Meet Chenta Tsai Tseng, better known in Spain by his stage name “putochinomaricon.” In English, that translates as “fucking Chinese fag.”
The 28-year-old gay, Taiwanese-Spanish singer, DJ and writer is making a name for himself in Spain for his acerbic criticism of issues like racism in the LGBTQ community and beyond, the selfie generation and pride festivals like the one taking place in Madrid.
A qualified violinist and architect, Chenta created “putochinomaricon” two years ago in an angry nod to the insults he received in the street.
Photo: AFP
“I said: ‘That’s it,’ I’m going to start accepting my body, accepting my identity,” Chenta told reporters before a DJ set in Madrid.
He composed a short song and posted it on Instagram. Two years later, he has two albums and an autobiography out and has performed in major festivals like Sonar and Primavera Sound.
Slight and softly spoken, Chenta weighs up every word he says, inclusive language peppering his interview, in sharp contrast with his eccentric performances and irreverent electropop songs.
“That you went to Majorca and stayed in the Ritz, that you feel alpha male and show off in the gym, that your father bought you a Ferrari so you can brag... We don’t really care about your fucking life,” he sings in one song.
Born in Taiwan in December 1990, Chenta emigrated to Spain with his parents when he was just 11 months old.
He said his first experience of not feeling quite like others happened when he was about four or five, playing with a friend.
“He gave me the yellow Power Ranger, and obviously I wanted the pink Power Ranger,” he said, laughing. “I didn’t understand why he associated me with the color yellow ... and he told me: ‘You have yellow skin, you’re different.’”
And so it has continued, including in the dating scene.
“Either they reject you simply for seeing your photo and seeing you’re Asian, or they fetishize you and want to go out with you just because you’re Asian,” he said.
There is slang for that, he added.
“Mashed potato,” for instance, refers to white homosexuals who only go for other white men, “rice queen” to non-Asian males who go for Asians.
All very food-oriented, Chenta said, which inspired the title of his first album — Steamed Pork Heart With Ginseng.
Chenta denounces discrimination generally within the LGBTQ community, which he said often favors white, muscular men who are not effeminate.
As for pride celebrations, he feels there is too little focus on “women, trans women, the disabled” or those from different ethnic groups.
However, he is starting to come around.
This year, Madrid Pride has chosen to focus on the 50-year fight for rights since the historic Stonewall riots in New York.
It would be the first such festival since local elections in May saw Madrid’s city hall swing to the right with the support of emerging far-right party Vox, which is strongly critical of the LGBTQ collective.
“I feel that in the current political environment, we have to group together rather than segregate,” Chenta said.
For Joan Luna, news editor at Spain’s Mondo Sonoro music magazine, the attraction of “putochinomaricon” — aside from his quirky performances and “very effective electropop” — is his discourse.
“The lyrics connect with people,” he said.
Then there is the novel fact he is an Asian electropop artist in Spain.
“As Asians, we’re seen as being good at jobs that aren’t tied to entertainment, like mathematics and science,” Chenta said.
The stereotypes are so ingrained his father believed them too.
“My father always had this absurd notion that if you were an Asian [migrant], you could only do three things: open a restaurant, open a pound shop or play a classical music instrument,” he said.
At the time, Chinese-US cellist Yo-Yo Ma was a reference.
So it was that Chenta ended up graduating as a violinist from Madrid’s Royal Conservatory of Music.
The only problem? He hates violin.
For a key exam he chose to sing a piece by the Danish-Norwegian pop band Aqua, but also played Polish violinist Henryk Wieniawski’s signature piece Legende.
“I passed with top marks,” he said.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of