Renowned 83-year-old Taiwanese musician Liu Jiachang passed away from cancer on the 2nd of December. On the 4th, author Qiong Yao was found to have died by suicide in her home in Beitanshui at the age of 86. The consecutive deaths of these two literary giants have left people mourning. The two had collaborated on many songs in the past, including Qiong Yao’s tribute to her late husband, Ping Xintao, titled “Better to Return Home,” with lyrics by Qiong Yao and music by Liu Jiachang.
Qiong Yao, who moved to Danshui two years ago, had shared her thoughts on Facebook on the 27th of November, reminiscing about her husband Ping Xintao who passed away in 2019. In her poem “In Memory of My Late Husband,” she wrote, “Better to return home, countless past events now hard to recall; countless grudges have faded away with the wind; two worlds, how much infatuation, how many years of separation yearning to express our love. Perhaps we’ll meet again in this world and the next; listen to the cuckoo bird softly singing in the woods. Better to return home, better to return home, oh, better to return home.”
Through the song “Better to Return Home” (the theme song of the TV drama “Deep Courtyard”), Qiong Yao expressed her emotions and continued to miss her late husband. Besides being a romance novelist, screenwriter, film and TV producer, she was also a lyricist for Mandarin songs. Apart from “Better to Return Home,” other classic songs she co-created with musician Liu Jiachang include “Deep Courtyard,” “A Curtain of Misty Dreams,” and “A String of Hearts.”
Liu Jiachang was not only a lyricist and composer but also active in the Chinese entertainment industry in the 1970s and 1980s as a film director, actor, and singer. He mentored stars such as Liu Wen Zheng, You Ya, Feng Feifei, Jenny Tseng, Brigitte Lin, Fei Yu-ching, Huang Yingying, and Teresa Teng. Interestingly, Liu Jiachang’s first work when he debuted was the eponymous song for Qiong Yao’s film “Full Moon at West Chamber.”
In a coincidence, the last post on Qiong Yao’s Facebook with the song “Better to Return Home” was composed by Liu Jiachang, who was confirmed to have passed away from cancer on the 2nd of this month.