In my presentation I will address how from the late 1990s to the early 2000s,
power-dynamics that are oftentimes perceived to be unilateral, in fact would work in more of a discursive, reciprocal manner. In order to do so, I will examine the South and Southeast Asian covers of works by the Japanese singer-songwriter Nakajima Miyuki– who exalted considerable influence on early Mandopop – and how these also shaped her own positionality as a musician.
Nakajima (*1952) has famously been covered by an array of artists mainly from Taiwan and Hongkong, such as Teresa Teng, Faye Wong, Sally Yeh, or Vivian Chow. Not only would these covers at times surpass the success of the initially popular original versions –Faye Wong’s “Fragile Woman” (容易受傷的女人,1992) being a widely-discussed example – they would, through processes of transculturation, be thouroughly reshaped, thus losing much of their, as Iwabuchi Koichi called it, ‘cultural odor’.
However, at the same time, Nakajima would actively seek to re-construct her stage persona from that of a ‘Japanese‘ to a broader ‘Asian’ identity, as indicated by her setting many of her songs and stage performances in places such as Macao, Vietnam and Mainland China and naming her 20th studio album “East Asia” (1992).
Assuming that (1) although the cultural odor of cultural products themselves is lost through transculturation, the process of appropriation itself carries a discursive value, that (2) is indeed also perceived by the original sender, I will show the interplay – or a lack of such– between Nakajima’s “Asian” -branded works and that of her cover artists’. Therefore,I hope to enhance the understanding of both the geneses of Mandopop and J-Pop, while illuminating a chronology of the diversification of inner-Asian power dynamics in popular music.

In an era where streaming platforms dominate popular music consumption, accessibility fosters hybrid musical tastes. However, the opposite occurs in physical spaces, especially for niche genres. Live gigs provide stages for like-minded audiences who share a set of exclusive code. Genre retains its significant role in disseminating the musical languages and consolidating identity. This article provides close investigation of how a Hong Kong emo/hardcore punk record label, Desperate Infants Records, use local small venues as a contact zone to connect with Southeast Asian bands (also include Hong Kong and Taiwan). Amid the ongoing closure of mid-sized venues, it paradoxically provides opportunities for small venues and indie bands to rise. An in-depth qualitative interview with the record label shall be deployed. It serves as an invitation for us to see how South East Asian emo/hardcore punk music traverse the hierarchies of center and peripheries, and to establish its own frontier in Hong Kong.

Keywords: small venue, punk record label, cultural hybridization, Hong Kong,
Southeast Asia