Every day millions of Taiwanese watch the "products" of Wang Wei-chung, eyes glued to the TV screen. If his shows don't make the audience burst with laughter, they move them to tears.

At the tender age of 26 Wang became Taiwan's youngest television producer, founding his own TV showbiz dynasty. Gin Star Entertainment, the production company Wang established in 1979, has become Taiwan's largest entertainment production and management company.

From comedies to variety shows to sitcoms, the whole range of emotions felt by Taiwan's TV generation have been splashed across the screen in hit programs written and directed by Wang. His "Chain of Bubbles," a comedy that aired in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the long-running quiz show "Guess" hosted by celebrity Jackie Wu, have been followed by other more recent productions, runaway successes even in China and other Chinese-speaking areas, such as the political satire "The Big Pressure Cooker," the variety show "Kang and Hsi Have Come," and the hugely successful pop idol contest "Super Star Avenue."

A Sociable Character

How did Wang grow into such a humorous character?

Wang grew up in a military dependents' village in Jiayi, in central Taiwan, one of the makeshift settlements that soldiers and their dependents from China built after fleeing to Taiwan at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Wang often claims that this community with its motley mix of people nurtured his soul and bred his trademark penchant for fun and laughter.

"From childhood on, I've always liked to hang out with people," Wang recalls, speaking with a deep, shifting voice and perfect pronunciation and intonation. His words are accompanied by large gestures that make him look serious yet affable.

As a boy Wang used to hang out with the mothers of the military dependents' village. Since the village residents had come from all over China he had an opportunity to pick up virtually every local Chinese dialect. But he also collected a treasure trove of life stories that he heard on his tours from house to house behind the village's bamboo fence. For Wang these stories of joy and sadness are like an ammunition depot that provides him with a never-ending supply of "bullets" for his hard-hitting humor.

Even if Wang today has become the "godfather" of TV showbiz, the first half of his life could be described with the lyrics of his favorite song, the golden oldie "Tearful Smile."

As a child Wang was keenly aware that he was living in a class society. In the military dependents' village, pilots were at the top of the social hierarchy, living in large single-family houses with gardens, while non-commissioned officers lived in shacks.

In school the children of pilots were assigned to the top-graded "A" class of their grade, and children of commissioned officers attended the "B" classes, while the offspring of non-commissioned officers were sent to the "C" classes. Wang's father was a sergeant who operated electric generators and drove cargo trucks. The family lived in a self-built illegal structure, and Wang attended a "C" class.

After passing the entrance exam for the journalism department of Chinese Culture University, Wang, the poor boy from the south, moved to Taipei, in his pockets NT$20,000 scraped together by the entire family. The night before his new student life began Wang walked around the university campus in the hills north of Taipei and was mesmerized by the glittering lights of the city below. He vowed to himself that he would try to make it big in Taipei so that "someday in the future all the people behind this myriad of twinkling lights at the foot of the mountain will know me." Even now, as Wang says these words, his heroic spirit seems to be as fiery as ever.

"Good heavens, what shall I do if I don't achieve anything – then I'll be a black sheep and won't be able to return," says Wang in recalling his insecurity when he was 18. More than 30 years later an enormous pressure to "bring honor to my ancestors" seems still to be weighing down the 50-year-old Wang like a giant rock.

Beginning as a college sophomore, Wang leapt at every opportunity for an internship at a television station. Once he spent four days and nights at the film studio without any sleep. When he finally stepped out of the TV station building and looked up, he saw the sun setting in Taipei. Overwhelmed, he sat down on the steps and broke into tears.

After Wang had just started to make TV programs, everything seemed to go smoothly until an influential TV host insisted that Wang be replaced with one of his relatives. All of a sudden Wang found himself out of work.

Turning Tragedy into Comedy

"Even if my heart's thumping in my chest, I will still bite the bullet and do it, because I want to prove that I can, that I know my stuff and I'm not a country bumpkin," Wang recalls thinking, describing the force that drove his efforts.

