Although China remained almost totally isolated from most Western influences from the founding of the PRC in 1949 until the early 1980s, this has changed dramatically over the past few decades, especially in terms of Western pop culture. To Westerners' ears, Chinese music tastes can seem extremely strange, but Western pop music has become increasingly prevalent throughout China's big cities and even in some of the remote countryside areas. So it shouldn't be too surprising that the Chinese, like people all over the world, have gone goo goo for Lady Gaga. Young Chinese have also somehow picked up the exclamation Oh My Lady Gaga!, used in place of Oh My God! to indicate surprise.
What's a little harder to understand is what older Chinese people would find appealing about Lady Gaga. But the video below is proof that there are no limits to the power of Gaga. The video is from a popular TV show in Hunan Satellite TV which is broadcast to an audience of over 100 million. I can't help but be strangely fascinated by this video - it seems completely ridiculous in a way, with Chinese senior citizens belting out Lady Gaga's Bad Romance in Chinese, accompanied by attractive, young female Chinese musicians.
OK, maybe it is Gaga's lyric genius that has drawn in the Chinese masses. Who can dispute the universal appeal of Rah, Rah, ah, ah, ah, Roma, roma, ma, Gaga, ohh, la, la? This is poetry that transcends all language barriers.
As unusual as the video above is, I personally prefer this video of Bad Romance with Lady Gaga's music sequenced to old video footage of China's Red Army.
What a strange long march its been from Chairman Mao's Long March to Chinese senior citizens marching to the beat of Lady Gaga.
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