Journal • 妇女节特刊 • March 1，2026 ｜ Past Issues 前期

Sarah Chen's reputation as the "voice of urban women" began in the late 1980s, when she released a series of albums expressing women's wishes, feelings, and struggles. Among them, Tomorrow, Will You Still Love Me (1988) was the most personal, a collection of songs based loosely on Chen's own experiences. Hometown Women was the final track on this album.

Lyrics by Cheng Hua-Juan, a songwriter and author of dozens of books, Hometown Women tells the story of a woman who happens to run into a long-lost friend, leading to a meeting in a coffee shop. Both single women, lonely in the busy city, they find someone who understands their doubts and quiet struggles. 

As the song moves to the chorus, Chen sings, "Ah, single women, living in the same crowded city. Are you, like me, not knowing with whom you can confide?" The loneliness is palpable, so is the bond, as she continues with their mutual feelings: "Every day passes in such a rush. I'm not even sure what I have can be called happiness." And they bid each other goodbye, returning to the busy city that would soon engulf them. 

Perhaps because it's not a love song, or because the album lost label support, Hometown Women never achieved mainstream popularity. Yet for those drawn to the meaning of the song, Hometown Women leaves a lasting impression of the friendships that matter so much for women. When she falls in love, she gains just one companion; but her world is forever surrounded by many more women, who, through shared experiences, quietly support each other. 

Madeleine Albright once said: "There is a special place in hell for women who do not support other women," a provocative statement people debate. But there is no denying the importance of friendship in a woman's life. Hometown Women honors that enduring sisterhood. 

陈淑桦「都会女子代言人」的称号始于八十年代末，那时她连续发行了几张唱片讲述女人的愿望和体验。其中，1988年的《明天，还爱我吗》是最有个人意义的专辑，里面的歌曲大致是根据陈淑桦自己的体验写出来的。「本城女子」是这张专辑的最后一首歌。

「本城女子」由郑华娟作词，讲述一个单身女子在街上偶遇旧友。两个深感孤独的人于是走进咖啡店聊天，倾诉内心的疑惑和挣扎。

在歌进入副歌时，陈淑桦唱到：「啊，单身的女子，同住一个拥挤的城市。你是否像我，不知将心事向谁倾吐？」在她的歌声里你几乎可以感受孤独，也能体会她俩的友情。她接着唱：「每天过得都很仓促。。。我也不清楚, 擁有的是否叫做幸福。」她们随后互道珍重，分手后再次走入繁忙的城市。

也许是因为这首歌和爱情无关，或者是因为后来唱片绝版了，「本城女子」不是一首流传广泛的歌。但对那些细听歌词的听众来说，这首歌真切地描述了在女人生命中不可或缺的友情。她如果交了男友，她便多了一个伴侣；但女人的世界里总是容纳着许多别的女人，那些因为有共同体验而互相宽慰的朋友。

Madeleine Albright曾经说：“地狱里有个专门的地方给那些不帮助别的女人的女人。” 她的话太重，受了不少抨击。但不可否认的是友情对女人的意义。「本城女子」表述了那种姐妹般的友情。

Perhaps the most controversial song of Sarah Chen's is the highly popular Questions, first performed live during the 1992 China tour and later recorded in the studio in 1994. The song, composed by Jonathan Lee, became a major hit, winning awards decades after Chen's departure. So popular was it that it was adapted as the theme song for a Wuxia TV series. 

I first heard the song two years ago as the opening track of a "Best of Sarah Chen" compilation. It was oddly moving and disturbing at the same time. Yes, I liked her singing, as many did, as she begins with soul-searching questions: "Who moves you? Who pains you? Who occasionally makes you want to hold him in your arms?" It's unmistakably a love song, the type that sells well.

I could not, however, shakeoff the increasing discomfort as the narrative deepens: "If a woman always waits until late at night, giving her youth without regret, will he then be true to you? Should a woman never raise questions, she'd better remain forever innocent, for the man she loves?" And so it goes, the poor woman, falling deeply in love, entrapped, falling deeper and deeper. "Yet love is a woman's very soul. She is willing to devote her life, to the man she loves."

