Metamorphosis of the dragon: the collectivist reconfiguration of Hong Kong-Taiwan pop in the reform era

Abstract

ABSTRACT With the advent of the reform era and its relaxation of cultural and economic restrictions, Gang-Tai pop (i.e. pop music from Hong Kong and Taiwan) gained popularity in the music scene of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Recent scholarship regards Gang-Tai pop primarily as an individualistic and individualizing force that could potentially resist the persisting cultural and political hegemony of the collectivistic ideology. However, it overlooks the occasions in which Gang-Tai pop and collectivistic politics developed a symbiotic and complicit relationship. Tracking the trans-regional transmutations of a pop song, “Descendants of the Dragon” (Long de chuanren), from Taiwan and Hong Kong to Mainland China, this article shows how the circulation, reception, and revision of the song were embedded in and driven by two forms of collectivistic cultural-political forces: the state-run propaganda machine and the anti-state social movement. The appropriations of the song served as an affective technology of power through which both pro-state and anti-state collective politics were articulated, performed, and communicated. The examination of Hong Kong and Taiwan (Gang-Tai) pop thus allows us to grasp this coexistence and continuous dialogues on market individualism, state hegemony, and the revolutionary cultural tradition, all of which underlay the cultural landscape of Chinese society in the reform era.