One Day in May…

I’m not dead, just moving cross country. But the internet guy comes tomorrow, most of the boxes are cleared away, and there’s a lot of Mandopop news. For example, Mayday debuted a new song called “OAOA” at the Taichung concert. Now, for the time being, my internet comes to me via my local coffee shop, so I haven’t heard it yet. I do admit that I didn’t much care for either “DNA” or “Audacity” from this concert tour, so I’m apprehensive. But what if it’s great?

Meanwhile, Ashin was a special guest at a Show Luo concert, and called his dancing to the song “Dancing Diva” (which is a Jolin song, right?) “really girly.” Given Show’s recent concert wardrobe, though, it’s hard to know if that’s a compliment, a criticism, or just an observation. Speculation is on that Jolin will join Show at his concert in Chengdu, which might make the song seem less girly or just the right amount of girlishness.

Guanyou is skating a fine line in the meantime, on the one hand being the model to promote his wife’s clothing line “Drumming Fan,” but on the other hand, suggesting that he pose with a topless model. Who is apparently not his wife. As it turned out, though, Guanyou channeled Ashin through the photo shoot and got all awkward and embarrassed about it. (Though it is just me, or is there a double entendre in the last paragraph of that article? Maybe it just translates badly… or I’m just taking it places it shouldn’t be going!)

Beyond the big Taichung 3D filming concert extravaganza, Mayday was also out with some big names – 1976, 13 Band, Won Fu, Tizzy Bac, Cosmos People, etc. for a 6 hour show at the Taipei stadium. It sounds like a blast; I’ve only read promotions for it, though, so I’ll have to see if there was news about anything fun happening at the show itself. (Side note: have flip-flops always been “人字拖”? Weren’t they just “拖鞋” until they became this ridiculously huge international phenomenon in stylish footwear and not just cheap slipper-like things to cover the soles of ones feet? I’m just remembering that eight years ago I couldn’t go into the Chiang Kai-shek memorial building in Taipei because I was wearing disrespectful flip-flops, and now I’m curious if that has changed with the terminology.)

Anywho, that’s the quick and dirty, and once I’m back online for real, I’ll be updating again from Eastern Standard Time.

…they’re baaaack….

Oh, Ashin, how you break my heart. And while I know I should be thankful that you are wearing an actual jacket (even a tux jacket with tails) and not simply one that has been printed on a StayReal t-shirt, it is hard to be pleased with that progress when you persist, against all of my protests, in wearing those damnable dangling denim suspender jeans. I don’t care if they are the same pair or not – I’m guessing that by now you have a whole closet of them, as I at least do not recall the orange trim from the height of the Denim Suspenders Reign of Terror in late 2007 – they are still bits of denim dangling off your jeans, so please, for the love of all things good and holy, I ask you to remove them once and for all.

For those who can see past the suspenders (how? how do you do it?) and want to know about the context, Ashin is promoting new label-mate Rene Liu’s new album, which came out on April 16. The leading single off the new album “We’re Not Together (我們沒有在一起)” is already a hit on music sharing/download sites, even before the album hit store shelves. (Do people still buy albums in stores? I admit, I mostly buy real albums, but even I usually do it off of Amazon.cn at this point.) Ashin, Masa, and Cheer Chen all contributed their musical talents to the record. Masa stars in one of the music videos, filmed in Japan, as well.

We cannot blame Milk Tea for failing to guide Ashin into better fashion choices, however: his appearance at her press conference was kept a surprise, and she didn’t even know he was coming. Plus, I’m not totally sold on her outfit either, as that top looks like she has someone’s coat on backwards over a more revealing dress. Anway, Rene is embarking on a multi-city tour starting in Shanghai in May. Question: is she good live? Should I make an effort on this one? Her tour is taking her to a venue about a 15 minute walk from my apartment.

Update: Heaven help us, Joann is right – there will be no end to the suspenders in sight, because Ashin has turned them into a StayReal product and is marketing them to anyone and everyone who likes their denim dangling. See, this is why I don’t normally keep up with the StayReal blog; it’s too depressing. Side note: erm, are all those Snoopy images licensed? I’ve seen everything from purses to potato chips with Snoopy on them in China, but I admit I assumed that certain manufacturers were playing fast and loose with the intellectual copyright laws. Amusingly, all of my students know Snoopy but few have ever heard of the Peanuts comic or Charles Schultz.

The march of the DNA tour continues on, and most of the news continues to focus in that direction. In case you missed it, xoxoxobexoxoxo shared her pictures from the New York/Connecticut concert here, and Steve wrote up a review of the San Jose concert here.

Steve’s review hits upon a particularly salient point for today’s news, and one with which I wholeheartedly agree:

“I wish they trusted the music, and their innate charisma, enough to play more stripped-down shows.”

One of the best things about the Toronto Jump! concert in 2007 for me was the fact that it actually wasn’t the big Jump! show on the road – it *was* a totally stripped-down version, performed on a tiny, open air stage with a make-shift screen for the opening video and a few inflatable dolphins decorating the backdrop. By way of contrast, my second Mayday concert was the DNA show in Nanjing, which was all about the fancy sets, the polished set list, and the long video (bordering on painfully long, given the fact that the whole idea of “searching for your own DNA” is utterly nonsensical, and the frequent interruptions of the concert to watch the story progress get old for everyone seeing the show after the video is out on YouTube). Now, I loved getting to experience the flashy, China version of Mayday, but for sheer musicality and enjoyment, I suspect Toronto was better.

