'Olive Tree' still guides the journey
Veteran singer finds her influential song continues to steer young artists toward a creative, internal purpose, Xing Wen reports.
On a recent evening in Beijing, veteran singer Chyi Yu stepped back onto the stage of the Beijing Exhibition Theater, marking her return after 16 quiet years, with her new Forever Splendor solo concert.
The moment carried a soft circle of fate, for her special guest that night was Wu Qingfeng — the very person who, 16 years earlier, had been only a disillusioned young man in the audience, who was trying to decide whether to continue singing at all.
His creative path felt foggy, his sense of purpose thinning, and he wondered if stepping back from music might spare him further pain.
The luminous words from Chyi's famous song, Olive Tree, cut through his uncertainty. They convinced him that surrendering to setbacks would only weaken his ability to care for the music, the craft and the people he loved. That sentence became his anchor, persuading him to keep singing, keep writing, keep searching — leading to this moment, when he finally stood beside her, no longer a restless listener in the dark but an artist steady in his own light.
"What makes being a singer so precious is that we never know which song, or even which single line, might change a life," Chyi reflects.
The singer from Taiwan, who debuted in 1979 with her album Olive, has held an unwavering belief in the power of sound to lift people through pain.
"Life is inevitably filled with hardships," she says.
"Through my music, even when it carries sadness or despair, I hope to guide people toward hope or at least a way out."
