cloud atlas screen shot

The Popular Music of China; Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Beijing – Part 5

Moving forward… let’s look at the fifth part of this exploration into contemporaneous Chinese music.

Let’s start here at this micro-video holding numerous songs. You will note that each song has a specific dance routine to it. This dance routine is so well associated with the music and the particular song, that you can actually do some of the dance moves and a Chinese person would know exactly what song you are thinking of.

Some will even sing out it to you.

Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.

Songs with dance moves…

In this next video, please keep that in mind, and if you get the opportunity, try it out with a Chinese friend. See if they know the song that you are referring to when your fingers walk on your arm.

Or perhaps when you lean back and make a Tarzan yell.

Next on the list is a great number that is associated with love, romance, and marriage. You will find many micro-videos in the TikTok application using this song along with a marriage theme. Sort of like this…

Love and Romance songs.

The Chinese, just everyone else in the world fall in love, get married, have children and build up a life as a family. This is a fact that is celebrated in music. Romantic love songs, specially songs that celebrate getting married, having children, and growing old together seems so strange to contemporaneous American ears.

Vintage ideas of dating.
Image from a magazine advertisement dated to the 1960’s. During that period of time, America was still conservative, and traditional ideas of dating and family were valued as important. That differs substantially from today’s gender-neutral reality, and the idea that there is no “head” of the household. Where everyone is equal, but no-one really is.

For today, in the new progressive liberal America, the thrust is for free-wanton sex with everyone, everywhere. It is a ideal that says that there are no genders, and that all the past…cultures and history were all a big mistake.

China, and the Chinese are on the other side of the coin. They believe in traditional relationships, love and marriage.

This all seems so strange to us from the West. Most especially for Americans. But, it need not be that way. In China, friendships are considered very valuable, and they cultivate them. (Which is one of the reasons why the drinking culture is so evident.) When the students go to school, they share dorm rooms of four to eight people and they end up doing everything together.

Chinese Friendships

When they get older, and work, they have group exercises in the morning before their shifts. These group exercises are actually dance routines. The very same dance routines that you will see in the micro-videos. This is true whether they are exercising as part of their school, exercising for their work, or exercising with the guang-cheng-wu-da-ma (dancing grandmothers) in the mornings or at the end of the day.

Everyone in China dances / exercise / sings to music.

In America, we sort of handle this differently. We will sing alone in our pickup trucks or in our cars. Or, if we are with our close friends, we would sing together. Indeed, many a time during my High School years, I would sing “Blinded by the Light” by Manford Man, or “Mr. Tambourine Man” by the Byrds.

Singing in the car.
Americans prefer to sing in the privacy of their automobiles. They prefer to sing in the privacy of the showers. They like to sing in churches and around campfires. Singing is a great thing, let me tell youse guys.

We sill sing in the showers where no one can see us. We might try dancing in secret, where no one can find us. This is something that has developed over the years. I personally attribute it to the automobile sub-culture that developed in the 1940’s and 1950’s. This caused a movement of Americans towards new and different social settings. Settings, mind you, that were not as close and not a nuanced as before.

American automobile.
America; the land of the automobile. People in America began to spend more time outside of the home when the access to the car became easier. In my mind, this in turn lead towards to a destruction of the family unit. With the time spent in front of the television set, the time spent at work, and the time devoted to daily commutes, there was precious little time for father-son bonding.

America is a nation of the “lone wolf” loners, which needs to change. We all need each other. Being alone is a terrible lie. Don’t fall for it.

Anyways, with this in mind, please check out this video.

In China, there are all sorts of sub-cultures and trends moving (or sloshing) back and forth. One of which is the “historical modelling”. In China they don’t have any of this nonsense of “cultural appropriation”. Heck, if you try to even suggest it, the police will come and lock you up to see what your malfunction is.

Historical Role-Play

Historical Chinese dress 1
Historical Chinese clothing that can be purchased in China. The Chinese love to purchase historical-period clothing and do role-play in the city squares and parks. Here, we have a female dress.

In China, the gals like to dress up in traditional Chinese clothes and walk about town. They go to restaurants with their friends, and have a great time. There are so many different kinds and styles of clothing as well.

You, the reader, need to recognize that China has a long, long history of many, many nations. Over time all these nations fought and conducted wars back and forth. Today, the single nation that we know as China was once a series of mini-nations that grew and collapsed over many thousands of years.

Historical Chinese dress 2
Here is some historical garb for the male role-players int he Chinese community. Note that this particular outfit has long sleeves. In China, the sleeves would be short and then long, depending on who ruled the individual nation where the person lived.

China has a long, long, LONG history with many, many, MANY cultures, kingdoms, and dynasties. They have many Chinese minorities, all of which have their own various clothing, and histories. So, the gals enjoy taking the time and being girls “playing dress-up” in public. And, us guys..well, we LOVE it.

Here is something along the roaring 1920’s in Shanghai…

Now, my personal favorite is the more traditional (and older) period dress. I love how airy it is and how well it flows and moves with the women who wear it.

Here is a perfect example. I honestly love the outfit and the young lass wearing it.

Young Lass dancing wearing a traditional Chinese period costume. This is more common than you would expect.

And, here is another gal. You can see that there are many styles, and fashions available to the Chinese lass. Of course, all of us guys truly enjoy seeing the beautiful women wearing these beautiful clothing.

That’s all a very different change compared to what you have in the Untied States. I find the music in China to be upbeat, positive and often soothing… at least the ones promoted most in popular cultures.

Contemporaneous American Culture

In comparison, I find the music promoted in American culture looks a little like this. Don’t get me wrong, they are all smiling and people are laughing. Though it seems like everyone is laughing AT the fat chicks waving those Volkswagen-sized asses about.

I don’t know about youse guys. It looks to me like the girls would be very happy to have a train of guys having non-stop sex with them, but they don’t look at all like marriage material. They are far too coarse and crude.

But, there you have it. Coarse and crude are exactly “rabbit-style” behaviors according to the r/K theory, and that is exactly what the USA is today.

Heck! And what is even sadder, that the culture is influencing everyone. From adults to the kids, and the babies. I wouldn’t be surprised to see grandparents acting this way, given the saturation of it in the media…

… soon our dear pets will start acting that way as well.

Let’s move on to the next part of this post…

Continued-graphic-arrow

If you want to go back to the start of this series, please go HERE.

Links about China

Dance Craze
End of the Day Potato
Dog Shit
Dancing Grandmothers
When the SJW movement took control of China
Family Meal
Freedom & Liberty in China
Ben Ming Nian
Beware the Expat
Business KTV
Fake Wine
Fat China
Chinese apartment houses
Chinese Culture Snapshots
Rural China
Chinese New Year

China and America Comparisons

SJW
Playground Comparisons
The Last Straw
Leaving the USA
Diversity Initatives
Democracy
Travel outside
10 Misconceptions about China
Top Ten Misconceptions

The Chinese Business KTV Experience

KTV1
KTV2
KTV3
KTV4
KTV5
KTV6
KTV7
KTV8
KTV9
KTV10
KTV11
KTV12
KTV13
KTV14
KTV15
KTV16
KTV17
KTV18
KTV19
KTV20

Learning About China

Pretty Girls 1
Pretty Girls 2
Pretty Girls 3
Pretty Girls 4
Pretty Girls 5

Articles & Links

  • You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
  • You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
  • You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
  • You can find out more about the author HERE.
  • If you have concerns or complaints, you can go HERE.
  • If you want to make a donation, you can go HERE.

(Visited 437 times, 1 visits today)