In my experience, Mandopop shows in China are always flashy. With groups like Fahrenheit, it’s easy to see why – you need costumes and sets and lighting and fireworks and if at all possible a dancing, bicycle-riding bear or two to distract the crowd away from the fact that the performers themselves have no innate musical talent. But that’s not true of most of the artists whose concerts I attend. Those concerts in order of most flashy to least: Leehom Music Man 2009 (seriously, waaaaaay over the top), Mayday DNA Nanjing, Cheer Chen Shanghai 2009 (which I enjoyed but totally failed to write up in a post in a timely manner), sodagreen Shanghai 2009, Tanya Chua Nanjing 2009, Superband Chengdu 2009, sodagreen Shanghai 2008, Chang Chen-yue Nanjing 2008 (who is the antithesis of Mr. Leehom Fancy Pants Wang: he did not so much as change his shirt during the show). None of these people need the flash to compensate for their other failings, but they are bound by some unwritten rule of Mandopop culture – except for A-yue, who plays by no man’s rules – to supply it in spades nonetheless.

Okay, fine – that’s just the way it is in Taiwan and China. But what about when they travel? Wouldn’t going to the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand be opportunities to break out of this mold? Especially when transporting the whole flashy, wild stage show necessarily drives up ticket prices to almost unconscionable levels but is utterly superfluous to the band’s ability to entertain?

To illustrate this point, I give you the upcoming concert in New Zealand. Mayday’s devoted fans in the country were initially thrilled to be included – not a lot of acts make the trip to Auckland, so there is a small, but loyal collection of mostly Chinese residents and Chinese exchange students dying to see their idols. But in part because they’re transferring the show to a small venue, the ticket prices are ridiculous: VIP seats are going for NZ$600 (US$425), with other seats available for NZ$288 (US$204) and NZ$198 (US$140). And that’s it – there are no cheaper seats. As some fans note, where exactly are those NZ$600 seats, next to Ashin on stage? Others comment that they can fly to the shows in Australia for that. I’m still not completely clear on why the small venue pushed the price so high – I’m assuming it is at least in part the production values, though recouping the costs of physically getting the band plus roadies plus staff to Auckland must be part of it as well – but It’s hard to blame the New Zealand fans who are now apparently responding with a concert boycott on Facebook.

All of which brings us back to the original idea from Steve’s San Jose DNA review: why can’t they travel abroad just trusting themselves and the music to put on a good show, without all the bells and whistles and pretty concert halls that make it “necessary” to charge US$400 for a concert ticket? Why not find a little club and play a basic show with a skeleton crew – as in the old days, and even the not-so-old days in Toronto – and just share the music?

I’m heading off to Xiamen on Friday for the weekend, taking advantage of a free weekend to get some work-related things done there and of course, to get my chance to see the “2010 version” of DNA. I’m looking forward to it, DNA movie and inevitable endless chorus of “L-O-V-E-ing!!” notwithstanding. But as the band gets bigger and bigger – and let’s face it, Mayday is bigger now than most of us dreamed they’d be back in 2004 – I hope that their days of letting the music speak for them aren’t gone forever. A little more A-yue people, and a little less Music Man. That’s my hope.

Boy, this week the news has been all about things I’ve been long dreading that have come to pass. First it was A-gong entering the ROC army, and now… Ashin has finally written a song for S.H.E. You knew he would not be able to resist forever (…he was probably not actually trying to resist, of course, but in my head he was).

It’s not totally clear yet to me if he wrote the music and lyrics or just the lyrics, but he was definitely responsible for the song – and, as it turns out, the album – being called “Shero.” That’s as in, “She + hero.” Ashin says that he knows in English there are masculine terms for things like “hero” and “history,” so there should be feminine terms for them as well, like “shero” and “herstory.” Erm, except that there is a feminine form of hero in “heroine” and “history” comes from ancient Greek and has no more of a masculine connotation than “Hispanic.” (Except that I’ll bet you $20 there’s someone out there using “Herspanic” to make a feminist point.) He explained that he thinks the model of an independent women who chases after her dreams completely suits the way S.H.E. has rewritten history. Then, after checking a dictionary, he discovered that “shero” really is a word with two definitions: first, a woman who supports or fights for women’s rights – essentially, a feminist – and second, a female hero. Since you and I both know this is not actually a word, my guess is the “dictionary” he checked was the Urban Dictionary. Oh well, the pun on their name is fairly clever (and honestly, I’ve always suspected that Ashin has pretty feminist tendencies himself. I hope my impression is right… but I can’t remember ever having read anything sexist from him). But I’m just going on record now that I think “Shero” is cheesy.

[Side note: And now, out of the blue, my mind is singing a feminized version of "I Need a Hero." As in, "I need a shero... I'm holding on for a shero till the end of the night... well she's gotta be strong and she's gotta be fast and she's gotta be fresh from the fight...." *sigh*]

But actually, being pretty darn feminist myself, I can take a little cheese given the overall message the concept is trying to get across. In promoting the new album, S.H.E is trying to create a new wave of “queens” – ugh, I hate the term too, but stay with it a second – and these queens would adhere to the “three haves”: have courage, have money, and have a figure. No, wait, still – stay with it. It sounds much better once they explain. Have courage means to have the courage to love and to let go; have money means to work hard, have an independent life, and fulfill your own needs; and have a figure means to like your own body, and not to be unduly humble about your appearance, if you want to be revealing, be revealing. In short, girl power. (Generally, I’m not sure young women especially need much encouragement to dress more provocatively, but that could be me being 30-something and grumpy.) But they say whether you’re single or married, young or old, all women can be queens, and they can be their own “sheros.” Yeah, I’m still not on board with the terminology, but the concept is good, especially the part about economic independence and self-confidence.

The song premieres on the 8th, so we’ll have to wait until then to make the determination if the combination of Ashin’s influence and the feminist message overcome the fact that in the end, it’s still sung by S.H.E.