Kevin McGeary

    IN his poem about sitting in a bamboo grove, Tang Dynasty poet Wang Wei celebrated the spirituality of sitting alone playing the zither, making music for its own sake. This spirit has been revived by a diverse collection of singer-songwriters in Shenzhen.

    If you want to find interesting music in China, Shenzhen, a city known for business and high-tech industries, doesn’t seem the obvious choice. Intellectuals in Beijing, a city where the soundscape is as diverse at night as any other major world city, frequently mock Shenzhen’s lack of culture or heritage.

    But a diverse group of alternative musicians has come together to perform in Shenzhen, under the banner of “The Sound of Shenzhen,” songs they have written themselves, expressing the concerns of Shenzhen’s ordinary people: directionlessness, homesickness and ennui. In Chinese musical circles, it has long been assumed that, to get any public exposure and make money from their music, they must play 群众音乐 or “crowd-pleasing music.” Songs with difficult subject matter or unconventional melodies have long since been driven underground.

    Expats have long bemoaned the lack of an alternative music scene in China, including one blogger who mockingly said “Mando-pop (Mandarin pop music) is characterized by softness. No hard edges are exposed on which listeners may cut themselves by some independent thinking.” According to the lead singer of Shanghai-based rock group Three Yellow Chickens: “Because China emphasizes stability and harmony, the greatest utility of these pop songs is that they aren’t dangerous.”

    Officials have been known to express concern over potential contamination by non-mainstream music. At the end of the 17th National Congress of the CPC in 2007, an official with the Chinese Music Association denounced the “vulgar” pop music that was finding its way to China’s youth via the Internet.

    This is not an exclusively Chinese phenomenon. In Ancient Greece, the musical system was one of eight keys. Each key represented a different emotion. But Plato, when he was describing a harmonious society in his “The Republic,” wanted all keys — except for the type that relaxed the listener, and the type that stirred patriotic feelings — to be banned. Westerners who have had some level of success singing Chinese songs include Uwechue Emmanuel (郝歌) who specializes in conventional love songs that “relax” the listener, and Hong Laowai (红老外) who sings patriotic songs in praise of China and its government. This supports Plato’s theory of a harmonious society needing to censor its music.

    But the Internet has given artists with more thought-provoking lyrics about more difficult subject matter an opportunity to make their music heard. Female singer Liang Ying fuses rock and folk, and has a haunting voice, expressing emotions ranging from modern alienation to unfulfilled desire, a million miles from the feel-good mainstream. Zhong Bin, an accomplished guitarist, writes lyrics that often return to the theme of nature, and what modern society is losing by falling out of touch with its roots.

    A host of similarly talented and daring artists were on show in Futian District on April 30. This, in my opinion, is more significant than Bob Dylan coming to China in April, because this is an example of an alternative music scene coming from the grass roots, not from abroad. Although a lot of Chinese music is influenced by the West, the West being where the piano and the guitar come from, a legitimate musical movement can only come from the people. The grass roots expressing itself is a modern manifestation of what Wang Wei was writing about, and allows us a look into how a people dreams.

    (The author is a Shenzhen Daily senior copy editor and writer.)