"When The East Is In The House..."

So I thought this piece in the New York Times about Hip Hop in China was interesting. You Can Read It Here, but if you're too lazy, here's an exerpt:

“Hip-hop is free, like rock ’n’ roll — we can talk about our lives, what we’re thinking about, what we feel,” said Wang Liang, 25, a popular hip-hop D.J. in China who is known as Wordy. “The Chinese education system doesn’t encourage you to express your own character. They feed you stale rules developed from books passed down over thousands of years. There’s not much opportunity for personal expression or thought; difference is discouraged.”

That paragraph reminds me that a lot of American Hip Hop is complete vapid bullshit, yet a lot of the "artist" performing it pretend to be rebels or innovators or loyal to the craft. In a lot of ways (And I'm not saying everyone) Hip Hop is squandering it's platform, meanwhile these kids are out there using it as a tool to stand up to one of the harshest governments in the world. Here's another exerpt:

“There are pockets of freedom here,” said Wong Miao, 24, the director of Acupuncture Records, which doubles as a collective of D.J.’s. “Anyone can play what they want in clubs, and as long as you aren’t insulting the party, generally you’ll be left alone. But if you want to take the next step to becoming mainstream, you hit a wall. If you aren’t singing their type of stuff or aren’t incredibly rich, they won’t sign you.”

At this point I've decided to spend the rest of the day trying to find this music. Also at this point I notice that an intire article about Chinese Hip Hop and not one single mention of Jin. Remember Jin? His career fell faster than Owen Hart.

“Hip-hop is free, like rock ’n’ roll — we can talk about our lives, what we’re thinking about, what we feel,” said Wang Liang, 25, a popular hip-hop D.J. in China who is known as Wordy. “The Chinese education system doesn’t encourage you to express your own character. They feed you stale rules developed from books passed down over thousands of years. There’s not much opportunity for personal expression or thought; difference is discouraged.”

"Difference is discouraged" he said. That's heavy.

Another reason to check out the link to the full story is because there's a cool video companion to the piece that I was unable to embed on here. Check It Out, It's interesting.

Semi Related "Speaking Of Being Popular in China" Bonus: Apparently George W. Bush is popular enough to have statues of his likeness built out there.