A New Dimension of Chinese National Identity: An Emerging Live House Culture in China

Image Credit: Katherine Pellegrino

王新语 (Cindy Wang)

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Every night, nearly a hundred music lovers huddle together and shake to the rhythm of the bands. In a secluded and tiny live house in downtown Shanghai, these independent young artists wear Hanfu, the national costume of Han people, and use traditional props such as folding fans, which contrast sharply with the highly modernized night view of the cosmopolis. The lyrics of the songs have very strong regional characteristics; they reflect local history and incorporate words and phrases from local dialects such as momozi 沫沫子,“procrastinator” in Lanzhou dialect. These heartfelt attachments to the native culture are, in fact, expressions of indignation and criticism of the cultural globalization. In response to this irresistible trend of globalization, rather than passively adapting to foreign cultures, live house artists and their followers have formed a unique culture in which a new dimension of Chinese national identity is coming into being.

After almost four decades of China’s reform and opening up, Chinese culture has gradually moved away from blindly absorbing foreign cultures to reconstructing its own cultural space as a part of global culture; it is becoming increasingly influential in shaping global trends. Although it seems that Chinese culture, in order to expand its territory, is undergoing a process of reinventing itself to be more international, open, and inclusive, the reality is not a one-sided adaptation but rather a negotiation between global and native culture. This negotiation is best reflected by the emerging live house culture in China, which utilizes global marketing strategies to let the world rediscover the vitality of China’s age-old culture. Behind the adoration of Chinese civilization is, however, a sense of insecurity about losing the nation’s roots in its culture. To cope with such an identity crisis, pioneers of the live house culture in China are experiencing a process of concretizing Chinese national identity in which they intensify and reassert the notion of being Chinese.

To defend and strengthen Chinese national identity, live house culture constructs a new conception of being Chinese that is free from the restriction of nationality and ethnicity. Chinese national identity can be read in different dimensions. One is as the identity of the People’s Republic of China, the political foundation on which Chinese nationalism and the “Chinese dream” has been built (He 55-57). This interpretation is closely associated with China’s “century of humiliation” and its rise to great power status in today’s international arena. According to scholar Honghua Men, another approach to defining Chinese national identity is based on ethno-cultural identity, as national identity is essentially a consensus on a specific system of values that is deeply rooted in a nation’s history and culture (190).

Extending beyond these two visions of Chinese national identity, the new live house culture conceptualizes and simplifies Chinese national identity in symbolic cultural, historical, and religious elements. One example is the lyrics from a folk song called “兰州 兰州” (“Lanzhou Lanzhou”) performed by 低苦艾 (Low Wormwood), a band from Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province: “兰州～淌不完的黄河水向东流／兰州～东的尽头是海的入口。”(“Lanzhou, the endless Yellow River runs to the east/ Lanzhou, the end of the east is the entrance into the sea”) (line 11-12). These lyrics express connection to the city Lanzhou and resonance with Chinese national identity because the Yellow River is China’s mother river and the cradle of Chinese civilization. This song turns Lanzhou and the Yellow River into symbolic images of one’s love for this nation, which is powerful in terms of recalling people’s national identity. Another example is Sun Wukong (also known as the Monkey King), one of the main characters in a 16th century Chinese classical novel The Journey to the West. Over time, Sun Wukong developed into an icon of loyalty, love, courage, and resistance. The figure of the Monkey King is loved by many music lovers who are fond of live house culture because they think this character can best represent their attitudes toward music as well as life. The positive qualities of this mythological figure are a part of Chinese identity. In this way, both Chinese and foreigners who are fascinated by this culture can express their Chinese national identities by simply wearing a T-shirt with the figure of Wukong on it. Similarly, one without much knowledge of Chinese culture can display one’s self-identification as Chinese or craze for Chinese culture by wearing Hanfu or tattooing Chinese characters on one’s body. These practices of concretizing and simplifying Chinese national identity make it easy and straightforward for people, despite their nationalities and ethnicities, to express their affinity for “Chineseness.”

Such illustration and expression of the Chinese national identity is not a product of an isolated development of the notion per se but a result of the global and local conflict in the course of globalization. Anna Katrina Gutierrez, a researcher on the concept of glocalization, argues that there exists a “glocal heterotopia” in which “the threat of global homogenization and the fear of local isolation seek resolution through the establishment of a middle ground” (20). This claim suggests that globalization is a two-way communication in which global and local spheres agree, disagree, and compromise with one another. Although Gutierrez provides insights into this phenomenon of “glocal” by arguing that glocal areas raise the possibility of possessing “multiple identities” or “multiple dimensions to national identity,” she does not address how those new dimensions of national identity have intensified the original national identity (23). In this case, the seemingly rebellious practices of the live house artists keeping to tradition and resisting cultural assimilation are, in fact, an outcome of mixed emotions composed of feeling tired of cultural homogenization and numbness in cultural interchange. For instance, 布衣乐队 (Buyi Band), a band that has been active for more than twenty years in the live house community, produced the song “羊肉面” (“Lamb Noodles”), which praises the Chinese concept of home and maternal love through telling a story about lamb noodles, one of the most popular snacks in China:

