Taiwan Today

Pop singers from Taiwan have long maintained a solid fan base in mainland China, even in times of political turbulence between the two sides.

In recent decades, people in mainland China have been more receptive to a wide variety of entertainment from other parts of the world despite cultural and political differences. Perhaps nothing is more obvious than their adoration of Taiwanese pop culture, particularly its music. In July and August 2009, www.china.com.cn, a mainland Chinese government portal site under the auspices of Beijing’s State Council Information Office, conducted an online poll asking respondents to name the most influential cultural icon in “new China” since 1949—the year when both sides of the Taiwan Strait began to be governed separately following the Chinese Civil War. Around 24 million netizens responded and named Teresa Teng, a songstress from Taiwan who died in 1995 at the age of 42, the winner with more than 8.5 million votes. Next came mainland Chinese diva Faye Wong with 7.3 million, while third place went to Taiwan’s red-hot singing heartthrob Jay Chou with 2.1 million.

“The transmission of Taiwan’s pop music to the mainland seems like a quiet revolution. It’s not merely culturally important, but also helps build a bridge across the Taiwan Strait,” says Johnny Yin, chairman of the Association of Music Workers in Taiwan.

For music aficionados, Taiwan possesses a vast repertoire of the hottest hits from a variety of genres. Its pop music culture is widely recognized as a leading force in Chinese communities worldwide. During the past few decades, the island’s entertainment mega-machine has produced an array of vocalists and bands that reach virtually the whole Mandarin-speaking world. Furthermore, artists who launch their careers in Taiwan, even if they hail from Hong Kong, Malaysia or Singapore, tend to command a considerable percentage of the mainland market.

Badge of Honor

“Training in Taiwan has come to be seen as a badge of honor. Taiwan has a good environment for the unimpeded creation of music. In terms of music taste, packaging, product quality and marketing, Taiwan also leads the Mandarin pop music world,” says Robin Lee, CEO of the Recording Industry Foundation in Taiwan (RIT). “Although mainland China’s music industry is fast growing, its music scene is much less vibrant, so Taiwan has the advantage.”

Since the government of the Republic of China (ROC) relocated from mainland China to Taiwan in 1949, cross-strait relations can be characterized as hostile for the most part. Major battles erupted during the 1950s, and lesser incidents continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1980s, however, pop singers from Taiwan began to gain a footing on the mainland even while military tension remained high across the Taiwan Strait, and thus they acted as cultural ambassadors between the two sides.

“Despite restrictions on freedom of speech under martial law [from 1949 to 1987], there was still ample space for creativity in Taiwan. Record companies continued to grow and flourish here, including both homegrown recording studios and overseas branches of major brands such as Sony and Warner. With decades of experience under its belt, Taiwan’s pop music industry has cultivated countless talented individuals and helped them shine across the ethnic Chinese world,” RIT’s Lee explains.

In contrast, in the 1980s mainland China was just embarking on reform and opening to the outside world, and its political atmosphere was still highly conservative. Its popular music scene was dominated by singers extolling the merits of the Chinese Communist Party through patriotic hymns, while songs that touched on themes like love or romance were condemned as “bourgeois” or “decadent.” It was around this time that Teresa Teng began to conquer the mainland (if not the whole of East Asia) with her sweet, warm voice, even though she had never stepped foot in the mainland.

“Teng was undoubtedly the first artist to bridge the cultural gap during this tenuous time between the two sides,” says Weng Chia-ming, a veteran music critic who is a frequent judge at music competitions. “Many mainland friends of mine have told me that Teresa is still the irreplaceable goddess in their minds. They grew up listening to her songs and were drawn to her mastery of both traditional Mandarin folk songs and contemporary romantic ballads. I must say that Teng seemed to come at just the right time to touch on feelings that had been suppressed for so long.”

