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.
Late last month Philippines Foreign Affairs Secretary Theresa Lazaro told the Philippine Senate that the nation has sufficient funds to evacuate the nearly 170,000 Filipino residents in Taiwan, 84 percent of whom are migrant workers, in the event of war. Agencies have been exploring evacuation scenarios since early this year, she said. She also observed that since the Philippines has only limited ships, the government is consulting security agencies for alternatives. Filipinos are a distant third in overall migrant worker population. Indonesia has over 248,000 workers, followed by roughly 240,000 Vietnamese. It should be noted that there are another 170,000
Enter the Dragon 13 will bring Taiwan’s first taste of Dirty Boxing Sunday at Taipei Gymnasium, one highlight of a mixed-rules card blending new formats with traditional MMA. The undercard starts at 10:30am, with the main card beginning at 4pm. Tickets are NT$1,200. Dirty Boxing is a US-born ruleset popularized by fighters Mike Perry and Jon Jones as an alternative to boxing. The format has gained traction overseas, with its inaugural championship streamed free to millions on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Taiwan’s version allows punches and elbows with clinch striking, but bans kicks, knees and takedowns. The rules are stricter than the
“Far from being a rock or island … it turns out that the best metaphor to describe the human body is ‘sponge.’ We’re permeable,” write Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie in their book Slow Death By Rubber Duck: The Secret Danger of Everyday Things. While the permeability of our cells is key to being alive, it also means we absorb more potentially harmful substances than we realize. Studies have found a number of chemical residues in human breast milk, urine and water systems. Many of them are endocrine disruptors, which can interfere with the body’s natural hormones. “They can mimic, block
Next week, candidates will officially register to run for chair of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). By the end of Friday, we will know who has registered for the Oct. 18 election. The number of declared candidates has been fluctuating daily. Some candidates registering may be disqualified, so the final list may be in flux for weeks. The list of likely candidates ranges from deep blue to deeper blue to deepest blue, bordering on red (pro-Chinese Communist Party, CCP). Unless current Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) can be convinced to run for re-election, the party looks likely to shift towards more hardline
RSS