{"id":15278,"date":"2020-12-07T09:00:50","date_gmt":"2020-12-07T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=15278"},"modified":"2020-12-03T19:26:39","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T23:26:39","slug":"rocking-out-in-china-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/rocking-out-in-china-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Rocking Out in China (Part One)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, a friend sent me an article titled “Why Does China Have 1.4 Billion People and No Good Bands<\/a>?” While it’s definitely an interesting question and a well-written article, I have to respectfully disagree with the premise. While I’ll admit that it’s not quite as cool as the scene up north in Mongolia, Chinese rock<\/strong> (\u4e2d\u56fd\u6447\u6eda zh\u014dng gu\u00f3 y\u00e1o g\u01d4n) deserves some credit. I’ve had plenty of fun nights rocking out in China and wanted to share a bit of Chinese rock music with you in a new series. Just be warned – this blog post goes to 11! We’ll kick things off today with a little history lesson.<\/p>\n

A Brief History of Chinese Rock<\/h2>\n

We actually don’t have to go back very far to get to the origins of rock music in China. During the Cultural Revolution<\/strong><\/a> (\u6587\u5316\u5927\u9769\u547d w\u00e9n hu\u00e0 d\u00e0 g\u00e9 m\u00ecng), there was definitely no rocking out allowed. It wasn’t until the Reform and Opening Up<\/strong> (\u6539\u9769\u5f00\u653e g\u01cei g\u00e9 k\u0101i f\u00e0ng) period under Deng Xiaoping that rock music started to trickle in.<\/p>\n

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I’m pretty sure this poster says “Chairman Mao does not approve of loud rock music.”
Image by Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library from flickr.com<\/p><\/div>\n

This new era in China’s history began in 1978, and the country had its first rock band the next year – a group of \u8001\u5916 who called themselves the Peking All-Stars. They managed to line up a gig at a university and were asked to turn it down after just one song.<\/p>\n

In a country that had been closed off to the rest of the world for so long, can you imagine the reaction the other students had to hearing the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones for the first time ever? What a gig to have been at!<\/p>\n

They had several gigs around the capital for a couple of years but went their separate ways in 1984. You can read a more in-depth version of their story from founding member Graham Earnshaw on his website<\/a>. In the story, he talks about meeting a local trumpet player and inviting him to jam with the band. They didn’t exactly vibe and he didn’t end up joining the band, but Cui Jian<\/strong> (\u5d14\u5065 cu\u012b ji\u00e0n) would go on to become the “godfather of Chinese rock” anyways.<\/p>\n