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.87-8)

The figures above illustrate Teresa‘s performativity of the de-centered and unfixed
Chinese identity. As discussed in chapter two, Teresa represented a Chineseness that
could deterritorialize fixed ideas of national identity; it was a becoming-Chinese. This
conceptualization of Chinese identity signified a break with the notion that cultural

137
Ching, Becoming ― Japanese,‖ p.107-13.
61

authenticity was imbued through place-based ties.
138
Read with the context of colonial
experience, Teresa assumed a historic position which highlighted Japan at the height of
its domination over China and Taiwan. Since the Mainlander‘s Chinese identity
subsumed local Taiwanese culture, Teresa was able to perform a Japanized
Taiwaneseness. In this way, Teresa marketed herself as a Chinese woman whose cultural
vestments visibly signified her acquiescence to the culturally superior ―Japanese spirit.‖
So although Teresa inscribed Japanese imperialism on to her image, it can also be argued
that, just as Teresa localized her Chineseness for overseas Chinese audiences, she
localized herself to fit Japanese romantic imaginations of Chinese culture. To emphasize
this cultural connection, Teresa would perform popular classics such as ―Tuberose‖
yelaixiang 〈夜來香〉and ―When Will You Return‖ Heri jun zai lai 〈何日君在來? 〉, both
of which were sung by the famous Ōtaka Yoshiko 大鷹淑子 in the 1930s and 1940s.
139

In terms of music production and sound quality, Hong Kong and Japanese recording
studios were more sophisticated than those back in Taiwan.
140
Furthermore, these
musical ventures can be analyzed as financial investment in Taiwan consumer markets as
well as being cultural contributions to the remaking of Taiwan for international
consumption. Under these labels, Teresa released some of her most famous songs such
as ―Sweetness‖ Tian mimi 〈甜蜜蜜〉and ―How Do You Explain‖ Ni zheme shuo 〈你怎麼
說〉.

138
See the feature film 《甜蜜蜜》Tian mimi ―Comrades, Almost a Love Story‖ by Singaporean director
Peter Chan.
139
See chapter six of this paper ―When Will You Return.‖
140
Ogawa, ―Japanese Popular Music,‖ pp.146 -7, other recording studios Teresa recorded in were in
Singapore.
62

Throughout her career, Teresa adopted the successful business practice of covering
music popularized by other musicians. In 1976, Teresa also launched a predominately-
English album ―A World of Love‖ 《愛的世界》which included American hits such as
Hank Williams‘ ―Jambalaya,‖ Barbara Streisand‘s ―The Way We Were,‖ Andy Williams‘
―(Where Do I Begin) Love Story,‖ Dawn featuring Tony Orlando‘s ―Tie a Yellow
Ribbon round The Old Oak Tree,‖ and Roberta Flack‘s ―Killi ng Me Softly With His
Song‖ mixed with songs like Udo Jürgens‘ ― Was ich Dir sagen will‖ (in German),
Salvatore Adamo‘s ― Tombe La Neige‖ (in French), and The Peanuts‘ ザ・ピーナッツ (Za
pinattsu twins Emi Ito エミ伊藤 and Yumi Ito ユミ伊藤) ―Una Sera di Tokyo‖ (in
Japanese). This album was wildly popular because the songs were covers of already
famous songs but also because the album symbolically expressed the successful
appropriation of Western and Japanese culture along with its modern sensibilities by a
Chinese woman. The symbolism can be read from the title of the album, ―A World of
Love,‖ which asserted that having love and having Western notions of romance were the
keys to access the global discourse. Inherent in this album was the political marketing of
the ROC as embodying a modern cosmopolitan spirit accompanied with a free market
and liberal popular culture just like in the United States and Japan.

63

Chapter Six: The Resurgence of Nationalism
While Teresa‘s music career did exceedingly well, the effects of Taiwan‘s
unstable diplomatic standing took its toll on her and she became enmeshed in a huge
media fiasco. In February 1979, due to travel restrictions between Taiwan and Japan,
since Japan had terminated diplomatic relations to the ROC in 1972, Teresa resorted to
using a false Indonesian passport.
141
As Teresa tried to travel from Hong Kong to Tokyo
for a recording session, she was caught by the Tokyo customs authorities and the incident
was leaked to the Taiwanese press which quickly became a scandal when Teresa‘s father,
in a televised interview, publicly disapproved of her action and accused Polydor for
coming up with the scheme.
142
Rather than framing the incident as a critique on the
breakdown of diplomacy between the ROC and Japan, Taiwanese media – which was
still under KMT control – redirected the incident and widely criticized Teresa as a traitor
to the nation.
The incident reflected an increased awareness and sensitivity to Taiwanese national
identity and a public display of the ROC‘s diplomatic failure was unacceptable. Teresa‘s
identity became politically tied to that of national identity and using another nation‘s
travel documents made the ROC lose face. Not only that, the incident also reflected the
disconnect between the government‘s national hegemonic Chinese identity with Teresa‘s
de-centered Chinese identity. While the modern nation-state is predicated on an

141
Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.73-80, 89-98; Chang, ―Literature in Post -1949,‖ p.412; It
was discovered that Teresa had been using a Belizean Passport issued in 1991 to clear customs, unlike
1979‘s incident, this passport was legitimately purchased for approximately ten-thousand U.S. dollars,
Arita Yoshifu, Wo de jia zai shan de nayibian: Deng Li-jun di shinian de zhenxiang (My Home Is On The
Other Side of The Mountain: The Reality of Teresa Teng Ten Years Later), translated by Guo Lilan, Taipei:
Pujin Chuanbo, Ltd., 2006, pp.224-5.
142
Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.101-2.
64

assumption that there is congruity between identity and one‘s passport, I would argue that
aside from the circumstantial need, Teresa did not believe her Chineseness was
compromised by using an Indonesian passport. Still, the harsh media critiques shamed
and disheartened Teresa so much so that she retreated to the United States for almost a
year until she was requested to return and sing at the Lujun Guanxiao 陸軍官校
(Whampoa) Chinese Military Academy in Kaohsiung and at other pro-KMT functions in
September 1980.
143

Back in Taiwan, Teresa increased her visible commitment to the KMT party and
ROC nationhood.
144
In 1981, Teresa filmed a Mid-Autumn TTV television special,
― Teresa at the Forefront‖ Jun zai qianshao 〈君在前哨〉(literally ―Soldiers at the
Outpost‖), at the ROC military base in Kinmen some two kilometers from Mainland
China.
145
The special featured Teresa dressed in different KMT uniforms and battle gear
while boosting morale and rallying KMT troops with her hit songs, as the figures below
illustrate. The most memorable of these images are of Teresa dressed in army fatigues
with military boots and a bulletproof helmet holding a machine gun as if ready to ―fight
back to the Mainland‖ herself. What they depict is Teresa‘s commitment to the KMT‘s
rhetoric of a utopian society with romantic notions of civil liberty and freedom of
expression.

