Punk Culture in Contemporary China

Jian Xiao
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P
JIAN XIAO

UNK
CULT URE
IN CONTEMPORARY

CHINA
Punk Culture in Contemporary China
 Jian Xiao

Punk Culture in
Contemporary China
Jian Xiao
School of Communication
and Design
Sun Yat-sen University
Guangzhou, China

ISBN 978-981-13-0976-2    ISBN 978-981-13-0977-9 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0977-9

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018952908

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-­01/04 Gateway East, Singapore
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 Acknowledgements

The research upon which this book is based was made possible with the
funding by ‘The Fundamental Research Funds for Sun Yat-sen University
in 2017’ (17000-31610138) and ‘The Bilingual Curriculum Training
Project –Communication Studies’ (17000-18822604). A previous version
of Chap. 3 was published in the European Journal of Cultural Studies 2017,
20(6): 707–723, @2017 European Journal of Cultural Studies; a previous
version of Chap. 6 was published in the Chinese Journal of Communication
2017, 10(3): 246–263, @2017 Chinese Journal of Communication.
I would like to thank all those who participated in the research and my
family and friends who supported me. I would particularly like to thank
Professor Paula Guerra and Dr. Jim Donaghey who contributed their
research in Portugal and Indonesia.

v
 Contents

1 Introduction: Context, Method, and Theoretical

Framework   1
Jian Xiao and Paula Guerra
Introducing Punk   1
Interpreting Chinese Society   3
The Punk Scene in China   5
The Theoretical Framework   7
The Location  12
The Fieldwork  14
An Overview of the Major Questions  18
The Structure of the Book  18
References  21

Part I Punk in China  25

2 Punk in China: History, Artefacts, and Blogs  27

The Emergence of Punk in China  28
The Development of Punk in China  31
Blogs  38
References  44

vii
viii Contents

3 The Biographical Approach: The Story of a Chinese Punk

Musician  47
Introducing Mr. Li  48
Entering the Punk Scene: Interest  49
Reaction to Neighbours and the General Public  50
Critical Moments: Reaction to the Authorities  52
Being Marginal to Society  54
Being Marginal on the Street  55
Involvement in Punk Activities  58
Talking About Resistance  64
Conclusion  67
References  68

4 The Path to Punkhood, and Being a Punk  69

Becoming a Punk  69
Being a Punk  78
The Ideal Punk Lifestyle  86
Conclusion  98
References  99

5 Punk Performance, Hangouts, and Alternative Norms 101

Punk Performance 102
The Conflicts Within Punk Performance 107
Localising Punk Music 119
Hangouts 120
Conclusion 125
References 126

6 Boundaries and Identity: Understanding Online Punk

Practices 127
Two Fora: ‘Punk’ and ‘Punk Is Not Dead’ 128
Boundary-Breaking: Communicating with Outsiders 138
Boundary Construction: Shaping Forum Norms 141
Different Approaches to Punk 145
Creating Shared Identities 146
Conclusion 149
References 150
 Contents 
   ix

Part II A Comparison with Intra-Asian and European Punks 153

7 A Comparison Between Indonesian and Chinese Punks:

Resistance, Hangouts, and DIY 155
Jim Donaghey and Jian Xiao
The Emergence of Punk in Indonesia and China 155
Responding to Punk 156
Punk and Activism in Indonesia and China 159
Punk Space: Hangouts, Distros, and Infoshops 164
DIY Production and Distribution 166
DIY Gig Organising 168
Conclusion 173
References 174

8 A Comparison Between Portuguese and Chinese Punks:

A Genealogy, Style, and Space 177
Paula Guerra and Jian Xiao
A Genealogy of Punk Between Portugal and China 177
Style 179
DIY Practices and Lifestyle 183
Social Movements 186
Punk Space 190
References 195

9 Conclusion 201
The Development of the Chinese Punk Phenomenon 201
Punk Resistance in China 204
Reflections on the Book 211
References 212

Appendix: Biographical Characteristics of Respondents 213

Index 217
 Notes on Authors

Lead author
Jian Xiao (Loughborough University) works at School of Communication
and Design, Sun Yat-sen University. She has published in European
Journal of Cultural Studies, Chinese Journal of Communication, Punk &
Post-Punk, and so on. Her research interests focus on new media and cultural
studies. E-mail: JX.jianxiao@yahoo.com.

Co-authors
Jim Donaghey (Loughborough University) is a punk anarchist working
in academia, at Queen’s University Belfast. Jim is an active participant in
his local punk and anarchist scenes and is also the web editor of www.
AnarchistStudies.blog and member of the editorial board of Punk & Post-
Punk journal. Jim is in several punk bands, including Gulder and
Lawfucker. E-mail: j.­donaghey@qub.ac.uk.
Paula Guerra (University of Porto) is an associate professor in the
Department of Sociology of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the
University of Porto and researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the same
University (IS-UP), where she coordinates the subgroup Artistic Creation,
Cultural Practices and Policies. She is coordinator and founder of the
KISMIF Conference. She co-authored various books and her numerous
journal articles have been published. E-mail: paula.kismif@gmail.com.

xi
 List of Figures

Fig. 3.1 The performance of Mr. Li’s band 60

Fig. 5.1 Moshing in punk performance 105

xiii
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction: Context, Method,

and Theoretical Framework

Jian Xiao and Paula Guerra

This book explores punk lives in contemporary China. Discussion

about punk is currently thriving in academia, and focusing on Chinese
punk can be regarded as in line with this trend. That said, the general
lack of discussion about punk phenomena in Asian contexts demands
attention since local distinctiveness could provide a possible avenue for
new interpretation. With this book, we seek to address this gap some-
what, primarily by presenting biographies of Chinese punk musicians,
the specific society in which they are situated, and how the use of tech-
nology contributes to the development of the punk phenomenon in
China. The scope of the research also extends further, to examination
of the Chinese punk phenomenon in a global context and comparison
with other non-Anglo-American societies where the phenomena are
mostly neglected.