As the song gained viral popularity, critiques credited the songwriter with unmatched insight into women's inner world: "Nobody knows women better than him." Except that, 30 years later, the discomfort felt by one listener was ameliorated only by Sarah Chen's dignified voice. She sang the words with a pride so incongruent with the song, as if she had been singing "Woman in Love."

I almost nipped Sarah Chen Memory Gate in its bud over this song. （中文翻译稍候）

When Sarah Chen joined Rock Records on the China concert tour in August 1992, she had just released Sarah Chen's Taiwanese Songs after recovering from a long illness. China was an unfamiliar market for her, as her earlier work with EMI had been marketed in Southeast Asia. No longer working with EMI, Chen's concert repertoire was limited to her recent work with Rock Records. She ended up performing songs written exclusively by Jonathan Lee, who was also on the tour. 

According to tour accounts, Lee wrote Questions during the tour; Chen learned it and performed it live within days. Stranded in a foreign place, her options were limited. Refusing to perform the song might have damaged their relationship, even strained label relations at a precarious career moment. Besides, the song had already been written; someone was going to perform it. Why make herself a martyr to a cause she could not win?

On that August evening in Shanghai, dressed in purple and blue, Sarah Chen stepped onto the stage to the cheers of thousands. The atmosphere was festive, the audience electric, giving her an opening to contradict the lament and sadness embedded in the lyrics. She introduced the song with delight, performed it with pride, waved cheerfully during the interlude, and flashed her charming smile as she finished the flawless performance to thunderous applause. 

Chen gave not an ounce of self-pitying, hand-wringing, or heartache the song seemed to demand, only pride, as if she had just sung "Woman in Love." Her rendition was so contrary to the lyrics that later, sadder covers by Sandy Lam and others were received quite well. As one viewer commented on YouTube, "I think Sarah Chen's version is too dignified."

Yes, dignity. She needed it. And by rendering a dignified interpretation of the song, Chen set the standard for how it should be received, defending the dignity of the universalized woman so hopelessly entrapped within the song. （中文翻译稍候）

Unlike Teresa Teng, whose repertoire was generally more cheerful, Chen's songs were often emotionally heavier. She brought comfort, not joy, to people's lives; she eased pain.

At a 1991 interview with the New York Chinese American Voice, the host asked Sarah Chen: 

"You have sung songs of girls, songs of young women, and now songs of sophisticated urban women. We grew up with your songs and witnessed your own transformation from a girl to a woman. Which musical persona do you identify with? Who is Sarah Chen, really?"

By then, Sarah Chen had already received the honorary title of the "voice of urban women" through her music. But like many singers of her era, Chen did not write her own songs. She shaped the selection of materials, even influencing songwriting under the A&R model, but for the most part, she was constrained by industry norms and the ideas that songwriters introduced into her repertoire. 

The vast body of her work - over 420 songs spanning three decades - now holds a collective cultural memory of her era. They do not represent Sarah Chen's view alone, nor even the songwriters'. They reflect what songwriters believed audiences wanted. Fiercely independent, Sarah Chen would never have endorsed the confinement of women in Questions; nor would Jonathan Lee, who penned multiple songs about women's independence. But it was Lee's assessment that such a song would be popular. It was, even if it may not stand the test of time. 

Chen had no an easy answer to give the New York host. Much as actors portraying Superman are not themselves superman, Chen was not any single woman she portrayed in her songs. But that does not absolve her of responsibility for how she interpreted them. Unlike Teresa Teng, whose repertoire was generally more cheerful, Chen's songs were often emotionally heavier. She brought comfort, not joy, to people's lives; she eased pain. But what is considered comfortable or soothing? And for whom should Chen be singing?

In a 1993 interview with Shanghai TV, Chen expressed her wish to create Mandopop songs that, like certain English classics, would become timeless. Yet we are all products of our own culture and era, daughters of societies with shifting values and expectations. Having spent decades striving to make timeless music, Sarah Chen understood her task: no matter the culture, era, or social values, we remain a species seeking deep bonds with one another. As long as she could express that tender feeling, whether sisterhood or romantic love, her audience would find solace in her voice, even when the words themselves faltered. （中文翻译稍候）

中文翻译稍候