Taiwan's rising star Joanna Wang Ruo-lin may have a mature singing voice but the 20-year-old thinks being an adult is no fun.
'Do I see myself as an adult? No, I don't,' says Wang, who is known for her husky singing voice.
'Honestly, I am not interested in having to deal with all these so-called 'adult responsibilities', I want to continue having the freedom to do things that are not associated with the word adult.'
One of her favourite tunes on her new album, Joanna & Wang Ruo-lin, is called Adult Crap, and it reflects this view. It is about a person with financial problems, but Wang denies that it has anything to do with Taiwanese current affairs such as the financial crisis or the legal proceedings against the island's disgraced former president, Chen Shui-bian.
'I wrote the song way before these things happened,' Wang says. 'I don't care about current issues. I don't watch the news that much.'
Despite her reluctance to be an adult, Wang (above) was given creative freedom over her second album, a double-CD set in which one of the discs, titled The Adult Storybook, featured 10 songs in English. She says her first album was too mainstream and too commercial but is pleased with her current offering: 'I think this album represents me more.'
The second album, like the first, was produced by her Mando-pop producer father, Bing Wang Zhi-ping, 'but this time we didn't argue as much', she says. 'He pretty much didn't interfere with the whole process of The Adult Storybook, but we did have disagreements on my previous album. There were certain songs I didn't want to sing but he would say, 'You should and you have to.' And somehow I did them for him because I am a coward, an angry coward.' But Wang says no one is better qualified than her father to produce her albums. 'Not only is he a talented and sensible musician, he is so well-versed in the business and music production,' she says.