Yao Yaojiang: Defying Teresa Teng's Wishes, How Did the Mainland "Bring Her Home"?
This episode reviews the complex attitude of the legendary singer Teresa Teng toward mainland China during her lifetime and her turbulent journey. From facing harassment by the Taiwan authorities in her early years, going to the United States and then returning to Taiwan, to the different attitudes of the two sides of the Taiwan Strait toward her in the 1980s, the secret contacts between Xinhua News Agency and officials, and finally her resolute refusal to set foot on mainland China after the June Fourth (Tiananmen) incident in 1989. The program concludes by contrasting the changes in the political narrative surrounding Teresa Teng before and after her death, as well as the current situation where she was commercialized and "welcomed home" by the official narrative in mainland China through holographic projection and artificial intelligence after her death.
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Hello everyone, I am Yaoyaojiang, who loves thinking and values logic. In the previous two episodes, we talked about Andy Lau and the concert in Hong Kong on May 27, 1989, to support the students in Beijing. At that time, Andy Lau did not actually arrive at the scene, but made a long-distance call instead, whereas Teresa Teng was right there at the scene, with a headband reading "Long Live Democracy" and a sign hanging on her chest reading "Oppose Martial Law." So, with everyone in Hong Kong gathering together so enthusiastically and striving for democracy, these two people later took completely opposite paths. Andy Lau gradually walked onto the stage of CCTV to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP, while Teresa Teng stated that unless the Chinese government apologized, she would not go to the mainland. Until Teresa Teng passed away in 1995, she never went there even once.
However, on May 8 this year, a Teresa Teng Digital Music Center opened in Zhengzhou, China, where a holographically projected Teresa Teng sang a new song called "Going Home," saying how much she missed everyone and wishing she could go... The day before the museum opened, the foundation managed by Teresa Teng's family issued a statement saying they had not authorized it. Today, let's use Teresa Teng's story to examine how the Chinese mainland authorities treat someone who refused to go: first criticizing her, then inviting her, and finally speaking on her behalf when she could no longer speak herself. How was someone who never set foot on the Chinese mainland until death "welcomed back home"?
In February 1979, holding an Indonesian passport, Teresa Teng was first blocked at the Taiwan airport and sent back to Hong Kong. The next day, she flew to Tokyo Haneda Airport with the same passport and entered the country. Teresa Teng was Taiwanese and held a Republic of China passport. However, at that time, Japan had long severed diplomatic relations with Taiwan, and she could not process the procedures required for working in Japan using her Taiwan passport. The Indonesian passport was something she acquired in Hong Kong for 20,000 Hong Kong dollars. A few days later, the Indonesian Embassy in Japan reported that there was a problem with this passport, and Japanese police took her away from the Tokyo Hilton Hotel and detained her in the Immigration Bureau. The Japanese side ultimately determined that the passport was not forged, but the issuance procedure was incorrect. Consequently, Teresa Teng was deported and banned from entering Japan for one year.
On the very day she left Japan, she flew straight to San Francisco, USA. Taiwan's newspapers had long since published headlines claiming Teresa Teng had been turned away at the airport, and editorials argued that as Chinese people, they should just endure this minor inconvenience. According to reports at the time, Taiwan's security authorities even considered processing Teresa Teng under the criminal code for the use of forged documents. That year, Teresa Teng was only twenty-six years old. She was already a hugely popular singer in Japan, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia, yet she suddenly could not return to her own home. Japanese journalist Yoshimi Arita later wrote several books about Teresa Teng. According to his account, in 1980, Taiwan official figures found her in the United States and offered terms: if she returned to Taiwan to perform for troops and do charity concerts, the passport issue would not be pursued. On September 30, 1980, Teresa Teng held a press conference in Taipei to officially return to Taiwan. A few days later, on October 4, the Taiwan Television Enterprise hosted a concert for her at the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Taipei. With over 2,500 seats, the ticket revenue of NT$1.5 million was entirely donated to the Self-Reliance Patriotic Fund.
At the concert, the host asked her, "I heard a lot of people in the mainland want to invite you to sing?" Teresa Teng replied that she had only seen this in newspapers. Then, she made a remark that would be quoted for decades: she said that if one day she really went to the mainland to sing, that day would be the day the Three Principles of the People were implemented on the mainland. At that time, the mainland had just opened up a few years prior, and her songs were flowing into the interior cassette by cassette from Hong Kong and the coast of Guangdong. Her words were meant for Taiwan and others, and of course, they also reached the other side of the strait. Starting from this year, she acquired a new identity in Taiwan.
