'alternative china' links to articles in english about the new music scenes springing up all over china. composed by australasian diy music specialist shaun/tenzenmen (http://www.tenzenmen.com)
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Interview: Tom Crowther on the Beijing punks
As you may already know (we’ve been talking about this for a while), Hejorama will be hosting a screening of the much talked about documentary Beijing Punk in Paris this weekend. Since I can’t be there myself, I set out to learn more about these crazy punks by a different means.
The Rise and Fall of Chinese Punk: A Legacy of Youth No Longer Silent
When Australian filmmaker Shaun Jefford came to Beijing in the midst of 2008 Olympic fever to make the documentary Beijing Punk, punk was already dying in China. As in the UK in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the cry “Sell out!” could be heard in the background. In the UK a steel safety-pin pushed through the nose was replaced by a gold clip-on as a fashion statement. In China, the UK flag, and the de facto symbol of Chinese punk, had degenerated into a logo on a student handbag or an icon to decorate a cash-filled wallet.
Macon Film Festival dispatch: “Beijing Punk”
I went into Shaun Jefford’s “Beijing Punk” expecting a blast of loud, fast fun, and that’s exactly what it delivers, along with a little about to think about along the way. For a little background, Jefford explains at the outset that he took his camera to the Chinese capital in the year of the Olympics looking for an interesting story behind the big one, and finds his centered around the punk club D-22.
