Taiwan sex scandal woman sings her way to recovery
2002-03-15

Category News Nations Singapore People Qu Meifeng Event 2001 Taiwan Sex Tape

SINGAPORE - A former Taiwan politician at the centre of a gripping sex scandal will make her singing debut in Singapore this week as part of her long road to recovery.

The 35-year old TV-reporter turned politician Chu Mei-feng became one of the best known women in the Chinese-speaking world after a Taiwan tabloid magazine gave away a secretly-taped video of her having sex with a married lover in December. Chu will make her singing debut at a concert series in Singapore which kicks off on Friday. She will be the lone woman in a an all-male line up, spiced with skimpily clad dancers.

"I don't think this is going to be a career. I think this is a very precious experience for me to experience. It's going to be part of my life," Chu told a Singapore news conference on Wednesday in a mixture of English and Mandarin.

The soft-spoken former politician, clad in a conservative maroon Mandarin-collared pant suit, disappeared from the public eye after the scandal broke but quickly followed up with a book detailing her affairs with six lovers, dished out media interviews and took to dabbling as a radio DJ.

"I haven't found anyone else in the world who's had a tragic experience like this. I only can find my own way out to earn my life again," Chu said in reply to comments that she was cashing in on the scandal

"I don't know what's the right way to be heard under these kind of circumstances. I have no textbook...to study, to follow."

Chu will belt out old tunes by the late Taiwanese songbird Theresa Teng but kept mum about the rest of the programme.

ROAD BLOCKS AND PROTEST

Getting the show on the road in Singapore, with its squeaky clean image and hard line towards pornography, has not been easy.

Police gave the concert a green light just this week on the condition that concert organisers put up a S$10,000 bond, which they would lose if the show so much as mentions the video.

Locals wrote into newspapers to protest the upcoming show.

"Allowing her to perform here amounts to approval of her amorous lifestyle. After all she is not even a real artist," Peter Low wrote.

Neighbouring Malaysia said it will bar Chu from performing in the mainly-Muslim state as she might be a bad influence as well.

Pirated copies of the Chu Mei-feng sex video have been widely circulated in Taiwan, China and the United States.

A Singapore television station was slapped with a S$10,000 fine last month for showing a bit too much of the clip as part of a news report on the sale of the pirated videos here.

Chu will return to Taiwan after her Singapore performance which has been tagged a charity event.

"I'm not just a person. I think I'm a survivor. I have to be brave enough to face what's happening in my future," she said.

"I choose to face my bright days because when I choose to face my darkness, I will make the darkness even longer." (Reuters)