Taiwan's "teenage boy killer" and "little princess," pop singer Jolin Tsai, has arranged to visit Shenzhen later this month to meet with her fans at Shenzhen TV Station.
Born in Taipei on September 15, 1980, Jolin started to sing as a child. Her pop career took off at the age of 18, when she took part in an MTV singing competition and won the top prize.
This performance earned Jolin a contract with Universal Music, and just one year later in July 1999 her first single Living with the World was released. Sold in 7-11 convenience stores, the album was a huge success, and led to the release of her first album, Jolin 1019, in September 1999.
Jolin 1019 went on to sell more than 400,000 copies around Asia, with popularity for the teen singer highest in Taiwan, the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong.
But Jolin’s life at the time of her success wasn’t as great as many thought it was; she has since admitted she was actually upset at the time. “People might think I had everything. But I was really under great pressure, and I like to be free. So I asked myself if I was truly happy and the answer was no.”
But she was soon to find inner peace through her music, “I realized I needed to sacrifice something, because I love my music.”
Jolin released her second album, Don’t Stop, in May 2000, with many songs going on to become well-known throughout Asia.
A change of image and music direction marked the third album Show Your Love. Although featuring many new songs and tunes, sales for this third album were not as good as the previous two. This downturn in Jolin’s fortunes continued with the singer’s fourth album, Lucky Number, which failed to win back her previous popularity.
After this, due to problems with her record company, Jolin didn’t cut another album for another year.
But Jolin kept going and finally managed to sign with Sony Music, which is now thought of as her biggest career break, as her first Sony album, See My 72 Changes topped the Taiwan album charts for three full months and sold more than 300,000 copies in Taiwan alone.
Jolin’s second Sony album release was 2004's Castle, which did very well in Singapore and quickly became the top chart album there.
Her latest album J-Game, released in April this year, was also a hit.
When asked if she thought her rise to fame had been too fast, Jolin said, "I learned hard. Although I felt tired sometimes, there was a voice ringing by my ears, 'You must learn because you like music.'"
(Shenzhen Daily July 29, 2005)
