“如此生活三十年直到大廈崩塌”… Music and the 30th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Student Movement

2019 marks the 30 years anniversary of the Tiananmen democratic movement, and its bloody crackdown. These past 30 years had a huge impact on Chinese popular music, from the official crackdown on Beijing rock’n’roll community after 1989 to the recent disappearance of Cui Jian’s 崔健 songs from the internet, and the disturbing physical disappearance of the folk-rock singer Li Zhi 李志 these past few days. Official censorship is at its peak the days before the 30 year anniversary of the June 4th crackdown, it is no longer possible to comment videos on the streaming app Bilibili, some internet accounts are being closed down, and some people have to take forced holidays during the June 4th week.

Li Zhi was probably targeted because of the content of his songs, which make reference to the Tiananmen democratic movement, but also because of his recent legal troubles, the folk singer indeed sued the TV Show “The Coming One” (明日之子) for using his songs without his authorization. It goes without saying that his songs mentioning the 1989 student movement – which he now doesn’t sing during live performances – were the first targeted by the Chinese authorities. Two of his songs clearly mention 1989: “The Square” (广场), a reference to the Tiananmen Square and the June 4th crackdown; and “Goddess” (女神), which reminds of the Goddess of Democracy, a statue erected by the students of the Central Academy of Fine Arts on May 30th, 1989. The translation in English of these two songs comes from an article by the China Digital Time.

Where are you riding your scooter to? You’re gliding in happy circles They watch you and wish you the best I used to have a face like yours Now this square is my grave This song will be your dirge You’ll be taught to be a bad guy A heartless, lazy dick Please don’t trust his love Dawn still hasn’t come Please don’t believe he cares His pistol’s pointed at your chest Now this square is my grave This song will be your dirge You’ll be taught to be a bad guy A heartless, lazy animal Yesterday was like a dream Flew by like a shooting star I forgot about him I forgot what those two hands did I’ll never be so cocky again I’ll never love you like that again

Suddenly, one day, I woke up Outside, I saw a white cloud A low-slung train flew by And a leaf fell I feel everything growing up Everything growing old Everything, just like you Everything, just like me Everything is just a dream Those times are gone forever Kill him Stab him again Fire Killed him Finished him I still don’t believe it Still don’t believe it Killed him I forgot about his hands

I have a friend, she’s 21 Always wears a white windbreaker She lives behind a box A photo hangs there The people in the photo are inside the box Each morning, a red diaper rises from a phallus So she can’t see the people’s faces on the tombstones This friend of mine, She says she’s a treasure Why did Daddy leave her here? He says he’ll come back He says he’s waiting The blue ocean is quiet and distant She survives on the fresh blood of the past Waiting’s only brought a makeup-wearing hound A house sits to the west The spring brings applause The shameless adults disgust her

A house sits to the east The autumn brings laughter The ignorant children disgust her, too She’s in the corner, forgotten by the rich Her clothes dirtied by the flowing colors of time I have a friend Sometimes I go see her She never sees the color of the sky This photo under the sky Like the paper I use I love it, I hate it, I feel sorry for it Spectacular two-faced world uniting all living things Another dizzy spell and the blood on the ground will disappear The world is changing My fucking ideals still can’t come true The world is changing My fucking ideals still can’t come true My ideals are changing This fucking world still can’t come true

For the 30 year anniversary of Tiananmen, the Hong Kong post-rock band Tat Ming Pair 達明一派 paid his own tribute to the democratic movement with the beautiful song “Criminal Memory” (回憶有罪) which lashes out at Chinese censorship in this sumptuous music video. The video uses iconic photos of the 1989 crackdown, and finishes with an evocation of the Hong Kong Umbrella Revolution of 2014. Tat Ming Pair knows firsthand the mechanism of official censorship, since their songs were recently censored by Apple in its Chinese Apple Store, alongside other important figures of Cantopop music like Jackie Cheung.

舊日或問天 怎允許摧毀信念 浩蕩像為了 被懷念 現在別問他 可有膽公開紀念 被現實騎劫 怎怨天 如燭光都有罪 將暗黑多幾十年 如傷疤都有靈 未變臉 回憶即使有罪 真相怎麼敢無言 歷史假使有人 定被發現 現在若問他 可悔當天走太前 道路腐壞了 不敢涉險 現在若問我 怎會這麼想紀念 烈焰幻滅過 總有煙

如燭光都有罪 將暗黑多幾十年 如傷疤都有靈 未變臉 回憶即使有罪 真相怎麼敢無言 歷史假使有人 定被發現 皇天不必答辯 只怕蒼生肯忘言 后土不知冷熱 生滅無念 歷史只懂向前 輾轉反側三十年 如今滄桑少年 莫問蒼天 若舉傘 為誰命運祭奠 廣場上 這麼多告別 莫須有 是誰造就壯烈 願廣場上 聲音不會滅

Anthony Wong, the singer of Tat Ming Pair, sang “回憶有罪” during the Hong Kong vigil on June 4th, 2019 at Victoria Park, in front of 180.000 people.