Introducing Punk
It is hard to define ‘punk’ with any single definition. The word ‘punk’
began as US jargon describing certain groups of youngsters at the bot-
tom of the social structure, such as ‘hobos’ and ‘black homosexuals’
(Laing 1978, 2015: 124). It gained wider recognition only with its appli-
cation to music. First it denoted a New York music scene, and then, with

© The Author(s) 2018 1

J. Xiao, Punk Culture in Contemporary China,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0977-9_1
2 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

developments in the British music scene (related mainly to the London-

based scene) and following the Sex Pistols, it gained global visibility.
Sara Thompson (2004) proposes approaching the punk phenomenon
in terms of genres of punk textuality and the concept of the punk scene.
While the first of these two facets is related to music, style, fanzines, and
events, the latter covers a series of major punk scenes. To be specific, the
punk scene started in 1974–1976 in New York, continuing with the
second-­wave English scene, which arose in London in 1976–1978. The
third major wave was the Californian hardcore scene of 1978–1982, with
the later emergence of the straight-edge hardcore scene in America.
Considering the profound development and prominence of punk in the
histories of Anglo-American societies, one should not be surprised to find
that most of the academic work focuses on punk phenomena in those
societies. For instance, in Dick Hebdige’s Subculture: The Meaning of Style
(1979), the cultural meanings of the punk phenomenon have famously
been discussed, and that discussion then contributed to the subcultural
studies carried out at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies (CCCS). Later studies expanded the research scope by exploring
the lived experiences of punks (e.g., Furness 2012; Leblanc 1999; Williams
2011), thereby addressing the problem of sparseness of empirical evidence
that once existed in the CCCS approach to subcultural studies.
Regarding the punk phenomenon in the West, Stephen Duncombe and
Maxwell Tremblay (2011) in their book White Riot: Punk Rock and the
Politics of Race state that white punk’s rejection of whiteness creates a
universal sense of subcultural citizenship in terms of building up an alter-
native and do-it-yourself style. Punk is also largely seen as representing a
‘benchmark for rupture towards the existing social structure’ in Western
societies (Guerra and Silva 2015: 207) and as expressing a desire for social
change (Copes and Williams 2007; Haenfler 2004). Fundamentally, punk
musicians’ philosophy may be summed up best by Craig O’Hara (1999:
71), who describes it as ‘a belief formed around the anarchist principles of
having no official government or rules, and valuing individual freedom
and responsibility (who doesn’t[?])’.
While similarities exist in many respects in a global context—for
example, in punk philosophy, genre, and style—and punk has become a
global cultural resource with which particular political desires can be pur-
sued, the development of the punk phenomenon in additional societies
has generated new modes of appropriation and localisation. For instance,
recent discussions of Portuguese punks (see Guerra 2014) or punks in
South Asian countries such as Indonesia (see Donaghey 2016) explore
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 3

how an authoritarian social context can shape the punk phenomenon in

contrast to patterns in democratic societies.
It seems certain that, wherever emerging, punk has represented rupture
and repositioning the existing social structure. Punk was always more than
merely a way of dressing or songs: it is an un-submissive attitude that chal-
lenges the status quo and gives visibility to unsatisfied youth (Colegrave
and Sullivan 2002). After 1978, many proclaimed the death of punk,
though this was little more than a symbolic death. In fact, what happened
was restructuring and globalisation of the punk movement (Masters 2007).

Interpreting Chinese Society

It has been argued that, to better understand a cultural phenomenon, one
needs to understand the distinctive characteristics of the social context that
the cultural form exists in. Accordingly, this section introduces one theoreti-
cal approach to interpreting Chinese society: in terms of Confucianism.
Confucian or Neo-Confucian philosophy once dominated Chinese society,
and it still plays a significant role (Yin 2002; Hwang 2013; Leung and Nann
1995). In Yongshun Cai’s (2010) description, the central party state priori-
tises the building and maintaining of a harmonious and stable society that
uses Confucian philosophy as a source of legitimacy. Joe C. B. Leung (2010),
for instance, attributes the psychological and social beliefs of Chinese people
to Confucian philosophy, as does Ian Weber (2002), who discussed the col-
lective behaviour of people in China within the framework of Confucianism.
According to Keumjoong Hwang (2013), Confucian philosophy is without
doubt the most influential philosophical system of thought in East Asia.
Nevertheless, he argues that the status of Confucianism is declining on
account of the rise of Western power and a lack of desire to revive its value.
It is true that Confucian philosophy has not explicitly maintained its
position in framing the dominant moral standards of Chinese society.
Nevertheless, it continues to play a significant role in that society (Yin 2002),
and recognising the conflicts and struggles that Confucian philosophy is
beset with in practice does not necessitate denying the influence of that
philosophy. As Leung and Richard C. Nann (1995) suggest, discussing
certain concepts related to Confucian philosophy can be highly relevant
when one considers the status quo in modern Chinese society. Therefore,
we address a set of concepts derived from Confucian philosophy here. Key
among these is family, the core concept in Confucian philosophy (Yin
2002). Leung and Nann (1995: 1) have described it as, accordingly,
forming the basis for the social, economic, and political structure of
4 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

traditional Chinese society through small family groups. The father image,
for instance, is especially strongly constructed in a family and serves as an
authoritarian figure. In Leung and Nann’s (1995) analysis, the principle of
filial piety (Xiao, or 孝) encompasses not only the moral obligation that
junior members have to fulfil but also a reciprocal system. The elderly, for
instance, are in the position of disciplining nonconformists and arranging
the careers, marriages, and so on of the younger members of the group. In
fact, the elderly exercise ultimate control over junior members and main-
tain domestic order. Considering the family in a broader sense, Leung and
Nann (1995: 2) argued thus:

The family in China served as the prototype of all social organisations[,]

including that of government. This stemmed from Confucian principles
which prescribed an hierarchical order of status and roles, and a clearly
defined system of vertical relationships within society.

