Issues Under Tissues - Chinese Feminist Pop Songs

GOOD MORNING, FEMINISM & CHINESE POP SONGS!

Today, I would like to share with you some Chinese songs that convey feminist messages and implications. But before that, let’s have a look at what common themes do Chinese songs imply?

In Chinese songs, “love” is the universal theme everyone sings and listens to. To me, the romanticization of love in Chinese songs serves as a wall that prevents the majority of people from looking into other issues such as gender, racial, ethnic, class oppression and discrimination. Nevertheless, I do understand the importance of the “fantasy” and “escape-from-reality” elements embedded within those pop songs: they allow us to jump right into the fictional world and hence, forgetting our current problems.

Rather than focusing on the relaxing or therapeutic songs, I would note some popular Chinese pop songs that imply feminism in the following.

Released in 2019, this song “差不多姑娘” can be translated as “Miss So-So” or “Miss Similar” or “Miss Nearly” in English. As you can hear, every line consists of the word “差不多,” which criticizes the modern Eastern society that puts women into the gender box, restricting diversity among them in terms of beauty standards, desires, dreams, works, marriage, and so on. The spirit of the song lies in its ending, whereby the author claims that

差不多人生真的不該這麼過

Life really shouldn’t be lived this way

像我唱的那首歌

Like how I’m singing this song...in a so-so way

Released in 2015, this song is a gothic feminist interpretation of the patriarchal Eastern society from the past to the present. You can read the whole translated lyric here. Of course, if you don’t have much time, I have quoted some interesting parts for you. The song begins with pondering the gender discriminating term: “For what reason you started to call women “马子” (which means horses). “Don’t tell me it is horses that you wish to deliver you a son,” the author replies ironically. After one paragraph, the author shoots straightly toward the problem of gender inequality:

我笑得柔软心却比铁还钢

I smile softly but yet have a heart stronger than steel

世界男人称王女人却什么都扛

The world calls men the kings but yet it is the woman who is carrying all the burdens

The best part of the whole song lies in the author’s critique of “men in suits” as the breadwinners, following by a satirical laugh at the term “Long Life My Emperor” as absurd and absolutely ridiculous.

不要以为西装革履就是战袍

Don’t assume that a suit and tie is a suit of armor

不要以为浴帽围裙就是渺小

Don’t assume that a shower cap and apron is insignificant

信以为真连续剧里的那一套

If you believe this to be true what the TV dramas are made out of

皇上吉祥简直可笑

“Long Life My Emperor” – what a ridiculous term!

Released in 2018, this song is has a beautiful, metaphorical lyric that urges society to see sexual violence towards women as a form of power oppression that is rooted in patriarchy. The song begins by asking,

這是基因的遙控

Is this genetic control

還是支配的誘惑

Or power temptation

before referring to the fate of women as short-living flowers that are doomed to fall into decay once they bloomed

盛開之前流的註定是血

Before I bloom, I am destined to bleed

盛開之後難道只剩枯萎（Stop！）

But afterward is there only withering (Stop!)

黑土蓋住眼睜睜（Just stop！）

Eyes wide open in the soil (Just stop!)

活埋一雙沉甸甸　見證了權力邊界

Buried, oppressed, stayed alive, witnessed the boundaries of power

漫漫蔓延一種制約（Just stop！）

Can’t stop what’s starting to bind me (Just stop!)

Here, the bloomed flowers/women are suffocated by the dark soil, which symbolizes the invisible power and system of male domination in modern Eastern society. This invisible form of oppression is exhibited as the internet “mouse” in the music video: clicking into the female body, taking off her underwear, violating her body and self-integrity. And yet, she is silenced, and her scars are made invisible next to her fearful smile:

不能呼吸的冷漠

Cold as ice, unbearable

在恐懼下的沉默

Under fear I’m in silence

傷痕堆成了酒窩

Forging smiles out of my scars

Overall, sexual abuse toward women is not about desire or temptation. It is an expression of male-domination. We therefore should create a space to gather the voices of the victims. Together, we can burry back the dark soil and shine even brighter. You can read the whole lyric in English and Chinese here.

Released in 2019, this song calls attention to the abilities and strengths women can hold, pushing away the viewpoint that “only men can do that and women cannot.” Just like the tone of the music, the lyric is rather playful in the sense that it reverses the traditional roles between men and women, eventually tracing back to the title: I am a “gentlewoman.” Below are some quotes that imply feminism:

女人要像个女人

Women have to be like “women”

什么时代留下的老梗

What era is this idea from?

你也撒娇偶尔卖萌

You, a man, acts like a woman sometimes

难道不是男人

But aren’t you still a man?

The song further illustrates a genderless utopia, whereby a gender-free society is itself a balance and beautiful world: “最姿态美妙的平衡叫做男女不分”.

Speaking of feminism, I should also include the Taiwanese singer Jolin Tsai in my article. Even though I personally think that most of Jolin’s music videos are controversial in the sense that she on one hand suggests that women should be free of gender norms and male gaze while on the other hand what she shows to the audience is the figure of a commercialized woman: big eyes, big boobs, white skin, long legs with high heels, etc. Nevertheless, there is one music video which I think is well made.

Released in 2014, the song is inspired by Simon de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). The lyric of the song is rather abstract and thus it takes some time for the majority of people to understand the feminist meaning lies within it. You can view the full lyric with translation here.

Overall, the song attempts to show the hidden femininity men carry, indicating the fact that there is masculinity in women as there is femininity in men. In the end, one should not care to be “perfect,” a norm based on restriction. Let that one who is hiding inside you out; Let yourself be who you are:

不需要完美

No need for perfection

不需要防備

No need for defense

如果你不是你

If you were not you

那會是誰

Then who would that be

你會是誰

Who would you be?

Toward the end of the music video, the scene shifts from black-and-white to color when the male dancer receives clapping 👏 from Jolin. In the end, we all are interconnected in some ways. There’s a man inside me while a woman inside you.

That’s it for today’s article. I hope you have fun reading this. Don’t forget to bookmark my page if you like my work 🙂

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