Oh for the love of God!

Oh for the love of God…

Stop the honey dripping, over the top love songs!  In respect of McCartney, I shall not call them “Silly”, but when the fever is high in the Club, and people are about to make moves on one another, do we really need yet another pretty boy with moussed hair and skinny jeans to bring everything to a screeching halt with his rendition of Love, Pain and  Heartache, Chinese style?  Do we?

Can’t I just once go out and have a good time with my Long Island and middle aged dance music without having the local club’s Pretty Boy Party Pooper rain on my parade at midnight with a live 

Chinese Love Song? 

Who the fuck sings love songs in a club at midnight? 

Answer:  The Chinese do!

Oh for the love of God make it stop! 

Is there anything worse to break one’s rhythm than to suddenly have to endure a slow, mood shattering love song in a club?(have I made this point already?)

I surprised myself when I came back to China in 2005 and discovered I like Club Music.  Don’t ask me why?  I didn’t know Lady Gaga from…anyone else.  I don’t do anything in America.  A 40 something American with a family doesn’t go out. You think I leave the door when I’m back at home?  I get dragged to my wive’s Chinese Dinner Parties, where I have to eat sugarfree cake and speak Mandarin all damn night. ( Sometimes I’m even allowed to drink wine. )

Then this week, in the middle of the recent Chunwan’s not so funny sketches and a sweet rendition of one of Jiang Qing’s revolutionary dance routines(the Marines are in trouble), in the middle of nowhere was of all things another damn love song.    Now Chunwan this year was a wee bit more nationalistic than it usu is. (tensions are slowly rising you know)   China has made it out to be both the 4^th of July(patriotic),  Xmas(all the gifts!), and Tgiving (Family) all rolled into one. 

I think after the latest chunwan China can just cancel the rest of the years holidays.  Why be repetitive?

But singing a love song at Chunwan amidst seeing Mr. Xi with the troops and the Red Army Babes with Guns was….sorry Paul….SILLY.

Once I sat down and vented this to my wife.  This is how she explained it:

“We Chinese have no other way to express our feelings to one another.  I never saw my parents exhibit any PDA.  They never hugged me.  Never said anything to me.  All we have is song.”  

(She told me the story of how one day she loaned a book to a male friend, and upon it’s return there was a movie ticket inside.  She didn’t know what to think…?  It was obviously for her. She didn’t go to the movie.)

Ok, I get it.  Isn’t that what KTV with friends is for?  Singing nothing but romantic love songs in China lacks…substance.   Every country has it’s dissident movement.   And it’s usu through music. (yes, I’ve heard of Cui Jian).   Dissidence through music doesn’t have to be political.  It can vent about anything. 

It can be about “too many parking lots”, for instance. 

Alas, the Chinese have figured out there are infinite ways to slice a love song.  

It’s hard…..

How does one transition from club music to a slow meandering love song?

How does one transition from Beyonce to the Bee Gees?

Apparently, the Chinese have figured it out.

Once at the club with a friend of mine, sure enough on came Pretty Boy Skinny Jeans, and as the clock struck 12 the crowd exploded with his rendition of some song I’d heard a thousand times before.  Taking this as my cue, I simply told my friend “I’ll be back in a moment”. 

Bad move.

Not only “did I break the mood”(what?),  but I was on the shit list and went home with no Happy Ending that evening.

As I’ve mentioned before, societies need reflection.  They need to be able to freely have a sense of introspection that stimulates change without having to go to jail for it.

A society that claims a 5000 year tradition will always leave itself open to accusations of being shallow if it cannot release it’s inner Bob Dylan.   Or Joni Mitchell.