Arriving at the first ever museum dedicated to Teresa Teng (鄧麗君),
the 20th century’s best-known Mando-pop singer, I couldn’t help but feel surprised.
It’s not located in central Kaohsiung City or even a business, commercial or artsy district as one might expect, but amid a group of warehouses along a section of Kaohsiung’s Love River with few shops or other businesses.
Photo Courtesy of Today Color
The only thing that sets the building apart from the other warehouses is its white walls — and the row of tour buses parked outside.
Perhaps even more surprising is just how far most of the museum’s visitors have come to see it. Since The Teresa Teng Memorial Hall (鄧麗君紀念文物館) opened in April this year — 15 years after the singer’s death from an asthma attack in 1995 while on vacation in Thailand at the age of 42 — it has seen 600 to 700 visitors a day. More than 90 percent of them come from China, according to Teng’s eldest brother, Teng Chang-an (鄧長安), who set up the site.
Huang Yan (黃燕), a 39-year-old tour guide from Shanghai, said she never tires of listening to Teng’s songs or watching her videos, even though she hears them repeatedly on the tour buses.
Photo Courtesy of Today Color
She remembers a time in China when Chinese Communist Party officials told people not to listen to Teng’s songs because she was from Taiwan, the “renegade province.”
“But in the early 1980s, we secretly listened at home. Even though they banned her songs, there were people who would secretly listen,” Huang said. “As far as I know, no one actually got in trouble for it. The officials also liked her songs. It was just politics, because she was from Taiwan. They said her lyrics would have a negative influence, but that was all nonsense.”
On a recent visit, tourists of all ages streamed into the museum with excited looks on their faces — seemingly oblivious to the strange warehouse setting — as they were led into a room where they intently watched a video about Teng’s early years.
Her father was a military man, and after the Kuomintang (KMT) lost the civil war to the Communists, he moved to Taiwan. His daughter showed talent for singing from a young age, charming families in the military village where she grew up. Her father, recognizing her potential, agreed to let her drop out of high school and pursue a career as a professional singer.
The walls of the 250-ping (825m2) museum are decorated with pictures, large and small, of Teng. A wide assortment of items from Teng’s personal life are on display, ranging from a Mercedes Benz she bought in 1994, a year before her fatal asthma attack, to large glass cases of her on-stage jewelry, mannequins dressed in her glamorous dresses, and even a mahjong table.
“Teresa Teng’s mother loved to play mahjong. Despite her busy schedule, Teng still found time to play mahjong with her mother,” the tour guide said.
The last stop is the souvenir shop — oddly, the only place in the museum where visitors can hear Teng’s music. A large TV continuously plays DVDs of her performances. There’s even a shimmering disco ball. With her most famous and popular songs playing — including Small Town Stories and The Moon Represents My Heart — it’s easy for fans to linger.
And that’s exactly what a small group of Chinese tourists did: They watched the DVD quietly, paying no attention to the gift items or their fellow tourists.
A tourist from Xi’an, China said there was only one way to explain why she loves Teng’s songs: “They’re beautiful.”
“I first heard her songs in the early 1980s when I was in my 20s. I was just starting to work. I thought her songs sounded great, her voice was so gentle and beautiful. I’ve liked her ever since then. Her voice is very unique,” Xu Min (徐敏) said.
She added: “I feel so touched being here. In the 1980s, even though we knew she was from Taiwan, we thought she was one of us, like a family member.”
Another tourist said Teng’s songs cheer people up.
“Her songs make me feel light-hearted, even now. They make me feel better,” said Li Cong (李琮), 40. “When we go to karaoke bars, we often sing her songs.”
Teng was the first person of Chinese descent to perform at the Lincoln Center and the first Asian woman to perform at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, but her brother believes that it is the working class, people with hard lives, who appreciated her songs the most.
“They were often played in work places, easing the pressures of work,” Teng Chang-an said.
Her songs were of particular import to those living in China. “They had just come out of the Cultural Revolution, listening to revolutionary songs,” he said. “Her songs were like a breakthrough for them.”
“Some government agencies and private entrepreneurs wanted to open a memorial hall for the performer, but ... we didn’t want it to be commercialized. So we decided to open the memorial hall with our own funds,” Teng Chang-an said. “We’re not so concerned about making a profit. This is to fulfill her dream of contributing to society.”
He admitted the museum is not adequate and said he hopes to do better.
“I hope to raise enough money in three years to build a permanent memorial hall so that her spirit and songs can be passed down to future generations,” he said.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
RSS