# What kinds of music do Mainland Chinese kids listen to? Same genres as Western kids?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kinds-of-music-do-mainland-chinese-kids-listen-to-same-genres-as-western-kids/371305>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [September 3, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kinds-of-music-do-mainland-chinese-kids-listen-to-same-genres-as-western-kids/371305 "2006-09-03T18:11:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kinds-of-music-do-mainland-chinese-kids-listen-to-same-genres-as-western-kids/371305/1 "2006-09-03T18:11:57Z")

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Just curious. What do they listen to?

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**Author:** ![Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Throatwarbler\_Mangrove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Throatwarbler_Mangrove)\
**Post date:** [September 3, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kinds-of-music-do-mainland-chinese-kids-listen-to-same-genres-as-western-kids/371305/2 "2006-09-03T18:43:38Z")

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IME Asian countries in general, and Mainland Chinese popular music generally apes the styles of Japan and Taiwan, who are themselves around 20 years behind what we listen to in North America.

So…Flock of Seagulls. 🙂

Seriously, I find young people in Asia to be much more homogenous in their tastes for music that those in the west, an interesting apect of the culture for which I don’t have a simple explanation. So “alternative” genres are not catered to as widely as they are around here. The popular music that most people listen to is generally as listed above - basically early to mid 90s (to us) pop and electronica. Even the silly long hair is there.

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**Author:** ![Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stark_Raven_Mad)\
**Post date:** [September 4, 2006, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-kinds-of-music-do-mainland-chinese-kids-listen-to-same-genres-as-western-kids/371305/3 "2006-09-04T01:40:34Z")

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Well, they’ve got Jay Chou and others like him - I’d say the hippity-hoppity thing has caught and latched on quite well, at this point. **KTB** is right: China tends to follow in Japan and Taiwan’s footsteps as far as musical tastes go. Hong Kong is not the big player it was once.