Teng’s songs met bureaucratic resistance in mainland China almost right from the start and were banned for some years for being “spiritually impure.” However, her voice continued to enchant millions of fans there, as evidenced by an untold number of pirated cassettes of her songs in circulation. There even arose a popular saying that “by day, Deng Xiaoping ruled China, but by night, Teresa Teng ruled.” Even today, it is often said that “wherever there are Chinese people, the songs of Teresa Teng can be heard.” In August 2010, Teng made it to CNN’s list of the top 20 global music icons of the past 50 years, along with superstars such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Madonna, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

In 1987, the ROC government began to allow residents in Taiwan to visit their relatives on the mainland, thereby ushering in an era of rapid expansion of cultural exchanges between the two sides. Some singing stars of the era, including Lo Ta-yu and Tracy Huang, eventually left Taiwan to further their careers in the mainland. “Fans in the mainland were very receptive to and fascinated by Taiwanese styles of music. In other words, whatever was hot in Taiwan would automatically become hot in the mainland,” Weng Chia-ming says.

In the 1990s, the democratization in Taiwan was accompanied by wider dissemination of its music, a greater diversity of musical genres and larger audiences, as well as more thorough and professional training of pop performers, lyricists and composers. “Artists don’t like constraints, and a place where freedom of speech is supported is a better place for musicians,” Weng says. By contrast, even though mainland China is gradually becoming more open, there is still political interference in its entertainment industry.

Chang Hui-mei, also known as A-mei, offers a striking example. Recording her debut album in 1996, this aboriginal singer soon made waves in the Mandarin music world with her remarkable vocal range and infectious stage charisma, thus establishing her status as a local pop diva. Her popularity extended rapidly throughout the mainland as well. In 1999, she held two concerts in Beijing and Shanghai, attracting approximately 60,000 and 80,000 attendees respectively, the latter being the all-time record for a Mandarin pop music performance to date. Popular as she was, after singing the ROC national anthem at the inauguration for former President Chen Shui-bian in May 2000, she was banned from performing in the mainland, and radio stations there also ceased to broadcast her songs.

Avoiding Politics

“For singers from Taiwan, singing for your own country has been worthy of a blockade there,” Johnny Yin of the Association of Music Workers in Taiwan says. “They’ve learned well from A-mei that in order to develop careers there, they should be cautious not to play any music which is politically sensitive or negative towards Beijing authorities.” A-mei was only allowed back to the mainland after she clarified during an interview with a Beijing-based TV station in 2004 that she had never meant to mix politics with entertainment.

Despite the difficulties, the beginning of the new millennium saw an explosion of successful Taiwanese pop idols performing in the Chinese mainland. To name just a few, entertainers extraordinaire such as Jay Chou, Wang Lee-hom, David Tao, Jolin Tsai, Elva Hsiao, Angela Chang and groups like F4, Mayday, S.H.E, Sodagreen and Fahrenheit all continue to enjoy astounding commercial success there. Their songs have become part of the mainland’s mainstream pop music scene and can be heard not only on the air but also in singing competitions, live concerts, karaoke lounges and even the New Year Gala—one of mainland China’s premier television events produced by China Central Television.

“The taste of the younger generation in mainland China for music is both modern and uniquely Chinese, and Taiwan has already developed a formula for distinctive, Chinese-style pop entertainment, which fully caters to their needs,” Yin says.

In this respect, few, if any, other ethnic-Chinese artists enjoy the same level of artistic and creative control over their tunes as does Jay Chou. “Jay has successfully absorbed Western music styles and then seamlessly incorporated them into melodies that fuse R&B, rap, rock and pop genres. By doing so, he has created a new style of Mandarin songs that initially seemed very exotic but also familiar to mainland ears,” Yin adds.

Since the release of his debut album in 2000, Chou has won innumerable accolades at home and abroad, including 13 awards in several categories at Taiwan’s highly coveted Golden Melody Awards. In December 2009, he was ranked by CNN among the 25 most influential people or groups in Asia—the only person from Taiwan to be so honored. In May 2010, he made the list of the 100 Most Creative People in Business by US magazine Fast Company. Only three singers made it onto the list: Chou, Lady Gaga and Jay-Z. Chou’s success in mainland China has been also quite impressive. He has been named best-selling artist in mainland China four times at the prestigious World Music Awards, an international event that annually honors recording artists based on worldwide sales figures. In addition to the 2009 mainland government poll, a December 2010 survey conducted by Beijing Normal University of 5,000 mainland Chinese high school students showed that, second only to their parents, Chou was the person they respected most.