143
While in North America, Teresa enrolled in English, Japanese, and biology courses at UCLA and USC
as well as gave concerts in Canada, Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography,pp.101-3.
144
―New Year‘s Eve Special.‖
145
Nishida, Beauty and Loneliness, p.50; Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.83-4, 107-8.
65

Fig.11. Teresa signing autographs for KMT soldiers stationed at Kinmen (Source: Shi and Zhao, Teresa
Teng’s Biography, pp.209-10)

In the television special, Teresa sang her most popular hits such as ―Maidens from
Ali Mountain‖ as well as Nationalistic songs such as ―The Sound of Victory‖ Shengli de
gesheng〈勝利的歌聲〉. One of most symbolic acts in this special was that Teresa
donned on the uniforms of each branch of the military and did not merely sing to the
troops but sang and clapped along with them in solidarity to her songs of love and
romance. Later on that year, for supporting the troops, Teresa was publicly pardoned and
awarded with the ―Patriot Artist Award‖ aiguo yiren jiang ⌈ 愛國藝人獎 ⌋ from the
Government Information Office of the ROC taixinwenju 台新聞局.
146

Fig.12-13. Teresa posed in battle-gear for her television special ―Teresa at the Forefront,‖ filmed at the
ROC military base on the Kinmen Islands (Source: Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.2105, 211)

146
Teresa redeemed herself participating in pro-ROC events in 1980-1, Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s
Biography, pp.107-8, 237.
66

What is particularly disturbing of figures 12 and 13 are the firearms which Teresa happily
held. The images seem almost contradictory to her soft sentimental music, but viewed
under the rhetoric of martial law, military force was needed to realize the ROC‘s goal of
liberating the Chinese people as well as to protect Taiwan from the CCP (which Nativists
did not object to). It seems to me that Teresa, herself, was oblivious to the violent
suppression of the local people. Rather, Teresa was more preoccupied with the state‘s
assertions that Communism was authoritarian and unjust.
147

After the passport scandal, Teresa‘s image began to take on a symbolic turn. Teresa
had always seen herself as Chinese, but starting in 1980, she began to enhance her image
as more and more the embodiment of an authentic ― Chinese‖ woman, as the true inheritor
of traditional ― Chinese‖ heritage, particularly towards Hong Kong and Japanese
audiences.
148
Like the reterritorialized Campus Songs, Taiwanese music in the early 80s
echoed themes of authentic Chineseness. This becomes evident when looking at Teresa‘s
albums in the early 80s, where the content and cover art expressly emphasized a nostalgia
for the Chinese past which evinced her claim to Chinese authenticity (and by extension,
the KMT‘s claims of cultural and political sovereignty).

147
Arita, My Home, pp.124-5.
148
As a woman, Teresa was able to penetrate the music industry easier than had she been male since the
commodification of women was more acceptable (when asked about marriage, Teresa would often reply
that she had not found someone to spend her life with, but broke tradition by never marrying or settling
down in her lifetime, especially by dating many celebrities and foreigners).
67

―When Will You Return?‖
By the early 1980s, the music industry had co-opted the Campus Folk Song
movement and its musicians started to produce pro-KMT pop music. Chineseness was
once again repositioned as the standard for Taiwanese cultural identity. In 1979, during
her stay in Los Angeles, Teresa‘s hit single ―When Will You Return?‖ Heri jun zai lai
〈何日君在來? 〉experienced a resurgence when the song made its way to the Mainland
public a year after it had already been released.
149
The song speaks of a woman
lamenting about the next time she‘ll be able to see her lover again and asks him to share a
drink with her. The lyrics are simple but due to his historic connections to the KMT,
CCP officials banned the song almost immediately.
150
Much like Teresa‘s other songs,
―When Will You Return?‖ is very much informed by its history significance and should
be understood alongside this historic context to fully recognize its cultural meaning as
well as understand how it was problematic for the CCP.
The song first appeared in the 1938 film Three Stars and the Moon (Sanxing banyue
《三星伴月》) which was subsequently criticized as decadent, sensual and escapist in
China and Taiwan as ―yellow‖ due to the notoriety of its lyrical contents.
151
In the film, a
Shanghai sing-song girl/prostitute drinks with her lover and championed living in the
moment rather than working towards the nationalist cause. Literary scholar Andrew
Jones writes that despite its seemingly apolitical lyrics (which is representative of most of
her songs), the song was interpreted though wartime Shanghai politics which ―r eveals

149
―New Year‘s Eve Special.‖
150
See Steen‘s article ―Zhou Xuan, pp.124 -53.
151
Jones, Yellow Music, p.151-2.
68

both the intertwining of culture and politics in modern China and the mercurial nature of
popular musical meaning.‖
152
Jones reports that the song was released during the
―orphan island‖ period of Shanghai in the Sino -Japanese war when, except for the
International Settlement and French Concessions, Greater Shanghai was under Japanese
occupation. Since the song was popularized after the Nationalist government was forced
to move its capital to Chongqing, they criticized and banned the song for celebrating
escapism and sexuality of the Chinese nationalists still living in Shanghai.
Not only was the song popular amongst the Chinese, the Japanese of the time also
fell in love with the song. The following year in 1939, Japanese pop singer Watanabe
Hamako 渡辺はま子 recorded the song but Japanese military authorities banned it fearing
that the foreign decadence would drain their military morale. Jones notes that towards
the end of the Pacific War, the song was interpreted as a call for the return of the
Nationalists back to Shanghai and rescue the subjugated Chinese from the Japanese. Due
to this interpretations, in 1944, Li Xiang-lan 李香蘭 (― Ri Koran,‖ b.1920) was detained
and questioned by Japanese sympathizers in the Shanghai police force for singing the
song at a concert.
What made Li Xiang-lan‘s detention so spectacular was that she was actually a
woman named Yamaguchi Yoshiko 山口淑子, an actress born to emigrant Japanese
parents who had settled in Manchuria around the 1920s. Yamaguchi had effectively kept
her identity secret and infiltrated the Chinese entertainment industry by fashioning her

152
Jones, Yellow Music, p.151-2.
69

public persona as being Manchurian-Chinese.
153
In disguise, Yamaguchi collaborated
with the Japanese and made Japanese propagandist films. The truth of her identity,
however, was not revealed until after the war ended when the Nationalist government
arrested her as a national traitor. Since Yamaguchi was not Chinese, she was cleared of
the charges and was sent to Japan, where she traveled to Hollywood to continue her
career as a performer.
Later, Yamaguchi (now better known by her married name, Otaka 大鷹) was elected
into the House of Councilors and served in the Japanese Parliament from 1974 until 1992,
during which, Teresa Teng had released her 1980 version of ―When Will You Be
Back.‖
154
With this rich history to ―When Will You Be Back‖ as a song which
emphasized both liberal behavior and the call for the Nationalists‘ return, it is little
wonder that the CCP banned the ―yellow‖ song in 1980. Yet on another level, Teresa‘s
performance of this song harkens back to the glamour of Li Xiang-lan and Zhou Xuan 周
璇 in the early 20
th
century when the Nationalists ran the mainland. Additionally, Li
Xiang-lan can be read as paralleled to Teresa, where they both renegotiated their
identities, names, personas, and commercial and linguistic expressions to navigate the
various cultural terrains in Asia (respectively in KMT-run ―China,‖ Japan, and America).

153
Li Xiang-lan is remembered as a Japanese spy in China and is often criticized for portraying Chinese
women who come to internalize Japanese propaganda in popular film, Steen, ―Zhou Xuan,‖ p.135 , 137-8.
154
Li is also known as Shirley Yamaguchi in Hollywood and has been married to Otaka Hiroshi 大鷹弘
since 1958, Steen, ―Zhou Xuan,‖ pp.135, 147. Li was also the singer who popularized the song ―Tuberose‖
〈夜來香〉, which Teresa made a cover-song and co-released in Japanese and Chinese markets a year
before her death in 1994.
70

Authenticity in the Early 1980s
The technique of adopting poetry as lyric by the Campus Folk Singers in Taiwan
influenced Teresa to also release songs using poems. During the period of the early
1980s, Teresa reinterpreted classical Chinese poetry as songs to claim cultural
authenticity and market herself to Hong Kong and overseas Chinese audiences. Some of
these were ―On the River‖ zaishui yifang 〈再水一方〉by Qiong Yao 瓊瑤 (b.1938) based
on poem ―Water Reeds‖ jianjia 《蒹葭》from the Zhou Book of Songs Shijing 《詩經》
and ― Prelude to the Melody of Water‖ shuidiao getou 《水調歌頭》by Su Shi 蘇軾 (1037-
1101 CE) as ―If Only We Could Live Longer‖ danyuan renchangjiu 〈但願人長久〉.

Fig.14. Cover art from the 1980 album ―On the River‖ 《水上人》
(Source: ―Shui shang ren‖ 《水上人》, Tupian Bokee 图片博客, http://botu.bokee.com/photodata1/2007-9-
2/000/437/220/10429567/10429567_h.jpg, Accessed 22 March 2009)

71

Fig.15-16. Early Republican Dress and Tang Dynasty Costume for ―Light Exquisite Feeling,‖ 1983
(Source: Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.125, 128)

Fig.17-18. Tang and Song Dynasty Costumes for the ― If Only We Could Live Longer‖ music video
(Source: Karaoke stills from two Youtube clips, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9370JpKcJA8 and
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecC9lc4bsQY, Accessed 7 March 2009)

In 1983, Teresa released the album ―Light Exquisite Feelings‖ dandan youqing 《淡
淡幽情》with classical poems set to new music. In an interview in January of that year,
Teresa said that a friend in Hong Kong thought up the concept.
155
Teresa reported that
the music of her songs began with western instruments and then had traditional Chinese
instruments overlaid or mixed on as accoutrements.
156
The images represented Teresa‘s
appropriation of historic meanings of Song and Tang women and reterritorialized for

155
―New Year‘s Eve Special .‖
156
―N ew Year‘s Eve Special.‖
72

modern consumption in Hong Kong and Asia. The body of objects evocative of the
Chinese imaginary (silk, tea, calligraphy, fans, gardens) combined with the styling of her
hair, clothes, make-up, and demure postures were utilized as evidence of her inheritance
to an essentialized Chinese femininity. A Chinese femininity which, just as Teresa had
laid claim, could also be claimed by her audiences.
In all these images, Teresa is alone singing out to the audience about longing, her
longing, to be loved. It is in such a positioning that the audience itself can claim her, love
her, and protect her and the Chineseness she supposedly possessed. Additionally, while
one level of these visual images represented the Chinese material goods and comfort as
historically/culturally authentic, they recalled the ― golden ages‖ of Chinese society
during the ancient Tang and Song dynasties which is then paralleled with the Nationalists
in Nanjing and Shanghai. In that sense, Teresa was promoting the KMT‘s legitimate
claims against the CCP over the Mainland, but at the same time, these images spoke to
other Chinese abroad in Hong Kong, Singapore, Vietnam, and so on with the claim that
they too could belong, though not physically or temporally, to the place of their
ancestors.
157
This claim of Chineseness functioned to strengthen ties between Taiwan
and other overseas Chinese communities in East and Southeast Asia which is why it can
be claimed ―Teresa‘s songs and fans exist wherever there are Chinese people in the

157
Chinese often identify as tangren ⌈ 唐人⌋ or hanren ⌈ 漢人⌋ in addition to huaren ⌈ 華人 ⌋ which is more
reflective of transnational Chinese experiences. Chinatowns around the world are commonly called
― Chinese Street‖ tangrenjie ⌈ 唐人街⌋ or ―Chinese Port -city‖ huabu ⌈ 華埠⌋, which is again reflective of
Chinese transnationalism and sojourning histories.
73

world.‖
158
By claiming that she inherited her culture from the Tang and Song, Teresa
also positioned contemporary Taiwan with Japan not only through the modern colonial
experience but with the romanticized cultural-historical connections between the Tang
Chinese and early Japanese.
159

Poetic License and Reterritorializing the Classics
― If Only We Could Live Longer‖ was one of the most notorious and beloved track
on ―Light Exquisite Feelings‖ and it speaks to the complicated history and tradition
appropriated as markers of cultural authenticity in both Taiwan and Mainland China. In
the same logic as comparing PRC and ROC narratives on Teresa, contrasting the various
interpretations of Su Shih‘s (1037-1101 CE) original poem entitled ― Prelude to the
Melody of Water‖ gives Teresa‘s ―If Only We Could Live Longer‖ new meaning.
Unlike the traditional shi 詩 poetry written in penta- or hepta- syllabic rhyming
couplets, the ci 詞 lyric-poem was not bound by a poetic formula which allowed for more
versatility and creativity.
160
Due to its unconventional meter and rhyme scheme, it was
often used by the literati to play drinking games which obliged poets to compose poetry

158
⌈ 在世界上只要有华人的地方就有邓丽君的歌声, 就有着喜爱邓丽君的那样群人。⌋ as quoted in ―Lingting
Deng Li-jun de rizi,‖ Wangshi, STV Documentary.
159
See chapters 1 and 4 of William T. de Bary et al. for discussions on Chinese thought and institutions in
early Japan, Sources of Japanese Traditions: From Earliest Times to 1600, New York: Columbia
University Press, 2001, pp.3-13, 63-99.
160
The ci lyric-poem is written to the tune of the ―Prelude to the Melody of Water‖ or ―Water Music
Prelude‖ suidiao getou ⌈ 水調歌頭 ⌋ is sometimes appended with the title zhongqiu ⌈ 中秋 ⌋ ―Mid -Autumn.‖
It is also reminiscent of Li Po‘s 李白 (701-762 CE) ― Drinking Alone by Moonlight‖ 《月下獨酌》, Michael
A. Fuller, The Road to East Slope: The Development of Su Shi’s Poetic Voice, Stanford: University of
Stanford Press, pp.198-200, 239; Egan, Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, Cambridge:
University of Harvard Press, 1994, 346; Victor H. Mair, ed. The Shorter Columbia Anthology of
Traditional Chinese Literature, New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, pp.147-8.
74

set to music played by sing-song girls. Mostly, earlier ci were occupied with voyeurism,
where male adopted a subjective feminine voice and wrote about women in their
chambers or of sexual ennui.
161
With these socially subversive elements, poets prior to
the Tang Dynasty decried that the style was indecorous and unbecoming for a serious
scholar. However, Su Shih and his mentor Ouyang Xiu redeemed the style by expanding
its contents with autobiographical reality and thus its capacity for social commentary.
162

When Su Shih wrote ―Prelude to Water Music,‖ he was stationed in Mizhou 密州
(modern Zhucheng 諸城 in Shandong Province 山東省) and had been separated from his
family.
163
His father by this time had passed and his brother was serving as an official in
another county which is why he addresses the audience in his preface to the poem,
explaining his state of loneliness when he composed the ci below:
《水調歌頭》
―Prelude to the Melody of Water‖

丙辰中秋, 歡飲達旦,
On Mid-Autumn‘s night in the year bing-chen, I drank merrily until dawn,
164

大醉, 作此篇, 兼懷子由。
and completely drunk, wrote this poem to express my longing for my brother Zi
You.
165

明月幾時有? 把酒問青天。
When did you first appear bright moon? Lifting my wine, I ask the dark night sky.
不知天上宮闕, 今夕是何年?
Tonight in the palaces and halls of heaven what year is it, I wonder?

161
Egan, Word, Image, and Deed, p.311; Mair, Shorter Columbia Anthology, p.148.
162
Egan, Word, Image, and Deed, p.310-30.
163
Egan, Word, Image, and Deed, p.345.
164
The Mid-Autumn Festival in the year bing-chen corresponds to the fifteenth night of the eighth month in
1076 CE.
165
Zi You is the literary style name (zi 字) of Su Shi‘s younger brother, Su Che 蘇轍 (1039-1112 CE).
75

我欲乘風歸去, 唯恐瓊樓玉宇, 高處不勝寒。
I would like to ride the wind, make my home there, but I fear the elegant towers
with jade eaves So high that I would not be able to bear the cold.
起舞弄清影, 何似在人間!
Instead I rise to dance and jest with my shadow in the moonlight, how can this
world ever compare with yours?

轉朱閣, 低綺戶, 照無眠。
Circling vermillion pavilions, sitting low in the latticed frame, you shine upon the
sleepless.
不應有恨, 何事長向別時圓?
Surely you bear us no ill will, yet why then must you be exceptionally round at
times when we are separated?
人有悲歡離合, 月有陰晴圓缺, 此事古難全。
People suffer grief, joy, separation and reunion, like the moon‘s phases, its
waxings and wanings, since the beginning of time, life has never been perfect.
但願人長久, 千里共嬋娟。
I only hope we two may have long long lives, so that we may share the moon's
beauty even though we are thousands of miles apart.