Hong Kong singer Anthony Wong performs his new song – “Is it a Crime” – written on the eve of the 30th anniversary of June 4.

“I’ve never stood on this stage before… I’m not usually the kind of person that shout slogans,” Wong said. pic.twitter.com/DZmzaZlkiE— Hong Kong Free Press (@HongKongFP) June 4, 2019

Talking about Jacky Cheung (张学友), his famous song, written by Cantopop Godfather James Wong, “The Path of Man” (人间道), was removed from streaming apps in China. The song, featured in the Hong Kong movie A Chinese Ghost Story II, released in 1990, refers directly to the June 4th massacre, according to the late lyricist: “The youth are angry, heaven and earth are weeping… How did our land become a sea of blood? How did the path home become a path of no return?”.

Li Zhi and Tat Ming Pair were not the first to mention the 1989 student movement in their songs. Singers, mostly rockers, were mobilized in favor of the students, and often sang during the protests. It’s now a cliché to remind that Cui Jian’s song “一无所有” (“Nothing to my Name”) was the anthem of the students during the 1989 democratic movement. Cui Jian and He Yong performed in Tiananmen Square in 1989, as shown in this audio record of Cui Jian’s concert on May 20th 1989 in Tiananmen:

Apart from Cui Jian and He Yong, other rockers, from China or Taiwan, participated in the 1989 democratic movement. Hou Dejian 侯德健, a popular Taiwanese singer, was with the students up until the end, negotiating alongside Liu Xiaobo with the authorities the retreat of the students from the square. In this video taken in Hong Kong during a demonstration in favor of the Chinese students on May 27, 1989, Hou Dejian sang his hit-song “Heir of the Dragon” (“龙的传人”), written in 1978, which he modified after 1989 – he changed the lyrics “black eyes, black hair, yellow skin” after meeting the Uyghur student leader Wuer Kaixi, since being Chinese does not mean to be ethnically “Han”. Unfortunately for his symbolic posterity, Hou Dejian recently composed a song praising Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream”. As Chateaubriand (and de Gaulle) would say, “old age is a shipwreck”.

https://youtu.be/-btV6XWtFr8

During this demonstration in support of the Chinese student movement in Hong Kong, the very popular Taiwanese singer Deng Lijun (Teresa Teng 邓丽君) sang the famous song “My Home is in this Mountain” (家在山那边). At this time, Teresa Teng was a rock star in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Asia in general, to the extent that there was a popular saying in China up until the 1990s stating that “Old Deng [Xiaoping] rules by day, little Deng [Lijun] rules by night”:

The crackdown on the student movement came also with an increased control of popular music. For instance, Cui Jian was forbidden from performing in Beijing until 2007. However, 1990s musical production was influenced by the crackdown, in the music itself or through the despair in the lyrics. In Cui Jian’s “The Last Bullet” (“最后一枪”) we think of bullets being shot when we hear the drums, and see the distress of the singer in the video-clip directed by the (then) independent director Zhang Yuan 张元:

He Yong’s “Garbage Dump” (“垃圾场”) is perhaps the song that reflects the most accurately the post-Tiananmen state of mind. The proto-punk ask the audience if “there is still hope” (“有没有希望”) in a society where “humans eat conscience and shit ideology”:

What about the new generation of musicians who didn’t experienced the 1989 crackdown? Against all odds, since the late 1990s, punks and rockers made reference to the democratic movement and its crackdown – more or less clearly. The Wuhanese punk band SMZB is perhaps the most straightforward band when they talk about 1989. In its song “Mother TAM”, SMZB talks about the Tiananmen Mothers, an association led by Ding Zilin, which tries to establish what happened during the June 4th crackdown:

We can even say that the entire work of SMZB is dedicated to the history of the oppressed in contemporary China, from Lin Zhao to the petitioners, and more specifically to the memory of the 1989 students. We could list a lot of other songs, as “China Dream”, but the most obvious reference to Tiananmen is the cover of SMZB album “A Letter From China” which literally piss on censorship:

• 

• 

Other singers made reference to Tiananmen, like Muma (木马), from Changsha, in his poetic and melancholic song “舞步” (“Dance Step”) on “the death of a teacher in spring”. Here Muma is performing the song in the 46 Livehouse in Changsha (the name of the bar itself is a reference to June 4th), in the documentary “The Sound and the City” (“渔湾市”). “What comes next, it’s your decision”:

The band SUBS in their 2006 album “Down” sing “Brother”, a song talking about the brother of a friend who died and whose memory is being forgotten: “In 1989/I was ten/My friend was eleven/His brother disappeared/A film is shown every ten years/We have already grown to manhood now/He has forgotten…his brother”.

