Remember that song by Celine Dion, “My Heart Will Go On”?  It was a top single following the release of Titanic, and hit its peak in 1998.   China, however, STILL LOVES IT.  And it’s played essentially everywhere.

Not like our “everywhere,” which might include say, a restaurant, bar or a private home.  In Chinese cities, Celine gets blasted in the supermarket, in a mall, every clothing store, on the street in front of a clothing store, and ON THE BUS.  New Yorkers would be livid if there was loud music playing during their morning commute.

This music immersion is most definitely not limited to American easy listening tunes of the late ’90s.  Pop songs from Taiwan, Hong Kong and increasingly from Mainland China are also played all over the place, reinforcing their popularity several times a day.  I involuntarily came to know a few of them very well.

The subject matter of these catchy little tunes was nearly ALL about love.  Not poignant or provocative investigations, but vague pop song notions of love.  And every person I talked to, (save for my counterculture skateboarding friends) either liked the songs, or didn’t mind them.

And that’s a lot of people.

As recently as 1966-1976, during the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao officially sanctioned only eight model plays, operas and ballets, (all of which held communist or revolutionary themes) to be performed in all of China.  Now, young urbanites are taking to the internet in full force, gobbling up music, fashion and celebrities from Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong, while politically, the regions are still locked in conflict.

China is changing at a breakneck speed, and I guess time will tell how taste in music develops along with it…

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 6:07 PM and is filed under Asia, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.