Oct 30, 2011

Joanna Wang

Sunday, October 30, 2011
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While roaming around the ever-addictive Youtube, I came across an interesting Chinese-American singer - Joanna Wang (王若琳; Wáng Rùolín). Her music is an interesting combination of English and Chinese language jazz, pop, rock, and folk influences, somewhat in the Norah Jones vein. The 23 year old Taiwan-born, Los Angeles-bred songstress has a surprisingly mature voice. Her musical maturity may be partly the result of her family background - her father (Wang Bing) is a successful producer who, in addition to working with his daughter, has produced popular artists including girl group S.H.E and David Tao. 

Wang's first album, Start From Here, was released in early 2008 and is comprised of one CD of English songs and another of Chinese songs. Joanna reportedly wasn't thrilled with her first album, feeling that it doesn't represent her true musical influences. Her next album ("Joanna & 王若琳 - her English and Chinese names), released in January 2009, is another 2-CD collection of English and Chinese songs. Her latest album, The Things We Do For Love, was released in late 2011 and includes covers of the Carole King classic (made famous by James Taylor) You've Got a Friend, B.J. Thomas' Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head and my favorite band (that wasn't really a band) Steely Dan's Dirty Work.

Wang's English language cover songs feature a fairly eclectic mix, including songs by Billy Joel ("New York State of Mind"), The Carpenters ("We've Only Just Begun"), Don Mclean, Paul Simon ("50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"), Bread ("Aubrey"), Paul Anka ("Times of Your Life") and Spandau Ballet ("True").

You can check out some of Joanna Wang's music and find out more about her at:

Oct 27, 2011

Fake DVDs in China

Thursday, October 27, 2011
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China is a country full of fakes - not necessarily fake people although those can be found in China as well as just about every country. Instead, I'm talking about fake goods of almost any kind imaginable. From trademark counterfeiting of famous brands to copyright piracy of music, movies and computer software, fakes are ubiquitous in China. Sometimes you can't help wondering if anything is really authentic. 


An article from eChinacities entitled Pirate Pictures: China’s Fake DVD Pandemic discusses the prevalence of fake DVDs all over China. The article mentions an estimate that 93% of all movies sold in China are pirated copies which seems like an underestimate to me. Anyone who has visited China is almost sure to have experienced this as the fake DVD vendors are usually out in the open, especially in crowded shopping areas. For example, last year when I worked at a university in Zhengzhou 郑县, there were several stores that sold nothing but fake DVDs within a block of the campus.

Fake DVD Store

Somewhat to my surprise, I found that here in Xiamen 厦门, fake DVD stores are a bit hidden. Generally, they seem to be in the backroom or upstairs in some other type of store. For example, there are several conveniently located, but not outwardly visible, in the popular Zhongshan Road shopping area. My guess is that there must have been some enforcement in the recent past that forced vendors to be less conspicious.

Fake DVDs are so common in China that most Chinese people probably don't even know they are illegal since they have probably never seen the legal variety. Actually, most Chinese college students don't bother buying even the fake DVDs. They tend to think its ridiculous to pay anything for movies (not to mention music) and download it illegally from the Internet instead.

The major movie companies have tried to develop a legitimate market by reducing their prices in China, but there's no way they can compete with the DVD pirates, who commonly sell DVDs of popular movies for around 10 RMB (about U.S. $1.50). 

The article says there's not much that can be done about the fake problem in China, quoting Shaun Rein of Forbes, who states that "China's piracy problem is not a matter of morality," he says "More than anything, it is a matter of poverty." I agree partly, but also disagree in part and believe this is an oversimplification. While its true that much of China's population can't afford to buy legitimate DVDs, the very poor also can't afford the fakes ones (not to mention DVD players to play them on). On the other hand, there's a large and growing percentage of the Chinese population that spend significant amounts of money on much more expensive goods than DVDs and certainly could afford to buy legal copies. 

I do agree with the article's assertion that China might pay dearly in the longer term for its inability or unwillingness to deal with intellectual property infringement. If China's economy is to continue the high rate of growth its experienced over the past few decades, it will have to start relying much more on creation and innovation rather than mere copying of Western products and technology. China may be able to successfully innovate, but figuring out how to effectively incentivize and protect such innovation could be a much more challenging problem.

