Teresa Teng, Taiwanese singer (b. 1953)
Teng Li-Chun (traditional Chinese: 鄧麗君; simplified Chinese: 邓丽君; pinyin: Dèng Lìjūn; Jyutping: Dang6 Lai6-gwan1; 29 January 1953 – 8 May 1995), commonly known as Teresa Teng, was a Taiwanese singer, actress, musician and philanthropist. Dubbed as "Asia's eternal queen of pop", Teng became a cultural icon for her contributions to Mandopop, giving birth to the phrase, "Wherever there are Chinese people, there is the music of Teresa Teng".With a career spanning almost 30 years, Teng established herself as a dominant and influential force in Asia throughout most of her career, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, and to some extent South Asia during the early and mid-80s. Her profound influence on the Asian popular music and the whole of Chinese society during the last second half of the 20th century and thereafter, led her to become one of the most successful and influential Asian artists in history. She is hailed as Asia's first pop superstar and by some as the pioneer of modern popular music in China—a major force in the development of the Chinese music industry, by incorporating the western and eastern styles in her music—replacing the most revolutionary songs then prevalent in mainland China and laying the foundation for modern Chinese popular music. Besides, Teng was also instrumental in bridging the cultural gap across Chinese-speaking nations, and the first artist to connect Japan to much of East and Southeast Asia, by singing Japanese pop songs, some of which were later covered in Mandarin. In Taiwan, she was famous for entertaining the armed forces and singing patriotic songs that appeals to natives of the island. She was nicknamed as a “patriotic entertainer” and a “soldiers’ sweetheart”.Throughout her years, Teng rendered hits such as "When Will You Return?", "As Sweet as Honey", "Forget Him", "Giving Yourself to the Flow of Time," and "The Moon Represents My Heart". She recorded more than 1,500 songs throughout her career, starting when she was 14 years old, not only in Mandarin Chinese but also in Hokkien, Cantonese, Japanese, Indonesian, English, and Italian. In addition to speaking the most of the languages she sung in, she also spoke French and Thai. To date, her songs have been covered by hundreds of artists all over the world. In 2007, she was inducted in "Popular Music Hall of Fame" at Koga Masao Music Museum in Japan, making her the only non-Japanese national to do so.According to a report published by Billboard in May 1995, Teng released 25 albums during the last 26 years of her career selling over 22 million copies worldwide, with 10 million units in Japan alone since 1983, going by her original sales. On May 8, 1995, Teng died from a severe respiratory attack while on vacation in Thailand at the age of 42. Since her departure, over 3 million of her records are said to have been sold in Japan, according to Nippon. In 1986, Time magazine named her one of the seven greatest female singers in the world. In 2010, on the eve of the celebration of "March 8th International Women's Day", Teng was named ''the most influential woman in modern China" by many well-known Chinese media. She is regarded as one of the representatives of the Chinese-speaking communities and cultures worldwide.