the pop winds that blew on me

I grew up in a small village south of Tianjin at a distance where the radio spectrum was dominated by broadcast from the nation's once third-largest city. The pop music of the day was the so-called "traditional style of singing", represented by 李雙江, 于淑珍, 李谷一, and so on. Lee (SJ) had many beautiful songs for the sodiers, probably one of the most popular being 再見吧媽媽 (Goodbye Mom). Lee (GY) delivered the bad-mood-arousing 妹妹找哥淚花流 (In Tears I'm looking for You my Brother), theme of the movie 小花. I think Yu was notably senior than the other two, and her songs were played on the radio at least as often as the others, although she is less known among younger people these days. I liked her songs like 邊疆的泉水清又醇 (Clear Springs in the Frontier) very much. If I saw her CD today, I would buy one for sure.

(Elementary school: Zhang Mingmin, Cheng Lin, Yin Xiumei, cartoons 'Yi Xiu' etc)

For middle school I moved to the tiny town that administrates our village. Every day I walked between the middle school and the high school, which was where my dorm was, and the two schools were separated by a big sports court (操場). It was all the more spacious in my eyes since it was the most formal (actually not at all) and the biggest I had ever seen. There were poles along the road north of the court, holding light bulbs and speakers. As I was on my way home each noon the rainy first week, hopping around small rain water ponds with hardly anyone in view, those big poles were sending out a somewhat penetrating female voice that sang:

沒有花香
沒有樹高
我是一棵
    無人知道的
小
    草

The program was 每周一歌 (One Song a Week), a type that was loved for years to come. The singer, believe me at your own risk, was 房新華.

(BREAKING NEWS, just heard on the phone from my mom: in a few days the town is celebrating its 50th anniversary as a county-level governmental unit, 農場, which manages an area about tenth of a typical county in the region. They have sealed streets in preparation for grand ceremonies which will take place centered on, well, the sports court. The national television station will come to make a special program of; star singers have been invited; some will come and some others won't, for disatisfaction with the compensation, according to rumor. People are busy fighting, in some cases by force, for tickets and things. End of breaking news.)

(Middle school: Xu Liang - Wang Hong, Lv Nianzu, Chen Rujia, Cheng Fangyuan, Guo Feng, Liu Huan 'the police in plaine clothes', Fei Xiang, ...)

(High school: Na Ying, Zhang Yusheng, Luo Dayou, Piano, Jiang Yuheng,...)

(Xinyang: Zheng Zhihua 'fisherman', Carpenters)

(Under: Zhou Huajian 'hua xin', Zhang Xueyou 'kiss you goodbye', Shen Qing 'youth', Lao Lang 'tong zhuo', Xie Dong 'xiao lian' 'yi lu deng hou', Michael Bolton 'said I loved', Luo Dayou)

(Grad: Zhang Huimei 'jian ai', Wang Fei, Zhang Yu 'the moon is to blame...')

(to be continued, hopelessly)