Western music was first introduced into China during the 7th Century AD, but its influence was limited and lasted for only a short-period, in isolated groups (Gong, 2008, p. 39).43 However, in the middle of the 19th Century, Western music was again introduced into China by missionaries, and spread to many sectors of the general population (ibid, p. 40). Jazz was very popular in the late 1920s and early 30s, particularly in Shanghai, as were the 时代曲 ‘music of the times’ created by Li Jinhui 黎锦晖 and others, which were ‘hybrids of jazz, Hollywood film songs and Broadway musicals, modern Chinese school songs, and popular urban ballads of the entertainment quarters (ibid, p. 64, citing Wong, ‘The Music of China’, p. 70). It is highly likely that some songs, if sung for a mixed audience which included English speakers, would have been sung entirely or partly in English.
After 1949, although Western music, particularly classical music and tunes, were highly influential, and some were used for propaganda purposes, English language music was often attacked in anti-capitalist or anti-bourgeois
campaigns (Gong, 2008, p. 65). As such, English language music, and
43 The information in this paragraph is from Gong, 2008, who discusses the influence of Western music in
codeswitched music, which had English within it, was not prevalent until the opening up of China in the late 1970s.
In music, it was from the late 1970s that those in the mainland were exposed to the modern music of Hong Kong and Taiwan, called Gang-Tai44 music, albeit illegally at first (Baranovitch, 2003, p. 10). This was connected to the fact that with the opening up policy came new audio technology, such as the
introduction of personal cassette tape recorders in the late 1970s (Gold, 1993, p. 916),45 which meant that a lot of secretly ‘dubbed’ music from Hong Kong and Taiwan spread illegally, ‘under the radar’, as it were (Gold, ibid.; Brace, 1991, p. 45).
This music, arriving from Hong Kong and Taiwan, was very popular among the population, due to the novelty of the music, due to the singing styles, but also due to the relaxed personal nature of the music and the fact that such music stemmed from a Chinese cultural background (Gold, ibid.). In fact, many of the pioneers of the Hong Kong music industry were actually
44 Ogawa (2004, p. 175) draws attention to the problematic term of 港台 g2ngt1i, a Chinese term which
stands for Hong Kong and Taiwan together, and implies that these two places have an almost identical culture. I use the term here for convenience, but do not wish to assert that Hong Kong and Taiwan are the same cultural entity, only that they share a certain Chinese cultural background.
originally from Shanghai (Ogawa, 2004, p. 145).46 It is likely that there was an influence from English at this time in the music, since Hong Kong speakers regularly codeswitched between Cantonese and English. There was also in addition undoubtedly Western music, such as the Carpenters and the Beatles, coming into China at this time, but often illegally and underground. Pop music from Hong Kong and Taiwan has been popular in China since the late 1970s (Brace, 1991, p. 47).
Since the late 1980s there were a number of Chinese songs that began to use English.47 It is possible that the first codeswitching songs containing English on the mainland in that period were rock songs, for English was symbolic to many people of modernisation and it was possible to express some things in English that, politically or due to the taboos in Chinese society, one could not do in Chinese. Huot (2000, p. 178) mentions that English was often used in the rock music of the 90s. The singer Wei Hua 蔚华, a Beijinger and
former announcer on CCTV, released two songs sung entirely in English, called Honey, and Visa in her album Modernity. This use of English for her at the time was a form of codeswitching which allowed her to ignore the
46 According to Ogawa (2004, p. 145), what is now Hong Kong EMI was originally a company started by a
British merchant in Shanghai during the 1930s, which moved to Hong Kong from Shanghai in 1952.
47 Xu (2007) in the appendix to his study lists six codeswitching songs from the years 1987- 89 in his corpus.
accepted taboos for women and assert her own identity (Huot, ibid.), a usage seen in the use of English by young Chinese people on the internet today.
One of the most famous early instances of codeswitching in song was however the song that was the title theme for a television series Beijingers in New York (Zheng and Feng, 1993), a CE song called 千万次的问 Time and time
again,48 which was sung by the popstar Liu Huan 刘欢(Huot, ibid, p.61). This soundtrack, though perhaps not the first instance of CE codeswitching in music on the mainland, was nevertheless one of the most popular instances.
In the South, in Shanghai, rock music has never really gained a foothold (Baranovich, 2003, p. 43). The music of the closer Hong Kong and Taiwan has always been more influential in this city, particularly music from Taiwan, as evidence suggests that Taiwan has now become the centre of Mandarin- Chinese music production (Chua, 2004, p. 204, 208). Though the earliest popular CE codeswitching songs present on the mainland do not seem to have been from Hong Kong or Taiwan, the recent influx of popular codeswitching music is largely an overseas Chinese influence.
An interest in CS songs today is also connected with the popularity of English language songs and media in Shanghai. As Shanghai is constantly celebrating
its historical ties with Jazz and other Western music as one important aspect of its character as a city (as can be seen in the Jazz bands that play near the Bund today), an interest in Western music, or music with some degree of Western influence (or English language content) is hardly unnatural. Moreover, since English music is likely to have been performed in the 1920s and 30s in the city, to some extent the youth of the city’s present interest in English, English music and CE songs is an attempt to revitalize the past musical traditions of the city as well as an attempt to keep in touch with the music of the rest of the world. Gold (1993, p. 909) has remarked that the spread of Hong Kong and Taiwanese culture on the mainland could represent some kind of a return to old Shanghai with its thriving cultural industry due to the influence of Chinese Diaspora communities.