BEIJING, June 26 — The death of American singer Michael Jackson became top news on Chinese websites, with China’s largest portal website Sina.com devoting a web page to the “most remarkable singer ever”.
On Mjicn.com, Jackson’s Chinese official website, more than 27,000 postings were made in the hours after the news of his death was broken, reports China’s Xinhua news agency today.
Most fans expressed their disbelief, and some even doubted the reason given for his death.
“This is unbelievable,” said a netizen who called himself Single-Winged Angel. “I believe he was murdered. Some just wanted to stop him from making a comeback.”
Some of Jackson’s Chinese fans commented on his death, that he was a window that opened up Western culture for them three decades ago.
“He means much more than a pop star to me. My first knowledge about the Western music and society came from his songs,” said Liu Han, a 30-year-old programmer with a Beijing computer company.
“His influence on China is beyond the music, but also in the fields of the whole society,” said Wang Xiaofeng, a famed columnist with Sanlian Life Week Magazine.
“His death marks the end of an era – the collapse of the global music industry.”
Although Jackson has never been in China, he has more than once expressed his willingness to tour the world’s most populous country.
In March, a senior official with AEG Live, one of the world’s leading entertainment presenters, said China was Jackson’s most desired market and he wanted to tour China.
“He is a window through which the Chinese young people looked into the world a dozen years ago,” said Zhang Yiwu, a professor with Peking University.
“His ‘moon walk’, his long hair and his negative news, all of them influenced the whole generation,” he added.
Cui Jian, dubbed as China’s Michael Jackson declined to make immediate comments on Jackson’s death.
Jackson died at about 6.30am Beijing time today (5.30am, Malaysian time), after collapsing from a cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles. He was 50. His reputation had been tainted after accusations of child abuse. He was acquitted in 2005 of charges of child molestation, and of plotting to kidnap his young accuser.
Tencent, a popular website among young Chinese, ranked Jackson’s death the top story, even ahead of China’s Premier Wen Jiabao’s denial that the government was discriminating against foreign companies and products in its economic stimulus spending. – Bernama
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