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Teresa Teng Forever
Page 10 of 10
One scholar of mass communications looks at Teng from the perspective of cognitive psychology.
Listening to a song is in fact a "cooperative activity," with interaction between the singer and
the audience. For many Teresa Teng fans, male and female alike, her songs are forever
intertwined with fond memories of their youth. And it is particularly now, after her death, that
her fans can hear in her songs the emotions, memories, and melancholy of the passing of time. As
Chou Chih-wen has written, "Few people can live without warmth and nostalgia."
Amidst the harsh realties of everyday life, Teng symbolized the gentility and self-restraint of
the idealized traditional Chinese woman, qualities that seem to be waning. Her death also
punctuates the end of that era of popular music, and formally transfers her to the status of a
"classic" in the history of Chinese popular culture.
The singer is gone, but her songs float through the air. She leaves behind posthumous glory and
fanfare, and countless grieving fans. Teresa Teng is by no means forgotten. On main
thoroughfares and in little lanes, in supermarkets, in record stores, in taxicabs.... everywhere
you turn you can hear her sweet voice resonating:
The singing has stopped
Drink a final cup of wine
I chat and talk of anything
To ease your troubled mind
Life has few opportunities for intoxication
Why not look forward to them?
Come, have another glass
Drink it dry!
After you leave this night
When will you come back again?
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