Ramblings on YAOGUN, Chinese rock music, by the author of Red Rock: The Long, Strange March of Chinese Rock & Roll
If it’s true what they say, that you’ve made it when the Wall Street Journal makes a
cartoon of you, then, well: Here I am. Almost six months in the making, my “five” favourite yaogun albums (there’s a bonus track) are up online, with the added bonus of a cartoonified yours truly.
(Nice boots!)
There has been a lot of talk of China’s soft-power muscle-flexing, with a Confucius Institute for every college, city and town in the world (and let us take a moment to marvel at the CI English website address: english.chinese.cn – and spanish.chinese.cn, or russian.chinese.cn). Even a quick look at the offerings of these Institutes reveals a China that barely resembles that which exists now: Acrobatics, the traditional comedic stylings of ‘cross-talk,’ kung-fu, ancient scroll paintings, traditional opera. I can sympathize, to a point: After all, it’s what people assume China has to offer. I’ll never forget that one jackass French viewer who, during industrial-rock act Tongue’s first French set, in Rennes back in 2004 (go 86/33 Link!), shouted, inexplicably, “Jackie Chan!” I was also asked, during one of Subs’ Nordic tours, if the band hung out much with the 5, 6, 7, 8’s, the Japanese band then in vogue, thanks to Quentin Tarantino and a guy named Bill.
But hard rock is starting to find its way into soft power. While Beijing-based Mongolian folk act Hanggai – who, I am ecstatic to once again announce, are coming not just to my hometown, Toronto, but to my danwei, or work unit, Harbourfront Centre, for our Planet IndigenUS festival in early August – have received governmental support for tours to North and South America.
The biggest governmental headbang thus far in yaogun’s history sees the Ministry of Culture sending three Chinese heavy metal bands to metal’s biggest event, the Wacken Open Air festival in Germany. The China Daily, for one, was happy about this latest trend.
I’ve written/griped about rock in Afghanistan before (my gripe not with the music there but the coverage thereof), but I couldn’t resist revisiting the topic when I discovered that China Central Television has deemed the subject worthy of inclusion on their spine-tinglingly amazing program Culture Express. People talk about hurling things at the television, but I’d never felt that urge until I tuned in to CCTV-9, the Central broadcaster’s English channel, home to such amazingness as Yang Rui, who achieved recent noteriaty for his anti-foreigner/Semitic rantings on air and -microblog but who, throughout his time as host of Dialogue, never ceased to amaze me with his smarmy, clueless and downright patronizing-despite-a-lack-of-knowledge-on-any-subject-upon-which-he-was-interviewing-on ways.
(Note, please, the completely objective use of the word “amazing” above: “Amazing,” in this context, refers to the astonishment that this stuff is on the air; not ‘good,’ necessarily, but astounding in the way that only Chinglish and slick-TV-with-Chinese-characteristics can be. CCTV-9 has the amazing capacity to simultaneously inspire [you couldn’t make this stuff up, it’s so amazing!] and inflame [this crap has to stop!] that part of me wonders if it’d be better for the network to go off air or to be beamed into more homes across the globe.)
The good people at ArtSpace China have just published a piece of mine on how China is seen. Please: check it out. Then: tell your friends. And their friends.
Fans of This American Life were treated to a bit of China this week, with an episode entitled “Americans in China.” With that in mind, I figured I’d drop a little piece of my own China experience; an article that the Globe and Mail published back in May of 2005. Literally every foreign musician playing in China will have similar stories.
This is one of those stories.
Continue reading “From the Vaults: The Foreign (Musical) Experience”