The Rebel Sell

During Labor Day weekend, I attended the Strawberry Music Festival in Shanghai and in addition to seeing the cult-goddess Maggie Cheung sing the iconic song of Teresa Teng back in late 1970s, Sweet Honey Honey, I was also able to observe a new generation of Chinese youth.

Of course, this is not the first time I've looked at the construction of youth identity in the setting of the music festival. In 2008, I went to the Beijing Modern Sky Festival. I heard from my boyhood idol Zhang Chu and He Yong, icons of the early 1990s rock scene in the mainland. The music festival is the ultimate youth culture setting.