Cui Jian’s Revolution with Beer

The German Die Zeit published this glimpse of an anti-Olympics concert by veteran rocker Cui Jian, held in a Beijing bar outside the Olympic zone. As the greatest symbol of the “nothing” generation, Cui Jian still bottles a rebellious spirit for his fans, even if it sells next to cans and drafts these days.

Revolution with Beer by Christof Siemes

If Bob Dylan were Chinese: a report from an anti-Olympics concert by rock legend Cui Jian

If the Beijing Get Lucky Bar is some day excavated by archaeologists, they will stand before a mystery. How on Earth did this fresco get here? “Where the hell is the alcohol in those!”* stands there, under which one sees three figures, with a folding ruler to measure their beer mugs. On the men’s hats they’ve put goats’ beards; the woman is wearing a dirndl.

And yet, this bastard child of the Irish Pub and German bar scene is supposed to be a piece of Chinese revolutionary history. Genuine domestics, though at first only canned beers, which are usually stacked on pallets behind the bar, are going just as fast as the Olympic pins — the pins for which a separate tribe of hunters and collectors formed.

Strictly speaking, they can’t be compared, because today the bar is outside the Olympic grounds. A concert by Cui Jian is announced, the Bob Dylan of China. He has invented the protest rock song in Chinese more than 20 years ago. In 1986 he played, on a TV show for young artists, the song “I have nothing.” It is the anthem of his generation, born around 1960. They no longer have Mao nor Deng Xiaoping, they have — nothing. When Cui Jian publishes the first rock album in China’s history two years later, it is a revolution. And Cui Jian knows this, too: “Rock and Roll on the New Long March” is the album.

Since then, he is in a country with its own Rock-’n'-Roll Hall of Fame, but the censorship authorities even after all these years eye him with suspicion. Ever since Cui Jian played his guitar for the student protests of 1989 on Tiananmen Square, he has been suspect to the regime. “Cui Jian has always been right,” say his fans. Businesswomen wearing pearl necklaces, just the same as taxi drivers with Buddha figurines and bare chests, plus umpteen more, surprisingly, could all be Cui Jian’s children.

“Jia you!” they all shout self-mockingly, let’s go, they almost yell to death the battle cry of the Chinese during the Games. On this evening, every word is a political issue, as Cui Jian concerts in his hometown of Beijing are a rarity. Usually he plays in small clubs; just two years ago he received the permit for a concert at the Worker’s Gymnasium before 8,000 people. The fact that he, the rocking thorn in the party, has received approval for a performance one day before the Olympic closing ceremony, is a small sensation.

PART 2

Cui Jian knows that he is guilty of his reputation as a rebel — the concert begins with music from Tibet. Immediately, the swinging floor quakes before the small stage, the enormous box-towers waggle; Bavarian technology has certainly not diminished. Cui Jian is a Niu Bi, call the fans. The meaning of this is rather prurient, and what it’s actually called is even worse; anyway the word cannot be printed. It is the intimate parts of the common dairy cow.

Again and again, the red flag with the picture of the singer is unfurled. As with the famous Che Guevara icon, his face shows up on it in a kind of shadow. Over the years, he has managed to take one or another state symbol and appropriate it and deconstruct it; the red star, for example, adorns his cap and the fans’ t-shirts. He reverses the colors of the Chinese flag, where the big yellow star on a red background stands for the Communist Party (the four small ones represent workers, peasants, intellectuals, and the rest of the people). Many concert-goers wear the Cui Jian star as stickers on their cheeks — even as an ironic refraction of the Olympic hysteria, with the Chinese flag tattoos having become unavoidable.

“You’re younger than Liu Xiang,” shouts the audience, by which the rocker is honored, since the tragically bushed hurdle sprinter was born two decades after him. Not only Cui Jian’s outward appearance has aged uniquely, even his version of rock owes to the influx of hip hop elements, and a dash of contemporary world music has survived. The basses march here in a laid-back way, with one’s legs apart, like in clubs from London to New York, and even in Chinese a person can rap smoothly. The only indigenous ingredients are a knee-length bamboo flute and a pot-bellied traditional drum.

The Olympic counterrevolution is found, then, but does not take place. “Don’t watch so much TV!” is the first thing Cui Jian called out. This does not seem to have penetrated as far as the bar’s counter; both TV sets in the Get Lucky Bar run for the whole evening. The Chinese state television shows again and again the awards ceremony for a table tennis player. ❑

– Translated by Steve Cotner

ORIGINAL STORY: Revolution mit Bier

EDITOR’S NOTE:
* “Where the hell is the alcohol in those!” — The German here is “Sakra, wo san denn hier die Promille!” It is an expression peculiar to South Bavaria. See the reader comment below for more.

ADDITIONAL READING:
Cui Jian’s official website, www.cuijian.com
PBS Frontline: Birth of a Beijing Music Scene