The relationship between the state and the individual follows the same
principle, since the state serves as ultimate authority figure. From another
perspective, a conforming society with a hierarchical system is formed with
the state and the elderly identified as the ones at the top of the social hier-
archy. It is this feature of conformity that also builds a ‘we’ network, which
forms the basis of a collective culture. As Weber (2002) remarks, senti-
ments such as the idea that a person should help others establish them-
selves before seeking his or her own establishment appear in Confucian
thinking. Hence, Chinese society is defined as a society framed by ‘we’
culture and a collectivist system.
The concept of collectivism determines the arrangement of social inter-
action in Chinese society. Though there is an inherent dependence on
individuals, a rigid social framework is formed. In the words of Weber
(2002: 352),

[p]eople count on their in-group (family, relative, clan, or organisation) for

support. Thus, the in-group becomes the major source of identity. Within
this social structure, collective interests prevail over individual interests,
identity is based on social networks, children learn to think in terms of ‘we’,
harmony is maintained, and direct confrontation avoided.

This in-group can be expanded into a larger network, such as a neigh-

bourhood or acquaintances. The basic discipline of harmony or avoiding
direct confrontation is maintained via the national character with its
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 5

conformance to social norms. Within this discipline, submitting to

authority and social expectations are significant norms. Consequently,
China’s social structure is conservative and stable, with changes made by
individuals being usually categorised as the elements that possess potential
to destroy harmony. Simply put, authority and social norms have their
established and unshakeable position in Chinese society. While the con-
cept of authority is specifically constructed in two sets of relationships—
junior members of a family subordinate to the senior members and citizens
submitting to state power—the social norms are generally maintained in a
collective network that is shared by neighbours and acquaintances.

The Punk Scene in China

In China, the first wave of punk music appeared in the early 1990s. This
era, which witnessed the importing of Western music and culture, came
soon after the rise of youth rock music and begun with Cui Jian. A song
by this controversial figure had become the anthem of the protesters in the
1989 Tiananmen Square incident1 (Clark 2012), and revolutionary dis-
course was sublimated in music and art forms in the aftermath of the
protesters’ failure (Barme 1999). More importantly, the Chinese punk
tradition of opposing the government and challenging mainstream values
is closely tied to the general context of the post-Tiananmen 1990s, which,
according to Andrew Field and Jeroen Groenewegen (2008), witnessed
both the emergence of completely apolitical pop music and the marginali-
sation of the punk music that kept the revolutionary spirit alive.
While the history of the punk scene in China will be depicted in detail
in later chapters, two cultural productions are notable in the contempo-
rary era in shaping understanding of the punk phenomenon within China.
The book Inseparable: The Memoirs of an American and the Story of Chinese
Punk Rock, written by David O’Dell in 2011, describes the punk scene in
China since the 1990s. As a contributor to the punk scene himself, the
author had experienced hardship alongside the first generation of punk
musicians in China. From this emotion-stirring biography, which contains

1
The Tiananmen Square incident, also known as the June Fourth Incident or 6/4, was a
series of protests and demonstrations in China in the spring of 1989 that culminated on the
night of June 3–4 with a government crackdown on the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square
in Beijing (details are available at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/594820/
Tiananmen-Square-incident, accessed in April 2014).
6 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

much information about the distinctive music style, as well as the conflicts
between punk musicians and the government, it can be seen that Chinese
punk musicians were greatly influenced by the Western punk style.
During the same general era, Shaun M. Jefford produced a documen-
tary film that offered a record of punk performances and personal lives of
punk musicians at the time surrounding the 2008 Olympics in China.
Beijing Punk explores a lifestyle of punk musicians that involves drugs,
poverty, alcohol, and dissatisfaction with the police and the Olympics.
This film may inform the development of the Chinese punk scene itself;
however, its circulation beyond punk circles is limited: it has been banned
in China on account of its politically sensitive nature.
Given the nature of rebellion, one would imagine that it would be
problematic to perform punk music in the authoritarian Chinese context.
According to Anna Sophie Loewenberg (1999), punk musicians begin to
face restrictions particularly when their performances emerge in main-
stream arenas. In reality, the conflicts between punk musicians and the
party state are negotiated in a complicated way, since, on one hand, the
cultural policy of promoting national values is under increasing threat
from the artistic production and expansion of the commercial market in
popular culture (O’Connor and Gu 2014) and, on the other, the dis-
course around cultural industries can depoliticise the rock culture and
music (Groenewegen-Lau 2014).
Although culture-related productions about Chinese punks exist, few
academic discussions have paid them much heed. Nevertheless, the
Chinese punk phenomenon does attract attention in certain quarters, on
account of the vivid initial impression of Chinese punks constructed in
their mode of dress, performances, and resistant political attitude, coupled
with the controversy surrounding their conflict-laden relationship with the
Chinese government. From this perspective, it is particularly intriguing to
look at how the punk phenomenon developed in the Chinese context.
In the limited discussion regarding the Chinese punk phenomenon,
DeHart (2013) states that punk music can hardly be regarded as a subcul-
ture in China, because of the lack of suitable political and economic condi-
tions for its development there. This book also presents the view that a
CCCS-style subcultural approach as discussed below is not appropriate for
understanding the punk phenomenon in China, although he has no quar-
rel with the commitment of the CCCS approach, characterised by Hilary
Pilkington as ‘understanding micro-cultural practice in relation to deeper
(and historically rooted) social structural change’ (2010: 11). Rather than
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 7