Su Shi‘s poem evoked a sense of yearning and quiet desolation but incorporated the
fantastical elements of the moon to elevate the sadness with a quality of beauty which
made this sadness all too human and natural. Speaking of the human condition, Su Shi‘s
poetry has consistently maintained the elevated status of being one of the most talented
poets in Chinese history.
As a huge fan of classical Chinese poetry, Teresa and one of her lyricists in Hong
Kong adapted Su Shi‘s poem into a hit in 1983.
166
Teresa Teng adopted Su Shi‘s lyrics
but changed the title of the song since re-imagining the now nonextant tune to which the
poem was originally based. This album project was in effect, Teresa‘s team effort to
reconstitute and recapture the musical culture that was lost millennia ago. Unlike the

166
When reporters asked what was the impetus for the album, Teresa mentioned that her favorite book was
Three Hundred Selected Tang Poems 《唐詩三百首》, which was compiled in the Southern Song Dynasty,
Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, p.125; also see ―New Year‘s Eve Special.‖
76

norm of using the feminine voice for the ci, Su Shi adopted a male voice to engender the
longing expressed for his brother. Teresa reinterpreted this classical poem without the
autobiographical context of Su Shi‘s longing and depoliticized the social critique of Su
Shi‘s poem and allowed for the female voice to return. Thus when Teresa vocalized the
yearning in the poem, audiences read it as a woman lamenting about love and romance
which was emphasized by the new title ―If Only We Could Live Longer.‖ In this, the
motif of nostalgia and yearning for China's gilded past (laid claim by the KMT) was quite
effectively displayed.
167

Yet appropriating Su Shi to reclaim the past was not exclusive to Teresa. Thirty
years prior, another Chinese person had also tried to reinterpret Su Shi‘s ―Prelu de to
Water Music,‖ Chairman Mao Zedong. Alternately, Mao composed the poem
―Swimming‖ in Su Shi‘s style, but whereas Teresa changed the mode and reverted the
poem back into its original form in music, Mao kept the form of the poem but changed its
contents completely. Mao had mentioned a decade earlier that ―We may not reject the
ancients and foreigners as models, which means, I‘m afraid, that we must even use feudal
and bourgeois things. But they are… models and not substitutes.‖
168
Using classic texts
as models, barring the preface, Mao was able to capture Su Shi‘s ―Prelude to Water
Music‖ form in both character count and characters per line exactly. Mao's revision of
Su Shi is nationalistic and speaks of his own erudition as an intellectual-political exercise,
which erases much of the nostalgia and romantic sentiment. Construction on the

167
This nostalgia, of course, being Han-Chinese and does not reflect the local native Taiwanese.
168
From Bonnie McDougall, ed. Mao Ze-dong’s ― Talk at the Yan’an conference on literature and art,‖
translation of the 1943 Text with Commentary, Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, University of
Michigan, 1980, p.69.
77

Changjiang Bridge in Wuhan began in September 1955 and after Mao visited the project
in May and June of 1956, he wrote ―Swimming.‖
169

水调歌头《游泳》
Prelude to Water Music ―Swimming‖

才飲长沙水, 又食武昌魚。
I‘ve just drunk the waters of Changsha, and have eaten the fish of Wuchang.
萬里长江横渡, 極目楚天舒。
Now I am swimming across the great Yangtze, the sky of Chu stretches out as far
as my eyes can see.
不管風吹浪打, 勝似闲庭信步。今日得寛餘,
Never mind the blowing winds or beating waves, this is better than idly strolling
in a courtyard. Today I am free in this vast space.
子在川上曰：逝者如斯夫!
―It was by a stream that the Master said: ‗Thus away does life flow!‘‖

風墙動, 龜蛇静, 起宏图。
Sails move with the wind, the Tortoise and Snake are still, great plans are afoot.
一橋飛架南北, 天堑变通途。
A bridge will fly to span the north and south, turning nature‘s divide into a
thoroughfare.
更立西江石璧, 截断巫山雲雨, 高峡出平湖。
Walls of stone will stand upstream to the west, to hold back clouds and rain of the
Wu Mountain, where a smooth lake rises through narrow gorges.
神女应無恙, 當驚世界殊。
The goddess shall remain unharmed (undisrupted), and she will marvel at how the
world has changed.

The obvious highlight of this poem is the emphasis on grand projects of human
construction and of man dominating his environment but the political subtext of the poem
is what makes the poem far more interesting.

169
Hui-Ming Wang, Ten Poems and Lyrics by Mao Tse-tung, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press ,
1975, p.63; see also Chunhou Zhang and C. Edwin Vaughan, Mao Zedong as Poet and Revolutionary
Leader: Social and Historical Perspectives, Boulder: Lexington Books, 2002, p.80.
78

Earlier in the paper, I mentioned that the ci were usually written in the feminine
voice by male poets. In this rendition of ―Prelude to Water Music,‖ Mao‘s masculine
voice only faintly touches upon romance. Mao Zedong wrote the poem in June 1956,
seven years after the People‘s Republic was established to comment on the grand projects
underway in Hunan Province.
170
His attempt to conquer nature is quite evidently
expressed with allusions to overcome heaven and surprise the goddess should she ever
awaken. On a functional level, this inscription of femininity was both an act of mimicry
as much as it was constitutive of a femininity which his party rejected. Though not one
of the main concerns of the poem, Mao‘s allusion to the mountain goddess refers to the
serendipitous meeting between Chu Qingxiangwang 楚頃襄王 (King Qingxiang of Chu, r.
298-263 BCE) and the goddess, where much like the king who communicates with the
heavens through dreams of bedding the mountain goddess, Mao similarly invokes the this
allusion to discursively dominate the goddess‘ corporal body.
As a fan of the Sanguo zhi 《三国志》(Records of the Three Kingdoms), Mao
referenced Wuchang fish as a tool to cite his erudition on the history of the Wu Kingdom.
Mao had attempted use Wuchang fish in his poem to allude to the Wu Sun Hao chutong
yao〈吴孙皓初童謠〉(―Nursery Rhyme on Sun Hao of Wu‖) that was referenced by Lu
Kai 陆凯 (198-269 CE) , Sun Hao‘s Left Prime Minister, in Record of the Three
Kingdoms. Mao‘s citation of historic prejudices was meant to illustrate the progress and

170
Mair, Shorter Columbia Anthology, p.148.
79

revolution of China under his guidance, but while trying to offer an explanation of this
allusion, Mao made two glaring mistakes.
According to Mao in Nineteen Pieces of Chairman Mao’s Poems and Ci, the
―bureaucrats, gentlemen, landlords and other rich strata‖ of the time claime d they‘d
―Rather drink Yangzhou water than eat Wuchang Fish‖ ningyin Yangzhou shui, bushi
Wuchang yu ⌈ 宁饮扬州水，不食武昌鱼 ⌋ when Sun Quan 孫權 (182-252 CE) moved his
capital from Jingkou to Wuchang.
171
The first mistake Mao made is that he misquoted
Lu Kai‘s nursery rhyme and due to this, not only conflated Yangzhou and Jingkou, but
also mistook them for the capital, which was in fact, Jianye (present-day Nanjing). The
correct slogan of the time actually went ―Rather drink Jianye water than eat Wuchang
fish. Rather return to Jianye dead than reside in Wuchang‖ ningyin Jianye shui, bushi
Wuchang yu. ninghuan Jianye si, bu zhi Wuchang ju ⌈ 寧飲建業水，不食武昌魚寧還建業
死，不止武昌居 ⌋
172
In the story, Lu Kai referenced the slogan to illustrate public
dissatisfaction with Su Hao, not his father Su Quan. Mao‘s last mistake, of course, was
that he misread the historic context and anachronistically mistook Sun Quan for his
tyrannical son, Sun Hao 孙皓 (242-284 CE) who was the actual one that moved the

