Economic Struggle of Women in Chinese Underground Rock Music (2013)

Undergraduate: Xiaoding Wang

Faculty Advisor: Robin Visser
Department: Business Administration

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This research aims to investigate the fast growing underground rock music scene in China. In particular, it focuses on female musicians and their economic situation. As China becomes a rising superpower the country starts to receive increasingly more international attention than ever. However, when it comes to Chinese contemporary music, especially underground rock, very few people are aware of it. Under relatively strict government censorship bands and musicians face many obstacles in pursuing their dreams. For them to be successful on a global level, it¿s not only simple language barriers that need to be crossed, but also major identities that need to be developed. This research is done primarily via survey methods with a historical approach. By survey method 15 interviews were conducted in addition to field research in Beijing, China. Useful results include most musicians can't afford to live a decent life in the major cities of China and most of them hold 2nd or 3rd jobs. One important finding is that the biggest difficulty for them facing gaining international attention is their English fluency. It does

not only hold them from publicizing in the west, but also halts them from getting the newest

information concerning the global music industry. Musicians with better English communication skills

and bands with more English lyrics tend to do better financially.