Setlists that have to be approved down to the individual line of a song before each performance, metaphors and allusions instead of criticism: Shanghai’s punk rock music scene is subject to strict censorship – and yet it is thriving.
If you want to visit it for the first time, you have to look for the rock pub in the basement of a typical Chinese department store in Shanghai: past the tiny red plastic chairs that stand in front of the restaurants on the upper floor, then down a flight of stairs. Only a little more than 100 guests have room there, on stage the two front singers of the punk band Mamahuhu casually rock their electric guitar and bass. “Our deepest destiny is a rebellious heart,” says guitarist Maya after her concert. “But we express it in a positive way. We make music to show our attitude.”
Maya and Sero are quite alternative punks in China, where there are few punk bands – and even fewer punk bands in which women play. However, they are not allowed to be really rebellious and non-conformist: For example, they are not allowed to say “Shut up”, “Shut your mouth” in concert. Your list of songs with lyrics must be registered and approved in advance – like all concerts in China. If a line is different in the performance, there can be trouble. In order for bands to be able to perform at all, they have to submit. This is how censorship works in China.
Maya has come to terms with it: “We’re more subtle, but our power is always there,” she says. “For example, there are realities that we think are very bad, but we use our songs to express them. Even if it’s only implicit.”
Mamahuhu are not even allowed to shout “shut up” on stage – otherwise they could be banned from performing or their music would disappear from shops and the Internet.
“You have no choice in China”
The concert bar where the band performs is owned by Zhang Haisheng. He has been running two such venues in Shanghai for almost 20 years. He called them Yuyintang, which means translated: to nourish the music. He wants to offer artists a stage. There are numerous stickers on the walls from the bands that have performed here before. The lamps and air conditioners have caught dust, but that’s part of the flair of the slightly worn-out pub. “There were quite a lot of punk bands in the 1990s and 2000s,” Zhang recalls. “In Beijing, in Shanghai, in Nanjing. Everyone had well-known punk bands. But now there are fewer. Nowadays there’s something like pop punk. It’s not always as direct as old-school punk.”
Chinese censorship has become much stricter, he observes. Overall, many things have become more restrictive since head of state and party leader Xi Jinping took power more than ten years ago. Nationalism and censorship have intensified.
“The bands probably want to survive. You don’t have a choice in China,” says Zhang. “If you want to have an official performance, you need permission from the regional and local cultural authorities. And if the lyrics are overly rebellious, then you’re the first to not get permission from the government.”
Songs or bands are banned
There are also songs that are not allowed to be played in the People’s Republic: the song, for example, with which Zhou Yunpeng became known as a musician in China. A million fans follow him on the Chinese online network Weibo. With the song “Zhongguo Haizi”, he was allowed to perform for years – until 2017. Then the song was banned. “Don’t be a child of people in China,” he sings in it, and lists several abuses in different cities and regions. The song can no longer be found on the Chinese Internet either. Zhou himself no longer has a copy of his own song, it is still available on YouTube outside of China.
Some bands are completely banned in China – for example the combo “My Little Airport” from Hong Kong. Among other things, she wrote songs for the 2019 pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. A fan of this band from mainland China, who wished to remain anonymous, said his fan group on Chinese social media was censored.
“There are things in China that you’re not allowed to talk about. It’s absolutely impossible to write anything about ‘My Little Airport’ on the internet. If you do it, it won’t pass the censors and others won’t be able to see it. Someone once wrote a year’s hit list and ‘My Little Airport’ was on it. The band name wasn’t on it, just the title of the song. The cover was blurry. That’s how it worked,” he says.
The police interpret – and censor
Not only music is censored in China. Artists from painting, photography or performance art are affected. In the highly modern financial metropolis of Shanghai, with all the museums, exhibitions and galleries on the surface, it is hardly noticeable that what is on display is subject to censorship – even if the art is not political at all. “I don’t think that art has to have anything to do with politics. Or that you can only be a good artist if you make art with politics,” says curator Zhuang Lin. “There is no such criterion for art. It’s just that the external environment is becoming more and more strict. Sometimes even I am somehow forced to censor.”
Zhuang Lin organizes changing exhibitions in an old Shanghai bicycle cellar that she renovated. An underground, futuristic mirrored tunnel leads to their hidden little art gallery. The basement is brightly lit, life-size nature photographs and abstract paintings hang on the mint green walls.
The curator Zhuang Lin often cannot understand the ban decisions of the police: she thinks they interpret everything far too drastically and violently.
For the past two years, she has had regular visits to her gallery from the so-called cultural police, the department responsible for inspecting exhibitions. The police come unannounced, look at the gallery and determine what is not allowed to be exhibited. One of the pictures that was sorted out now hangs in the curator’s office: it’s an abstract painting, a gray background, and abstract sketches in bright, rather pale colors on it. Although no bright red can be seen, the image is said to be too gory and violent, according to police.
It’s incomprehensible to her: “The police interpret what they saw in a very one-sided way, it’s a one-sided distortion. But you have to accept that. That’s the process you have to go through. The police think they do be more professional than me: ‘You’re in China, then you have to accept that. Okay? Or the gallery will be closed.'”
“Butterfly”, a song about freedom
The punk band Mamahuhu in Shanghai wrote two songs for the Corona lockdown last year. The more than 25 million residents of the metropolis of Shanghai were locked in their houses and apartments for two months. One of the resulting songs is called “Butterfly”, “Schmetterling”, delicate criticism in melodic punk.
“The butterflies should express that we are no longer afraid and will break out of our cocoons and fly,” explains Maya. “Even though the lyrics are rather vague, we did our best to say what we wanted to say. I hope everyone can hear our screams.”
When she sees people standing in front of the stage, Maya is sure that her fans will understand what the band is trying to say. Even if their punk is tamed.