171
Zhang and Vaughan, Mao Zedong as Poet, pp.4-5, 81.
172
Shou Chen‘s 陳壽 (233-297) 《三國志》(Record of the Three Kingdoms), Zhuan liushiyi 卷六十一 Scroll
61, Pan Jun Lu Kai zhuan ⌈ 潘濬陸凱傳⌋ ―Biographies of Pan Jun and Lu Kai,‖ Beijing 北京: Guji
chubanshe 古籍出版社, 1957; also in Guan-zhong Luo‘s 羅貫中 (c.1330-1400) fictionalized account of the
Records of the Three Kingdoms, Sanguo yanyi 《三國演義》(The Romance of the Three Kingdoms)
yibai’ershi hui: Jian Du Yu laojiang xian xin mou, jiang Xun Hao sanfen gui yitong ⌈ 一百二十回: 薦杜預老將獻
新謀, 降孫皓三分歸一統 ⌋ (―E pisode 120: Seasoned Veteran Du Yu Recommends a New Tactic, Unification
After the Fall of Sun Hao‖), Jiulong 九龍: zhonghua shuju 中華書局, 1991.
80

capital from Jianye to Wuchang. Historically, the capital of Wu relocated multiple times
between Jianye to Wuchang and Mao failed to realize when he said ―Sun Quan of the
Three Kingdom Times once moved his capital from Jingkou to Wuchang‖ that the
incident he was commenting on actually happened in 265 CE by which Sun Quan was
already dead.
173

So why did Mao go through all the trouble to elaborate on the obscure reference on
Wuchang fish that made him end up with historical inaccuracies? The answer lies in that
Mao attempted to use the rhyme to claim ―the mood of the people in Yangzhou at that
time was like this [e.g. bourgeois]. But now the situation changes, the Wuchang Fish is
quite flavorous‖ to reclaim Wuchang from its negative past.
174
Mao wanted to reject the
historic elite disdain for the Wuchang region by alluding to the progresses of the new
China and how the Chinese revolutionaries are not hindered by such elitist mentality.
175

It is not clear whether Mao intentionally changed the history but it would be ironic if
Mao‘s zealous appeal for national pride, his hubris and vainglory, caused him to
misinterpret the Chinese history he professed to know so well.
Although Mao Zedong appropriated Su Shi‘s ―Prelude to Water Music‖ before
Teresa, her 1983 interpretation more closely resembled Su Shi‘s original intent. Unlike
Teresa, however, Mao had no lofty goals of adhering to traditional Chinese culture in his
nation-building. In fact, his regime on the mainland contended that traditional Chinese
society and culture were to be rejected as the bourgeois past. Thus it makes perfect sense
that since Communists revolted against Chinese tradition, the Nationalists would make a

173
Zhang and Vaughan, Mao Zedong as Poet, pp. 81.
174
Zhang and Vaughan, Mao Zedong as Poet, pp.4-5, 81.
175
This was written during the ―Hundred Flowers‖ Campaign before the failures of the Great Leap Forward.
81

claim to inherit and uphold it (especially while seeking allies in Asia after losing
American recognition of their sovereignty). So while Teresa used classical poetry in the
1983 to shift away from Taiwanese Nativism and solidify her Chinese heritage in Taiwan
and abroad, reclaiming the Chinese past was not a priority in the mainland at that time.
Rather, up until the late 1970s, the sole purpose for popular culture and music was still to
dispense Maoist philosophies on class struggle, revolution and self-abnegation in the face
of the demands, ideals, and authority of the CCP.
176

176
Jones, Like a Knife, pp.14-5.
82

Chapter Seven: The Global Chinese
In May 1984, Teresa returned to Japan and held a news conference where she
apologized to her fans for the passport scandal and for being away from them for so
long.
177
Her transition back into Japanese market was quite seamless and she released
top hits in Japanese and then re-released them as mega-hits in Mandarin. These songs,
―Atonement‖ tsukunai ⌈ 償い ⌋ or changhuai 〈償還〉, ―Entrusting Myself to You‖ toki no
nagare mi wo makase ⌈ 時の流れに身をまかせ ⌋ or ―You‘re the Only One that Matters‖ wo
zhi zaihu ni 〈我只在乎你〉softened Japan‘s postcolonial image to Taiwan and other
Chinese-speaking communities. But since liberalism‘ real objective is ― a general
formalization of the powers of the state and the organization of society on the basis of the
market economy,‖ the positioning of Teresa Teng as native, Chinese, Japanese, or
western proves that no matter where the subjective claims for Taiwanese identity came
from, the island‘s people and sovereignty would constantly be de- and re-territorialized as
the State responded to the market demands.
178
Indeed, in addition to the examples
discussed in chapter five, another powerful example of Teresa‘s cultural posturing is her
1985 Nippon Hōsō Kyōkai 日本放送協会 (NHK) ―Japan Broadcasting Corporation‖
concert performance in Tokyo, where throughout the concert, Teresa sported cornrows
with beads dangling from the ends of her braids. Then, in the middle of her concert, put
on sunglasses and sang ―I Just Called to Say I Love You‖ as homage to Stevie Wonder.

177
Shi and Zhao, Teresa Teng’s Biography, pp.134.
178
Foucault, Birth of Biopolitics, p.117.
83

Fig.19-20. Teresa singing before and during her tribute to Stevie Wonder
Source: Stills from karaoke footage of Teresa‘s 1985 NHK concert, Teresa Teng, ―I Just Called to Say I
Love You,‖ YouTube.com, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIc1aodkQk0 (Accessed 15 May 2009).

As a reaction to internal and external pressures, the Nationalists rallied behind the
idea that the ROC was the true inheritor of the Chinese state by promoting its government
as better than the PRC at maintaining cultural heritage, economic performance, and the
civil liberties of its people. In the 1980s, Teresa‘s music had come to represent a modern
Chineseness that challenged the failure of communism and praised the successes of the
ROC. In the context that native Taiwanese were finally recognized for their contributions
to the economic growth of Taiwan and were included into the political system, Teresa‘s
advocacy against military authoritarianism in 1989 at Hong Kong‘s Pro-Democracy
Concert can be seen as her goal to spread the ideals of civil liberties and American values
of freedom to the oppressed Chinese on the Mainland.
While both the PRC and ROC contended over who embodied authentic Chinese
identity, their discursive battles had real effects in the daily lives of the population. The
rhetoric over Chineseness in both regimes was hypocritical. The history of both the
KMT and CCP show that Chinese sovereignty is claimed under false pretenses of
republican democracy while they violently subjugate and police the local peoples. With
events such as the February 28
th
Massacre, White Terror, and Kaohsiung Uprising in
84

Taiwan and Anti-Rightist Movement, Cultural Revolution, and Tiananmen Square
Massacre in Mainland China, it seems that the governments are more interested in
maintaining power than wanting what‘s best for the multitudes of non-Chinese people.
Without making light of the personal investment in national identities, it must be
reiterated that the construction of Chineseness, much like Taiwaneseness, exists in a state
of flux. In a telling interview after the military crackdown, Teresa said:
I am Chinese. No matter where I go, or how I life, I will be Chinese.
That‘s why all that occurred in China causes me heart to ache. I worry for
China‘s future direction. I hope it will be liberated and I hope that
everyone has freedom. But because the right for freedom has been denied,
I am deeply saddened. However, these feelings of pain and sadness will
one day be lifted. Anyone can understand this, I believe that day will
come, I will continue to sing.
179

It is obvious in this statement that Teresa saw herself as Chinese and illustrated that for
her, local Taiwanese culture was subsumed under KMT Chinese identity. Teresa‘s words
reflected the sensibilities of her time when Taiwan was still under Chinese leadership.
Yet identity is perpetually changing and is adopted by the state to legitimate itself and its
policing order. Now, though large numbers of Taiwanese citizens may agree that they‘re
―ethnically Chinese‖ huaren 華人, they‘ll staunchly deny that they‘re ―Chinese‖
zhonguoren 中國人. Instead, they‘re ―Taiwanese‖ taiwanren 台灣人.
180
This staunch
declaration of Taiwanese identity in the face of the PRC‘s repeated attempts to integrate