proceed from the assumption that class or community is the driving force,
one can apply the neo-tribe approach, which leaves room for interest in
punk music and culture as an explanation. In fact, it is hard to sustain the
coherence of a ‘culture’ amidst a great variety of cultural involvement
(Chaney 1994). In this approach, the theme of a ‘culture’ spreading (e.g.,
to the USA or New Zealand through English-speaking intellectual com-
munities) is considered from the perspective of how it is adapted and
remade in day-to-day life. From this angle, culture is, more specifically,
‘less a set of items to be specified, and more a series of ways of “telling”
which provide some sense of confidence in the consistency of knowing
how to go on’ (Chaney 1994: 40). That is the understanding we apply in
this book.
In addition, the term ‘scene’ is adopted here, to afford understanding of
the localisation of punk activities in the Chinese context. Having developed
over a span of 20 years in China, the punk phenomenon tends to be plural-
istic (Xiao and Stanyer 2016), showing diversity of musical styles (e.g., with
the coexistence of genres such as hardcore, Oi!, and street punk), class (with
both working- and middle-class members), and professional background
(encompassing teachers, bar owners, and even civil servants). Within the
limited academic discussion about Chinese punk, Jeroen de Kloet (2010)
regards it as a depoliticised phenomenon, seeing the musicians as seeking
pleasure more than revolution or struggle. While it is undeniable that
Chinese punk musicians pursue a sense of pleasure in performing, the
material presented in this book suggests that benefit can be found in widen-
ing the research scope and paying attention to their day-to-day practices.

The Theoretical Framework

With this section of the chapter, we look at Howard S. Becker’s concept
of art worlds and Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of field (1996) for the per-
spective they can provide. We then turn to theories connected with the
subcultural and post-subcultural theoretical debates, concepts of resis-
tance, and theoretical approaches to interpreting Chinese society.

Art Worlds, Cultural Fields, and Punk

The definition of ‘art worlds’ that was first conceived of, developed, and
popularised by Becker has had a large impact in various disciplines, with
sociology of the arts being most prominent among them, along with stud-
8 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

ies of the society and economy of culture (Becker 1982). In our

understanding, the continued presence of the concept in these fields is
well justified—we can see how it fits both analytically and conceptually on
research agendas in countless investigations of the late twentieth and early
twenty-first century. The concept of art world implies very clearly the
notion of artistic creation as a collective endeavour and thereby brings to
the table the myriad of complementary activities that support the art work,
along with the feedback received, the contact with the public, and others’
understanding (public reception and mediation). As we have noted, co-­
operation is vital in this, as ‘in all the arts we know, much like in every
other human activity, cooperation is ever present’ (Becker 1982: 7). That
co-operation takes place not only in the same spatial or temporal frame; it
extends to the whole production cycle of the artwork, from the materials
needed for its conception to the resources required for distribution and
recognition. For all this to come together, there must be ‘a group of peo-
ple whose activities are necessary for the production of works which that
world, and maybe others, recognize as art’ (Becker 1982: 34).
The co-operative work involved in artistic production implies the exis-
tence of conventions as to the way in which agents should co-operate.
This can be seen in the punk domain: when working together, the indi-
viduals establish the necessary conventions for the development of bands,
record labels, tours, and so on (Guerra 2013a, b; Maanen 2010). Becker
emphasises the importance of these informal agreements for sharing
knowledge of a particular environment and guiding in the way in which
that knowledge can be found. This is intimately related to the type of con-
nection found in the artistic metier. In their operation, the arts determine
(and are acted upon by) both general social rules/customs and more spe-
cific workings of the artistic world.
We might consider as an example the case of Portuguese punk, which
gave new life to the country’s counterculture through the growth of
scenes, networks, fanzines, independent record labels, a DIY press, and
associated venues (Guerra 2013a, b, 2015, 2017). Punk’s arrival in
Portugal, addressed in greater depth in other works (Guerra 2014; Guerra
and Bennett 2015), was a gateway to a democratic context that emerged
in stark contrast against the 40 years of fascism and not just cultural and
musical but also social, political, and ideological isolation that preceded it.
The latter social and cultural context served as a fundamental impulse for
social change, opening young people’s eyes to artistic and cultural practices
in a new context of subcultural belonging. In this opening of possibilities
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 9

for leisure and self-realisation as youth, it was these belongings—vis-à-vis

punk—that were crucial in constructing a DIY ethos and practice. This was
felt in terms of not only bands but also clothing, venues, records, and fan-
zines—all of which served as crucial elements in the shift from the subcul-
ture’s mere existence towards the notion of it being something in its own
right. Also, Sarah Thornton’s notion of subcultural capital (1995) comes
into play. This concept offers great utility for considering the relevant posi-
tions in terms of the roles and the functions of the actors within the
Portuguese punk scene and its subsequent DIY demonstrations.
The independent production strategies of the Portuguese punk scene,
with foundations on subcultural capital, have grown consolidated over the
last 30 years. Many members of it have possessed DIY competence in par-
ticipating with punk local music scenes at least at some point, and co-
operation networks have played a key role in making things happen
(Becker 1982; Crossley 2015). The thriving punk scene came about via
the engagement of young musicians, both amateur and professional gate-
keepers, and deeply loyal, though small, audiences. In its essence, the
underground—a loose agglomeration that brings together notions of
youth conviviality, artistic production, mainstream defiance, and ritual
performance—is a collective creative work (McRobbie 2016) that expresses
everyday aesthetics in youth-culture contexts (Guerra 2017).

From CCCS Beginnings to a ‘Post-Subcultural’ Approach

Ways of interpreting the punk phenomenon have deep roots in subcultural
studies, most famously represented by the above-mentioned CCCS
approach, which emerged in the post-war years in Europe for addressing
youth subculture issues. Involving researchers from several fields, the work
carried out at the CCCS was characterised by a strategy of transdisciplinar-
ity based on combining anthropology with history, literary criticism and
related theory, Marxist studies, semiotics, media studies, structuralist
approaches, and sociology—arising in large part from the influence of the
Frankfurt School’s critical theory (Guerra 2010, 2013a, b).
The approach is focused on addressing youth subcultures from the per-
spective of power. In theoretical terms, it employs the concept of cultural
resistance. Inspired by Antonio Gramsci’s work, the CCCS researchers
emphasised the use of signifiers and symbols of resistance to the dominant
culture, since populist youth actions thereby manifest opposition to
cultural hegemony that neutralises and standardises them. These scholars
10 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

