User:Zijiao Wang/sandbox

Chinese Cultural Elements
As one of the most popular idols in Asia, Jay Chou leads a new trend of music which combines western musical elements and Chinese literature terms together. Because of this unique combination, he makes distinction between himself and other musicians by leading a “China Wind” in Asian music history. The great success of his Western-Chinese musical combination is built on his marketing strategies and the musical elements involved in his works.

First of all, Jay Chou had a great market when first came into the views of the public. In early 21st century, the People's Republic of China was in an economic transition model. The new generation was looking for a consumption pop culture which would reflect individual uniqueness in the social circumstance. Therefore, Chou's music came as a representation of western pop music, such as hip-hope, R&B, and rap. Compare to those indicated by traditional music, his music penetrated relatively different ideas into young people's minds. As a result, Chou's music was widely popular among the new generation when his works first released to general public, because by consuming Jay-Style music, they identified themselves as different groups from the last generation, and their uniqueness of individuals was also fully expressed. In addition, the young generation are also encouraged to show a strong will of discovering their personal abilities on certain achievements, such as school work and social relationship.

Fung (2008) provided an example that shows this kind of encouragement of young people: “How strong is the champion? How many stages I have to go through? Can't I let go this award? I want to be my own judge”

Chou sings above lyrics in his song Second Class of Year 3 in his album of 2003. The content reflects a young person's mind that he is telling himself to achieve his goal by working hard on his job. Therefore, self encouragement as a main point of the song is clearly shown here, and those similar contents involved in Chou's work is pretty popular among young people as well.

Also, the traditional Chinese cultural elements involved in Jay Chou's music are also an important factors that contribute to his incredible status in Asian popular music culture. The blowing “China Wind” in his music leads a new trend of Chinese pop music which involves a vast amount of traditional Chinese components, rather than simply following western music format. Jay Chou's China Wind is highlighted in his lyrics and the using of traditional musical instruments in his music. To have a glance of Chou's music lyrics, it is essential to mention a lyricist, Vincent Fang (Chinese:方文山, pinyin: Fang Wenshan),who has worked with Jay Chou since 2000. Fang's work is featured by addressing Chinese traditional elements, such as poetry and Confucianism. His representative work “Chrysanthemum Terrace” (Chinese:菊花台, pinyin: juhua tai), which is also a song of Jay Chou released in 2006, shows a vast amount of cultural elements. In this work, Fang puts imageries which indicate certain traditional ideas to build the an ancient monarchy setting. He uses chrysanthemum as a metaphor of love. In the line “Chrysanthemums broken, scattered across the floor, your smile has faded” (Chinese: 菊花残 满地烧 你的笑容已泛黄）, Fang shows the end of a love and a endless loneliness[]. Thus, Chinese literature elements are clearly shown in Fang's lyrics, and these highlighted features contribute to Jay Chou's music to a great extend.

On the other hand, as a producer of his own music, Jay Chou also uses lots of traditional musical instruments to make his works outstanding. For example, erhu is a traditional Chinese musical instrument which is usually used when to express a sadistic mood in music. Chou adds its unique sound features into his work, and he combine this Chinese element with western pop musical features. Consequently, Jay Chou's music is not only popular among young people, but also welcome by the elder generation who have relatively conservative thoughts and live in traditional ways. In addition, it is important to note that Jay Chou's China Wind first appeared in a sensitive period of time, and that is also a reason why his music is very popular in China. In the beginning of the 21st century, China was under the influence of Globalization. Western elements came into Chinese market and gradually affect people's daily lives. Due to the strong effects caused by western cultures, there was a potential worry about the young generation would lose their cultural identities. However, Chou's first album released in 2002 made a dramatic change of this situation, because his music did not only expressed featured Chinese cultural components, but also emphasizes culture identities to young people. His smart Western-Chinese combination opens a great market of his music, meanwhile, it penetrates traditional identities into young people's lives.