The post-punk band P.K.14 from Nanjing sang the most beautiful tribute to the students in “这辆红色的列车” (“This Red Train”). A red train carrying the blood of the youth (“年轻的血”):

Another poetic reference to Tiananmen can be heard in the last album of the post-punk band from Wuhan, AV Okubo (AV 大久保) produced by Andy Gill from Gang of Four (the English punk band, not the 四人帮). The iconic image of the tank is mobilized in “Red Tank” (红坦克), while the lyrics – again – revolves around youth and crushed hopes.

Burning flames of the young man’s heart Shines the fiery-red upon the face Feverish tears in the eyes Filled with hubris of the divine The confused and miserable Imagination Is shading inexorable and soundlessly into nowhere Fearless and ignorant minds Focus on the blurred image Vow with a shy blush like the vision from the crutch, rising a bright moon

Ambition never fluctuates dashed into the deep shadow-land Fireflies fly over nets of neurons flittering finding no way sun in the brain departs from his path and please take the count-down on its rapid expanding explode your brain! let the flakes flutter on

Remembering June 4th means also fighting for the truth, as Demerit sings in “Voice of the People”. When the government and the media try to hide the truth, “you need to find the truth, because there’s fear inside this place”:

Memory of the 1989 movement still exists in the musical underground, where it can be expressed through songs and images. Talking about images, here are some covers of the rock magazine “So Rock!” (“我爱摇滚乐”), which makes a reference to the Tiananmen crackdown in every June issue:

• 

• 

• 

• 

The title of this blog post (“如此生活三十年直到大廈崩塌”) is a reference to the song by the post-punk band from Shijiazhuang, Omnipotent Youth Society 万能青年旅店, “Kill the One from Shijiazhuang” (“杀死那个石家庄人”) – which literally means “living like that for 30 years, up until the building collapses”. The song, published in their first – and until now only – album in 2010, is not dedicated to the democratic movement, but offers a poetic and nihilistic reflection on China after years of economic reforms. As I rencently discovered, another song by Omnipotent Youth Society, “在这颗行星所有的酒馆” (In all the tavern of the earth) is a direct reference to the Tiananmen crackdown – you have to replace “酒馆” (tavern) by “广场” (square). It also talks about the spirit of the youth crushed by a tank. As you may expect, the song was recently banned in China. In any case, “Kill the One from Shijiazhuang” (“杀死那个石家庄人”) takes another meaning the year of the 30 years anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown…

万能青年旅店 “杀死那个石家庄人”   傍晚6点下班 换掉药厂的衣裳 妻子在熬粥 我去喝几瓶啤酒 如此生活30年 直到大厦崩塌 云层深处的黑暗啊 淹没心底的景观 在八角柜台 疯狂的人民商场 用一张假钞 买一把假枪 保卫她的生活 直到大厦崩塌 夜幕覆盖华北平原 忧伤浸透她的脸 河北师大附中 乒乓少年背向我 沉默的注视 无法离开的教室 生活在经验里 直到大厦崩塌 一万匹脱缰的马 在他脑海中奔跑 如此生活30年 直到大厦崩塌 云层深处的黑暗啊 淹没心底的景观

Omnipotent Youth Society “Kill the One from Shijiazhuang” Finishing work at 6 in the evening Taking off the uniform from the pharmaceutical factory His wife is making porridge I go and drink a few bottles of bier Living like that for 30 years Until the building collapses The thick obscurity of the clouds Is drowning the the view in my heart On the octagonal counter The craziness of the People’s market Using counterfeit money To buy a fake pistol Protecting her own life Until the building collapses Darkness covered the Hubei’s plain Her face is soaked with sadness In Heibei Normal Middle School The kids playing ping-pong facing away from me I silently observe Unable from leaving the classroom Living in these past experiences Until the building collapses 10.000 free horses Are running in his head Living like that for 30 years Until the building collapses The thick obscurity of the clouds Is drowning the the view in my heart

---

---