displayed a neo-Marxian perspective that accords strong centrality to the

concept of social class. This is abundantly clear from the emphasis devoted
to English working-class youth in cultural studies, with analysis of how the
subcultures in question represent symbolic solutions for these young
people (Guerra 2014).
By directing their focus to some British youth subcultures (teddy boys,
mods, rockers, hippies, punks, etc.), scholars of cultural studies attempted
to demonstrate how processes of resistance have been activated against the
dominant culture in a context of struggles, conflicts, and oppression
deeply anchored in their class positions. The CCCS researchers assigned
great relevance to style, which Stanley Cohen (1972) described as able to
be subdivided on the basis of four central characteristics: clothing, music,
rituals, and language. However, he noted also that style is not a quality
inherent to the subcultures but something constructed in the long term.
Hence, what creates a style is the stylisation—the active organisation of
objects alongside the activities and perspectives, which, in turn, produces
an organised group with a coherent identity and distinctive ‘being-in-the-­
world’ (Guerra 2010: 416). In this context, style is understood as synony-
mous with resistance, a physical translation of symbolic guerrilla action
against ‘the system’—understood as an oppressive ‘social order’ that
restricts labour opportunities and possibilities for social mobility among
working-class youth. For Hebdige (1979), subcultures can be seen meta-
phorically as noise, as representing resistance and valuing of the under-
ground, the marginal. Under this sort of structural analysis, subcultures
arise as a response to the problems (understood in historical, economic,
and political terms) posed by class, race, and gender.
Whilst resistance clearly is a crucial concept for understanding subcul-
tural practices, the general explanation cited above pertains to symbolic
resistance, which is not adequate in examining the punk phenomenon.
For a better understanding, we should look at the argument put forth by
J. Patrick Williams (2011). He considered subcultural resistance on three
dimensions: passive to active, micro to macro, and overt to covert. When
discussing the first dimension, Williams pointed out that the CCCS
approach firstly theorises on the consumptive acts of youth resistance,
resistance through appropriation. The passivity in symbolic resistance is in
its ‘magical’ solution to class conflicts. In other words, symbolic resistance
through consumptive appropriation is unable to achieve any substantial
consequences and ultimately remains impotent. As for active resistance,
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 11

Williams turns to Paul Willis’s (1977) study and his conceptualisation of

‘opposition’, in line with which the delinquent youth holds an opposi-
tional attitude ideologically without remaining at consumption level.
To discern how the direction of either passive or active resistance is
formed, Williams proposed the second dimension: micro–macro.
Describing macro-oriented subcultures, he referred to Robert K. Merton’s
(1938: 678) argument that ‘rebellion occurs when emancipation from the
reigning standards, due to […] marginalist perspectives, leads to the
attempt to introduce a “new social order”’. Further, Williams summarised
the CCCS theoretical perspective on middle-class cultures, which are
believed to be more overtly political and framed as countercultures. It
bears remembering that, although macro-oriented resistance tends to be
more ideological in nature, it does not necessarily require formal political
protests. For instance, a subcultural group’s members may join a social
movement that appeals for environmental protection. From this perspec-
tive, macro-oriented resistance can transcend class while not limiting itself
to overtly political behaviours. The third dimension that Williams discussed
involves whether the resistance is covert or overt. While overt resistance,
normally in macro-oriented form, can be easily recognised, covert resis-
tance occurs more in a private subcultural space. Compared to the theori-
sation on resistance in the CCCS model, Williams’s model of adducing
different types of resistance in three dimensions is more complete and
thorough, thereby offering potential for better explanation of the subtle-
ties in the resistant practices of punk musicians.
All scientific perspectives have flaws, and clearly the CCCS one is not an
exception. Adherents to the ‘post-subcultural’ approach (Weinzierl and
Muggleton 2003) that emerged later advocated abandoning the CCCS
subcultural framework and shifting focus to the individualised ways
through which young people construct and express their identities
(Shildrick and MacDonald 2006). Informed by ethnographic and qualita-
tive methods, the conceptual frameworks employed in post-subcultural
theory are known as ‘neo-tribe’, ‘scene’, and ‘lifestyle’ (Bennett 2011).
These move the emphasis from models of social constraint to agency
(Blackman 2014). For instance, Andy Bennett (1999: 607) criticised
CCCS subcultural theory for ‘suppos[ing] individuals to be locked into a
particular “way of being” which is determined by the conditions of class’.
To study contemporary dance music, he adopted the concept of neo-tribes
from Michel Maffesoli (1996: 98) instead, along with the latter’s idea that
12 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

‘without the rigidity of the forms of organisation with which we are

familiar, [the best approach] refers more to a certain ambience, a state of
mind, and is preferably to be expressed through lifestyles that favour
appearance and form’. With application of neo-tribal theory, it is taste or
aesthetics, rather than class or community, that can be framed as the pri-
mary driving force for the collective cultural participation (Bennett 1999).
Bennett’s (2011) discussion points to the concept of ‘scene’ proposed
by Will Straw (1991) as having had a huge influence on post-subcultural
theorists. The ‘scene’ perspective is usually adopted to focus on circum-
stances wherein performers, fans, or support facilities create music in a
collective manner (Peterson and Bennett 2004). Because a music scene is
characterised as a space for a gathering of individuals that is bounded by
musical taste rather than class (Bennett 2011), Richard A. Peterson and
Andy Bennett (2004) have proposed using the term ‘scene’ instead of
‘subculture’: the latter presumes that the participants’ actions are regu-
lated and controlled by uniform subcultural standards. For understanding
the older generation of punk fans, Bennett (2006) adopted Peterson and
Bennett’s (2004) three-tier model of ‘scenes’ to explore their fan prac-
tices, involving ‘local’, ‘trans-local’, and ‘virtual’ scenes. The concepts of
‘local’ and ‘trans-local’ scenes were important also for Paula Guerra and
Bennett (2015) in their studies of the development of punk in the
Portuguese context. In their discussion, punk as a musical style has under-
gone a reappropriated and redefined process at a local level. From this
perspective, post-subcultural analysis can facilitate understanding of young
people’s appropriation of music or style in their day-to-day life (Bennett
2011) and contribute to an appropriate approach for scholars’ exploration
of individual trajectories.