Oct 25, 2011

Tuesday, October 25, 2011
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A recent NY Times article Korean Pop Machine: Running on Innocence and Hair Gel discusses the teen pop phenomenon that's been going in South Korea for at least a decade. While the general concepts are largely copied from American teen pop (The Jackson 5 to New Edition, New Kids on the Block, The Backstreet Boys, etc.), the Korean music industry has created a manufacturing empire, cranking out an endless stream of  boy and girl groups as well as solo artists. 


The popularity of Korean pop music (K-Pop) goes extends well beyond Korea, with many artists also achieving popularity in Japan, China and throughout much of Southeast Asia. Some of the most K-popular groups include SHINee, Girl's Generation, 13-member group Super Junior, 2NE1, etc., etc., etc. With the Wonder Girls international hit Nobody, K-Pop has even started to have some success in the West. It may be tough for much of the highly produced K-Pop to become popular in the U.S., but then again if Justin Beiber can do it, anything is possible.
K-Pop boy group SHINee
Here in China, K-pop takes a backseat to Chinese pop (which generally tends to be blander than the Korean variety) although its a very large backseat. This may be largely due to the ingrained nationalism programmed into young Chinese. Despite this, quite of few the most popular Korean pop stars have very large fan bases in China. 

I recently tried to get an idea of what music is most popular among Chinese college students by asking in some of my classes. Although this was by no means a comprehensive or scientifically conducted poll, my general conclusion is that China is still about at least a decade or two behind the rest of the world in terms of its pop music tastes. When asked who their favorite non-Chinese singers or bands are, other than Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber, the most common responses are Michael Jackson and the Backstreet Boys (and MJ and the BBBs seem to be even more popular than the Bieb). Sadly, no students in my classes were familiar with John Lennon although a few had vaguely heard of The Beatles. Maybe this shouldn't be too surprising since popular music development was severely stunted during the Chairman Mao years (especially during the Cultural Revolution). During the decades when rock, R&B and their pop offshoots were developing and thriving in England and the U.S., Western music was virtually non-existent in China. 

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  • Author: David Moser

Oct 24, 2011

Dialectic Confusion

Monday, October 24, 2011
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I happened upon a traditional Chinese puppet show yesterday at a senior citizens activity center in Jimei 集美. I couldn't understand it at all, but neither could my Chinese friends since it was in the local Mǐnnánhuà 閩南話 dialect. 

Mǐnnánhuà is sometimes also referred to as the Hokkien dialect and originated in the southern Fujian province. The version of the Min dialect spoken here in Xiamen is also sometimes called the Amoy dialect (Amoy was the name given by Westerners to Xiamen). A version of this dialect is also spoken by some people in nearby Taiwan. Fortunately, most Chinese people of my generation and younger from Xiamen speak Mandarin Chinese or Pǔtōnghuà  普通话 (which I'm trying to learn) rather than any of the local dialects. Even more fortunately for me, most of the younger generation of Chinese have also grown up learning English in school and, although often shy about using it, can speak at least a bit. 

However, many older Xiamen residents only speak Mǐnnánhuà which is basically incomprehensible to Mandarin speakers (not to mention English speakers like myself). Last week, an elderly lady approached me while I was waiting for a bus and seemed very curious about me. She tried to talk to me in Mǐnnánhuà so I politely responded in Mandarin that I couldn't understand, but she couldn't understand that I was trying to tell her I couldn't understand. She then started talking to a Chinese student nearby that I had been talking with, hoping a Chinese person could translate for us. However, the Chinese girl couldn't understand  Mǐnnánhuà much better than I could so the nice, inquisitive old lady's questions for me unfortunately had to go unanswered.

Oct 22, 2011

"Don't Eat Basket"

Saturday, October 22, 2011
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I recently ate at a fast food restaurant in Xiamen called Mos Burger (a Japanese chain) and saw this sign. I think what it means to say is don't throw the basket (that the food comes in) into the trash, but one never knows. The burger wasn't bad although nothing special and I was full enough that I didn't feel tempted to eat the basket it came in.


  • Author: David Moser
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