"Who can tell whether it is we who have changed the world or the world that has changed us?"

Some 21 years ago, unknown singer Su Rui, or Julie Su, changed Taiwan's pop world and became a huge overnight sensation with the querying song "The Same Moonlight."

At a time when the pop scene was dominated by pretty, young women singing sweet and tender love songs in bright and colorful costumes, Su was 30 years old, dressed in black, belting out thrilling songs with deep social themes.

After that, Su's songs rapidly became popular in the Mandarin-speaking world in Southeast Asia for their raspy vocals and meaningful lyrics.

Su has seen her ups and downs over the last two decades, her albums are no longer on the bestseller lists, her songs are not as thrilling as they seemed 21 years ago, and she looks older and older, yet her songs hang on as nostalgic memories for the people born in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Her fans on the Chinese mainland are no exception. Whenever she gave a concert on the mainland, Su got a warm welcome. In 1998, her first gig in Beijing was a sold-out show.

A man broke through the police security line to climb on stage to present Su a big bunch of flowers.

Now, Su is back.

She will put on a show at the Capital Gymnasium on March 27 to share good memory with her loyal fans, in her lingering songs such as "Jiu Gan Tang Mai Wu," "Whether," "Please Follow Me," "Dear Kids," "Devotion," "Hands in Each Others," "Changes" and "Taipei vs Tokyo."

"I am looking forward to seeing my old Beijing friends, who amazed me with their enthusiasm six years ago. I would like to reminiscence about the last 20 years with them together," Su said at the press conference held in Beijing to promote the concert.

"To ensure a successful performance, I have started body-building exercises so I have enough energy to perform a gig that might run more than two hours," she added with a slight touch of humor.

As expected, Beijing fans responded to her warmly.

"Full of failure and success, loss and gain in her career, Su is a great singer not only because she achieved so much but also because she keeps a cool head about fame and wealth and never gives up. That is why so many people love her," said San Guan, one of her fans.

"It's hard to find Su's albums in the small record stores in Beijing, but some big stores have a few old ones. And it seems natural enough that today's pop music fans, who were mostly born in the 1980s do not like the sophisticated and deep 51-year-old Su, but Su sings out the common view of love, life and ideals of people my age," said 31-year-old Ye Zi, a fan of Su.

"She has none of those gorgeous costumes that some young stars like Amei and Coco Lee wear at their gigs, but we love her singing which is still emotional, sonorous and cool," added Ye.

Starting from pubs

Before her overnight fame with the soundtrack album for the 1983 movie "Get a Lift by Mistake," Su started singing soul and blues songs in English in Taiwan bars, pubs and restaurants in 1968 when she was only 16 years old, earning little money.

She enjoyed those days, singing her favorite songs and practicing to improve her singing skills.

Later, when asked how she could go on for so long singing at pubs as an unknown singer, Su said, "Singing is all my life forever. I just felt happy to be singing. It didn't matter if it was in a bar or under the bright lights."

In 1983, Yu Kanping, director of the movie "Get a Lift by Mistake" was looking for a voice to sing the songs for the movie, but many well-known singers failed to meet his expectations. At that moment, he heard Su on a TV show by chance and knew she was the singer he was looking for.

He was right.

Su said farewell to the life of singing in pubs and signed a contract with Taiwan UFO records to cut the album "Get a Lift by Mistake." The album quickly captured people's hearts selling more than one million copies and taking all the awards for that year.

In 1985, Su held her first concert in Hong Kong and changed the image of Taiwan singers in Hong Kong people's minds.

Between 1983 and 1988, Su cut 10 records, all of which were best-sellers. Many songs hit various top-10 charts in Taiwan and Hong Kong, leaving most other contemporary female singers in her shadow.

In 1988, "Walking Following the Feeling" hit the Chinese mainland, introducing Su to a much wider range of Chinese fans.

"Su brought a revolution to Taiwan's pop scene where pleasant-to-the-ear love songs were the fashion. Thanks to a group of great writers, Su's stylish songs stood out in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland in the 1980s and early 1990s," commented Beijing-based pop critic Jin Zhaojun.

But after the 1988 album "Taipei vs Tokyo," Su's career stagnated for a while. That year she left UFO to join Linfair, which later proved to be an unwise decision. The new company published fewer records and none of them were successful. In 1991, Su lost her beloved father and one year later gave birth to her son.

In 1993, she returned to UFO to produce the album "Hands in Each Other's." The title song soon became a household word but it turned out to be her last hit.

After UFO was purchased by Warner in 1994, Su joined Forward, which was founded by Peng Guohua, the former co-founder of UFO who had worked very hard to promote Su from that first hit album to the peak of her career.

Unfortunately, Forward failed to help Su move forward in her career. None of the four records published between 1994 and 1998 were a success in the market.

Changing world

It is not hard to tell why times have changed and good songs that fit Su's voice and style are getting harder and harder to find.

The Chinese pop scene is changing so fast that very few singers survive for two decades. It is a fact that the pop world is for the young. Those who grew up with Su's songs are getting into middle age, and the teenagers today prefer cool Faye Wong, playboy Nicholas Tse, naive Jolin Cai Yilin and smart Elva Xiao Yaxuan.

Another reason is that the elite song writers behind Su such as Ho Te-Chien, Lo Ta-Yu, Liang Hongzhi, Cao Junhong and Li Shouquan, have also dropped out of the bustling pop world themselves.

Without new songs, Su had to shift her focus from records to concerts. She appeared in all kinds of live performances such as concerts, ceremonies and TV talk shows. She even has to compete with those younger singers who once copied her.

In addition to the problems in her career, something went wrong with her marriage. In 1998, she divorced - the second failed marriage in her life.

Then, her much admired friend Peng Guohua who had witnessed all her ups and downs over the previous 20 years, died of cancer in 2001.

Su was so tired that she gradually slipped totally away from the stage and stayed home looking after her beloved son.

"I did not want to sing any more, but lots of friends and fans encouraged me. I was not quite sure whether I should return or not," she said.

Before her returning concert last August 3 in Taiwan, she herself was upset. "I am not as popular as 10 years ago. If the concert failed, that would be a full stop of my career. So I felt great pressure," she said.

Fortunately, the fans had not forgotten Su. Her return was a great success. "The fans gave me confidence. They are as enthusiastic as years ago, and sang together with me. I felt pretty good singing for two hours and 45 minutes," she said.

Then, in September, a highlight album "Unique Julie, the 20th Anniversary" was published, which also fulfilled Peng's wish, because the album was started by him before his death.

"All the suffering in my life has given me strength and I have confidence in myself. Every singer's career has its ups and downs. You've got to take things calmly. Never let elation or depression carry you away," she said.

In advance of the Beijing concert, Su has been working on her new album. "It will be a record of my complicated feelings over the last six years. I was once depressed and even cried. But like all my previous albums, it will concern more than just my own life. My songs are always for the whole world, the society we live in and the people who are suffering mental pain," she said.

(China Daily March 12, 2004)