Utterly Unbelievable - Against All Odds

I don't know if this is true but it seems like the limited release Mandarin album of our "favourite" Matsuda Seiko has made its debut at No. 1 on the Taiwanese pop charts. It was just reported on Yahoo news today:

聖子、台湾で1位！　限定アルバム初登場で

It sounds like a joke - even the name of the album and the cover - "I’ll fall in love - 愛的禮物 -", but it looks like the Taiwanese have lost their minds and their hearing, but acquired a wicked sense of humour. Firstly, for those who don't know, 愛的禮物 is the name of a very old Chinese song in the 70's, which you cringe when you hear it, and to think that she used that name, and then the silly cover. Her Chinese pronunication is also poor (according to the Chinese media reports), which is why it is surprising that it would reach No. 1, making her the first Japanese singer to make this achievement.

I will have to look at the Chinese newspaper websites to confirm if this is true because I read a Japanese weekly that commented that her concert in Taiwan was a huge success, which wasn't true. It was only 60% filled and the scalpers had to sell their tickets at half the price, so the Japanese do like to hype up their achievements sometimes.

Nonetheless, some of us were going to get the album to laugh at how bad her Mandarin is, and considering the song selection: 「I’ll fall in love」「赤いスイートピー（火紅色的香豌豆）」「夏の扉（夏天的門外）」「瑠璃色の地球（湛藍色的地球）」, I was going to laugh hardest on "夏の扉" . Maybe that's what the Taiwanese were doing! If I was in Taiwan, I might buy it for the Japanese versions, but to think it made No.1, it has seriously impacted on my perception of the taste of the Taiwanese public. I guess if I look at their music charts sometimes, I can understand this anomaly, but this is indeed rather groundbreaking, and heartbreaking for my friends, Shige and Eugin who hate her.