Kiwis in the CD store

When I was at the CD/book/electronics store Fnac, I saw the new album of Hayley Westerna. She's now also in a vocal group called Celtic Women. There are TV ads of their new album recently. I guess Hayley is the best known NZ singer in Taiwan. You can find her albums in most CD stores.

I was surprised to spot another Kiwi in the CD store. Bic Runga's new album Birds, which I don't have yet. I thought Bic Runga is only known in NZ and a few English speaking countries like Australia and UK. I didn't know her album had been exported to Taiwan. What a pleasant surprise!

I like to compare Bic Runga in NZ as like A-mei in Taiwan. They are both singers of high profile in their countries; They've both promoted their music outside their country, which is usually difficult for NZ singers; They both have heritage of indigenous people. In Bic Runga's case, her father is Maori and her mother is Chinese according to this Wikipedia article.

I put the album back on the shelf that day. I'll buy it when I'm in NZ. Hopefully somebody else will see that album on the shelf and knows a bit about her.

I tried searching for other NZ music at Fnac, especially Zed, Nesian Mystik, Scribe and Brooke Fraser, but I didn't find any.

Talking about Bic Runga reminds me of 2 funny things.
First is my sister told me that her classmate from Australia once made a point that Australia is better than NZ because "we have Kylie Minogue, you only have Bic Runga" ;P
(By the way, we have Brooke Fraser now.)

Another one is when I was at uni, my British-New Zealander classmate saw my media player displayed that I was listening to the The Corrs. He was surprised that a Chinese guy listens to an Irish music group. I said I listen to English music as well as Chinese music. "I listen to NZ music like Zed and Bic Runga too." Then he said, "Because she's Asian."