Teresa Teng: Too precious to listen to
A look at the Taiwanese singer's legacy, 30 years later
By the early 1970s, Teresa Teng was a household name in Taiwan, known for her songs about love.
Courtesy of jdxyw on Flickr
Words by Victor Wang
Today marks the 30th anniversary of Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng’s death. She would have been 72 years old today.
Teng—or 邓丽君, in Mandarin—was born on Jan. 29, 1953, the only daughter in a family of brothers, three older and one younger. She grew up in a densely packed military village in Taiwan and showed a natural talent for singing and performing from a young age. At 14, she decided to drop out of school to pursue singing and acting full-time, going on to perform at nightclubs, star in television shows and movies, and sign her first record deal, all before turning 18. By the early 1970s, Teng was a household name in Taiwan and she was gaining recognition across Asia, and eventually performing in both Canada and the United States. She spoke Cantonese, Japanese, Hokkien, and English, and sang in all of these languages with a signature elegance.
At that same time, in a cold Inner Mongolian village in China, a young and rowdy boy would learn about Teng for the first time. My dad, now in his 60s, remembers his high school teacher bringing a tape recorder to class and quietly playing 邓丽君’s music. At that time, Teng’s cassettes were not yet publicly available in China, as her music was considered “pornographic” for their focus on love, especially in comparison to the politically motivated music in China at the time. As my dad remembers, there was a fear that 邓丽君’s songs would make people lazy or even criminal. Though according to him, “Maybe I hadn’t heard all of her songs just yet, but I didn’t know anyone to listen to Teresa Teng, then cross the street and rob someone with a knife.”
Back then, China was still years away from opening its cultural and economic borders, so Teng’s songs were officially labeled as contraband. Her music was played in secrecy, her lyrics carefully jotted down and memorized like poetry. My dad and his college classmates listened to 邓丽君 discreetly in their dorms: “We borrowed and pirated tapes, and we listened to them on headphones placed tightly on our heads. Back then, only ‘bad students’ would listen to her music,” he tells me.
Meanwhile, amidst China and Taiwan’s ongoing political turmoil, Teng emerged as a symbol for Taiwanese liberation. As a 1984 New York Times article stated, “Taipei's most effective psychological weapon against the Communist Government in Peking is...Miss Teng.” Taiwan leveraged Teng’s stardom to propagate its political message among the masses. The only time she ever spoke directly to her Chinese fans was through loudspeakers and clandestine radio waves set up by the Taiwanese government. On a small island close to the coast of China, wearing a military-style uniform, Teng introduced herself as 邓丽君. On the other side, Chinese citizens would have recognized her voice, one of softness and poise.
Even as China’s political climate relaxed and Teng’s music was tacitly allowed around the mid-1980s, she never did perform live in China. She dreamed of singing in Tiananmen Square, but with her involvement in politics, she feared that the Chinese government would seek retribution. In 1989, Teng moved to Paris, and then to Thailand in 1994, spending her final days away from the spotlight.
“One day in May of 1995, a colleague in Singapore suddenly called me,” my dad recalls. “‘Guess who passed away? Teresa Teng!’” The day after, China’s official news network commemorated her legacy. It was said that this was the first-ever positive report of her made by the mainland’s state media. Teng died of an asthma attack in a hotel room in Chiang Mai, Thailand at the age of 42.
A few years after Teng’s death, my dad immigrated to Canada with my mom and sister. He no longer had to listen to her music in secret, and could instead turn the speakers to their loudest and sing along at the top of his lungs. As his children grew older, he often played 邓丽君 for us in the car so that we wouldn’t forget our mother tongue. Yet there were a few songs that he always skipped. “They are too precious to listen to,” he told us.
At that time, I didn’t understand why 邓丽君 meant so much to my dad. To block out the music blaring from the basement speakers, I placed headphones tightly around my head and listened to Twenty One Pilots on repeat. I had grown up in suburban Toronto, learning to love hockey and the True North strong and free, and was admonished by my dad for speaking English at the dinner table. I heard Teng at Pacific Mall and at the Chinese supermarket, and associated her with the part of my identity I felt more distant from year by year. I eventually moved to a city away from home, away from my dad and his music.
Nowadays, more than ever, Teng’s music is everywhere. It is a thread of connection for members of the Asian diaspora navigating their fractured identities, for music fans across borders and language barriers, for China and Taiwan amidst their continual political tension, and for me and my dad as we’ve both grown older. As the saying goes, “Wherever there are Chinese people, Teresa Teng’s songs can be heard.”
When I listen to 邓丽君 now, I sing along with pride, surprised by how much of the music I remember. As the song ends, I try to hold onto every note, finally realizing how precious they are. I miss my dad.
When I speak to him for this piece, my dad is as passionate about 邓丽君 as I remember while sitting in the backseat of our minivan. “Any of her songs can form a scene, tell you a story, teach you to be better. When you are happy, her music shares this happiness with you; when you are sad, she comforts you and gives you courage. And of course, what she sings about best is love,” he tells me. “Her singing has accompanied us down a long road, a path colored with sour, sweet, bitter, spicy—and there is still a long way to go."
Published on May 8, 2025
Words by Victor Wang
Victor Wang is a Chinese-Canadian writer living in Montreal. His writing has appeared in Ricepaper Magazine and Heartwood Literary Magazine, and his first children's picture book was published earlier this year with Flammarion Jeunesse. Victor strives to write stories that unapologetically project the voices and experiences of people of color in Canada.