An Interview with Cui Jian
Chinese rock’n’roll idol Cui Jian sits backstage before the final New York appearance on his North American tour. His small frame belies his roar which, for now, he keeps in check as he says that the more things change, the more they stay the same.

New York Parks Commissioner Henry Stern has heard of Cui, but he doesn’t know much about him and seems to have confused him with somebody else. At Summer Stage on Aug. 8, Cui, 38, was introduced by Stern as “the leader of the Tiananmen Square Democracy Movement.” At a press conference the next day Cui was quick to clarify, saying that his presence at the demonstrations in Beijing in 1989 was not appreciated by the students or the government.

Since those heady days Cui has not always been given government approval to play at home. However, given the number of his fans among the billion-plus Chinese on the Mainland, where city dwellers of all ages listen to him on bootlegged cassettes, if he is not the most popular rock star in the universe, it would be hard to prove otherwise.

One of the Democracy Movement’s real leaders, Li Lu, now an investment banker in Manhattan, was in the audience in Central Park. He said it was the first time he’d heard Cui play since 1989, and that he thought most of the audience of over 3,000 was probably seeing Cui for the first time.

In Central Park and at the Bowery Ballroom, where Cui played two sold out shows on Aug. 13 and 14, however, the Chinese audience shouted along with him in Mandarin, word for word when he sings his 1994 hit “Hongqi Xia de Dan” (“Balls Under the Red Flag”):

“Now opportunity knocks, but who knows what they’re supposed to do? The Red Flag still waves without a fixed course The Revolution still goes on, but the old geezers are the strong ones Money blows in the wind, we have no ideals”

“He is our Elvis,” said one male Chinese student in Central Park who refused to give his name.

Cui is also compared to Bob Dylan, but he’s closer to the late Russian protest singer Vladimir Vysotsky in his open defiance of the political system in which he lives. His sound these days is a cross between his classic rock beginnings, with a Springsteen-influenced driving guitar and a baritone sax, and his latest style of spitfire modern rap. But his music, which has always incorporated traditional instruments, such as the zither and the Chinese flute, is sung all in Mandarin, and Cui is modest about the comparisons.

“I feel an honor because they are my heroes,” he says in halting English, his thinning rocker’s mop half covering his eyes.

Cui lives in Beijing and insists that Chinese and American realities are still very different, but says he feels that music transcends the differences.

“It’s rock’n’roll!” agrees one African American enthusiast in Central Park.

Over his 15 year career Cui has listened to lots of Western music, and lately, he says he has been listening to the new Public Enemy record.

“I never know who or what they’re angry for, but their music gets me angry for myself,” he says. “They point out some of the problems in their life and I think the first way to solve the problems is to find out what they are. That energy they have is a really good feeling.”

In a time when America’s relations with China are fraught with problems, Cui calls on his Chinese audience in America to help. At Central Park he dedicates his hit “Chu Zou” (“Leaving Home”) to the Overseas Chinese students in the audience.

“When you are finished studying, I hope you will go back and help build up your motherland,” he shouts. What looked like half the people in the audience cheered and raised their hands.

Cui has toured the States before, and he wants his fans to know what’s really going on in America. He hears that Chinese students spend too much time in the library and says he thinks education is good, but he wishes they would go to more concerts and baseball games. Cui is particularly disdainful when overseas Chinese tow the party line of “Zhong Mei Youyi Hao!” or “China-U.S. Relations are Great!”

“I think that in order to communicate you have to be very normal, really laid-back, and informal,” says Cui, wearing his showtime clothes of shorts and a floral patterned shirt, sipping bottled water backstage at the Bowery Ballroom.

But speaking casual Chinese, or speaking Chinese at all, is not crucial to getting to know Cui Jian. Each night he reaches out to the local community in English, telling the audience to “just make some noise” if they can’t understand the Chinese lyrics. He hopes to connect with a non-Chinese audience, he said, and fears that most people in America think of sugary Hong Kong pop stars when they think of Chinese rock.

“They are too commercial,” he says, noting that his band was lucky because it grew up in a time of transition between the mass political culture and the new mass capitalist culture.

“We were kind of individual,” he says with a hint of pride. “Nowadays, if you cannot make money in China people will think you are stupid, even if you have spirit, even if you have energy.”

One member of the Bowery Ballroom audience, Han Ning, is an artist from Beijing who has been in New York for two years. He says it is hard to make a living as an artist, even in New York. About Cui’s music he says, “He is expressing the emotions of a generation of Chinese people.”

Laurence Belanich, 27, of Astoria, said he heard that Cui Jian started playing in a café in Beijing in 1989 and that the café owner got deported as a result. Belanich thinks that Cui makes rock’n’roll hip and anti-communist.

“I love music, I love things that express,” says Belanich. “The lyrics don’t translate, but the culture does.”

Many Chinese in the audience agree. Yang Han, 25, is a student of sports education who came to America two years from Henan province. “CJ’s music is absolutely Chinese rock’n’roll.”

So does Cui Jian think that he’s made a difference in China over the years?

“Some people think I’m like a student in high school who hates my teacher even after I graduate,” says Cui, echoing critics of his political lyrics. “Those people say that China has already changed, but I don’t think it has changed enough.”

He is asked to comment on the recent Chinese crackdown on Falun Gong, the spiritual exercise movement led by Queens resident and recent Chinese immigrant, Li Hongzhi. Cui says he thinks it is an example of how “the system is not changing at all.”

But is Li a dangerous man?

“That’s stupid,” says Cui. “I don’t like him because he says his followers aren’t supposed to listen to rock’n’roll,” but, quick to see the bright side of things, Cui adds, “Master Li has a lot of imagination. I don’t believe in him but I think he could be a good artist or writer or director.”

Both Cui Jian and Li Hongzhi started their careers playing the trumpet, Cui for the Beijing Symphony Orchestra and Li for the People’s Liberation Army. Lucky for the Chinese government that Cui isn’t a member of Falun Gong and that Master Li shuns rock music. If their followers ever got together, the incident at Tiananmen Square, by contrast, would seem like a picnic in Central Park.