The government will pay posthumous tribute to pop diva Fong Fei-fei (鳳飛飛) in recognition of her career achievements and her effort to preserve the traditional Taiwanese ballad, Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Philip Yang (楊永明) said on Thursday.
“The Cabinet passed the proposal to honor the late singer at its weekly meeting held earlier in the day and would ask President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to issue a posthumous citation in her honor soon,” Yang announced at a news conference.
The GIO would also help organize a concert in memory of Fong Fei-fei, one of Taiwan’s most popular singing sensations in the 1970s and 1980s, who died from lung cancer on Jan. 3 in Hong Kong at the age of 58.
Photo: Chang Yi-ling, Taipei Times
“The GIO has discussed the concert plan with the top major pop culture associations and has tentatively decided to hold the memorial concert in the first half of May,” Yang said.
He further revealed that Dada Entertainment Co, which arranged four concerts for Fong Fei-fei between 2003 and 2010 and was known to have had an -amiable working relationship with the singer, would organize the planned concert.
As to whether Fong Fei-fei would be conferred a lifetime achievement Golden Melody Award, Yang said the government did not have the authority to select winners at the annual event.
Photo: CNA
“However, we will convey our view to the panel of judges,” Yang said, adding that officials would encourage jurors to recognize the diva’s contribution to the local pop music industry.
Moreover, Yang added that a special program to be held in honor of Fong Fei-fei would be included at this year’s Golden Melody Awards presentation ceremony, scheduled for June.
The singer, born Lin Chiu-luan (林秋鸞) in Dasi (大溪) Township, Taoyuan County, released more than 80 albums and held numerous sold-out concerts both at home and abroad during an illustrious career that spanned decades. At the peak of her popularity, Fong also starred in films and hosted TV variety shows.
The Taipei City Government said earlier this week that it would help clear the way for a Fong Fei-fei memorial concert to be held at the Taipei Arena, one of the city’s best live performance venues, in April or May.
Meanwhile, a unique collection of about 100 pieces of Fong Fei-fei memorabilia, including hats, costumes, photographs and album covers is scheduled to go on display at Wuteh Hall in her home town this weekend.
The Taoyuan County government has collaborated with Fong Fei-fei’s family and Dada Entertainment Co in organizing the exhibition to commemorate the life of the singer who was popularly known as the “Queen of Hats,” because of her habit of wearing a different hat for each performance.
Fong Fei-fei made her last public appearance in May last year to announce the cancellation of a Taipei concert that had been scheduled for the following month. She said at the time that she needed to recover from a raspy voice.
A representative from Dada Entertainment said the repertoire of songs the pop diva had planned to perform at the canceled -concert would be displayed at the exhibition. Because Wuteh Hall, a 77-year-old Japanese-style kendo studio, has a limited space of about 165m2, the county government will limit the total number of visitors allowed inside the building at any one time.
A humble and low-key person, the singer asked her lawyer not to announce her death until after the Lunar New Year to avoid saddening her fans ahead of the festival. Her ashes have been placed in a Buddhist temple in her hometown.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS