Formed in 2015, the Power Girls have released their latest video, The Home Lights of Ten Thousand Families, in which they sing (and dance) to praise of their upstanding, state-owned employer.

The Power Girls are now giving their competitors a run for their money. According to the Guangzhou Daily, the music video has had over 75 million views since its release earlier this year, and the accompanying Weibo post has been read ten million times.

Here’s the music video, which plays more like a really long commercial for China Southern Power Grid:

And here are the lyrics to The Home Lights of Ten Thousand Families so you can follow along:

The Home Lights of Ten Thousand Families

In our beautiful, bustling city
under the swaying silk cotton trees in the spring
On both sides of the Pearl River beneath the romantic Baiyun Mountain
(We) spend every moment by your side

To let the light come in an ordinary fashion
To be happily without a care
To let the wonderful and brilliant years unfold before us
These are the devoted concerns that are constantly on our minds

Switch on with me, feel the current running from my eyes to yours
Allow me to witness your beautiful smile everyday
It doesn’t matter, whether sunrise or sunset, nor day or night
There is no limit to the start or the end

Switch on with me, feel the current running from my eyes to yours
My only comfort is seeing your cute, smiling face
To warm every corner (of your home), to light the road ahead of you
Occupies every moment of my day, and in every inch of my heart

(in Cantonese)
The light in the evening breeze that shows the way ahead is getting brighter
The fragrance along the way is answered by the aroma of dinner
When the sun sets in the west, while red clouds rise in the mountains of the east
Ten thousand lights turn on as usual

In addition to music videos, the Power Girls are also part of a series of China Southern Power Grid advertisements that don’t really appear to have anything to do with an Electric Company:

The post Watch: State-Owned Electric Company Launches Its Very Own Girl Band appeared first on The Nanfang.

Produced by Xinhua, the official state news media of China, the video features exaggerated visuals like a flying saucer and a silver Rubik’s cube in front of an undulating bullseye.

The music is set to a hip-hop beat as a rapper explains the “Four Comprehensives”: to comprehensively develop a “moderately prosperous society”, to comprehensively reform the country, to comprehensively enact a “rule of law”, and to comprehensively root out Party corruption.

“Prosperity is the goal, reform is the drive, rule of law is the guarantee, Party building is the key!” shouts the chorus of the song, which is sung in tune to Beethoveen’s Ode to Joy by the video’s end.

The video also proclaims, “We have the Four Comprehensives, the Chinese dream is not far away!” while also telling us, “There will be no panic in our hearts, as long as food is not a concern and our hands are full of money.”

To appeal to a younger demographic, the video also features its own “bullet screen“, a style of internet commenting in which content contributed by online users is featured directly over the screen, flying from right to left. However, unlike actual bullet screens, it appears the content is provided by the video’s creators and not from the public.

This video is very similar to other recent propaganda videos that use animation and music to disseminate CCP policies to the masses of China. An earlier propaganda video using rapping to explain the 13th Five Year Plan was released last December. Another music video about the 13th Five Year Plan was released last October that featured Terry Gilliam-inspired animation and folksy sing-a-long pop lyrics in English.

When it comes to winning over the minds of the Chinese public, the “Four Comprehensives” has long had its supporters. First made public by Chinese President Xi Jinping at the end of 2014, the Global Times announced in February 2015 that the new policy is a “governance blueprint that is understood and supported by all people in the nation” that “has won people’s hearts”.

We’d look forward to hearing the CCP and its videos take part in epic rap battles, but the problem then would be finding it some competition. Some 120 songs, almost entirely rap songs, were banned by the Ministry of Culture last August.

Here’s the video (with English subtitles):

The post Watch: China Launches Catchy Cartoon Rap Video About… the “Four Comprehensives” appeared first on The Nanfang.

First aired on a CCTV program called “The Power of Deepening Reforms” (and with a name like that, who wouldn’t tune in?), the song focuses on last year’s achievements of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reform and the way it handled things like corruption and reform over the last year.

Other topics, like the Tianjin explosion or the recent Shenzhen landslide, don’t get mentioned, of course.

The rap song suffers from a lack of a melodic chorus, but is punctuated by live sound bites of President Xi accompanied by a smiling cartoon version of himself as well as his words immortalized by his side:

The CCP has looked to reach a broader and younger audience before with music videos like the Terry Gilliam-inspired animated video for the 15th 5 year plan or a slick English-language video about the Chinese dream telling viewers, “The Chinese Communist Party is with you along the way.” Furthermore, Xi Jinping has had his praises sung in another pop song, Uncle Xi Loves Mummy Peng, in which lyrics tell the listener that Xi, without a doubt, loves his wife Peng Liyuan.

If you want to follow along, here are the lyrics to the rap song as translated by the fine people at China Real Time WSJ:

Take a look at the deepening-reform group in the year 2015
Building the economy, creating wealth, optimizing services
They streamline administration and delegate power to the lower levels, so please do trust the government
Don’t let the hand reach out when it’s not supposed to — let the market speak.

They’re determined to fight against corruption. They especially target ferocious tigers
They’re strict in governing the party and ruling the nation according to law, which makes people rejoice.
Carrying out the “three stricts and three steadies” and allowing supervision by the masses
Reining in officials who take bribes

Chorus:
The deepening-reform group is two years old now and has been achieved a lot during the past two years.
Educational reform, medical reform and household registry reform. Reform! Reform! Reform! Reform!
Acting for the convenience and benefit of the people, giving them an easier life. Taking targeted measures in poverty alleviation and trying not to fall behind.

(Xi Jinping’s voice:) To turn the people’s expectations into our actions.

Chorus:
The deepening-reform group is two years old now and has achieved a lot during the past two years.
Price reform, tax reform and state-owned-enterprise reform. Reform! Reform! Reform! Reform!
Streamlining administration and delegating power to the lower levels, releasing vitality. Supporting reform and upgrading the economy.

(Xi Jinping’s voice:) An arrow will never return once it’s shot.

The deepening-reform group is two years old now and has achieved a lot during the past two years.
Flies, tigers and large foxes. Capture! Capture! Capture! Capture!
To be strict in governing the party, we must first conduct ourselves honorably. And we will surely win judicial reform.

(Xi Jinping’s voice:) Punish every corrupt official and fight every corrupt phenomenon.

Chorus:
The deepening-reform group is two years old now and has achieved a lot during the past two years.
Managing the water, managing the air, managing the land. Manage! Manage! Manage! Manage!
Clear waters and green hills are our golden mountains. What “One Belt, One Road” adheres to is:

(Xi Jinping’s voice:) The principle of wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits.

To promote the progress of Asia and Europe in what’s called “One Belt, One Road”
Free trade, openness, laws and finance, they are all helping each other.
Establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and accelerating infrastructure construction.

And finally the yuan was included in the SDR (Special Drawing Rights basket, an international reserve asset).
Facing the smog, they hate it so much.
To determine to protect the ecology requires a bow at full draw.
Suspend those who should be suspended. Halt those who should be halted.
Clear waters and green mountains are a necessary step forward into the new journal.

Chorus:
The deepening-reform group is two years old now and has achieved a lot during the past two years.
Educational reform, medical reform and household registry reform. Reform! Reform! Reform! Reform!
Acting for the convenience and benefit of the people, giving them an easier life. Taking measures in poverty alleviation and trying not to fall behind.

(Xi Jinping’s voice:) To turn the people’s expectation into reality.

Chorus:
The deepening-reform group is two years old now and has achieved a lot during the past two years.
Price reform, tax reform and state-owned enterprise reform. Reform! Reform! Reform! Reform!
Streamlining administration and delegating power to the lower levels, releasing vitality. Supporting reform and upgrading the economy.

(Xi Jinping’s voice:) Victory belongs to the man of valor at the key moment of reform.

Chorus:
The deepening-reform group is two years old now and has achieved a lot during the past two years.
Flies, tigers and large foxes. Capture! Capture! Capture! Capture!
To be strict in governing the party, we must first conduct ourselves honorably. And we will surely win judicial reform.

(Xi Jinping’s voice:) To highly lift the sharp sword against corruption.

Chorus:
The deepening-reform group is two years old now and has achieved a lot during the past two years.
Managing the water, managing the air, managing the land. Manage! Manage! Manage! Manage!
Clear waters and green hills are our golden mountains. What “One Belt, One Road” adheres to is:

(Xi Jinping’s voice:) Openness and tolerance instead of closing up.

Here’s the video:

The post Xi Jinping’s Got 99 Problems… But a Communist Propaganda Rap Song Ain’t One appeared first on The Nanfang.

However, one foreigner of China has endeared himself tremendously with the home crowd by making a tribute video inspired by that other Chinese pop trend that refuses to die, Journey to the West.

As explained on his Youtube page, Shaun Gibson made an English version of My Little Apple to tell a well-known story from Journey to the West: when Tripikata gets captured by the Queen Mother of the West as part of a forced marriage, and disciples Sun Wu-kong, Piggy and the rest must rescue him.

Part of the charm of Gibson’s Liverpool-based adaptation is in using costumes from the classic 80s televised version of Journey to the West, and the rest can be seen in the use of anachronisms as well as an overt Stephen Chow reference.

On the video’s Youtube page, comments were mostly positive. They include “I cant believe how incredible you are!!!!!!”, “WOW!!! that was AWESOME!”, and “Okay. Mr. Gibson, you win!!!!!”

Perhaps to make this Chinese pop song stay Chinese, the chorus has been left in the original Chinese, but the subtitles don’t provide any English version aside from pinyin. So in the efforts of making My Little Apple achieve the juggernaut cultural status of Gangnam Style to which it aspires, here’s the chorus in English so you can follow along:

You are my little apple
I can’t love you enough
With a face of red, you warm my the cockles of my heart
and ignite the fire of my life, f-f-f-fire
You are my little apple
Like the most beautiful cloud in the sky
When spring comes and flowers bloom all over the mountainside
I will reap the bounty of the seed of hope I had planted

We wonder what’s next for Shaun Gibson, but if he is to continue to curry favor with his Chinese audience, we’d imagine it would have to involve pandas, the waving of a Chinese flag or shouting “This is real Chinese kung-fu!” at the top of his lungs.

Here’s the music video, and here’s video again on a local video provider:

Photos: Screencaps from Youtube

The post Foreigner’s “My Little Apple” Spoof Video Endears Itself to Chinese Fans appeared first on The Nanfang.

The common explanation for why people in a musical suddenly burst out in song is because that’s the only way they properly express themselves. When mere words fail you, sing them aloud.

Dongguan has been reeling from its prostitution crackdown. Besides suffering from huge economic losses and a mass exodus of people, Dongguan has been maligned with a loss of face from having been crowned “China’s sex capital”. While Dongguan’s mayor has responded to the scandal by being flabbergasted, Dongguan city youth have been more eloquent by putting their feelings into a song. Watch here, and sing along with the translated lyrics written below:

I Love Dongguan 

Get up, morning calisthenics, the sweet aroma of cake wafts in from the street stalls below
Get off from work early, the beautiful sky perfectly complements going for a walk
If you’ve never walked upon the ground of this happy place, then we ask you respectfully, how can you denounce it?
Blinded to this point, how do we make this right?

Even though many have only learned about Dongguan out of context from the media
Respectfully speaking, there is too much emphasis upon the actions of a few
The future of an famous emerging manufacturing city
awaits you to listen to what we have to say

For the righteous name of Dongguan, the basketball team will earnestly work hard
You say there are substantial problems, but you won’t listen to us
For the righteous name of Dongguan, mistakes have been corrected
Can our explanation be heard?

For the righteous name of Dongguan, a prosperous city imbued with vision
Here, millions of people are capable enough to achieve goals through different means 
For the righteous name of Dongguan, the entire city will unite to bring about its worth Listen to us again

Keyuan, Tanwu, Humen and Xiaoyan are all places that you are familiar with
Tasks performed with precision, this is the only place in which digital products are made
Respectfully speaking, why is it that within the same country, you are only interested in the same point?
This is completely misleading, so let’s change the topic

I love you, Donguan, I will not leave or abandon you
Making a living depends upon my own two hands, struggle is what supports this place
I love you Dongguan, let’s tear away the stereotypes that label us
Together as one

I love you, Dongguan, the vision of the city is on hold
Millions of football fans believe that they will carry the championship back home
I love you, Dongguan, our voices are here
and will not cry tears again

Once there was a problem, but you’re saying that it’s dead in the ground
But with both hands raised up high, there no need to tremble anymore
Let’s look at this squarely and not be scared of the ugly truth
We won’t stop our pace forward, hand in hand

Beijing recently employed the same tactic recently when a spate of bad smog would serve to galvanize the city in producing the lip-sync video “Happy in Beijing“. However, that video featured shaking hips and extroverted individualism that isn’t the message in this case.

For a power ballad in the vein of “We Are the World”, we are nonetheless surprised not to see a rap breakdown in the middle in which an MC differentiates regional Chinese differences by outlining what the local delicacies are as had happened in many “Gangam Style” tribute videos.

Photos: Screencaps from 56

[h/t Here! Dongguan]

The post Watch: Dongguan Youth Defend Sex-Riddled City in Song appeared first on The Nanfang.

Hazza in the music video for his original song “Let Go,” via Google Images

Hazza, 23, became an online celebrity in 2010 for singing covers of Mandarin pop songs while still a student back in his native Australia. He was subsequently offered a job in television in Guangzhou where he still lives, currently presenting the chat show Face Time.

Singing in Chinese

Hazza first became interested in China when he travelled to Beijing on a school trip in grade 7, but it wasn’t until he heard one of Jay Chou’s songs that he started to become fascinated by Chinese culture. “I bought Jay Chou’s ‘November Chopin’ at a dingy CD store in Chinatown back in Brisbane – best $15 I ever spent. I have listened to that album hundreds of times, the CD is all scratched up now,” Hazza told The Nanfang.

Singing in Chinese became a big part of his life while studying the language at university and it is what gave him his first taste of celebrity, making his current career possible: “Now looking back, learning Chinese songs wasn’t the best way of learning Mandarin (probably evidenced by my exam marks) but I guess I wouldn’t be doing what I am now if I hadn’t taken this approach,” said Hazza.

Serendipitously, the earliest videos of him singing in Chinese coincided with the rise of Sina Weibo in 2010. “At first I just uploaded a few videos to share with some of my Chinese friends from university, and all of a sudden they were re-tweeted a few hundred times. I guess this encouraged me to keep going,” he said.

Passion for Mandopop

Even though he acknowledges that a few million hits to his videos might not count for much in a country of over a billion people, he is proud that his videos have received a combined total of more than 12 million hits, half the population of Australia. His most popular video with several million hits has been his cover of Jay Chou’s “Nocturne,” the song which happens to be the one that got him interested in Mandopop all those years ago.

“Obviously I love (Mandopop), otherwise I wouldn’t be trying to make it! Some people think that Chinese songs are too ‘soppy,’ and sometimes I would have to agree, but there’s something about the sound that I really like and that attracts me,” he said, echoing some points made by The Nanfang last month.

He also writes his own songs in Chinese. “I released a single, ‘Let Go,’ that was on the ‘Guangzhou New Music Charts’ last year, and am currently working on my next single – it will be released in a couple of months. I hope that I have stayed true to the genre whilst adding my own individual touches at the same time,” Hazza told The Nanfang. Here is the video of Hazza’s original song “Let Go”:

Television work in Guangzhou

His online celebrity helped him land an interview for a job with Guangdong Television where he has been employed as a television presenter since early 2012. The job enables him to meet all kinds of interesting people while travelling around the country.

“Of course I enjoy interviewing models, despite the fact that they make me a little nervous. But by far, my favourite episode was when I interviewed my Chinese teacher from Australia who was here for a holiday,” he said, describing the moment as “surreal”. Other highlights of his time working for Guangdong Television include going backstage at a Wilber Pan concert and being put up in hotels that are way beyond the price range of most expats.

Despite having a relatively glamorous job, Hazza does not get out much in Guangzhou. “When I’m not at work, I’m at home sleeping (that’s my number one hobby) or learning new songs,” he said, adding “I would LOVE to meet some Australians who are in Guangzhou though, because I really miss my friends from home sometimes.”

As for the future, Hazza is happy to keep doing what he’s doing with his singing and his media work. “To be honest, I know I still have a LOT to learn when it comes to hosting and singing but I do put 100% into what I do because I know the chances that I have got are very hard to come by.”

The post PRD People: Guangzhou-based singer and TV personality Hazza appeared first on The Nanfang.

This video is a follow-up to a “Gangnam Style” parody that the same police force made last year.

The post Watch: Police in Guangzhou do a song and dance routine about theft appeared first on The Nanfang.