In January 1981, the Government Information Office of Taiwan awarded Teresa Teng a "Patriotic Artist" award. In August, she joined a Taiwan Television Enterprise troop-visiting delegation to tour military units across Taiwan for a full month. Taiwan Television produced a 120-minute special program titled "Teresa at the Forefront." Soldiers called her the "Sweetheart of the Armed Forces." On September 5, she arrived in Kinmen, changed into an army field uniform, put on high-top leather boots and a camouflage steel helmet, and crawled forward in the mud alongside the soldiers. Because the boots were too large, they chafed her heels raw. She switched to sneakers, stuffed cotton inside them, and kept running. That evening, she visited wounded soldiers at the Granite Hospital, rushed back to the evening show to perform as the grand finale, and sang three songs, the last of which was "When Will You Return?"
On the morning of September 6, she went to Lesser Kinmen, reaching the Hujingtou frontline closest to the mainland. She picked up a 40x telescope to look across the water and remarked that it was truly a world of difference. After looking, she released a balloon in front of the position, and it drifted toward the mainland. At 7:00 AM on September 7, she went alone, carrying a cassette player and backing tapes with no accompanying band, to Dadan Island and Erdan Island to sing a cappella sets for the defending soldiers.
That balloon was not just for show. Taiwan's psychological warfare against the mainland had begun in the late 1950s. The shores of Kinmen and Matsu were set up with three-story-high loudspeakers broadcasting messages and songs to the mainland. Matsu even had a dedicated aerial-release station, using high-altitude hydrogen balloons to send flyers, toothbrushes, towels, canned goods, and other items to the mainland. The "Lianjiang County Gazetteer" records that in the first ten months of 1979, the items sent from Matsu to the mainland via airborne balloons weighed nearly 70,000 pounds, including towels, toothbrushes, watches, and photos of little Deng. This "little Deng" of course referred to Teresa Teng. In December 1982, Taiwan's TV Weekly even published a flyer that had floated across to the mainland. The flyer used simplified Chinese characters, and the title was just six characters: "I am Teresa Teng." It was printed with two flattering photos of her and a quote attributed to her voice, saying: "I care deeply for my compatriots on the mainland and love my young friends even more. I hope they can see me and hear my singing as well."
Matsu's Folk Culture Museum still preserves a "Teresa Teng Card." The front features a colorful stereoscopic photo of her standing among flowers, and the back is printed with the lyrics and numbered musical notation of "A Small Town Story." Starting in 1979, Taiwan's shortwave radio stations also launched a program dedicated to playing her songs, simply titled "Teresa Teng." This program ran for ten years. The mainland tried to jam the signal, but it could not be jammed. These flyers and songs truly had an effect. On October 16, 1982, PLA pilot Wu Ronggen flew a MiG-19 fighter jet to South Korea. Half a month later, he was sent to Taiwan, and Taiwan rewarded him with 5,000 taels of gold. Later articles suggested he had been drawn over by the songs in Teresa Teng's broadcasts. Since it was very difficult to buy cassette tapes on the mainland, "I am not only giving these two records to you, but I also hope that in the future, the entire mainland will be able to hear these songs."
On the afternoon of November 26, Taiwan Television arranged for Wu Ronggen and Teresa Teng to meet at the Ching Chuan Kang Air Force Base in Taichung. Wu Ronggen said he hoped to unify China under the Three Principles of the People as soon as possible and let her singing spread across the mainland. Teresa Teng shed tears on the spot, and the two sang "A Small Town Story" together.
At the same time, Beijing held a completely different attitude toward her. In 1980, the Chinese Musicians Association held a meeting in Beijing's Western Hills and classified Teresa Teng's songs as decadent music, with "When Will You Return?" being the most heavily criticized yellow song. That year, the Beijing Evening News published nine articles criticizing the song, claiming it would undermine the Four Modernizations. Music scholar Liang Maochun later recalled that people in the music circles at the time said yellow music was resurfacing and that it was a dictatorship of Teresa Teng in the music world. In 1982, the People's Music Publishing House published a small booklet titled How to Identify Yellow Songs, sixty pages long with ten articles, two of which specifically criticized "When Will You Return?", stating it was a song sung by cabaret hostesses to persuade guests to drink.
