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China Perspectives 2016/4 | 2016 The Health System and Access to Healthcare in China “Do You Hear the People Sing” “Lift Your Umbrella”? Understanding Hong Kong’s Pro-democratic Umbrella Movement through YouTube Music Videos Tim Rühlig Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/7125 DOI: 10.4000/chinaperspectives.7125 ISSN: 1996-4617 Publisher Centre d'étude français sur la Chine contemporaine Printed version Date of publication: 1 December 2016 Number of pages: 59-68 ISSN: 2070-3449 Electronic reference Tim Rühlig, « “Do You Hear the People Sing” “Lift Your Umbrella”? », China Perspectives [Online], 2016/4 | 2016, Online since 01 December 2017, connection on 10 December 2020. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/chinaperspectives/7125 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/chinaperspectives. 7125 © All rights reserved Article China perspectives “Do You Hear the People Sing” “Lift Your Umbrella”? Understanding Hong Kong’s Pro-democratic Umbrella Movement through YouTube Music Videos TIM RÜHLIG ABSTRACT: Around the world, music serves as an important element of mobilisation for social movements. Singing songs is not only a peaceful protest technique but also helps to construct a protest identity locating and relating the social movement to its political and social environment. Most importantly, a social movement is to a significant extent remembered through its music, and this determines its future impact on local (contentious) politics. Against this backdrop, this article seeks to understand Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement through four YouTube music videos, analysing the lyrics, music, and video imagery in order to carve out core elements and values of the Umbrella Movement. Especially given the importance of Hong Kong’s identity as a “global” city with a cosmopolitan culture and past, the peaceful nature of the movement and the rise of a xenophobic localism in the shape of sarcasm are emphasised. KEYWORDS: Hong Kong, Umbrella Movement, music, songs, protest art, mobilisation of tradition. n autumn 2014, the international media’s attention shifted to Hong tertaining protest technique, but also inherits the mobilising force of both Kong, where hundreds of thousands of young people occupied the streets physical and material support by mobilising demonstrators and resources. (3) demanding democratic reform. In particular, the power of the pictures This is because music serves protest movements by putting across their de - I (4) that were spread by means of TV, Internet, and newspapers created a strong mands, framing their agenda, and make sense of it. Why is that the case? sense of the protests, which are usually referred to as the “Umbrella Move - On a very general basis, Jeremy Gilbert has argued: ment” (UM). Among the most remarkable images were the innumerable young protesters waiving illuminated cell phones. In many instances, this Sound vibrations are registered by parts of the body which do not was accompanied by the singing of protest songs. (1) Both the sound of the register changes in vibrations of light. Music has physical effects young people singing as well as the images televised from Admiralty district which can be identified, described and discussed but which are not in the heart of Hong Kong conveyed the peaceful character of the occupa - the same thing as it having meanings, and any attempt to under - tion as well as creating a sense of the young people’s power given their stand how music works in culture must, as many commentators over sheer numbers and solidarity. No question, these pictures have helped form the years have acknowledged, be able to say something about those a favourable world opinion and global admiration for the UM. Beyond this effects without trying to collapse them into meanings. (5) external impact, the internal experience of being part of a huge and pow - erful social movement was also boosted by the crowds’ voluminous sound This is not to say that music carries no meaning: while its social context and impressive imagery. Since the power of imagery in Hong Kong’s protests as well as visual and linguistic codes of songs express meaning that can be is a topic discussed elsewhere at length, (2) this article focuses on the im - portance of the songs. I am very thankful to M.I. Franklin, Joyce Lok Hang Fung, Diana Andreea Grecu, Johannes Kasper, Ho Wai-Chung, Johan Lagerkvist, Sam Lee, Lisa Ochsendorf, Elena Pollacchi, Alexa Robertson, Cor - nelia Rühlig, Malte Schwarz, Kristina Segerberg, Elena Wolfinger, and Faning Yim, as well as the Mobilising tradition through music two anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments and critique on this and previous versions of this paper. I am very grateful for the funding underlying this research provided by the German foundation Stiftung Polytechnische Gesellschaft. Existing social science research has pointed out that art in general and 1. Doug Meigs and Michele Fan, “The Umbrella Movement Playlist,” Foreign Policy , 9 October 2014, music in particular are of enormous importance for social movements in http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/10/09/the-umbrella-movement-playlist (accessed on 24 Septem - ber 2015). several respects: 2. Daniel Paul Garrett, Counter-hegemonic Resistance in China’s Hong Kong: Visualizing Protest in Singing is not only a peaceful protest tactic but clearly one of the most the City , Singapore, Springer, 2015. widespread ones. Furthermore, songs provide popular singers with a chance 3. Marc W. Steinberg, “When Politics Goes Pop: On the Intersections of Popular and Political Culture and the Case of Serbian Student Protests,” Social Movement Studies, Vol. 3, No. 1, 2004 , pp. 3-29. to demonstrate their support for a protest movement, which secures public 4. Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life , Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2000, p. 27. attention and helps strengthen social movements. 5. Jeremy Gilbert, “Signifying Nothing: ‘Culture,’ ‘Discourse’ and the Sociality of Affect,” Culture Ma - However, singing protest songs is not only a peaceful, risk-averse, and en - chine, Vol. 6, 2004. N o. 2016/4 • china perspectives peer-reviewed article 59 Article verbalised, the musical sound consisting of tone, rhythm, timbre, etc. carries It is the cultural effects that often live on; it is through songs, art, an affective dimension derived from the irreducible materiality of the music and literature – and as ritualized practices and evaluative criteria – itself. (6) In other words, a song does not necessarily have to be explicitly that social movements retain their presence in the collective mem - “about” a specific topic but may deliver social and political impact if people ory in the absence of the particular political platforms and struggles feel that it expresses their hardship. Songs are more than intellectually stim - that first brought them into being. (17) ulating texts; they help to create emotions stimulating an atmosphere of community and solidarity that very often draws on the power of utopia Hence, studying the UM through its music is an attempt to understand and stimulates people to dream . (7) and reconstruct an important element of the protests and provides us with Scientific studies have confirmed that music stimulates emotions: struc - insight on its future impact for contentious politics, possibly even beyond tural factors of the music itself as well as the performance, characteristics the city in the Greater Chinese region. (18) of the audience, and its motivation make music not only an expression but In sum, this paper engages with the UM’s music not only because it was also a cause of emotions. Among structural factors are the tempo, mode, a major protest tactic but because as a “structure of feeling” it is regarded loudness, melody, and rhythm of music, which contribute to the induction as an integral part of the movement that reaches beyond its verbalised de - of different emotions. The appraisal of music, empathy with the performers, mands. Most importantly, it is treated as a vital part of the UM’s legacy that proprioceptive feedback to rhythm, and memory induced by music are the may (re-)shape Hong Kong’s contentious politics in the future as a “memory major “pathways” that transform music into emotions. (8) To this paper, the container” serving as a potential source of a “mobilisation of tradition.” At role of memory in particular is of crucial importance (see below). the same time, the UM’s songs cannot be isolated from its context of emer - Referring to the emotional power of music, thinkers from ancient times gence. to modernity such as Plato, Confucius, and Adorno have substantiated the In line with these considerations, I focus on musical factors such as political impact of these induced feelings for the political order. From their melody, harmony, rhythm, tone, tempo, dynamics, form, timbre intensity, point of view, music has enormous manipulative force (which might be used and duration but do not limit myself to them. (19) Since the researched songs for both the good and the immoral) essentially because of its emotional di - have mostly been distributed as music videos by means of social media, I mension, which withstands an easy, straightforward, and predictable rational also analyse the imagery of how the songs are performed in the videos. Fur - analysis. (9) thermore, I do not neglect the political meaning verbalised in the lyrics, but In line with findings that not only structural elements of music are crucial, carry out a content analysis of them. Cultural Studies have emphasised that the audience is a “user” who is en - gaged by “emotional responses” rather than a manipulated passive re - 6. Ibid . ceiver. (10) People around the world actively “express who they are, to which 7. Lawrence Grossberg, We Gotta Get Out of this Place: Popular Conservatism and Postmodern Cul - (11) ture , New York, Routledge, 1992, p. 82; John Street, Politics and Popular Culture , Philadelphia, Tem - group they belong (and) what their identity is” by means of their music ple University Press, 1997, p.

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