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Copyright by Lorin Ann Lee 2012 The Thesis Committee for Lorin Ann Lee Certifies that this is the approved version of the following thesis: Singing Sinophone: A Case Study of Teresa Teng, Leehom Wang, and Jay Chou APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: Chien-Hsin Tsai Sung-Sheng Yvonne Chang Singing Sinophone: A Case Study of Teresa Teng, Leehom Wang, and Jay Chou by Lorin Ann Lee, B.A. Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts The University of Texas at Austin May 2012 Acknowledgements This thesis would not be possible without the guidance and support of many. First I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Chien-hsin Tsai for initially pointing me in the direction of this topic. Most of all, I would like to thank him for his patience, guidance, and encouragement throughout the entire process. Thank you also to Dr. Sung-Sheng Yvonne Chang for your encouragement and support. I would also like to express my appreciation towards my friends at Chop Suey and the Asian Radio! collective. Thank you for letting me be a part of your project. Without the knowledge and skills obtained from this experience, the bulk of this thesis probably would not have been possible. Finally, I would like to convey my gratitude to my family and friends for all their support and encouragement throughout the entire process. Thanks above all else to my mom and grandmother for their indirect encouragements, and for believing in me when I no longer believed in myself. I am also grateful to all my friends for keeping me sane and social. But most of all, I am grateful to Shaohua for spending many hours studying with me, and letting me camp out in her office. iv Abstract Singing Sinophone: A Case Study of Teresa Teng, Leehom Wang, and Jay Chou Lorin Ann Lee, M.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Chien-hsin Tsai This thesis provides an initial inquiry into the acoustics of Chinese identity, or Chineseness, in the emerging studies of Sinophone and Sinophonicity through the study of three well-known Sinophone musicians – Teresa Teng, Leehom Wang, and Jay Chou. As critics such as Ien Ang and Rey Chow have reminded us, it is becoming increasingly urgent to reexamine the plurality of Chineseness with the rise of China. Truly, the umbrella term “Chinese pop” or “Mandopop” has become an inadequate common denominator in terms of the multilinguistic and multicultural elements in popular music produced in overseas Chinese communities such as Hong Kong and Taiwan or what Shu- mei Shih calls the “Sinophone” communities. In short, Sinophone studies explore the relation between the Chinese mainland and these Sinophone communities in a set of conditions (geographic, ethnic, linguistic, political, etc.). This thesis will explore the ways in which Sinophone musicians exhibit and perform Chineseness, the reason for its manifestation, and the implications and consequences for these types of articulations. v Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................1! Problems with Chineseness ............................................................................2! Sinophone .......................................................................................................4! Sinophone Music ............................................................................................6! Imaginary Nostalgia......................................................................................13! Primitive Passions.........................................................................................15! The Field: Taiwan.........................................................................................16! The Agents: Teresa Teng, Leehom Wang, and Jay Chou ............................17! Teresa Teng !"# ..................................................................18! Leehom Wang $%&...............................................................18! Jay Chou '() .......................................................................19! The Mission ..................................................................................................19! Teresa Teng ...........................................................................................................21! Tour Guide of the Imaginary ........................................................................23! Her Sweet, Sweet Voice ...............................................................................27! Staying Sinophone in Japan..........................................................................30! “I am ‘Chinese’”...........................................................................................34! Wang Leehom........................................................................................................38! Who is Wang Leehom? ................................................................................39! Paving the Way.............................................................................................40! Heirs of Dragon ............................................................................................43! Chinked-out ..................................................................................................45! “Chinked-out” or Sell-out?...........................................................................53! Tug-of-War...................................................................................................56! Jay Chou ................................................................................................................61! Who is Jay Chou and why is he Sinophone?................................................61! How Do You Speak: Language ....................................................................63! vi Getting a Message Across: Lyrics ................................................................67! Chou’s KUSO Style......................................................................................70! Mix and Match: Music..................................................................................71! Chou’s “Chinese Style” of music as Sinophone...........................................74! Sinophone Outside of Music ........................................................................76! Conclusion .............................................................................................................80! Bibliography ..........................................................................................................83! Discography...........................................................................................................92! Vita 102! vii Introduction In his discussion on “cultural China,” scholar Tu Weiming asks, “While the overseas Chinese … may seem forever peripheral to the meaning of being Chinese, can they assume an effective role in creatively constructing a new vision of Chineseness that is more in tune with Chinese history and in sympathetic resonance with Chinese culture?”1 His answer to this question is “yes.” However, through the scope of Sinophone studies, which looks to decentralize the role of China and Chineseness, I would argue that Tu’s question is one poorly asked. This question assumes that those on the “peripheries,” i.e. those in the Sinophone community, must inherently desire to construct a new Chineseness and become more “in tune” and “resonant” with Chinese history and culture. This implies a sort of active appropriation of Chineseness to exert a Chinese identity. More importantly, this assumes a singular notion of Chineseness. As we will see from the examples of three Sinophone musicians – Teresa Teng !"#, Leehom Wang $%&, and Jay Chou '() – this is not the case; there is no one Chineseness. While these three artists do actively use Chinese elements in their songs and performances, they are not used to actively reshape Chineseness, per se, but rather, they act as aesthetic markers. Especially when used in conjunction with other ethnomusical elements, they cast a new light on the diverse conceptions of Chineseness. This thesis hopes to contribute to the ongoing discussion of Sinophone studies by looking at pop music as a Sinophone articulation through the case studies of three well known Sinophone pop singers, Teresa Teng, Leehom Wang, and Jay Chou. This thesis will explore the careers of these three musicians, with a special focus on their music, to explore the ways in which they convey their hybrid Sinophone identities. 1 Wei-ming Tu, “Cultural China: The Periphery as the Center,” The Living Tree: The Changing Meaning of Being Chinese Today, (Stanford University Press, 1995), 34. 1 PROBLEMS WITH CHINESENESS Chineseness is often conceived of as a singular notion that binds something or someone to China, the semblance of a cultural China, or a universal understanding of an “authentic” Chinese culture. Stuart Hall describes this sort of cultural identity as, a “shared culture […] which reflect the common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us, as ‘one people’, with stable, unchanging and continuous frames of reference and meaning.” 2 This can include language, ethnicity, and cultural background, or what Rey Chow calls a “conventional simplification and stereotyping of ethnic subjects”.3 As Chow and others have pointed out, this oversimplification is problematic, especially in considering