幸福究竟是什么                                          (What on earth is happiness

妈妈最幸福的就是看你吃                          For me, the happiest thing is to watch the

的样子                                                              way you eat, my son                                         

你回家吧 困难的时候                                 Go home when you are in trouble

回家妈妈给你做最喜欢                              When you come home, Mom will cook you

的呀                                                                    your favorite

你回家吧 困难的时候                                 Go home when you are in trouble

回家妈妈给你做你最喜欢                          When you come home, Mom will cook you

的呀                                                                            your favorite

羊肉面。(9-15)                                            Lamb noodles.) (9-15)

This song demonstrates what it means to be happy for an ordinary family in China, which reasserts Chinese traditional ideology and, at the same time, implies a disapproval of the outside world where there are chain stores of American fast food but no authentic lamb noodles.

This pride in local flavor implies an anxiety over and distaste for cultural homogenization perpetuated by standardization in the progress of globalization. As Douglas Blum, a professor and expert specializing in globalization, reveals, “[B]eing modern per se is also a palpable wish, one which in part reflects the internalization of a new, materialistic standard of ‘civilization’” (78). By applying Blum’s claim to today’s cultural development, it becomes clear that cultural homogenization is one prominent form of standardization, but people’s appetites for global culture also reflect psychological internationalizations of a standardized culture. In fact, some would argue that since live houses originated in Japan, this new live house culture in China precisely confirms the charge that Chinese national identity has been homogenized by the global culture. Although this claim seems plausible because there are indeed many foreign bands who have performed or will perform in these live houses, I would argue that this is just one example of how the emerging live house culture in China utilizes the opportunities and benefits of globalization to reinforce and promote Chinese national identity. Instead of getting lost in multiple dimensions of national identity, the live house culture in China returns to the bedrock of Chinese cultural elements, searches for salvation in tradition, and further sets a new trend of chinoiserie. By using lyrics with strong regional characteristics such as Lanzhou, the Yellow River, and lamb noodles, these live house artists convert Western musical genres into Chinese style.

This process of reconstructing Chinese national identity is not about simply denying all the newly-added dimensions of national identity and standing against the trend of globalization; it is a process of returning to the authentic by negotiating the global and local and then making globalization work for national interest. Introducing foreign bands is a form of marketing to attract foreign and Chinese music lovers in the first place. These live houses have special official websites in English only, as well as Facebook websites. By seizing the opportunities provided by globalization and with the help of marketing, foreigners have become a large proportion of the regular live house customers and are exposed to and influenced by the local culture. The increasing number of followers enables Chinese culture to play a larger role in the progress of globalization.

A new dimension of Chinese national identity is developing through the live house culture in China. Such practices of conceptualizing and simplifying markers of Chinese national identity not only reassert identity among Chinese people but also make it easier to blend with global culture. Moreover, Chinese national identity has been enriched by the “glocal heterotopia,” which has caused great impact on the local culture by adding new dimensions of national identity. Even more importantly, glocalization has highlighted and intensified the original dimensions of Chinese national identity. Instead of seeing globalization as a threat to the native culture, this emerging live house culture employs it as a marketing approach to promote Chinese national identity. By reconstructing Chinese national identity on one hand and utilizing the global market on the other, Chinese culture is able to better cope with the trend of globalization and leaves its own mark on the world course.

Works Cited

Blum, Douglas W. “The Discourse of Globalization and Youth Culture.” National Identity and Globalization: Youth, State, and Society in Post-Soviet Eurasia. Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 74-104.

Buyi Band 布衣乐队. “Lamb Noodles” 羊肉面. Translated by Cindy Wang. So Long, Pocket Records, 2007.

Gutierrez, Anna Katrina. “Metamorphosis: The Emergence of Glocal Subjectivities in the Blend of Global, Local, East and West.” Subjectivity in Asian Children’s Literature and Film: Global Theories and Implications. Ed. John Stephens. Routledge, 2012, pp. 19-42.

He, Lichao. “Ready to Become a Great Power? The Recent Nationalist Movement and China’s Evolving National Identity.” Journal of International and Area Studies, vol. 16, no. 2, 2009, pp. 53-70.

Low Wormwood 低苦艾. “Lanzhou, Lanzhou” 兰州 兰州. Translated by Cindy Wang. Lanzhou, Lanzhou, Maybe Mars Records, 2011.

Men, Honghua. “China’s National Identity in Transition: Domestic and International Perspectives (1982-2012).” Social Sciences in China, vol. 35, no. 2, 2014, pp. 189-207.