Monday, May 09, 2005
Cultural confusion: Wham! in China
Jax
When Wham! bounced on stage to play the first western pop concert in China, neither the Chinese nor George Michael knew quite how to behave.
The 15,000-strong audience in 1985 were unsure how they were supposed to react to Michael's strutting or his bouffant hairstyle. But he and bandmate Andrew Ridgeley were also at a loss to know how the people would respond to Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Bad Boys and their other hits being performed with scantily clad dancers and strobing disco lights.
A British embassy report - released to the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act - described the cultural confusion on the day that pop came to Beijing.
The embassy's unnamed first secretary wrote: "The workers' gymnasium was almost filled and the concert, generally speaking, seems to have been a success. In deference to their Chinese audience, Wham! kept the volume of the music rather lower than normal, but there was overall a certain lack of mutual understanding.
"Neither the Chinese nor Wham! knew quite how to behave faced with something completely beyond their experience."
According to Simon Napier-Bell, the band's manager, Michael tried to get the spectators to clap along to Club Tropicana, but "they hadn't a clue - they thought he wanted applause and politely gave it".
He said some of the more adventurous Chinese did eventually "get the hang of clapping on the beat, even learnt to scream when George or Andrew waved their butts".
The diplomat reported that "there was some lively dancing but this was almost entirely confined to younger western members of the audience. Some Chinese did make the effort, but they were discouraged in this by the police.
"They were unable to deal satisfactorily with the younger westerners but they did on the whole manage to keep the Chinese in their place," he added.
Mr Napier-Bell had spent 18 months persuading Chinese bureaucrats that the communist system was robust enough to cope with a taste of western pop culture. In the official communist view, pop music was "banal and filthy".
After the concert, the diplomat wondered if the authorities would allow more. "There is no reason to suppose that the Chinese have been discouraged by their experience ... Financially they must have done very well.
"There was certainly considerable interest by the younger Chinese in the visit. There was a lively black market in tickets for the concert, although this was no doubt encouraged by Wham!'s generosity in giving a free copy of their latest tape away with each ticket." (Link)
