Why is Chinese popular music so sad?

Listening to Chinese pop, or ‘C-pop’, was an integral part of my childhood. I remember long road trips, where my family would often say nothing at all, instead belting the lyrics to Jay Chou’s endless hits. I remember KTV sessions, where my grandparents would sing “revolutionary” songs and my parents would reminisce on the Golden Years of Cantopop — indulging in timeless Hong Kong classics, still torn between whether 張國榮 (Leslie Cheung), or 谭咏麟 (Alan Tam) had a better voice. My siblings and I, however, having grown up with an Australian education, were influenced by music originating from both the Anglosphere and from Chinese-speaking communities. We loved ABBA, NSYNC, and Rihanna, as much as we loved 林俊傑 (JJ Lin), 陳奕迅 (Eason Chan), and 鄧紫棋 (G.E.M.), who are still among the most popular Chinese-speaking artists today.

As I grew to understand the lyrics of C-pop, I noticed the recurring sadness which seemed to connect Chinese language songs. Themes of loneliness, heartbreak, and loss are commonplace, but for some reason they felt more sorrowful and melancholic than their English-language counterparts. I’m not the only one who feels this way. The sadness of C-pop is a contentious dinner table topic, and an all-too-frequent discussion point on Quora and Reddit. So why is Chinese popular music so sad when compared to English songs? Or is this even the case?

Poetry and Chinese Education

雨下整夜我的愛溢出就像雨水

院子落葉跟我的思念厚厚一疊

幾句是非也無法將我的熱情冷卻

妳出現在我詩的每一頁

《七里香》– 周杰倫

作词：方文山

作曲：周杰倫

From 诗经 (Classic of Poetry), 乐府 (Yuefu), to 唐诗 (Tang Poems), and 宋词 (Song Ci) — poetry has cemented itself as a fundamental part of Chinese culture. Contrary to perceptions of poetry as a “dead” artform in Australian education, Chinese children are taught ancient poems from a young age, commonly leaving high school having memorised hundreds of them.

Although music and poetry are in many ways intertwined, we should focus on lyrics when considering the sadness of Chinese music. An article published by Shandong University (2006), titled 中国诗性文化”的五大特征“ (Five Key Features of China’s Culture of Poetry), wrote that poetry, as an approach to creating art, has seeped into art forms including calligraphy, painting and music. Perhaps this explains why lyricists are so highly revered in Chinese culture — their social status being seen as equivalent to that of poets.

Take the above passage from one of Jay Chou’s most popular songs, 七里香 (a moniker for a Taiwanese flower). “Love” appears only twice, but lyricist 方文山 (Vincent Fang) uses metaphors of rain, leaves, fish, and strawberries to express Chou’s unreserved affection for a girl. This harks back to ancient Chinese poetry conventions, where “I love you” was conveyed in a myriad of ways. Rather than being expressed directly, professions of love were often concealed through vague euphemisms and references to nature. Or perhaps this has more to do with Chinese linguistics; the vernacular of Sino-Tibetan languages being more unclear than that of Indo-European languages, creating less directness. Have I, and many others, simply misinterpreted the sadness of C-pop lyrics?

My mother said that to interpret C-pop through a purely linguistic lens would be a disservice to the art. She says the answer I should be searching for is more cultural than linguistic.

Chinese Cultural Norms

在有生的瞬间能遇到你

竟花光所有运气

到这日才发现

曾呼吸过空气

《明年今日》– 陳奕迅

作词：林夕

作曲：陳小霞

Many of us are accustomed to ideas of romantic love conveyed in forthright language. Modern classics such as Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together come to mind, or Lionel Richie’s Endless Love. But rarely do I hear such universal emotions of love and longing described in a similar fashion in C-pop.

In Chinese culture, we are less inclined to express our emotions so openly, due to the idealisation of stoic endurance and indirectness as a means of preserving social harmony. The above passage from the classic Cantonese song 明年今日, written by 林夕 (Albert Leung) and performed by Eason Chan, encapsulates this cultural phenomenon. It poignantly conveys feelings of longing for a loved one, trumped by a stoic acceptance that they are no longer a part of your life.

The lyrical ambiguity of C-pop can be seen as an extension of the ancient Chinese Art Theory of 留白 (leaving blank space), where the background of ink landscape paintings are left blank. This is not a mere aesthetic choice. It reflects a cultural philosophy which values leaving physical space for the interpretation of one’s emotions according to art, so it's no wonder the “emptiness” of C-pop lyrics are often conflated with “sadness”.

C-pop, like every other genre of music, is complex and ever-changing. It would be reductive to regard all C-pop as just ‘sad’. But unlike the songs we hear on Triple J’s Hottest 100 or Spotify’s Top Global Charts, traditional Chinese ideas and philosophies pervade the C-pop we hear today. It’s not necessarily an inherent sadness which persists among our Chinese speaking communities, but an implicit cultural preference for indirectness, and the collective artistic belief that “blank space” can illustrate far deeper sentiments of love and life.