The Location
The foregoing discussion has shown that earlier studies focusing on (post-
)subcultural phenomena invite criticism for lack of validity. That is, the
question arises of whether there is enough evidence to support the
researcher’s claim and whether or not the research is credible (Hammersley
1998). According to Karen O’Reilly (2012), ethnographic research can
solve validity-related problems since it focuses on the ‘native’s’ perspective
(Fetterman 2010: 20–22). Gathering the ethnographic material presented
in this book involved mainly the methods of participant observation and
interviews. The research was conducted both in the virtual environment
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 13

and in urban parts of China. In more specific terms, virtual ethnography

was used to explore online punk communities. This approach has been
discussed as one method for examining cyberspace and cyberculture/sub-
cultures (Hine 2000; Williams and Copes 2005). Just as traditional eth-
nography involves observing informants, interviewing people, and taking
pictures during careful fieldwork, virtual ethnography needs to be con-
ducted systematically in the online setting, since the Internet itself can be
regarded as a culture and a cultural artefact (Hine 2000).
Before we can discuss the research on punk communities done online,
Chinese state policy on the Internet must be explained. As Weiyu Zhang
and Mao Chengting indicate (2013), the Chinese government has con-
ducted a thorough project of suffocating free expression via mass media.
In fact, the Internet-­filtering system in China, with its multi-layered and
self-censoring structure, has been described as ‘the most sophisticated in
the world’ (Meng 2011: 6). The policy is manifested also in the fact that
various foreign Web sites are blocked in China, perhaps most famously
including the social networks Twitter and Facebook, which have been
blocked since July 2009. This was to prevent Chinese citizens from access-
ing information about riots that were taking place at the time in the prov-
ince of Xinjiang. Under these restrictions, the capacity of the Internet in
China as a space for public discussion is significantly weakened.
For the first few weeks, the virtual ethnographic research involved
background work of exploring any Web sites related to punk (朋克) via the
online search engines Google and Baidu, after which key resources were
found and it was possible to embark on a stage of sampling aspects includ-
ing people, time, settings, and contexts, as suggested by Martyn Hammersly
and Paul Atkinson (1995) as one option for an ethnographer. It was found
that not only fans of punk music and culture gather in virtual spaces; they
are joined by punk musicians, who use online platforms to present their
productions and reflections. According to preliminary research in which
activeness and relevancy were the main selection criteria, the Web sites I
found with the greatest activity were the Douban Punk Club site (朋克俱
乐部) and a Baidu forum. The online forums of the Douban site, Baidu’s
‘Punk Forum’ (百度朋克吧), and the ‘Punk Is Not Dead’ Baidu forum
area (百度朋克不死吧) were chosen for further research involving the
group members who were interested in punk. Meanwhile, the Web site
titled ‘Chinese Punk Union’ (中国朋克联盟) was chosen as a source of
information about Chinese punk musicians. To promote their ‘brands’,
various punk bands have come together to publish information on them,
14 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

which can be found on that site. Furthermore, the function of this Web
site goes beyond commercial promotion; the site also provides a means of
getting familiar with the performance and dress style of the punk musi-
cians. More importantly still, it can be used as a day-by-day archive of
goings on and a record of performance information for each year and
month.
After the first stage, of online exploration, a field study was conducted
over the course of four months, from March to June 2013, with the fol-
lowing locations visited for purposes of the study: the capital city, Beijing;
the city of Wuhan, in Hubei Province, and Zhujiajiao, a suburb of
Shanghai; Changsha, in Hunan Province; and the less developed city
Huaihua, in Hunan Province. Beijing and Wuhan were chosen for the
focus of the field study, since they were regarded as the main cities for
development of the punk subculture, while the other three places were
added to the study as it progressed, in consequence of the snowball-­
sampling technique. Five weeks each were spent in Beijing and Wuhan: In
Beijing, 20 punk musicians and two punk fans were interviewed, with
participant observation at four live music events and three informal gath-
erings. In Wuhan, seven punk musicians were interviewed, along with one
punk fan and around ten students of a punk musician who is a music lec-
turer (the interview was in order to understand what outsiders think about
punks and their subcultural practices), with participant observation at
three live music events. In the Shanghai suburb, three punk musicians
were interviewed, and one informal gathering was attended. Four punk
musicians each were interviewed in the two cities in Hunan Province—
Changsha and Huaihua. In 2017, a follow-up visit was made to Beijing
and an informal punk gathering was attended. At the same time, two punk
musicians and one punk fan were interviewed.

The Fieldwork
The main purpose of the fieldwork was to learn about the experiences of
Chinese punks from the individual participant’s perspective. In the initial
stage, the researcher was situated as not only a researcher but also a learner
and a participant in the punk scene. With this in mind, building t­ rustworthy
relationships and collaborating with punk-scene participants became cru-
cial. By the end of the fieldwork, I had made the transition from person
with limited knowledge about the Chinese punk phenomenon to some-
one not only familiar with it but also equipped with a deep understanding
of it and sympathising with it.
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 15

Mr. Li, a punk musician with many years’ experience of the punk scene,
was the first person interviewed, and he became the key participant.
Finding an experienced and respected informant when conducting field-
work is of great significance: such a person can usually create opportunities
to meet other relevant people, thereby widening the research base and
accelerating the establishment of meaningful relationships between the
ethnographer and those he or she is working with. For instance, Alice
Goffman in her book On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City
(2014) wrote about the experience of meeting Mike, who took this white
ethnographer under his wing to conduct research in a poor black neigh-
bourhood. Mike emerged as the key participant and assisted her immensely
in engaging with the community studied. Similarly, through Mr. Li’s help,
I was introduced to punk musicians of many stripes and swiftly gained
their trust because of him.
Mr. Li had opened a rock-style restaurant, which was the first stop in
the fieldwork and would later be the setting for much ‘hanging out’.
I recalled the following:

