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Another important issue that constantly came up while examining how Chineseness is perceived by the music audience, concerned the flow of migration and people’s personal routes to and from various places. Hong Kong became a destination for migration from the Mainland after the Chinese civil war or, as Rey Chow (1992) has described it, a paradigm for Chinese urban life, and a city that has experienced Southeast Asian and South Asian

immigration in recent years. This globalisation, whether on a cultural or economic level, has had a significant impact on Hong Kong. What should be questioned and re-examined is not Chineseness alone, but all kinds of assumptions concerning cultural essentialism.

While the growing number of immigrants and tourists from the Mainland is regarded as a factor contributing to an escalation in the number of conflicts, transnational subjects have adopted various methods to cope with these frictions. These methods include choosing the appropriate language according to the occasion and the strategic use of different identities. Lilian studied in the Mainland for eight years since kindergarten while her parents were in Hong Kong, then she moved to Hong Kong itself. Stating that she did not like to reveal that she spent time in the Mainland before university, as students who have transferred from the Mainland are mocked and isolated, the stories she shared with me reveal different layers of identities, which is testament to a great level of uncertainty and negotiation, which is also an opportunity for a new type of discourse. Lilian said she defines herself as a Hong Konger due to the influence of her Hong Kong education. However, she has a stronger empathy with Mainland immigrants:

Researcher: Do you think there is any difference [concerning the level of conflict]

Lilian: Maybe the hatred is increasing… back then it was just mocking and

considering the Mainlanders as inferior to us; now it involves conflict and

confrontation: as if we do not welcome you here. Some locals think people who speak Putonghua (Mandarin) are everywhere and that shops only sell products to

Mainlanders, not to the locals, thereby jeopardising the economy. My boyfriend dislikes Mainlanders very much, he felt irritated when we went out to eat and overheard Mainland accents from the staff… I had an argument with him just last night.

The relationship between Hong Kong and the Mainland allows us some insight into the way in which the audience of one region sees and ‘others’ that of another region while imagining communities. The segmentations vary due to social and political reasons. According to Chua (2001), when economic China meets pop culture China, the different imaginations constantly challenge ‘cultural China’ as a unified group and go on to act as a force for subversion, in particular wrestling with Chineseness as framed by the authorities or the culture industries. For those audience members who claim to be a fan of Wang Leehom and who love Jay Chou’s song ‘Chrysanthemum Terrace’, such as Lilian, the experience of musical Chineseness may be utterly different than that of the Chineseness that impacts on their everyday lives. However, musical Chineseness could be experienced as more peaceful, less contradictory, in terms of how it helps the listeners to construct and modify their identities. As previously discussed, the musicians also often work across both Hong Kong and the mainland. Whether their music is labelled as Cantopop, Hong Kong music or East-West fusion music, these identifications demonstrate that associations with places can still provide points of reference, a sense of stability and forms of identity associated with specific types of music at a fractured time.

6.4 Conclusions

The musicians and music critics’ goal to bring about a ‘renaissance’ in Hong Kong’s music scene alongside the audience’s mixed feelings towards G.E.M. indicate the pull toward localisation. Nevertheless, artists such as Ng Yin, Hinry Lau, Denise Ho, and Joey Yung’s music highlights that this pull does not necessarily mean excluding any musical elements that

might sound ‘Chinese’. It is particularly important that we analyse perceptions of different kinds of Chineseness in Hong Kong based on the understanding of the recent China-Hong Kong conflict and the implications of the latter’s colonial history. Only then will be able to see the relevance of how popular music is employed as a technology of self (DeNora, 1999) moderating identities in these political contexts.

On the topic of Jay Chou’s China Wind style, many audience members in Hong Kong do not have such a strong bond with it, other than recognising its Chinese references while some consider it as innovative pop music-making. Overall, they have less identity involvement in such a style of music. Regarding Jay Chou as an artist, the Hong Kong interviewees firstly noted his popularity, namely how his songs were sung over and over again in karaoke events which – as ChiKin might phrase it – represents a certain kind of hegemony.

The G.E.M case study reflects a different form of hegemony, as her mainland Chineseness is political and economic but not necessarily equivalent to a musical Chineseness that can be identified in its composition, lyrics, or instrumentation. While Jay Chou’s hegemony has much more to do with music industry practices and the tastes of the general audience, G.E.M.’s hegemony was perceived as an actual threat to local culture and a reflection of the growing power of the mainland market. Jay Chou’s China Wind pop is ‘Chinese’ but it is non-confrontational, while he also took advantage of being perceived by the Hong Kong audience – generally speaking – as a Taiwanese singer. Meanwhile, G.E.M.’s image is too closely associated with the Chinese market, to the extent that a musical Chineseness is rather irrelevant in her case. The Hong Kong construction and perception of Mainland Chineseness can be identified as a result of industry practices rather than the derived from a given creative endeavour.