How to Perform Pan-Chinese Identity in Taiwan: An Analysis of Teresa Teng’s 3D Projection

• In Event: Re-tuning Taiwan: Performing Discrepancies through Music

Abstract

This article analyzes the emergent popular-culture landscape of Teresa Teng in Taiwan and illustrates how pan-Chinese identity across Mainland China and Taiwan is performed by re-producing images and sounds of Teresa Teng. Teresa Teng (1953-1995), who was born in Taiwan, is arguably the most famous Chinese female singer in the world, especially in East and Southeast Asia. Teresa Teng and her fabulous music can be regarded as the Chinese-speaking world's shared memory. Recently in Taiwan, some memorial landscapes about Teresa Teng, including memorial halls and tentative exhibitions, have been created for commercial profits, appealing especially to Mainland Chinese tourists. These memorial landscapes introduce her achievements and personal life history. However, she was a famous patriotic singer who was loyal to the sinocentric Republic of China of the 1980-90s, and this personal history is neither appropriate to the national ideology of People's Republic of China nor fit in nativistic Taiwanese identity. How do these memorial landscapes perform image and the personal history of Teresa Teng in order to achieve harmony with both Mainland Chinese tourists and local Taiwanese fans? To answer this question, I take the special touring exhibition of Teresa Teng “Chasing Dreams” across Mainland China and Taiwan in 2013 as an example, and analyze how the organizer, Teresa Teng Foundation, represents the titular artist and her music with 3D projections. I argue that the projected entity, consisting of technical materials performing images and sounds, is not only interwoven with the geopolitics on the regional scale but also reproduces an imaginative pan-Chinese identity.

Author

• Lai Yen-fu, National Taiwan University