Taiwan’s romance industry colours Singapore and Malaysia

The passing of two Taiwanese legends — writer Chiung Yao and songwriter Liu Chia-chang — marks a significant moment in the history of popular culture for the Chinese-speaking world. From the 1960s and 1970s, they have been winning over the global Chinese community with their romantic and gentle creative vibes.

From a cultural and ideological perspective, their works and influence bolstered the Republic of China’s cultural soft power abroad during the Cold War, subtly downplaying the authoritarian nature of the Kuomintang (KMT) regime. In popular culture, their prolific output in romance novels and music helped Taiwan establish a mature entertainment industry from the 1970s, creating a comprehensive romance industry chain across publishing, records, film and television.

Under KMT rule, especially against the backdrop of the Cold War, Taiwan sought to style itself as the “orthodox Chinese culture”, competing with mainland China for legitimacy in de jure and ideological rule. Hence, expanding cultural influence among overseas Chinese and strengthening ethnic identity through artistic works and popular culture were part of this cultural strategy.

Most of Chiung’s novels and their film adaptations were pure, romantic love stories, and did not touch on political and social issues. Though her works occasionally presented distorted and extreme views on love, they often contained elements of traditional Chinese culture, such as poetry, calligraphy, painting and meaningful, timeless words. Her storylines not only depicted emotional entanglements of individuals; hidden within was also an elegant imagining of Chinese culture.

Later, through film and television productions, they also showed Taiwan’s stability and growth from modest wealth to middle class, in contrast with the turmoil in mainland China during the Cultural Revolution. When these works were exported to the Chinese communities in Malaysia and Singapore, they not only influenced the cultural identity of overseas Chinese, but also strengthened emotional ties with Taiwan.

Liu was an icon in the Chinese music scene. His music was tender, with an element of patriotism; it resonated not only in Taiwan, but also had a significant impact among the Chinese communities in Malaysia and Singapore. Songs like “Plum Blossom” and “Ode to the Republic of China” were metaphors for the resilience of the Chinese people, conveying nostalgia for the homeland and a sense of ethnic unity, giving the ethnic Chinese living in multicultural Singapore and Malaysia confidence in their own culture.

When mainland China was isolated from the outside world and Chinese culture was tossed and blown, these songs and lyrics boosted emotional resonance and ethnic confidence among overseas Chinese, and aided the KMT’s nationalistic narrative. In other words, even amid the Cold War and authoritarianism, Taiwan’s cultural and creative influence as well as soft power were not to be underestimated, as they helped Taiwan extend its image of “cultural China” overseas.

The fact is, even before reform and opening up, mainland Chinese publications and literature were not completely absent in Malaysia and Singapore, but they lagged behind works from Taiwan and Hong Kong in terms of variety, quality, and content. Even before Taiwan lifted martial law in 1987, it did carve out some artistic and literary space, providing relative freedom in publishing and creative work.

Magazines, literature, films and popular music from Taiwan provided the Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia with vast sources of knowledge and enrichment, as works from Yu Kwang-chung, Yang Mu, Pai Hsien-yung, to Chiung Yao, Gu Long and Bo Yang fulfilled their cultural, intellectual, spiritual and entertainment needs. Taiwan had a wide cultural influence in Southeast Asia, with a major impact from elites to the masses, from high culture to popular culture.

Interestingly, while the Nationalist government focused on reviving traditional Chinese culture back then to differentiate itself from the Chinese Communist Party, its most successful cultural export was the popular “romance industry” led by pop culture icons such as Chiung, Liu and Fong Fei-fei, rather than some grand national narrative.

Prior to democratisation and localisation, Taiwan’s pop culture industry was largely built around a romance-focused ecosystem centred on figures like Chiung. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s pop culture industry is more diverse, encompassing themes of chivalry and brotherhood, city life, mystical fantasy and nonsensical comedy (mou lei tau comedy), among others.

However, in the case of Taiwan, following the emergence of Chiung, “three-hall” (三厅) films and Crown Publishing, a romance industry chain spanning both sides of the Taiwan Strait and overseas Chinese communities dominated Chinese pop culture for three to four decades.

Taiwan’s romance industry has a far-reaching impact, and its prominence within traditional KMT narratives has not diminished. After the KMT’s Han Kuo-yu won the Kaohsiung mayoral election in 2018, he invited Chiung to serve as chief consultant for the city’s romance industry chain. During his campaign, he had even proposed to build a ferris wheel of love to develop the romance industry.

During the Cold War, Taiwan’s romance industry, which held significant economic and social importance, was readily accepted by the authoritarian regime due to its lack of political and social intentions. Channelling the public’s focus toward emotional needs and softer fantasies did not provoke any ideological backlash or pressure against authoritarian rule either.

However, because the romance industry chain requires continuous output to maintain operations, Chiung’s romance works became formulaic, with standardised content. The pursuit of rapid production resulted in shallow narratives, ultimately reducing them to a pop culture assembly line.

Strangely, this inherently apolitical romance industry unexpectedly became an effective means of countering leftist ideological propaganda within the Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia during the Cold War era. Leftists who advocated literary works reflecting social realities and serving politics considered Chiung’s novels, films starring the “Two Chins and Two Lins” (Chin Han, Chin Hsiang-lin, Lin Feng-jiao and Lin Ching-hsia), and songs by Liu and Fong as decadent and frivolous entertainment.

However, the literary works and films produced by Taiwan’s romance industry, being rich in romantic fantasy and cultural sentiment, resonated even more with the softer emotional and spiritual needs of young people. They became immensely popular and unexpectedly countered leftist ideology, circulating freely throughout Southeast Asia.

Yet with social changes and increasing diversity and openness, the romance industry is losing its dominance. Chiung’s views on love and her romance empire have long faced significant challenges in the modern era; in contrast, Liu’s music continues to resonate with the masses and is expected to endure within the Chinese-speaking world for a long time to come.

But no matter how the world changes, Chiung and Liu will always have a place in the pop culture memory of Chinese communities worldwide.

This article was first published in Lianhe Zaobao as “台湾爱情产业染出新马彩霞满天”.

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