Ethnic minorities in Chinese entertainment

Does she look Chinese to you?

One of the most frustrating things about introducing new Chinese artists are the “they don’t look Chinese” comments. Considering China has 56 official ethnicities with their ancestral homes in China, and who knows how many unofficial ones, and 1.3 billion people, it’s unfair to homogenize any part of China (or of the world ). And according to wikipedia, minority populations are rising at 7 times the rate of the Han Chinese because the One Child Policy only applies to Han Chinese (no, China is not trying to eliminate its minorities via One Child).

Photographer Chen Haiwen recently paid a tribute to the diversity of China by producing a series of photos that captured this diversity. Along with a team of photographers, he traveled across China for a year to take photos of a family from each ethnic group. Those, along with thousands of other photos captured on the trip, were put on display in Beijing’s WangFuJing Street last month. zhouzhzh on youtube has a slideshow of all the photos.

Here’s a spot light on some, definitely not all, minority Chinese artists in pop culture.

Super Girl He Jie

our Yi-group
manager: Super Boy Ji Jie and brand manager for Bacardi
members: two powerful and tomboyish songstresses SM’s lost cause Zhang Liyin
and really lost cause Super Girl He Jie
and boyband Blue Bird Flying Fish‘s 70.
HuHu’s not Yi, but he’s there by association. Maybe Zhang Yunjing can join, too, by marriage. Continue reading

The 3rd Annual Modern Sky Festival Coming Soon

It’s Chaoyang park time again you guys!!!!! The arrival is ushered in by this year’s poster (they’re always so cool...check out last year’s) which is similar to a a Magritte painting. China’s biggest indie label Modern Sky must be doing really, really well. Last year’s festival didn’t have any foreign acts, but this year is filled with them, and that doesn’t come cheap, not to mention that Modern Sky had already probably spent money organizing the Strawberry Festival this past summer. I will try to post on this once it happens.

For the official website (which also looks cool) click here.

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And sources tell me Bearbiscuit (an awesome band from Xinjiang) was rumored to possibly be playing there. They really should be there.  The song below of theirs is called Silence. /pimping.

Listen to the rest of their album at this youtube channel

Continue reading