In the autumn of 1983, the Campaign Against Spiritual Pollution began, and Teresa Teng's cassette tapes became a primary target for confiscation. However, the more people were criticized for listening, the more listeners there grew. A popular saying circulated among the mainland public: "Listen to Old Deng by day, listen to Little Deng by night." This "Old Deng" was none other than Deng Xiaoping, and "Little Deng" was Teresa Teng whom we just mentioned.
While Beijing was criticizing Teresa Teng, it was also trying to find ways to invite her over. James Soong, who later became the chairman of the People First Party, was Taiwan's Director-General of the Government Information Office in the early 1980s. In 2006, he publicly disclosed for the first time that one day, President Chiang Ching-kuo rarely summoned him alone to the Presidential Office and handed him a mission: persuade Teresa Teng not to go to the mainland. James Soong said that the mainland had extended an invitation to Teresa Teng through back channels, promising to hold a concert for hundreds of thousands of people in her hometown of Sichuan, and her producer had already agreed to arrange it. At that time, Taiwan had just announced the "Three Noes" policy of no contact, no negotiation, and no compromise toward the mainland. Chiang Ching-kuo told him that General Political Warfare Department Director Wang Sheng could not persuade Teresa Teng, and perhaps only James Soong could give it a try.
There is an obvious error here: Teresa Teng's father was a famous person from Hebei, and her mother was from Shandong. She herself was born in Yunlin, Taiwan, and had nothing to do with Sichuan. Why did James Soong say her hometown was Sichuan? He offered no explanation. The dispatches from the Central News Agency and China News Service back then both published his exact words. James Soong said he took on this hot potato, and after talking with her, Teresa Teng abandoned the invitation. In 2017, James Soong brought up the matter again, relaying Chiang Ching-kuo's remark from back then: "When the military's sweetheart can run over to the other side, what are our troops still fighting for?"
Afterward, James Soong felt uneasy and wanted to have his wife join him in treating Teresa Teng to dinner. Teresa Teng said she didn't want to go to a restaurant for fear people would say she was showing off, so they ate at his home in Taipei, cooked personally by Teresa's mother.
At 0:20 in the early morning of January 30, 1985, Beijing Youth Daily reporter Guan Jian, sitting in his home in Chaoyang District, hesitated over the phone for over half an hour before finally picking up the receiver and asking the international long-distance operator to connect him to Singapore. On the other end of the line was Teresa Teng. The previous day was Teresa Teng's 32nd birthday, and she had just returned from Tokyo. Guan Jian introduced himself, saying he was a reporter for the Beijing Youth Daily and also a fan of hers. Teresa Teng was startled at first and asked, "What Beijing?" After a moment, Teresa Teng said, "I am very surprised that a call could come from Beijing right now." The two chatted for fifty-three minutes.
Teresa Teng spoke Mandarin, and Guan Jian praised her for speaking it well. She smiled and said, "We are all Chinese, so we should speak our own national language." Mainland newspapers had recently published an article visiting her aunt, and she said she was deeply moved upon reading it, feeling that she had found her roots. She also mentioned that she had just finished reading Mao Dun's novel Midnight. As they were about to hang up the phone, Teresa Teng said, "We are friends, and we must strengthen our contact in the future."
On February 1, this report of nearly a thousand words was published on the front page of the Beijing Youth Daily in the lower right corner under the headline "Teresa Teng Says She Is So Glad to Have a Call from Beijing." This was regarded as the mainland press circle's first official interview with her. This phone call startled more than just readers. According to investigations by Japanese reporter Yarita Yoshio, in November of that year, CCP Central Secretariat Member Wang Zhaoguo instructed Guan Jian to write a report. Guan Jian wrote ten pages titled "Report on the Situation After Telephone Interviewing Teresa Teng," which was delivered to Wang Zhaoguo on November 15.
In June 1986, under the guidance of the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee, the Ministry of Culture and the United Front Work Department of the CCP Central Committee jointly set up a special window designed to invite Teresa Teng to the mainland. In the spring of the same year, another channel was also activated through the Xinhua News Agency Hong Kong Branch. The Xinhua News Agency Hong Kong Branch was named a news agency, but it did more than just news agency work. Established in Hong Kong in 1947, its first president was Qiao Guanhua, who later became the Foreign Minister. During the era of British rule in Hong Kong, Beijing had no official government agency in Hong Kong, so the Xinhua branch served as Beijing's de facto embassy. Behind it, there was also an unhung plaque: the Hong Kong and Macao Work Committee of the CCP, which was the Communist Party's organization in Hong Kong. Both sides shared the same group of leaders. Insiders called the news agency the "Small Xinhua" and the Work Committee the "Large Xinhua". Most of the intelligence personnel sent to Hong Kong by the Beijing Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of State Security were planted in the security department of the branch office. After Hong Kong's handover, it was renamed the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in 2000, which is today's Liaison Office.
