Last Spring Break I found myself on a bus from Yangshouto Guilin. To entertain the passengers they were playing and endless stream of Chinese pop music videos. Yesterdday I saw more of them as I was travelling to Xinglong mountain to go hiking and still more on the way back. Many of them follow a curiously similar narrative that is strikingly obvious even in the total absence of understanding of the lyrics. It goes like this.
Boy meets girl.
Boy and girl fall in love.
Girl leaves boy.
Boy is heartbroken.
In the "boy is heartbroken" phase he will gaze moodily at photographs of happier times, hallucinate his girlfriend still walking around with him, stare at the ocean.
In the gloomier videos instead of leaving him the girl will die in a tragic accident and in the very gloomiest he will hurl himself from a cliff or swim out into the sea never to return.
In short Chinese pop videos are unrelentingly miserable. Just for once it would be nice to see something a bit more upbeat.
Hasn't happened yet though.
William Labov, RIP.
6 hours ago
