The similarities are eerie and undeniable. Both launched their careers by borrowing styles liberally from black musicians. Both played Vegas. Elvis is the King. Chou is known as a "small, heavenly King." Elvis transcended conventional musical boundaries, and Chou does too, boasting a strange power over fans' lives. Consider a story posted in an Internet chat room by a group of Taiwanese nurses who swear that Chou's music is the sole connection a comatose six-year-old patient has with the conscious world. "The only thing holding him up is Jay Chou," they write. "He'll respond to Jay's songs by trying to open his eyes or lifting his legs a little bit."
Of course, Chou can't fly (neither could Elvis), but his tunes sure get around. The Taiwanese singer doesn't speak anything but Mandarin, yet more than 200 websites—some based in such counterintuitive locales as Michigan and Australia—have been established by zealous fans. Foreigners give him awards: MTV Japan last May named him Best Asian Artist for 2002.
Even in Hong Kong, which has an oversupply of homegrown pop stars to worship, Chou is a phenomenon. In January the local television station TVB overlooked his citizenship and nominated him as Hong Kong's Most Popular Artist of 2002. Perhaps more tellingly, all 37,500 tickets for Chou's recent Hong Kong concert dates were snapped up in just 45 minutes—the fastest sellout for a Hong Kong tour ever. College-age girls who were waiting in line, upon hearing that all tickets were gone, burst into tears. "Jay is different from other Hong Kong artists, who just look good and wear beautiful things," says Joyce Ho, a 33-year-old assistant in a law office who refuses to buy music by anyone else. "I hear his songs and forget all unhappy things." Even Ho's four-year-old cousin can relate. He changed his English name from Christopher to Jay as a tribute. "He says he'll love Jay even after he dies," Ho says. See? Chou really is Elvis.
