TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwanese singer Rainie Yang (楊丞琳) raised hackles among Taiwanese for claiming on Chinese state-run television that although she grew up in Taipei, she is Cantonese, prompting some netizens to tell her to remind Chinese propagandists of her birthday, June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre.
Over the weekend, a clip from an episode of the Zhejiang TV program "The Journey of Poetic Soul" which featured Yang in July drew the ire of Taiwanese netizens. In the clip, Yang joined others in feasting on fried seafood and said that she rarely ate seafood during her childhood in Taiwan because of her family's limited finances.
She then claimed that eating seafood is a luxury "there" (Taiwan). Another show participant pointed out Yang started working hard at the age of 16 to help pay her family's debts. Yang said that she grew up in Taipei, "but I am Cantonese."
Yang said that she came on the show to "communicate more with cultural circles. I feel that I can improve a lot and then learn a lot of wisdom." Referring to her decision to drop out of school for work, Yang added, "because I really didn't study much when I was a child. I went out and started to work really too soon."
Yang said that her father is also Cantonese and pointed out that her husband is from Anhui Province's Bengbu. She said that although she had grown up in Taipei, she was reminded from time to time to not forget her origins, noting that she can speak Cantonese.
Yang (second from right). (YouTube, Zhejiang STV Official Channel screenshot)
Taiwanese netizens expressed suspicion that Yang's comments were designed for propaganda purposes:
"I'm puzzled that she considers eating seafood in Taiwan to be a luxury. Taiwan is surrounded by the ocean, this is too exaggerated!"
"Just say you are Cantonese. Please don't mention Taiwan!"
"Why don't you say you're African? After all, humans first came from Africa."
"I'm also from Kaohsiung, but my ancestors are single-celled organisms."
Other netizens observed that there was no mention of Yang's birthday, which is on the politically sensitive date of June 4, the date when the Tiananmen Massacre took place in 1989.
