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A 40th Year Tribute to The Love Eterne : Taipei is a city in frenzy Author: Peggy Chiao Hsiung-ping Translated by: Stephen Teo (Note: The article has been cut to included only Ivy's parts...I'm too tired to type a complete version.) |
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31 October 1963: I was in primary school, my height up to the waist of an adult. I was studying in the Ching Shin Elementary School, a private school located behind the Presidential Palace. After school, I walked to the Armed Forces Hall of Heroes to catch a bus home, but the street was densely crowded with adults in twos and threes, all looking around anxiously. I mustered up the courage to ask someone what had happend. 'Ivy Ling Bo is here! In the Hall of Heroes!' Wow, I thought. I want to see Ling Bo too. This was the time when The Love Eterne/Liang Shanbo Yu Zhu Yingtai (1963) was the hottest item in every boulevard and alleyway. Before and after its release, the huangmei diao theme song had exploded in the world of radio and records. It was the time when the first television station in taiwan had just started broadcasting and not many people could afford television sets. The cinema and radio were the two most favoured entertainment media among the citizens. The Love Eterne had run for 62 days. Its box office takings surpassed the records of domestic and foreign films. Everyone could, and indeed loved to, sing the songs in the film. The Love Eterne was the fashion of the day. My heart was jumping of joy. What luck to run into her! Right at this moment, heaven and earth changed before me. A mob of adults had obscured the sky, and I was staggering amidst the crowd, my feet not even touching the ground. Pressed on both sides by the crowd, I was swung left and then right. I struggeled to stay afloat, as if I was drowning...the whole thing happened in about two to three minutes. Suddenly, the crowd dispersed, and was I lying on the ground. Ivy Ling Bo had gone. I didn't see a thing. Scattering on the ground were spectacles, headbands, hats, and various odds and ends. People were bending down to pick up their lost things. This strange sight was repeated wherever Ling Bo went in the next few days. The whole Taipei prostrated before her. Astounded, the Hong Kong press proclaimed, Taipei is a city in frenzy. The Love Eterne was a cultural phenomenon in the Taiwan of the 1960s. It established a pattern for cultural behaviour. Before it, films were seen only once. The Love Eterne prompted the practice of viewing and re-viewing a film. Everyone compared how many times he or she had seen The Love Eterne. And there were many who saw it twenty or thirty times. The newspapers reported that an elderly woman saw the film 120 times. Inside the cinema, the audience would sing along with the stars on the screen. I did not witness such a phenomenon again until many years later when I was in the US and saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Housewives, young women, and children memorised the lyrics and knew the plot by heart. Regardless, they all had handkerchiefs ready for the tragic 'meeting in the terraces' and 'grave mourning' scenes. The Love Eterne was also unprecendented for building popular models of idols. The Ivy Ling Bo frenzy transcended the cultural barriers between bensheng (native) and waisheng (post war migrants from mainland China) communities in Taiwan (perhaps because Ling Bo had appeared in many Amoy-dialect films which were distributed as Taiwanese-dialect films in Taiwan, although I have not been able to verify this). Both males and females worshipped her. There was a dispute among the fans about who to worship: Ivy Ling Bo or Betty Loh Ti/Le Di. It was said that Loh Ti had declined to collaborate with Ling Bo in A Maid from Heaven/Qi Xiannu (1963) because of jealousy over her rising fame and even defected to Motion Picture and General Investment Co Ltd (Dianmao, hereinafter called MP & GI). However, I deeply believe that if Loh Ti had agreed to visit Taiwan at the time, she would have inspired a fan following second to none. [SITE OWNER'S COMMENTS: For the record, I personally don't believe this. I think that Loh Ti would have inspired a large fan following, but it still won't be to the significant of what Ling Bo's had pulled] Perhaps the most surprising factor in the cult worship of Ling Bo was the passion of the middle-aged women. They would send her gifts and fling jewellery onto the stage when Ling Bo was performing. Did Ling Bo's fans see their idol as a surrogate male? Did their intense following for her signify a safe and spiritual extramarital affair as some cultural critics conjecture? [SITE OWNER'S COMMENTS: I can't provide a definite answer to this question, but with a young and handsome appearance that Ling Po had at the time, it would be easy for a good number of female fans to sometimes, maybe unconsciously, accept and love her as a true male idol. Perhaps she had created a perfect male image that many ladies dreamt of, but yet failed to possess in the realm of reality. The character she undertaken gave the scholar Liang Shanbo a gentle and caring look (through the fact that Ling Bo is a woman in a male role). Plus, Liang Shanbo was a faithful lover who brought his love to the grave, this even added a higher desire from many female fans. Sometimes human minds play tricks on themselves and people often confused between stage's illusions and reality of life.] What about thosee famous scholars (Sa Mengwu and Xu Fuguan), who confessed self-indulgence in The Love Eterne - did their support reflect a narcissistic admiration of classical Chineses culture? The Love Eterne evokes many sweet memories of our childhood (I know many of my contemporaries who are still able to sing or recite the lyrics from memory, perhaps illustrating the moral strictures of the 1960s environment?) [SITE OWNER'S COMMENTS: Even I can recite the lyrics from memory. Despite the fact that my Mandarin is zero to none...and Ling Bo will probably fall flat on the floor if she hears me sing (probably can't even tell that I'm singing songs from 'The Love Eterne' since my pronunciation and tone will be completely off the chart). God knows how many times I have seen this film.] Its cultural significance in Taiwan and Hong Kong was probably not foreseen by Shaw Brothers (HK) Ltd, which hastened Li Han-hsiang/Li Hanxiang to finish the film in two weeks to beat its rival MP & GI's different version fo the same film - Liang Shan Bo and Zhu Ying Tai/Liang Shanbo Yu Zhu Yingtai (1964). |