TAIWAN: FUNERAL OF TERESA TENG HELD

(28 May 1995) Mandarin/Nat

Thousands of fans turned up at the funeral of Taiwanese pop singer Teresa Teng on Sunday.

Family, friends and fans paid their last respects to her in an open coffin in Taipei before she was buried at a cemetery in the capital's suburb.

The singer, who has a huge following in Asia, died of asthma earlier this month in Thailand. She was only 42.

Fans began lining the streets outside the City Funeral Parlour early this morning, waiting to pay their last respects to the singer Teresa Teng.

To many of her fans, she was more than just a pop star - Teresa Teng stood for democracy.

Despite the ban of Teng's sentimental love songs as 'spiritual pollution' from communist China, her music was widely smuggled into the mainland.

But Teng stood firm in her anti-communist views by refusing to hold concerts on the mainland - even after the travel ban for Taiwanese to China was dropped in 1987.

Then after China cracked down on pro-democracy students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Teng sang at concerts and attended protests against the communist government's actions.

Family members, Taiwanese officials - including the Prime Minister - and celebrities said their last good-byes to her today.

About 7-thousand fans also showed up to walk past her open coffin.

Teng has died from asthma May 8 while on a visit to Thailand.

The singer had in fact retired from performing professionally in recent years and had been living in France.

At the end of the viewing, officials from the ruling Nationalist Party covered her copper coffin with a Taiwan flag.

The coffin was carried by soldiers to a hearse for the funeral procession to the cemetery.

Tang Lan Hua, another famous Taiwanese singer, was still in shock by the news of her close friend's death.

SOUNDBITE: (In Mandarin)
"When journalists from Hong Kong told me that Teresa was dead, I couldn't believe it, but it was finally when I came here today that I realized it was true."
SUPER CAPTION: Tang Lan Hua, Taiwanese singer

Crowds of fans then gathered at the Jin Bao Shan cemetery in the Taipei suburb of Chinshan for the burial of their national heroine.

Teng began singing at the age of six, and had produced hundreds of records in Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong, and since the announcement of her death, record shops in Taipei have been sold out.

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