179
Arita, My Home, pp.168-9.
180
Tu, ―Cultural Identity,‖ p.1133.
85

the island under the ―One Country‖ system potentially offers local Taiwanese people and
Mainlanders alike the opportunity to move beyond the China/Taiwan deadlock.
181

181
Sung-sheng Yvonne Chang, ―Representing Taiwan: Shifting Geopolitical Frameworks,‖ in Writing
Taiwan: A New Literary History, edited by David Der-wei Wang and Carlos Rojas, Durham: Duke
University Press, 2007, p.23.
86

Conclusion
In analyzing Teresa Teng, scholars are readily able to see that the perception and
understanding of Teresa and of her cultural identity are relative to the contexts from
which her information is distributed. Both the PRC and ROC have used Teresa‘s music
for their own devices and because her music has been removed from its modern historical
context and rereleased as mixed compilations, whether consciously-done or not, Teresa‘s
songs have lost their wider socio-cultural significance. As martial law has been over
since 1987, the Taiwanese publics no longer read Teresa‘s music as the soft hegemony of
the KMT‘s policing order. Rather, Taiwanese today view Teresa as a Taiwanese pop
icon and imbue her music with personal meaning and sentimental value; Teresa now
represents a utopian Taiwanese society that never was. Audiences today reterritorialize
Teresa‘s music with their own meaning and disregard the fact that her music once
deterritorialized native expressions and served to disenfranchise Taiwanese locals.
Likewise, in Mainland China, Teresa‘s capitalistic utopia that once threatened the
CCP has been subsumed into the new economic outlooks of the PRC. As evidenced with
Teresa‘s music, the PRC uses consumer nostalgia and yearning to maintain its control
over popular knowledge. The CCP still censors sensitive information on Teresa‘s politics,
and these policing acts have far-reaching implications. If public consciousness of Teresa
is only informed by official outlets, then she will remain a medium for escapist practices
of leisure and uncritical consumption of popular music. By critically challenging the
channels of information and media, it is possible to redistribute the sensible and
destabilize official narratives on Chineseness, minority status, or regarding Teresa‘s
legacy and reconstitute her music within the larger social movements of her time.
87

The historical context is vital in fully appreciating Teresa‘s music and honoring
those who‘ve struggled against, and fallen victim to, the policing order in Taiwan and in
the Mainland. By looking past the contemporary nationalistic discourses surrounding
Teresa Teng it is possible to see from both the PRC and ROC‘s exercise of power,
possible ways to circumvent indoctrination and discover alternatives to delimit the
established distribution of sensibilities. As the Taiwanese youths of the 1970s have
shown, it is possible to incite change by creating new modes of information-sharing.
From Teresa‘s own negotiation of identity, she demonstrates that there is a potential to
reconstruct Chinese identity outside nationalistic discourses, and she helped pave the way
for both governments to incorporate more inclusive and pluralistic views of Chinese
identity.
Taiwanese identity needs to be situated outside the CCP v. KMT dialectic; it is time
to see ―Taiwan‖ outside debates on Chinese authenticity and adopt Deleuze‘s concept of
becoming-Taiwanese to disrupt the neoliberal drive that carves out and consumes
individuated territories of identity for new technologies of government. As I have shown,
it is equally important to critique the PRC‘s repackaging of Teresa Teng for public
consumption and continued censorship, just as it is important to show the KMT‘s
manipulation of diversity in its struggle to stay in power. Examining Teresa within
different shifting socio-cultural and eco-political contexts of becoming-Taiwan provided
an alternative narrative that made it possible to remain wary of the subjective majority
and minority positions predicated upon her. Further studies regarding Teresa should
continue to deterritorialize spaces and information from PRC and ROC national rhetoric
to expose the policing techniques used to control the distribution of the sensible.
88

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98

Appendix A
Teresa Teng‘s Biographical Timeline and Discography
182

Taiwan Hong Kong Japan and the rest of
Asia
1953 Teng Li-yun 鄧麗筠 is born
with a baby twin brother
on Jan. 29
th
in Tienyang
Village of Baojhong
Township, Yunlin County
( 雲林縣, 褒忠鄉, 田洋村)

1954 (1)
Moved near what is now
developed as Pingtung
Airport 屏東機場

1955 (2)

1956 (3)

1957 (4)

1958 (5)
Took ballet lessons
1959 (6)
After retiring from the
military, her father moved
the family to Lujhou City
in Taipei County ( 蘆洲市,
台北縣) where she attended
Lujhou Elementary School
蘆洲國民小學

1960 (7)

1961 (8)

1962 (9)

1963 (10)
Won Championship for
Chinese Television System
(CTS) Huang Mei Opera
Competition with ―Visiting
Yingtai‖ 〈訪英台〉from
―The Butterfly Lovers‖

1964 (11)
Won First Place in Taipei
County Speech Contest

1965 (12)
Began Jinlu Girls Junior
High

182
Compiled from ―The ‗ Fallen City‘ Reminisces on Teresa Teng‖ ⌈ 傾城懷念鄧麗君⌋. Teresa Teng 10
Year Memorial Special. Asia Television Ltd. aTV, Hong Kong, May 2005; ―Teresa Ten purofiru‖ ⌈ テレ
サ・テンプロフィール ⌋ (―Teresa Teng‘s Profile‖), Yunibāseru Mūjikku Gōdō Shakkai Ātisuto Indekkusu 『ユ
ニバーサル・ミュージック合同会社アーティスト・インデックス』(Universal Music, LLC., Artist Index),
http://www.universalmusicworld.jp/teresa_teng (accessed February 10, 2009); and Shi, Yong-gang, and
Zhao Jun, eds. Deng Li-jun Quan Zhuan: Deng Li-jun shishi shizhounian diancang jinianban. Hong Kong:
Ming Bao Chubanshe, Ltd., 2005, pp.235-40.
99

Won Fifth Place at
Taiwan‘s Inaugural Junior
High Speech Contest
1966 (13)
Won Golden Horse Award
Records Competition
singing ―Rainbow
Chestnut‖ 〈彩紅菱〉
Quit school to pursue her
professional music career
Adopted stage name Teng
Li-jun 鄧麗君 chosen by
her mother
Co-hosted live evening
programs from 7-8pm on
Broadcasting Corp. China,
(BCC) 中國廣播公司 Radio

1967 (14)
Signed with Universal
Records 宇宙唱片公司
Released first vinyl album
―Fengyang Flower Drum‖
《鳳陽花鼓》
183

1968 (15)
Sings ―Plum Blossom‖
〈梅花〉at Universal
Records‘ Taipei County
Folk Song Concert

1969 (16)
Cast in ―Thank you
Manager‖ 《謝謝總經理》
(airs in 1970)
Sang the theme song for
first TV drama series ― Jing
Jing‖ 《晶晶》
hosted TV program ―A
Star A Day‖ 《每日一星》
Youngest Crowned
―Queen of Charity‖ in
Hong Kong at the ―Bai
Hua You‖ ⌈ 白花油 ⌋Charity
Auction co-sponsored by
the Malaysia-based
Overseas Chinese Daily
News 《華僑日報》
First performance abroad
at the request of
Singaporean First Lady
Puan Noor Aishah for a
Charity Concert

1970 (17)
First Performance in Hong
Kong with ―Kai Sheng‖
⌈ 凱盛 ⌋ Performance
Troupe