When I first entered the restaurant and introduced myself to Mr Li, I started
to observe the environment. The restaurant was covered with punk rock
posters, with loud rock music playing in the background. Mr Li was sitting
by a table and talking with his friends; I found him to be bald, wearing Doc
Martens boots and a black t-shirt with the slogan ‘ACAB’ (for ‘All cops are
bastards’) printed on it. It was afternoon, and the restaurant was quiet. As I
became more familiar with Mr Li, he told me that the busiest time starts in
the evening when customers, many of whom are rock musicians, like to have
drinks there. From Mr Li’s heavily tattooed body, I had the initial impres-
sion that this place was more like a rock-style bar than a normal restaurant.
As I sat down and asked Mr Li about his restaurant, I found myself partici-
pating in his life activity of that afternoon, relaxing and chatting with others.
In other words, I started my participant observation at that moment.

Sarah Pink (2009) introduced the concept of sensory ethnography,

referring to a type of ethnography that especially engages such senses as
touch, hearing, smell, sight, and taste. This is a reminder that, of course,
all ethnographic research involves the senses and engages the body for
interpreting unspoken meanings and establishing a meaningful relation-
ship with participants (O’Reilly 2012). Accordingly, Mr. Li’s restaurant
can be constructed as a space for observing his lifestyle with all of one’s
senses, and this research practice was woven throughout the fieldwork
period. The fieldwork diary continues thus:
16 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

When I interviewed Mr Li, we were interrupted a few times during the

conversation. Mr Li had to tend to his customers. Rather than seeing this as
annoying, I took the chance to observe Mr Li’s professional style. On the
basis of his way of working, Mr Li and I discussed more topics, such as how
he thought of the relationship between his job of being in charge of a res-
taurant and his music performance. It turned out to be an interesting area
to explore as part of the life experience and biography of an individual punk.

Paying attention to the details of the individual’s life is also a way to

build a relationship of mutual trust, particularly for an outsider, who may
need to devote more energy and time to gaining familiarity with the
relevant scene. Simultaneously, the ‘strangeness’ to the scene can have
positive aspects, such as aiding in forming a more independent opinion.
When studying Mexican immigrants and their sex lives, Gloria González-
López (2005) identified herself as an insider since she is a Mexican immi-
grant and is heterosexual, yet the ease of her gaining access to the group
and earning their trust was balanced by a need to deal with personal biases,
which have a huge impact on how one interprets the group studied
(González-López 2005: 265). In contrast, I did not bring as much insider
status to the perspective adopted to the punk group at the outset. This
may have been an advantage in practical terms too, in dealing with various
subgroups within the punk community, who differed in their ideas of
punk. It assisted in not ‘taking sides’ among the various bands but also in
navigating the biases held by the various bands in relation to the others:
the outsider may be less ‘tainted’ and obviously so.
To explore the lifestyles of punks in China, I spent a considerable
amount of time travelling and attempting to observe the day-to-day life of
those involved in the research. As O’Reilly (2012) points out, ethno-
graphic interviewing is a time-consuming method. To fit the interviews
into the timetables of the various participants, I visited various locations as
their requirements dictated, writing the following in the field notes:

Although I had mentally prepared for this before my fieldwork, I would

sometimes encounter unexpected situations. For instance, when I was inter-
viewing Mr Fang, he asked me whether I could follow him to the city centre
and conduct the interview in the car since he and his wife needed to take
their dog for an operation and wouldn’t have time otherwise. While I felt
slightly uncomfortable in joining them for such a private and personal activ-
ity, I was also intrigued to see the outcome of interviewing in this kind of
setting. That day, I had to help them hold the dog and ate a packed lunch
with them to save time. It was a bit chaotic in general, but Mr Fang and
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 17

I talked a great deal in the car when things became quiet. On the way back,
he also expressed his views about the urbanisation of Shanghai and used it as
justification for his choice of living in the suburbs and participating in sub-
cultural activities. The whole day was tiring and time-consuming, but it was
fruitful. We built a good relationship after my participation in his day-to-day,
non-subcultural activities. That evening, he invited me to his rock bar and
introduced me to his friends, who were also punk musicians.

Building personal relationships generally benefited the fieldwork. For

instance, in the experience described above, versatility in interview style
can reduce the distance between the participants, thereby allowing a
shortcut to personal details and opinions from them. Nevertheless, how to
adjust distance is a real concern when one conducts such fieldwork.
According to Dick Hobbs and Richard Wright (2006: xi),

[t]he more successful fieldworkers are in reducing the perceived distance

between themselves and those they are studying, the less ‘objective’ they
become in gathering and reporting their data.

Studying a group requires constant adjustment of distance. It is true

that a fieldworker needs to balance familiarity with the field against main-
taining adequate distance for objectivity on what he or she has seen and
felt. During the fieldwork, increasing familiarity with the scene was cou-
pled with a noticeable decline in curiosity. More importantly, this familiar-
ity can bring with it changes in attitudes, which might include starting to
be influenced by the participants, accepting subcultural norms, and feeling
hostility towards mainstream norms in some respects. One needs to be
aware of this phenomenon and also that gestures of acceptance by the
respondents do not necessarily mean being accepted as one of them
(Pilkington 2010). Without awareness of both of these issues, the process
of gaining understanding becomes one of consuming the participants’
viewpoints. The aim with this book is for depth instead—understanding
the various levels to experiences of Chinese punks and, most importantly,
regarding them as multi-dimensional human beings.
For the full richness of the punk musicians’ life experiences, the bio-
graphical approach was adopted. This approach can contribute to subcul-
tural studies (with a post-subcultural orientation) by highlighting
individual trajectories in terms of engagement with cultural activities.
Using it to study the punk phenomenon in China helps us explore a wider
range of individual experiences across various phases of the participants’
lives, which are derived not only from their punk network but also from a
18 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

wider social network tying in with their family, academic, and professional
lives. As Dave Laing (2015) points out, followers of a punk lifestyle in
many other European countries share with British punk rock a stance of
opposition to the commercialisation of their music and to socially domi-
nant institutions. This leads us to ask whether the punks in a different
social context—the example here being that of China—display a similar
resistant spirit. Therefore, this book examines how power is ‘incorporated
in numerous practices’ (Barrett 1991: 135) of the punk musicians and, of
the greatest importance, how those musicians respond to structural pres-
sures linked with social norms or values and, equally, pressures from the
authority figures that influence their life.

