A Conversation with a Chinese Person 09 | Lo Ta-yu, You Curse the Government in Taiwan. Did You Help Young People in China? Did You Deserve Their Money?
"I suspect Lo Ta-yu is a spy for the Chinese Communist Party."
Author / interviewer: Brennan Ruskell
Interviewee: a young person
Brennan Ruskell: Why won't you accept that other people think Lo Ta-yu is really good?
Young person: In the early years of reform and opening, when the Party started letting markets and foreign things back in, the music allowed into China was limited. There weren't many ways to hear things inside the country either. Put it plainly. Those Hong Kong and Taiwan stars were closest to the door, so they got the first chance. Whoever went over to the Communist Party early got in early. Before reform and opening, China had just come through the Great Leap Forward, the Party campaign that wrecked farming, the great famine, and the Cultural Revolution, the years of Party-led chaos. The music market was empty. That's the only reason people at that level got into China. Later I listened to K-pop from Korea, the idol pop, and to American and British music, Western classical music, Japanese music. At my place, what does Lo Ta-yu's level even count as? I remember, more than ten years ago, China also started limiting the Korean wave, limiting Korean music and shows. Are you saying Korean entertainment isn't good? I've been to Korea. I've been to SM Town, the Seoul place of the company behind a lot of those groups. I've been to the concerts. Korean entertainment is a lot more professional than China's own entertainment business.
Brennan Ruskell: You think the success he got in China doesn't prove his level?
Young person: I don't deny some people like his songs. But liking him and making him a god are two different things. Especially when a market has blocked what listeners can choose for a long time. You went over to the Party early, so you got picked as a united-front target, someone the Party chose for its work of pulling outsiders onto its side. You grabbed the spot first. That doesn't mean, once the whole world is competing with you, you still stand. Young people in China bought your records and bought your tickets. You can thank the listeners. Don't turn around and think that because they spent money, they have to spend the rest of their lives admitting you understand everything. Since when did fame in music become a pass that says politics doesn't get checked? And looking back, Lo Ta-yu just caught a gap in time. His level is what it is.
Brennan Ruskell: What do you most want to press him on?
Young person: Lo Ta-yu, you curse the government in Taiwan. You say freedom of speech is going backward, and the standards for culture are dropping. Then, facing the Communist Party in China, are you willing to ask in public the same way? Can young people in China freely criticize the government? Can workers organize themselves to fight for better pay and treatment? Are these worth you opening your mouth? What have you said for young people? Put it out, directly. Don't take their support when you're making money, and then, when you talk about freedom and the rights a person has just by being a person, Lo Ta-yu, you pretend you can't see the young people in China.
Brennan Ruskell: He also questioned Lai Ching-te's children being in America. Lai is Taiwan's president. What do you make of that?
Young person: Then use that ruler all the way to the end. Where do the families and the lovers of Communist Party officials live? Where does the money come from for their children to study abroad? Lo Ta-yu, are you willing to ask that in public the same way? If you want to oppose the powerful keeping an exit for themselves and leaving ordinary people to carry the risk, I support you finding it out. But don't let the questions suddenly go dead when they reach the Communist Party. Don't look like you dare to say everything only in Taiwan, and then sell that pick-and-choose courage as backbone.
Brennan Ruskell: What effect do you worry his words will have?
Young person: What I worry about is that he uses the fame listeners gave him to make people feel good about a regime that does not let listeners speak freely, and he doesn't have to carry what it costs young people when they lose their choices. Wu Han, a historian, helped the Communist Party, and in the end he died in prison. Deng Tuo ran a newspaper for the Party, and in the end they hounded him until he killed himself. Those names are sitting there. Enough to remind us that speaking for the Party does not get it to respect your rights. Lo Ta-yu, you'd better treasure the freedom Taiwan gives you to curse the government in public. Don't spend your time lecturing the people who have that freedom, and refuse, for the Chinese listeners who don't have it, to say the same words to the Communist Party. Back in the Nationalist years, the years of the party the Communists drove off the mainland, how many people cursed the Nationalists as hard as they could, and then in the Communist years got worked over like dogs. A lot of them were hounded to death. People like Lo Ta-yu are opportunists.
Brennan Ruskell: Sounds like you don't think much of Lo Ta-yu?
Young person: Haven't you noticed yet? People like Lo Ta-yu are, at the bottom, spies the Communist Party planted in Taiwan. And there are quite a few of them. They use that old way of writing that looks like straight history while it quietly pushes one side, and they use slow influence people don't notice, to help the Party get things done in Taiwan and wreck Taiwan's future. They are the Communist Party's dogs. Young people in China are not doing well now. I can see countless young Chinese going over to the Party, wanting to take the exam for a government job and get into a state work unit, a job on the state's payroll. But there are also people like me. I just look down on Lo Ta-yu.