Cui Jian’s unique style of singing was a deviation from typical Chinese music. Being known as the father of rock, his music was eventually banned by the government since its message was obviously telling people to fight for what they believe in. Cui Jian’s actions are similar to those of the students during the Tiananmen Square protests. Just as Cui Jian was not liked by the government, the protesting students were also disliked by the government, and just as the government put a ban on Cui Jian’s music, the government tried to deal with the students at the protests, eventually even firing machine gun rounds at them and causing a death toll of over 7000 students.
Cui Jian’s music video of “A piece of red cloth” starts showing China’s transformation into modern western culture through the way the music video was presented. It began with Cui Jian singing while playing a guitar, something that many artists in western cultures have already been doing, and Cui Jian even played the saxophone later on. Both instruments have not been widely used in China up until that point. I noticed that while Cui Jian was being shown singing, the background consisted of fireworks, the Chinese flag, pictures of China’s capital Beijing, and citizens of China. This leads me to believe that this is China’s own version of a revolution, similar to America’s July 4 Independence Day when they broke off from Britain. It goes back to the fact that China is trying to break off from the old and come in with a more modern image, and the plethora of western influence China has been receiving since Deng Xiao Ping’s open door policy is utilized in this music video to try and show the people of China a more modern image. The images, along with Cui Jian being shown with a red blindfold over his eyes, also serve as a message to Chinese citizens telling them that they are also being blinded by what the government has been telling them and that they are missing out on opportunities that exist outside of China. It is telling citizens to embrace more foreign and/or western culture to see what they can achieve without being confined to just China.
Cui Jian’s song “Nothing to my name” was also the climax of his career, as clearly through his lyrics it shows Cui Jian’s passion for music and singing outside of typical traditional Chinese music, but rather rock music and other contemporary western music styles. Also, his lyrics mirror the efforts of the students at the protests at Tiananmen Square; both showing their respective passions for what they are fighting for. The students also adopted this song as their rallying cry during the protests because the song in its entirety showed the passion and the love the students were trying to display during the protests. Cui Jian described himself as a hero to the students and that they needed each other, giving the students something to believe in and to keep themselves motivated for their protests. As the song talks about a person trying his very best to woo a girl so that she would be with him, the students saw this and applied it to themselves, telling themselves that they need to try their hardest as well in order to succeed with the protests.
I feel that CuiJian's popularity grew from the need of young urban teenagers who desire to be updated with fashion movements and popularity from that time. Grasping to western music was a revolutionary reaction to the traditional ideologies that not only was part of China and its Communist mind. This reaction to authorities was also found in nations all around the world influenced by the carefree ideas of the United States which was, and still is, the source of fashion movements. Rock was a rebellious medium for angry teenagers that were hungry for change in their boring old life.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. We know that CuiJian's music was both a new and different phenomenon when it first came out. However, it is true that a lot of the teenagers were upset with the situation and wanted change. It may sound radical, but it might even be that CuiJian never intended for the songs to be political in the first place. He may have been writing a simple love song called "Nothing to my Name," but the audience interpreted it as strongly political. The audience may have just been instilling their own political viewpoints into his songs and using that as a method of alleviating their unrest.
ReplyDeleteThat is a very good comparison to the July 4th reference, due to the fact it was somewhat like a revolution among the people. However, this revolution was fueled by music, where Cui Jian used the weapon of music to motivate the masses to fight for their rights. Using rock music as a revolutionary tool was a great idea because no one ever knew of that music, just like how the revolution was such a radical ideal/term.
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