In 1986, the head of the branch was Xu Jiatun, who was then the secretary of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Committee. Three years later, during the June Fourth crackdown, he sympathized with the students. In 1990, he fled to the United States and was considered the highest-ranking CCP official to defect abroad. Niu Zhao was then a standing committee member of the Hong Kong and Macao Work Committee and the deputy secretary-general of the branch, in charge of the branch's literature and sports department. He later wrote a memoir saying that a portion of the branch's exchanges with various sectors of Hong Kong in those years were conducted secretly, targeting officials of the British Hong Kong government, so-called "pro-British" figures, and staff of Taiwan's institutions in Hong Kong.
According to his memoirs, in the spring of 1986, Peng Yanyan of the branch's literature and sports department met Teresa Teng at a gathering at a friend's house. When leaving, Teresa Teng said she very much wanted to maintain contact with Xinhua, but hoped to keep it confidential from the outside. After deliberation, the branch decided that Niu Zhao, Literature and Sports Department Head Han Li, and Peng Yanyan would be the three to interact with her. The first meeting took place at the Asian Hotel in Happy Valley, a hotel with Xinhua investment spanning two floors, specially designated to receive special guests. At seven o'clock in the evening, Teresa Teng arrived punctually. She wore no makeup and was dressed very casually. At the dinner table, she mentioned that her father was a veteran and life in Taiwan during the early days was very difficult. When she was a child, she had to cut grass, plant vegetables, and wear patched clothes, and she had to help out at the small restaurant run by her mother after school. She liked reading Chinese travel magazines published in Hong Kong and even bought a large set of picture albums called Splendid China. Speaking of going to the mainland to perform, Niu Zhao wrote that she was extremely excited. She was unwilling to just sing a few songs at a gala; instead, she wanted to hold a solo concert. The route arranged for her by Peng Yanyan was Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, and Guangzhou. However, at that time, the mainland did not have decent stages, lighting, or sound systems. Teresa Teng did not have her own company in Hong Kong, not even an agent, so the matter was never finalized.
姪The branch asked her again if she would be willing to take a trip to the mainland first, using a pseudonym and crossing the border with a China Travel Service Home Return Permit. She grew excited again, saying that winter would be best, as she wanted to climb the Great Wall while snow was falling. In the end, this plan did not materialize either. Teresa Teng told them that she had friends who had returned to the mainland, and after returning to Taiwan, they were all investigated by intelligence and security units. Taiwan's intelligence system could be described as "omnipresent." Niu Zhao wrote that he and they frequently changed locations when meeting, putting on sunglasses and trench coats the moment they stepped out, guarding against both the media and Kuomintang agents.
There was another matter: she asked the Xinhua Hong Kong Branch to help her find a house in Hong Kong. Through friends, the branch found one for her, which later became 18 Ka Mei Road, Stanley. After buying it, she said she was annoyed living in Taiwan and annoyed living in Hong Kong, and wanted to buy a house on the mainland so she could go live there when she was annoyed. Her favorite city was Suzhou. When Niu Zhao went to Jiangsu for vacation, he stopped by Suzhou on the way, and the local government affairs administration bureau took him to see a two-story garden house. The yard was very large, and the house was so old it was almost a dangerous building, priced at 60,000 yuan. So Niu Zhao drew a rough sketch and brought it back to Hong Kong. At first, Teresa Teng didn't believe that 60,000 yuan could buy a courtyard, and then she asked if she should wire the money right away.
In the spring of 1988, a delegation from Suzhou came to Hong Kong to hold a food exhibition. Teresa Teng went to visit, ate quite a few Suzhou pastries, and before leaving, turned back to shake hands and say goodbye to several pastry chefs. That evening, she treated the Suzhou guests to dinner at Tian Xiang Lou, saying that she planned to buy a house in Suzhou and live there in the future. How wonderful it would be to drink Longjing tea and eat Suzhou pastries every day. However, neither of these two avenues went all the way.
In 2007, the Minister of Culture at the time, Wang Meng, said in an interview with the Yangcheng Evening News that he had checked the original archives of the Ministry of Culture. During his tenure as minister from 1986 to 1989, Teresa Teng never formally expressed a desire to perform on the mainland, nor did any literary or art institution submit an application to the Ministry of Culture. This did not match what Tita Yoshio said about the window; it was possible that the window was established and formal applications were made, but they never arrived. Wang Meng also said that opinions within the leadership at the time were divided—some warmly welcomed it, while others directly opposed it. What he spoke of were official channels, whereas the Xinhua branch channel we mentioned earlier was secret and private.
