A quick post on music

Music is difficult to avoid here.
Whether it's blasting out of a hairdressers, a car window, a mobile phones additional speakers, some speakers spread all over campus, the yoga room of the gym, you get the idea.

However, it seems a little different.
I remember when we visited Beijing in 2006 after Michael and Shelley's wedding.
We'd spent the day at the Great Wall and arrived back in Beijing around 23:00.
Now back then we didn't know the city and if you don't, it can be difficult to find food outside the regimented hours that Chinese people eat.
(Now of course I know where a hundred 24 hour eateries are).
Anyway, one of the things we saw as we sheepishly trudged into a McDo's was a gang of punks. Resplendent in leathers, chains, piercings and sporting the kind of day-glo mohawks I vaguely remember from the 80s.
So they were clearly an identifiable sub-culture, partially defined by the music they listen to.

And that's the usual way at home.
Young or old, rich or poor, you pick your friends and clothes partially according to the music you and they like. Some of my best memories of school are of gigs with friends at Newcastle University, buying beers for a guy with a beard 'cause I had fake ID and he had none.
Your demographic is linked to the music you listen to.

But here that link is not so clear cut. Apart from the punks and a few students who told me they like Britpop there's not an easily discernable link between music, fashion and lifestyle. (This isn't strictly true, there are plenty of places I could go to find people that disprove this theory, but stick with it and I'll get to the point).

So because this link is not as all pervasive as it is elsewhere, many people have no idea they 'shouldn't' be listening to certain music 'cause they're too old, poor, straight, whatever.

Consequently, I frequently find myself in taxis listening to happy hardcore, gay disco, trance, etc. With a 50-year old taxi driver. The surprise comes when you find that it's not the radio, but his cd or mp3 player and he has downloaded it (no-one buys music - see Google have just announced free, legal music downloads - but only in China).