Negotiating Deng Lijun: collective memories of popular music in Asia during the Cold War period
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Date
24/11/2016Item status
Restricted AccessEmbargo end date
31/12/2100Author
Cheng, Chen-Ching
Metadata
Abstract
This study uses the pop music scene as a tool to analyse contemporary cultural
history in Asia, with a focus on the cold-war and post-cold war period (1960s-1990s).
The primary objective is to present how Pan-Chinese music shaped peoples’
collective memories in Asia and to investigate issues such as cultural history
identification, cultural worship, colonisation, nostalgia, and how these influence each
other. The secondary objective is to analyse which factors can influence peoples’
collective memories, since similar pop music and historical backgrounds in Asia can
be located.
A particular focus is Deng Lijun (also known as Teresa Teng) (1964-1995) who is
considered the most influential popular singer able to transcend ideological barriers
in Asia. Through in-depth interviews carried out in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and
Japan during 2010, audience perceptions focusing on Deng Lijun's personality, music
and performances were recorded and analysed in order to create focal points
regarding the collective memory of her work. The main interest of this thesis is not
only her role as a singer, but also her ability to capture different cultural imaginations,
to initiate processes of identification and to transcend different country’s frontiers
(Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, South-East Asia and Japan), particularly since these
countries champion different ideological perspectives. Her fame and commercial
success had a huge cultural impact, and as a result she was the first cultural carrier to
break the boundaries of the Cold-War era in Asia.
Apart from examining the social, cultural and political factors that influence pop
music, the industry behind it and shared audience memories, the focal point of the
thesis is to draw attention to aspect of time by examining how the cold war in Asia
reconstructed pop music’s cultural symbols and how these symbols were transformed
through different ideological structures and facets. Using the information gathered
from interviews and archives, this study explores the role of popular music in
political struggles between warring ideologies and shows how those struggles both
informed and were informed by the sentimental songs of a global popular music idol.