A few years ago, a General Music employee was collated with archive materials and encountered videotapes in a Tokyo warehouse. This is a recording of the late Taiwanese pop star Teresa Teng, which was never released. Popular folk ballads, probably recorded in the mid-1980s while Teng lived and performed in Japan, was a collaboration between composer Takashi Miki and lyricist Toyohisa Araki.

Now, to her millions of fans, the track titled "Love Songs Are the Best Songs on a Fog Night" will appear on the album released on June 25, 2025.

Teng died 30 years ago. Most Americans know nothing about her life and work body. However, Teng's ballads can be sung in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese and Indonesians, continuing to reverberate through karaoke rooms, Spotify Playlists, Tribute concerts and family gatherings in Asia and beyond.

I studied how pop music became a soft tool and have studied Teng music and its legacy over the past few years. I found Teng's influence was not only because of her voice, but also because her music transcends Asian political error lines.

From local celebrities to Asian idols

Born in Yunlin, Taiwan in 1953, Teresa Teng grew up in many villages that fled mainland China in 1949 after the Communist Party won the Chinese Civil War. Her early exposure to traditional Chinese music and opera laid the foundation for her singing career. By the age of 6, she was taking a voice class. She soon began to win local singing competitions.

“It’s not an adult who wants me to sing,” Teng wrote in her memoir. "I want to sing. As long as I can sing, I'm very happy."

At the age of 14, Teng dropped out of school, focused entirely on music, and signed with local label Yeu Jow Records. Shortly thereafter, she released her first album, Fengyang Flower Drum. In the 1970s, she toured in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Southeast Asia and became one of Asia’s first truly multinational pop stars.

Teng's career flourished in the late 1970s and 1980s. She released some of the most iconic tracks, such as the cover of her Chinese singer Zhou Wu’s 1937 hit single “When are you back?” Taiwanese singer Chen Fen-Lan’s “The Moon Represents My Heart” and has conducted extensive tours in Asia, triggering something about to be called “Teresa Teng Fever.”

In the early 1990s, Teng was forced to stop performing for health reasons. She suddenly died of an asthma attack while on a vacation in Chiang Mai, Thailand on May 8, 1995 at the age of 42.

China's capture volume

Perhaps the most prominent aspect of Teng's story is that Teng Fever reaches its peak in China.

Teng is a Chinese in terms of race and an ancestor in Shandong Province in China. However, after the Chinese civil war, the political gap between China and Taiwan led to decades of hostility, and both sides refused to recognize the other's legitimacy.

However, in the late 1970s and 1980s, China began to relax its political control under Deng Xiaoping's reform and opening-up policies. The grand initiative has turned China toward a market-oriented economy, encouraged foreign trade and investment, and carefully reintroduced global cultural influence after decades of quarantine.

Pop music from other parts of the world began to drip, including Teng's tender folk songs. Her songs can be found in coastal provinces such as Guangdong and Shanghai, Beijing and Tianjin, and even remote areas such as Tibet. Shanghai's publicity department wrote an internal memorandum in 1980, pointing out that her music had spread to the city's parks, restaurants, nursing homes and wedding halls.

Teng's widespread welcome in China is not accidental. It reflects the time in the country’s history, and its people, after decades of cultural publicity and censorship, are particularly eager for emotional art.

For a rote society, revolutionary songs like "The East is Red" and "Union is Power", Teng's music offers something completely different. This is a person, gentle and profound person. Her gentle, approachable style – often described as “angel-like” or “girl next door” – provides solace and intimacy, a feeling that has long been without public life.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ueqbqma6rcq[/embed]

Teng's music is also admired for its ability to bridge the times. Her 1983 album "Light Sefucition Feelt" blends classical poetry with contemporary Western pop melodies, showing her gifts to blend tradition and modernity. It cemented her reputation not only as a pop star, but also as a cultural innovator.

It's no secret why Chinese and Asian audiences are so deeply attracted to her and her music. She is proficient in multiple languages. She is elegant but modest, polite and relevant. She is involved in various charities; she speaks out to support democratic values.

Family voice on distant land

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the U.S. immigrant population grew to 1.1 million. Teng's music also deeply embedded itself in China's scattered communities across the country. In cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York, Chinese immigrants play her music at family gatherings, holidays and community events. Through any Chinatown during the Lunar New Year, you will surely hear her voice floating on the streets.

For young Chinese Americans, even non-Chinese audiences, Teng's music has become a window for Chinese culture.

When I was studying in the United States, I often met Asian American students who radiated her songs during karaoke nights or cultural festivals. Many people grew up through their parents’ playlists or local community celebrations and heard her music.

The release of songs she recently discovered reminds people that some sounds don't go away - they develop, migrate and live in the hearts of people scattered around the world.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv6mrgjqjow[/embed]

In an era when global politics drives different cultures, Teng’s lasting attraction reminds us of something quieter, something lasting: the power of sounds that convey emotions across time and space, the way melody can bridge between continents and generations.

Recently, I re-watched Teng's YouTube video of the 1977 ballad "The Moon stands for My Heart". When I read the comments section, one perfectly encapsulated what I found about Teresa Teng in my own research: “Teng’s music opens a window for the culture I don’t know I need.”