When Wang thinks of these episodes, he feels a tinge of sadness, but he has never allowed himself to nurture hatred. "The twists and turns in my life have eventually all turned into comedies," Wang declares with a smile. Wang attributes his optimistic nature to his growing up in a happy family. As a boy he liked to talk back, but the most his father would do was yell at him, "You Communist!" When Wang did not do well in an exam, his father did not know how to console him. When all else failed he would only meekly ask him, "What do you want to eat?"

In the TV business Wang built his core competitiveness through his ever-versatile creativity. But what has truly allowed him to set himself apart from his rivals is that throughout his life he has kept alive the sense of mission often associated with Taiwanese born in the 1950s.

Well-known producer Chan Jen-hsiung, who is twelve years younger than Wang and has worked with him for more than 10 years, recalls that when he entered the TV production business, Wang was the idol of everyone in the creative industry. Back then Wang sported a ponytail and assumed a cool bearing when he gave someone a dressing down. After starting to work with Wang, Chan discovered that in real life he was not as awesome as he appeared on TV. Yet he asserts, "Even though my idealized image had been shattered, you could still see that this ordinary man possessed a kind of greatness."

Chan observes that no matter how wild Wang's programs get, they still stick to certain moral values. "Loyalty, respect for one's parents, the classical four ethical principles and eight cardinal virtues are very important to him," Chan concludes.

When Wang produces a TV program he will definitely ask himself, "Why would the audience want to watch this?" At a time when the TV is flooded with programs that plagiarize, abuse people, use secretly filmed footage, or make participants touch repulsive things hidden inside "horror boxes," Wang makes programs that feel the pulse of society, such as "Taiwanese in China," which portrays the lives of China-based Taiwanese businessmen, or the children's English-learning program "Magic ABC," or the popular political talk show parody "The Big Pressure Cooker."

Wang also contends without hesitation that his programs still adhere to the traditional Confucian tenet, "The written word is meant to deliver a message."

Revisiting Long Lost Feelings

The most typical example is "Super Star Avenue," a talent contest for amateur singers that became a runaway hit in Taiwan last year.

Wang had observed that China was about to outdo Taiwan in terms of theatrical prowess. At the same time variety shows like "Super Girl," a Chinese national singing contest by Hunan Satellite Television, became highly popular in the overseas Chinese markets. So Wang racked his brain over how Taiwan could maintain its leading position in the Chinese-language TV entertainment sector.

When Chan approached him with plans for a talent contest program, Wang immediately defined its positioning: This program must hunt down the new generation of great talent in Taiwanese show business, so that Taiwanese parents could believe that entertainment was a viable career. He also demanded that the jurors be "strict yet caring."

"Super Star Avenue" became the most successful entertainment program in years. Wang realized that the audience saw more in the show than just young people singing – they were witnessing the contestants' personal stories and artistic development. Contest participants include youngsters born with a silver spoon in their mouth as well as children from single-parent families or orphans. "It's a true portrait of Taiwanese kids," Wang says. Through "Super Star Avenue" Wang wants to make young people understand that "failure is not so frightening."

Director Khan Lee, who invested in "Stars," a documentary that tracks the fortunes of "Super Star Avenue" contestants, believes that the show's huge success last year can be attributed to its ability to strike a common chord amid the constant strife between Taiwan's political parties. Lee thinks the pop idol contest brought people across the political spectrum back in touch with long lost feelings and created a new "common memory."

Were it not for Wang's sense of mission, "Super Star Avenue" probably wouldn't move people that much.

Vouching for Creativity

While Chan has established his own brand in Taiwanese showbiz, he is still willing to follow Wang all the way and has never thought about changing jobs, because Wang "is not afraid of the unknown." Amid fierce competition for viewership ratings, Wang will always stand on the side of creativity. "We can make the programs we want to make, even if we are penniless," Chan quotes him as saying. In Chan's eyes Wang is a boss who allows his staff to feel at ease and dare to dream.

Having posted so many records in the history of Taiwanese television, does Wang himself feel he is successful?

The eloquent Wang who usually speaks without hardly any pause finally falls silent for a short while. "Am I successful? I feel that I still have a lot of potential waiting to be developed," he responds.

From the close confines of a military dependents village to the vast world of television, Wang's infinite universe of images will continue to unfold on TV.

Translated from the Chinese by Susanne Ganz

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Chinese Version: 王偉忠　笑看悲劇做喜劇