ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the collaboration between a talented, prolific musician, Chou Lan-ping, and a pioneering entrepreneur, Liao Chien-yuan, who founded Four Seas Records in 1955. The close cooperation and partnership between Chou Lan-ping and Liao Chien-yuan initiated Mandopop production in Taiwan and laid the groundwork for its next stage of development. As early as 1960, Four Seas had created an innovative scheme—developing a new product line by producing original Mandopop. Mandopop actually had been exported to Southeast Asia and was well perceived among the Chinese diaspora there since its rise in Shanghai in the late 1920s. Shanghai served as the center of the industry from the late 1920s until the hub for Mandopop was transferred to Hong Kong after 1949, owing to the political circumstances in mainland China. Chou was immediately engaged as the general producer of Four Seas to plan and conduct a pioneering project in the music industry in Taiwan.