An Overview of the Major Questions

With the goal of presenting the punk phenomenon in China well, the
book examines the forming of punk groups, from early historical develop-
ments to contemporary times, the individual-specific trajectories of the
punks in China, punk activities, and the meanings of these activities. The
scope also covers exploring punk practices online. In addition, contextu-
alisation is provided—we will consider the punk phenomenon in China in
comparison with punk phenomena that have emerged in other societies.
With particular attention to practices of resistance, this book considers
whether and how punk practices can be interpreted as manifesting forms
of resistance. This consideration could lead to a further question, of
whether the analysis of resistance needs to take the individual participant’s
punk career into account. If so, how are we to best understand both indi-
vidual participant biographies and the phenomenon as a whole?
Finally, research into a subcultural phenomenon in a ‘new’ social con-
text, such as punk in China, must carefully address the broader society in
which the phenomenon is manifested. Accordingly, we will explore also
how the punk phenomenon is situated in relation to the broader social
system, especially in terms of lines of resistance.

The Structure of the Book

The book is divided into two main parts. The first part explores punk in
China itself, while the second part expands the discussion to include com-
parisons with punk groups in Portugal and Indonesia.
 INTRODUCTION: CONTEXT, METHOD, AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK 19

Presenting the empirical findings overall, Chap. 2 offers an overview of

the punk phenomenon in China as a prelude to the detailed discussions in
the following chapters. Firstly, it examines the tensions between the politi-
cally driven punk phenomenon and the political environment of Chinese
society today, such as promoting the discourse of depoliticised creative
cultures and industries. Secondly, it introduces the emergence of the punk
phenomenon in China, the tendencies on the rise and waning from one
era to the next, and current developments such as performances in differ-
ent cities. Thirdly, it introduces some prominent punk figures and punk
groups in China, focusing on the similarities and the differences among
them. Additionally, it introduces China’s online punk fan communities
and their features.
Informed by the biographical approach, Chaps. 3 and 4 provide discus-
sion of individual punk-related practices that is based on the participants’
biographies and subcultural/cultural careers. Chapter 3 provides the
biography of Mr. Li, both a key informant in the research and a punk
musician who was an important figure in the Chinese punk scene. More
importantly, this chapter discusses the value of the biographical approach
through its examination of the gradual process of Mr. Li’s commitment to
the punk scene. Then, with Chap. 4, three dimensions in particular are
explored. The first part of the chapter analyses the influence of early edu-
cational experiences on each punk’s subcultural career, discussed in rela-
tion to the participants’ first forays into the punk scene. After this, a
typically later stage in the punks’ life is explored, one often involving con-
trasting professional and punk lives of established punks. In this connec-
tion, we explore how the punks negotiate their identities and struggle
between them, which helps to reveal the meanings of punk practice in
day-to-day lives and aids in understanding their resistant intentions and
acts against the various forms of authority at this stage in life. Finally, dis-
cussion turns to the participants’ idealisations of the punk lifestyle. This
portion of the chapter focuses on how the research participants envision
their future lifestyle in light of the pressure and control from society and
what kinds of strategies they employ to make this lifestyle into reality.
Chapter 5 applies the concept of scene and performance to explore col-
lective punk practices, including punk performances and ‘hanging out’. It
starts with a detailed ethnographic account of punk-style performance
itself, focusing on the performance environment and the interactive ritu-
als, such as pogoing and moshing. Then, it explores the inherent conflict
20 J. XIAO AND P. GUERRA

between punk performance and the Chinese political and economic

environment as well as social morality. Additionally, it examines the various
perceptions of being authentic in a performance, and this discussion leads
to further examination of the ideal version of punk performance. The
chapter also highlights how punk musicians alter norms when performing.
Finally, it discusses punks hanging out as a form of collective practice, with
particular attention to how punk musicians construct a subcultural/
cultural space and produce a form of resistance to the mainstream.
The next chapter analyses how digital technology can shape cultural
practices in Chinese online punk communities. Firstly, it explores the for-
mation of two online punk (fan) communities in China, focusing on how
practices differ between these two communities. The concept of boundary
aids in discussion of how exclusion is enabled by the technological plat-
form. Secondly, we examine how the participants identify themselves with
online communities and form punk culture/subculture encouraged by the
boundaries of their respective communities. Finally, Chap. 6 explores how
punk musicians and forum members use specific online strategies to pro-
duce a form of resistance to the country’s online censorship and the
Chinese government.
Chapter 7 provides a comparison between Chinese punks and
Indonesian ones. Among the key areas of comparison here are the politics
of punk space, DIY gigs and music production/distribution, and both the
particular forms of repression faced by Indonesian and Chinese punks and
the ways in which they respond. Next, Chap. 8 further presents a compari-
son between two very different socio-­historical realities, involving Portugal
and China. Through this, we aim to answer the following questions: What
are the differences and similarities between the Portuguese and Chinese
punks? What challenges do they face in their day-to-day life? Through
analysis of elements such as style, performances, and professional careers,
we become more able to understand how exactly the Chinese and
Portuguese realities, although very different, have many points in com-
mon. This part of the book is particularly important in light of the domi-
nance of Anglo-American contexts in most punk-­related research.
The final chapter presents a general picture of the punk phenomenon as
described in the book and of punk individuals and collective practices. In
addition to this, an overall assessment of the ethnographic findings is pro-
vided, along with theoretical reflections on cultural/subcultural studies,
resistance theories, and what the relationship between the punks and their
surrounding environment reveals about Chinese society.
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