183
Fengyang xian 凤阳县 is a county in Anhui Province 安徽省 of mainland China where Huang-Mei opera
originated.
100

Cast in ― Fangirl‖ 《歌迷小
姐》
1971 (18)
Southeast Asian Concert
Tour in Hong Kong, the
Philippines, Malaysia,
Thailand, and Vietnam
(despite the Vietnam War)
1972 (19)
Signed with Life Records
麗風唱片公司
Promotional activities for
《歌迷小姐》
Made the ―Top Ten‖ Hong
Kong Stars list

1973 (20)

《歌迷小姐》Premiered
Signed with Polydor
Records, Japan ポリドール
• レコード
Adopted Japanese stage
name Teresa Tan テレサ•
タン
Released ―Perhaps
Tonight‖ ⌈ 今夜かしら⌋
(mediocre sales)
Performed in July in
Saigon, Vietnam
1974 (21)
Performed in various stage
productions
First Performance for ROC
troops at Kinmen 金門

⌈ 今夜かしら ⌋ makes the
Top 75 Charts
July release of ―Airport‖
⌈ 空港⌋ and wins ―Best
New Singer‖ selling over
700,000 albums
1975 (22)
Signed with Polygram
Records 寶麗金唱片公司
September release of
Formosa Love Songs
Series (FLS) No.1
―Goodbye, My Love‖ 《島
國的情歌 1: 再見, 我的愛
人》which included 《情人
的关怀》(Chinese version
of ⌈ 空港 ⌋)
First Solo Concert in
Japan
1976 (23)
First Solo Concert in Hong
Kong
April release of FLS2:
―Thinking of You Tonight‖
《島國的情歌 2: 今夜想起
你》
September release of
English album ―A World

101

of Love‖ 《愛的世界》
1977 (24)

Released 《鄧麗君 Greatest
Hits 》
July release of FLS3:
―Light Rain‖ 《島國的情歌
3: 絲絲小雨》
December release of FLS4:
―Night in Hong Kong‖ 《島
國之情歌 4: 香港之夜》

1978 (25)

Released 《鄧麗君 Greatest
Hits 2 》
September release of
FLS5: ―Making Love More
Beautiful‖ 《島國之情歌 5:
使愛情更美麗》

1979 (26)
March release of FLS6:
―Small -town Story‖ 《島國
之情歌 6: 小城故事》
July release of ―Sweetness‖
《甜蜜蜜》
―How Do You Explain‖
《你怎麼說》
Fake Passport Incident in
February
First Solo Concert in the
U.S./Canada
Studied English and
Biology in California at
UCLA and USC
1980 (27)
December release of her
first Cantonese Album
―Irreconcilable‖ 《勢不兩
立》earned Platinum
―When Will You Return‖
〈何日君在來〉became
immensely popular in the
PRC
1981 (28)
ROC ―Government
Information Office‖ 台新
聞局―Patriot Artist‖ ⌈ 愛國
藝人獎 ⌋Award
120 min. TV Special
―Teresa at the Forefront‖
《君在前哨》to promote
her album 《何日君在來》
Start of ―15 -year
Anniversary Tour‖ in
Taiwan and Southeast Asia
Performed for ROC troops
at Kaohsiung
Broke Hong Kong record
for solo artist by
performing at 9 concerts in
7 days
April release of FLS7:
―What If I Were Real‖ 《島
國之情歌 7: 假如我是真的》
July release of disco-pop
―Love is Like a Song‖ 〈愛
像一首歌〉(Chinese
version of ⌈ 北極便⌋)
November release of
―Popular Fukienese Songs‖
《福建名曲專輯》
December release of ―On
the River‖ 《水上人》
〈何日君在來〉is banned
in the PRC
Released ⌈ 北極便⌋
Left Polydor Record (after
releasing 8 albums and 12
singles albums in Japan)
Performed for ROC troops
at Kinmen
1982 (29)
May release of ―Teresa
Teng in Concert‖ in Hong

102

Kong 《鄧麗君演唱會》
Double Album
September release of ―First
Time Tasting Loneliness‖
《初次嘗到寂寞》
December release of
―Teresa‘s Movie Themes‖
《鄧麗君之電影歌曲》
1983 (30)
Nominated ―10 Most
Outstanding Young
Women‖
February release of
―Exquisite Light Feeling‖
《淡淡幽情》
Polygram award for All-
time Record Sales
May release of second
Cantonese Album ―Stroll
on the Road of Life‖ 《漫步
人生路》
Broke the record for
having over one-hundred
thousand attendees at her
concerts spanning the
consecutive six-day Hong
Kong leg of her tour
September release of
―Teresa in Concert‖ in
Taipei 《鄧麗君演唱會》
December release of
―Teresa‘s 15 -year
Anniversary Concert
Collection‖ 《鄧麗君十五周
年》演唱紀念特輯
First Asian to perform at
Caesar‘s Palace in Las
Vegas (Feb.19-20)
December ―15 -year
Anniversary tour‖ in East
and Southeast Asia
Early December concert in
the Philippines
1984 (31)
2-day tour in Taipei
(Concert at Taipei‘s
Zhonghua Sports Center
aired in the PRC)
June release of FLS8:
―Messenger of Love‖ 《島
國之情歌 8: 愛的使者》
December release of
―Atonement‖ 《償還》
Album (Chinese versions
of ⌈ 償い ⌋)
Concerts in Singapore and
Malaysia
February return to Japan
(public apology for
passport incident)
Won ―Best New Artist,‖
―Top 10 Charts,‖ and
― Japan Cable Grand Prix‖
Awards
Released ―Atonement‖ ⌈ 償
い⌋ Single in January and
Album in November
1985 (32)

December release of 《愛
人》Single (Chinese
versions of ⌈ 愛人⌋)
Released ―Lover‖ ⌈ 愛人⌋
Album in February and
Single in March

1986 (33)
Taiwan TV Lunar New December release of Released ―Entrusting
103

Year Special
The PRC released an
album collection of her
songs
―You‘re the Only One That
Matters‖ 〈我只在乎你〉
Single (Chinese version of
⌈ 時の流れに身をまかせ ⌋)
Myself to You‖ ⌈ 時の流れ
に身をまかせ ⌋ Single in
February and Album in
July
Won the 38
th
NHK Red-
White Music Competition
with ⌈ 時の流れに身をまか
せ⌋ in December
1987 (34)

〈我只在乎你〉became a
huge hit

1988 (35)

1989 (36)

1990 (37)
Performed at ― Television
Broadcasting Ltd.‖ (TVB)
Charity Drive

1991 (38)

1992 (39)
Released ―Unforgettable
Teresa Teng‖ 《難忘的
Teresa Teng 》

1993 (40)
February release of
remastered old recordings
of Teresa‘s Chinese songs
⌈ 鄧麗君中国語名唱選シリ
ース vol. 1-8 ⌋
April re-release of ⌈ 何日君
在來⌋ Single (new version)

1994 (41)
Performed for ROC
soldiers at 70-year
anniversary of Whampoa
Military Academy

Special Guest
Commentator on political
talk-show ―Longmen
Zhen‖ ⌈ 龍門陣⌋
184
which
aired March 3
rd
on ― Asia
Television Ltd.‖ (aTV)
―Tube rose‖ 《夜来香》
Album co-release in Hong
Kong and Japan
⌈ 夜来香 ⌋
1995 (42)
Laid to rest on May 28
th
at
―Yunyuan,‖ Mt. Jinbao 筠
園, 金寶山
Passed away in Bangkok
on May 8
th

184
龍門陣 translates to the ― Dragon Gate‖ ‗trial‘ or ‗defensive barrier‘ but is also a colloquialism meaning
conversation, banter, or debate. The candid talk-show invited guest commentators, ranging from academics,
politicians, and entertainers to discuss relevant issues facing Hong Kong. It also allowed viewers to call in
and engage the pundits in airing grievances or anxieties about the immanent Hong Kong handover. The
popularity and frank criticism of the PRC on the show lead to heavy scrutiny from the PRC and bowing to
the pressure, Hong Kong aTV cancelled the show after it aired its 64
th
episode in late December 1994.
104

Appendix B

The following song is an example of Teresa Teng‘s lyrics from the 1972 album produced
by Lok Fung Records and distributed in Hong Kong and parts of Southeast Asia that also featured
―Nanuwa Love Song .‖ This song evokes the persona of the distressed woman pining away for
love in the nakaxi tradition and solicits the (male) audience for help. It uses coffee as a metaphor
to evoke romantic notions of urban modernity and cosmopolitanism.