The past decade also saw a number of pop singers from mainland China trying to win over fans in Taiwan. Very few mainland artists have managed to achieve significant success locally, however, although Na Ying and Faye Wong have done so, as evidenced by huge sales for their concerts and albums in Taiwan.

“For Taiwanese fans, what they really care about is whether the singers can arouse their interest and strike a chord with them. Singers’ origins are seldom their top concern, not to mention that both Na Ying and Faye Wong began their recording careers in Taiwan and Hong Kong, not in the mainland,” music critic Weng Chia-ming says.

Godfather of Chinese Rock

Among mainland Chinese pop music performers, singer-songwriter Cui Jian is generally regarded as the “Godfather of Chinese Rock” and is the one who earns the highest esteem from Johnny Yin of the Association of Music Workers. “This rock legend inspired dozens of Taiwanese rockers in the late 1980s and 1990s who were eager to achieve a similar hybrid of rock music and traditional Chinese instruments and styles,” he says. Cui first rose to stardom in 1986 with a song titled Nothing to My Name on a television talent show. His popularity reached a peak in 1989 when he performed the song for student protestors in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. When the musician was finally allowed to perform in Taiwan, it was to headline the Hohaiyan Rock Festival in Gongliao, northeastern Taiwan in 2007, followed by a packed club performance in Taipei in 2009.

Despite the edge that has given Taiwan pride of place in Mandarin pop music, obstacles still lie ahead in terms of cultural exchanges between the two sides. “The music scene in mainland China, although vast, can be complex, frustrating and difficult to break into,” says Stephen Chang, director of the Department of Publication Affairs under the Government Information Office (GIO), which handles subsidies and awards for audio releases. “For example, while Taiwan’s music products account for about 80 percent of the mainland’s pop music market, around 90 percent of all CDs bought there are pirated, and illegal digital music sharing is rampant. As for foreign and Taiwanese recording companies hoping to get involved in the mainland market, they are only allowed to work in partnership with local companies there, with [joint ventures] at least 51 percent mainland-owned.” Strict censorship is also an issue for groups from Taiwan, which are vetted much more thoroughly than other foreign acts before they can gain performance permits, Chang says.

Pop Potential

While opportunities might be limited in the recorded music industry, the live music scene, in contrast, offers significant prospects for Taiwanese musicians. In recent years, the number of performances throughout the mainland by Taiwanese musicians has increased dramatically. And as A-mei’s mega-shows in Beijing and Shanghai in 1999 demonstrate, the popularity of singers and groups from Taiwan can translate to huge concert numbers. Jay Chou, for example, attracted more than 70,000 fans for each of 15 mainland performances as part of his “The Era” tour in 2010. “Mainland Chinese consumers are generally very reluctant to pay even a small amount for music CDs, but they seldom hesitate to pay much more to see their idols in person at a live concert,” RIT’s Robin Lee says.

Given this earning potential, Lee, Stephen Chang and Johnny Yin agree that the focus of assistance for Taiwanese musicians should be on helping them play concerts in the mainland. “The GIO has drawn up plans with mainland authorities for joint music performances and provides incentives for our artists to perform music-related activities there,” the GIO’s Director Chang says. For instance, in early October 2010, with assistance from the GIO, several indie bands from Taiwan participated in the Modern Sky Festival held in Beijing, whose shows not only received widespread media coverage but also rave reviews from mainland fans and critics alike.

As the global trend toward digitalization has drastically shaken up Taiwan’s music industry, new ways of thinking are being put into effect to earn greater revenues from music-oriented cooperation between the two sides. So far, the endeavors have spanned a number of industry sectors. “Solutions include working with the mainland’s telecom industry and cellphone service providers to charge for ringtone downloads, using music or musicians in advertisements and developing background music for use in video games. These moves will inject new life into Taiwan’s pop music industry,” Johhny Yin says.

In the process of cross-strait cultural exchange, pop music has served as an effective vehicle to draw the two sides closer. While bilateral ties have now opened up new opportunities for peaceful development, it is necessary for both sides to come up with ways to increase collaboration and mutual understanding. Mainland audiences enjoy the music from Taiwan’s energetic pop scene, while Taiwanese musicians stand to gain from the vast mainland market. By cooperating closely, both sides can benefit from being in tune with each other.

Write to dennis0602@mail.gio.gov.tw