A break in the ideological divisions
Can a pop singer bridge the political animosity between the People's Republic and Taiwan?In the Heart of Beijing, a Taiwanese Pop Idol Makes Fans Swoon
A beer in one hand, a microphone in the other, Meng Xiaoli stood in a crowded restaurant and began to sing…
During the workweek, Mr. Meng, 53, a strait-laced budget analyst who wears a red Chinese Communist Party pin on his lapel…
But on weekends, he retreats to what he calls his “spiritual home,” a two-story restaurant and museum in Beijing that is a shrine to the woman he considers a goddess: the Taiwanese pop singer Teresa Teng, one of Asia’s most celebrated artists…
Ms. Teng, who died suddenly in 1995 at age 42, was renowned for turning traditional Taiwanese and Chinese folk songs into maudlin Western-style hits. She was once banned in the mainland, her music denounced by the authorities as “decadent” and “pornographic.”
But she never lost her base of rabid fans here, even as tensions have escalated between China and Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing considers part of its territory.
Her most ardent followers now gather at the Teresa Teng Music-Themed Restaurant in a sprawling residential neighborhood in western Beijing… An enormous portrait of Ms. Teng, smiling as she holds a white rose, graces its front door…
Inside, singers dressed in elegant gowns perform renditions of her signature ballads like “The Moon Represents My Heart” and “Sweet as Honey.”…
Ms. Teng is claimed by many mainlanders as one of their own, even though she was born in Taiwan.
Her father, who grew up in the mainland in the northern province of Hebei, was part of the Nationalist forces that fought Mao Zedong’s Communists in the Chinese Civil War. He retreated to Taiwan in 1949, four years before Ms. Teng’s birth…
But her music was quickly banned as part of a campaign by the Communist government to block “spiritual pollution” from the West. The Taiwanese government used her music as a psychological weapon, blasting it from loudspeakers positioned near the mainland.
Tapes of Ms. Teng’s music circulated on a black market in the mainland, and her popularity was clear. Because of her surname, which in Chinese uses the same character as the Communist leader Deng Xiaoping’s, she was sometimes referred to as Little Deng, reflecting her hold on the public imagination…
In 2011, officials opened a memorial hall in honor of Ms. Teng in her father’s hometown, Daming, where fans now converge on the anniversary of her death…
Ms. Teng has been hailed as a symbol of commonality between China and Taiwan at a time when relations have deteriorated, with President Xi Jinping of China recently warning that efforts by Taiwan to assert independence could be met by armed force…
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed. Use the search box to look for country names or concept labels attached to each entry.
Just The Facts! 2nd edition is a concise guide to concepts, terminology, and examples that will appear on May's exam.Just The Facts! is available. Order HERE.
Amazon's customers gave this book a 5-star rating.
Labels: China, political culture, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:30 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home