I followed a music curation class in National Chengchi University during my time in Taiwan in order to recruit interviewees while also taking the opportunity to observe the students. In one lecture, a student made a presentation about his experiences at a festival held in both Taipei and Shanghai. In class, there was a discussion about the differences in the respective live music scenes and local music making. The lecturer asked the students how they could tell a ‘Mainland Chinese sound’ when listening to music. One student answered, ‘the accents in vocal music,’ while another said, ‘it sounds wider’.
To some extent this question relates to the research question this thesis has asked: How is Chineseness in popular music perceived by audiences from different backgrounds? To identify a particular sound that embodies a Mainland Chineseness is challenging and perhaps unrealistic, since any descriptors will fail to be precise. However, this process might be welcome practice for future music curators. For many interviewees, a ‘Mainland Chinese sound’ is something they experience through music, since many younger Taiwanese view having a Chinese identity as largely irrelevant compared to previous generations. As Stokes (1994) argues, music provides not only a sense of place but also boundaries that separate different locations. While a sense of place can be constructed and communicated, for some of
the Taiwanese audiences interviewed here, Chineseness will always signify someone else’s homeland.
Many interviewees see musical zhongguofeng as a way to explore China while also being aware of Chinese identities’ inherent multiplicity, which is particularly evident when they describe contemporary China’s regional and ethnic differences. Their thinking reflects what Rey Chow (1998a) has termed ‘Chineseness-es’, a concept that also problematises the relationship between Jay Chou and musical zhongguofeng. The interviewees named various musical acts whose songs can be described as zhongguofeng, which recalls JR Yang’s claim that zhongguofeng was not invented by Jay Chou. The songs the interviewees named are mostly known to them via the internet. Musical zhongguofeng, to the ear of some Taiwanese audiences, is not necessarily reflected by a well-crafted repertoire developed by mainstream music companies, rather they find it in the UGC (user-generated content) they can access on innumerable internet platforms. As Chapter 4 has indicated, the prosumers
(producers/consumers) of Ancient Wind (Gufeng) music create a different paradigm for how Chineseness in popular music is created and consumed:
There was a period of time I really, really, really loved zhongguofeng music, not only such music from Taiwan. When you were asking questions I thought of that time. I downloaded many zhongguofeng songs. Some by singers I knew; some I didn’t. Especially from the Mainland. (…) Have you heard of Gufeng music? Many of the singers are amateur, but a lot of songs sound quite professional and with a good sound quality (Penny).
When I listened to zhongguofeng music recently, I used online music platforms, such as Chinese Original Music Base (中國原創音樂基地). The song ‘Blue Flowers in Water Ink Painting’ (水墨青花) by Frequency Monster (音頻怪物), and another musician called Walker. Some songs will be on YouTube too. If earlier it will be Jay Chou, even earlier it might be Fei Yu-ching. (…) Because there are several regions in China, if you are thinking about Mongolia or Xinjiang, I would recommend Dao Lang (刀郎). (Andy)34
Fiske (1989) claims that popular culture is made by people who actively use and subvert cultural commodities. In this sense, how zhongguofeng encompasses a wide variety of
musical styles also confirms Firat and Venkatesh’s (1995) understanding that the postmodern consumer is not a unified subject, as consumers do not attempt to reconcile contradictions in order to create a unified experience, particularly given that contradictions are an existential condition (p.260). The experience and perception of zhongguofeng is never unified; the plurality of Chineseness is no longer just theoretical, but rather audible and experienced:
Ann35: When I watched YouTube videos, listening to the way they sing and reading
the lyrics on the screen, I can tell obviously that the singers are from China by the accents and the characters (which use simplified/traditional Chinese), because I do not listen to much independent or niche music. Like Ma Dee ( 頔), his songs are great, but I think it is harder to understand them on a cultural level. For instance, Song Dongye’s lyrics use phrases like ‘wild horses’ and ‘grassland’. When I heard these terms, I felt these differences were displayed and there was a boundary between the audience who understand this and myself. When I listen to Chinese music, I sense that I have never experienced this ‘one China’; therefore the more I think I’m Taiwanese, there’s a sense of division created by music.
Larry: I’m sure local Chinese people, let’s say if they grew up in Beijing, may not all
have seen wild horses and grassland the way the lyrics describe…
Stokes emphasises how music can perform a knowledge of a place. He also argues that music not only provides the means by which people recognise identities and places, it also
underlines the boundaries that separate them. While there is contextualised information about given songs or specific genres, music also actively articulates a knowledge of those places and the listeners’ relation to them (Stokes, 1994, pp. 3-5). In other words, music can offer a sense of belongingness, but also a sense of disengagement. Stokes also argues that music acts as a marker of social place while also transforming the latter, namely the ‘knowledge’ of one place or another being performed, thus knowledge plays a role in the definition and control of ‘others’. As Frith (1996) argues, identity is an ‘experiential process’ that can be grasped in music (p. 110). What is particularly crucial in the perceptions of China Wind music and the
Chineseness recognized in it, is that it also draws boundaries that separate places, through which an audience in Taiwan hears the sound of the other side, as well as the sound of the Other.
Family histories may influence the ways in which people engage with identity issues while signifying the complex essence of multifaceted identities. One interviewee, Calvin,36 revealed
this identity struggle associated with his family history. Calvin’s family, whose ancestors were members of the royal family in the Qing Dynasty, have been moving across continents since the Chinese civil wars. They had to flee from the Mainland when the CPC took control as the party was anti-feudal in principle. When the family came to Taiwan, the KMT also saw them as a potential threat because of their associations with a previous dynasty. They then went to the United States instead, but the family returned to Taiwan about fifteen years ago after this precarious situation was resolved. They have experienced different aspects of Chineseness along their journey:
I’ve spent all my life trying to figure out my own relationship with ‘China’ (…) My feelings have changed year by year (…) I will never forget that when my whole family went to China for ancestor worship, my grandfather stood in front of the Forbidden City and said ‘this could have been our home’. I thought it was a nonsense because I don’t feel any connection at all (…). (Calvin)