In January 1987, the journalist who made that phone call, Guanjian, went to Japan to attend a language school in Tokyo, writing articles under a pseudonym for Hong Kong magazines like Cheng Ming and The Trend. In September 1991, Guanjian was arrested by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau on charges of espionage and illegally providing state secrets to overseas entities. In 1993, the Beijing Intermediate People's Court sentenced him to 20 years in prison. Later, Guanjian contracted cancer, was released on medical parole, and passed away shortly after. These matters were uncovered and written about by Yoshimi Ito after years of investigation. The journalist who had called Teresa Teng from Beijing was later labeled a spy himself. In April 1989, Hu Yaobang passed away, and university students in Beijing took to the streets. On May 20, Beijing declared martial law. During that time, Teresa Teng was living at her home in Stanley, Hong Kong—the very house that the local Xinhua News Agency branch had helped her find. She watched the news on television every day. According to the Japanese journalist Koji Nojima, on May 27, she was restless while watching TV and eventually went to the Happy Valley Racecourse without notice. A 12-hour concert called
After Teresa Teng passed away, her family established the Teresa Teng Cultural and Educational Foundation in Taiwan, with her third brother, Teng Chang-fu, serving as chairman. In 2008, Teng Chang-fu was interviewed by Sanlian Life Weekly, mentioning that they had discussed performances with the mainland back then, saying it was originally scheduled before 1989, but later some events occurred on the mainland side, causing a delay, which unexpectedly became a lifelong regret for her. After this, we could no longer find any mention of 1989 by Teresa Teng's family in mainland media. In January 2009, China News Weekly published a long article, which when republished by Sina, changed its title to "The Real Teresa Teng: It's Not That She Was Unwilling to Come to the Mainland, Circumstances Just Didn't Allow It." The article interviewed her early manager, Guan Weihua from Singapore. Guan Weihua said that she did not go to the mainland: "The first half was due to political reasons, and the second half was due to personal reasons. The first half was that the Taiwan authorities did not allow family members to be in Taiwan, and her brother was still serving in the military. The second half was that her health was poor and she had gained weight, and artists do not want people to see their bad appearance." He also said that Teresa Teng was an artist and would not get involved in those political matters herself, and the entire article made no mention of 1989. From then on, when mainland media talked about Teresa Teng, it was mostly this narrative. Later commemorative articles from People's Political Consultative Conference Net and Phoenix Net talked about how she was criticized in 1980, how she made phone calls in 1985, and that she didn't come to the mainland because the Taiwan authorities didn't allow it, stopping right before 1989, and memorial halls for Teresa Teng began to appear in various places. In 2011, Daming County in Hebei, her father's hometown, opened a "Jun Pavilion" of over 200 square meters in the county government compound, co-run by the county government and the foundation. The musical *Love Teresa Teng* was staged in Beijing, with co-producers including a town government in Dongguan, Guangdong, as well as the Teresa Teng Cultural and Educational Foundation. In October 2014, the Hong Kong-listed company Digital Domain signed a joint venture agreement with the company chaired by Teng Chang-fu to create a "virtual Teresa Teng," with Digital Domain holding a 60% stake and the Teng family company holding 40%, authorizing Teresa Teng's image to the joint venture. In 2018, they held a holographic concert in Hangzhou. According to reports at the time, Teng Chang-fu told the person in charge of Digital Domain, "I am handing my younger sister over to you." In May 2018, the television series *Teresa Teng: I Only Care About You* started filming in Pingtan, Fujian. The crew built a Taiwanese military dependents' village and Taipei's Ximending from scratch on the island, with Teresa Teng's childhood class schedule still pasted on the walls, which was permanently preserved for tourists to visit after filming ended. The Overseas Edition of People's Daily wrote that Teresa Teng is no longer just an individual, but has become a symbol of Chinese culture. This drama had its broadcast canceled twice, and was only renamed *Love You Forever* to be broadcast on Beijing TV and Jiangsu TV in June 2024. On the New Year's Eve gala of Jiangsu TV on December 31, 2021, a virtual Teresa Teng stood beside singer Zhou Shen and sang three songs with him, one of which was "Big Fish," a song she had never sung during her lifetime. A few days later, the audience learned that the voice was actually provided by mainland singer Chen Jia on her behalf, with no explanation given in the program. On the first trading day after the New Year's holiday, the stock price of Digital Domain, the company that created this virtual image, surged by more than 20% at one point.
2025 marks the 30th anniversary of her passing. On May 9, a commemorative concert was held at the Zhejiang Provincial Great Hall of the People in Hangzhou, produced by Xinhua News Agency and hosted by Xinhua Net. The official narrative was that Teresa Teng's music is a shared emotional bond for Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. The day before, the Teresa Teng Art Center in Handan, Hebei opened, with Teresa Chang Chang-fu in attendance, who stated that this was like fallen leaves returning to their roots. In October 2025, an Henan-Taiwan economic and trade matchmaking meeting was held in Zhengzhou, hosted by the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council and the People's Government of Henan Province. Taiwanese businessman Wang Renjie attended as a signing representative, bringing a Teresa Teng project. Having lived in Zhengzhou for more than 30 years and serving as the managing director of Hong Kong Lijun Technology Holding Company, she told the Overseas Edition of the People's Daily that she plans to bring Teresa Teng's relics back to the Chinese mainland and use holographic projection and artificial intelligence to bring Teresa Teng back to the stage to hold concerts and release new songs. She said that Teresa Teng was unable to return to the mainland for concerts during her lifetime, which was a long-standing regret in her heart, and she hopes this project will help Teresa Teng go home. On May 7, 2026, the Teresa Teng Foundation in Taipei issued a statement signed and sealed by Chairman Teresa Chang-fu. The statement said that the foundation had already issued a statement regarding the Zhengzhou exhibition hall, and now solemnly declares once again that the cultural relics on display were, to its knowledge, provided by Teresa Teng's eldest brother, Teresa Chang An, from a museum in Kaohsiung. Important relics from Teresa Teng's lifetime are all kept by the foundation and have never been leaked or authorized for display by others. The foundation has not authorized any unit or individual to use Teresa Teng's portrait, voice, and name to create an AI digital person for the Zhengzhou exhibition hall, and Teresa Chang An has no right to authorize it on behalf of the foundation. The foundation has already consulted Universal Music, and the Zhengzhou side has not applied for any recording usage authorization. The next day, on May 8, the Teresa Teng Digital Technology Music Center in Zhengzhou opened as usual, and the holographic Teresa Teng even sang "I Only Care About You", "The Moon Represents My Heart" (Note: original text says 甜蜜蜜), and some newly written songs, one of which was called "Going Home". A report by China News Service stated that the planning team claimed these new songs were created based on her lifelong wish to return to the mainland. Who are the lyricists and composers? None of the reports mentioned it. Two days later, the Cross-Strait Memory column of Xinhua News Agency published a report titled "Seeing Teresa Teng Again, Songs Send Nostalgia for Home". The article concluded by saying that returning to the mainland was her dream, and the cross-strait nostalgia finally has a destination. Who actually said this sentence? The article did not explain either.
In the previous two episodes, we talked about Andy Lau, who was co-opted step by step while alive, whereas Teresa Teng was of a different kind. During her lifetime, both sides of the strait wanted to use her. Taiwan printed her photos on flyers and floated them across the strait with balloons so that mainland compatriots could see me and hear my singing. Beijing, on its part, first approved of her, then sent reporters to call her, and even sent Xinhua News Agency staff to invite her to dinner and check out houses for her in Suzhou. In the end, she chose a side herself. After the June Fourth incident in 1989, the door in Beijing was open, but she chose not to walk in. Today, when the mainland talks about Teresa Teng, it avoids this point entirely; the remaining version is that she was patriotic, she wanted to go home, but Taiwan wouldn't let her, and later that her health was poor and timing was unfavorable. Over the past 30 years, this version has become more complete each time it is told. Upon reaching Zhengzhou, a holographic projection was simply made to sing that song about going home for her. On that air-dropped flyer in 1982, Taiwan used her voice to express the hope that mainland compatriots could see and hear her. 44 years later, Zhengzhou allowed mainland audiences to see and hear her, except that she had never sung that song about going home during her lifetime. Her own family also split into two sides: her eldest brother's cultural relics entered the Zhengzhou exhibition hall, while her third brother's foundation issued a statement in Taipei stating there was no authorization. Not a single report we saw on the opening of the Zhengzhou exhibition mentioned the badge she wore on her chest on May 27, 1989. Alright, let's wrap it up here for today.
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I am Yaoyaojiang, who loves to think and values logic. See you in the next episode!