〈我要咖啡〉―I Want Coffee‖
Lyrics by Yu Tian 雨田 and Music by Gu Yue 古月

手拿一杯苦咖啡，一杯接一杯.
I hold a cup of bitter coffee in my hand, one cup after another.
我已經醉是為了誰，還是不能睡.
Who am I getting drunk for, still unable to sleep,
冷冷清清的在回味，在回味，
I‘m alone thinking of the past, of the past.
我還要喝咖啡；咖啡越喝它越没滋味，
I must have more coffee; the more I drink the blander it becomes.
是咖啡還是眼泪。
Is it the coffee or is it my tears?
一杯一杯苦咖啡，
Cup after bitter cup of coffee,
我的心要碎；我要找回流過的泪，
My heart is about to break; I must regain my lost tears,
有誰来安慰?
But who will come and comfort me?
冷冷清清的在回味，在回味，
I‘m alone thinking of the past, of the past.
我還要喝咖啡；咖啡越喝它越没滋味，
I still must have more coffee; the more I drink the blander it becomes.
是咖啡還是眼泪 ?
Is it the coffee or is it my tears?
手拿一杯苦咖啡，一杯接一杯.
I hold a cup of bitter coffee in my hand, one cup after another.
我已經醉是為了誰，還是不能睡.
Who am I getting drunk for, still unable to sleep,
冷冷清清的在回味，在回味，
I‘m alone thinking of the past, of the past.
我還要喝咖啡；咖啡越喝它越没滋味，
I still must have more coffee; the more I drink the blander it becomes.
是咖啡還是眼泪。
Is it the coffee or is it my tears?

105

Appendix C
Reprint of the May 12
th
, 2005
th
edition of the China Daily article, ―Pop diva Teresa Teng lives on
in Chinese hearts.‖
A decade has passed since Teresa Teng died from a severe asthma attack in the Thai city of
Chiang Mai, but her songs and delicate appearance remain vivid for millions of Chinese around
the world.
A rain-drenched Sunday in Hong Kong saw media and fans
arranging various programmes and activities to mark the 10th
anniversary of the songstress' untimely death. For three
decades her popularity has remained undimmed among
Chinese communities worldwide.
Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television, presented a five-
episode television series which ran from Monday to Friday to
mark Teng's death at the age of 42.
The series, screened by satellite globally, was called "When
Will You Come Back Again (the name of one of her songs):
In memory of the 10th anniversary of Teresa Teng's Death,"
and looked back over her life.
Anecdotes and recollections by her brothers, friends, teachers,
musicians, fans and others, interspersed with a number of her
most popular songs, were included.
One of her most popular, "Your Sweet Smiles," opened the series.
"Her songs express the most beautiful musical notes of Chinese culture," commented Tiger Hoo,
who hosted the biopic.
Teng's songs are popular in many places and while filming in mainland cities, he often heard her
refrain in public places. When Hoo went to Chiang Mai to cover her death in 1995 and asked
"Who knows Teresa Teng?" at the airport, he got a chorus of replies. And very quickly he was
driven to the Imperial Hotel where she had been staying.
Jia Ding, a well-known pop composer based in Beijing, described Teng's songs as the classics of
the popular songs.
In Hong Kong, Teng's CDs are sold in nearly every music outlet, from chain stores to small
roadside shops.
Madame Tussauds Hong Kong joined with the Teresa Teng Foundation to put on a mini-
exhibition called "Thinking of our dear Teresa," which will run until July 31.

Teng died May 8 ten years ago at the
age of 42. [baidu]
106

In addition to a waxwork model of the singer, the mini-exhibition features the 1985 NHK concert
video, Teng's four stage costumes and the five trophies she received in Japan between 1974 and
1988, eight photographs from her private collections.
Tussauds' Kelly Mak said: "We would like to provide an opportunity for people who love Teresa
to honour and capture once again her sweet voice and beautiful on-stage appearance."
Memorial concert
Hong Kong musicians plan to stage a musical in June.
Cao Zhong, an anchorwoman from TVB, and who resembles Teng, will perform one of her songs
in the musical.
At the end of April the Ming Pao Publishing House and Teresa Teng Foundation jointly
published her biography, which includes nearly 100 photos and a 10-CD set of her songs.
The Hong Kong Post, in co-operation with the publishing house, also issued a set of stamps in
Teng's memory.
A cross-island tour for around 400 fans was organized, which included a visit to her former home
and tomb.
And in Chiang Mai, Teng's CDs have been selling well in the city's biggest music store in the
mountain city in northern Thailand.
Road to stardom
Born on January 29, 1953 into an ordinary family in Taiwan Province, Teng was the only girl
among the five children in the family. She had shown her talent for singing when she was in the
primary school.
"My sister loved singing when she was only 5 or 6 years old," recalled Teng Chang-hsi, the
younger brother of Teng in an interview with China News Service. When she was only 10 years
old, Teng began to tour and perform with local bands. It was in the same year she won the first
prize at a folk singing contest held by the local radio station with her song "Visiting Yingtai."
Three years later she took part in a vocal training course provided by a record company and again
was awarded in a singing contest. In the second year of middle school she was forced to drop out
education. "My sister had to choose whether she would continue her studies or leave them to
sing," said the brother, adding that the school did not allow her to perform. It was also impossible
for her to cope with her schooling and sing professionally at the same time. Aged 14, she made a
decisive career choice and became a fulltime singer.
In 1968, she became famous after giving a performance at a regular music programme on TV,
which was believed to be the only important music programme at that time in Taiwan. Success
107

followed. She brought out eight records within two years, and appeared at shows everywhere. She
was in great demand.
Well-known in Taiwan and Hong Kong and other parts of South East Asia, she set her sights
farther afield and in 1973 headed for Japan.
In 1985 she won the prize for "Best New Singing Star" in Japan's widely known Red and White
Song Competition, and later won the Golden Bell Award in Taiwan, among others.
In Taiwan, she was best known for singing folk and romantic songs, characterized by soft vocal
inflections. In Japan, she began to do more demanding ballads and her singing technique matured.
She sang in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and English. She had performed in the United States.
She had the look of the girl-next-door - her beauty epitomizing the Chinese ideal of a genteel and
sweet young girl. She liked dressing in purple, pink and white.
Teresa Teng longed to have a family but failed. Her love stories have been widely known in the
public. When she died in Thailand she was on vacation with her French boyfriend.
During her life time, Teng recorded over 100 CDs, each of which was a million-plus
seller.
For millions, her voice sings on.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-05/12/content_441430.htm
(Accessed 20 April 2009)

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Asset Metadata

Creator Ta, Trong Shawn (author)

Core Title Becoming Teresa Teng, becoming-Taiwanese

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program East Asian Area Studies

Publication Date 12/03/2009

Defense Date 08/14/2009

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Asian Studies,China,Deng Li-jun,history,Music,OAI-PMH Harvest,Taiwan,Taiwanese identity,Teresa Teng

Place Name China (countries), Taiwan (countries)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Sheehan, Brett (committee chair), Birge, Bettine (committee member), Goldstein, Joshua (committee member)

Creator Email tamadori@yahoo.com,trongta@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-m2784

Unique identifier UC1318922

Identifier etd-Ta-3189 (filename),usctheses-m40 (legacy collection record id),usctheses-c127-279974 (legacy record id),usctheses-m2784 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-Ta-3189.pdf

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Rights Ta, Trong Shawn

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Repository Name Libraries, University of Southern California

Repository Location Los Angeles, California

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu