Teresa Teng and the spread of pop songs in Mainland China in the early reform era

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Mainland Chinese gained access to the songs of the Taiwanese pop singer Teresa Teng (Deng Lijun) in the late 1970s and early 1980s by listening to “enemy” radio stations in secret or purchasing musical products smuggled into the Mainland market. This marks the emergence of popular culture in Mainland China, in the aftermath of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Based on archival materials, interviews, and memoirs, this paper examines the ways in which Teng’s songs were disseminated and Hong Kong’s and Taiwan’s pop cultures were received in the Mainland, demonstrating that Mainland listeners embraced Teng’s songs in their own pursuit of private sentiment and secular life. In this regard, Teng’s songs played no small part in weakening the revolutionary esthetic and socialist mass culture and in facilitating cultural enlightenment in the reform era. The examination of pop songs in reform-era China also encourages us to revisit the Frankfurt School’s criticism of the cultural industry.