My stories of Michael

I knew this had to be the subject for my comeback post after the 3-month absence (I won't pretend that the two lines post Syrian trip was a proper post). Those of you who would, for a moment, expect shockingly salacious/banal/revealing stories about my married life (no, actually I don't think there's anyone out there who would) should drop those shoulders now - for, of course, this is to be the gazillionth personal tribute to the King of Pop, albeit 10 days too late. But I'll do my damned best to try to make my perspective unique enough to hold your interest for a moment longer.

It's indeed a bit bizarre to remind ourselves that MJ stopped breathing only 10 days ago. The press coverage of the man and the music has seemed to multiply every day both in its abundance and weirdness. For once, with the death of a major celebrity ('controversial' is such a weak word to be applied here), the world agrees on at least one thing: the man was mind-blowingly, ground-breakingly unique. Oh, make that two actually - he was a true genius too. You really can't think of that many others still breathing who tick both boxes, in pop or any other art form. And for how long have I been thinking so?

When Thriller was released in 1982, I was four years old. Even though I was probably precocious already , all-singing and dacing werewolves were not exactly part of my consciousness. Nor was anything too overtly Western, for that matter - China had only opened its doors three years previously after years of near-total isolation from the rest of the world, and the influx of information was conveyed with a little caution and absorbed with a lot of overwhelm. The most frequently- and fervently- used adjective in those years, at least in big cities, was 'imported'. It was enough of an all-encompassing category, a universal code for originality/novelty, the ultimate endorsement for quality. People queued up for foreign-made cameras, stereos, kitchen utensils, dolls, stationery, stereos - anything and everything with a provenance outside of the Chinese borders that they could get their hands on. No one could possibly forsee that a mere couple of decades later, the hippest New Yorkers and Londoners would keenly seek out the latest trendy bars in Beijing and Shanghai. More significantly for my generation (now officially christianed as 'The 70'ers') - although we didn't know it then - some of us were growing up to be the first cliche-defying first-generation immigrants to The West. And one day we would look back at the astonishing phenomenon that was Thriller, taken for granted as an integral part of our own past as it is to our fellow New Yorkers/Londoners walking down the street.

Then came Bad, explosively. If it's hard for you to understand the monumental scale of shock factor the music and the video (in particular) sent through Chinese youths at the time, just imagine sending MJ back to post-war USA. For in the intervening years, the Pop/Rock genre had not been experienced in the Middle Kingdom with the same narrative. English-learning, trend-following (these two things were often synonymous) twentysomethings - and a very precocious nine-year-old - were happily humming to the ballads of The Carpenters, Phil Collins and Whitney Houston, and selective early Madonna (we liked 'Holiday'. We didn't really get 'Material Girl'.) while being oblivious to the Stones. There was one radio station in Shanghai with an hour-long weekly programme devoted to English pop songs. We all saved up to buy blank 'Hi-Fi' cassette tapes to record it. There was one shop in the entire city that stocked 'imported recordings', mostly cassettes and also - still a total novelty at the time - some CDs. My father would buy me one of them at the end of each term as reward for my exam results, which would inevitably become the envy of many friends (the cassette, not the good marks). Piracy was yet to be adopted and proliferated by the Chinese, although it wasn't far off the horizon. And in the midst of all this, the sound of 'Bad! Bad! Cos you're Bad!!' came out of nowhere, and came crashing down on all of us.

To start with, there were frenetic debates in newspapers and semi-academic columns in English-studies journals about what 'Bad' actually meant. Bad could now mean something else?! Something not really bad? That alone sufficed to engage a whole generation of youngsters for quite a while. Then there was the image - did he really use to be a black man? What happened to him? Is this what all American pop stars do to themselves? Those now-and-then photos of MJ that appeared in mainstream media might have heralded the dawn of proper entertainment news in China, for all I know. But above all, the dance. I could recall, almost to the day, when suddenly all the under-45 Chinese males worked day and night so that they could do 'the dance from Bad'. For quite a while, at any semi-significant social gatherings - weddings, New Year celebrations, Chinese New Year celebrations, National Day celebrations - you could bet someone would serve up an attempt at 'doing the Bad dance'. It's a shame we didn't have early enough imported video cameras to capture this craze. Set against the social/cultural/political backdrop of everything else that was happening in the country at the time, this uncanny syncronicity of MJ fans with their worldwide accomplices would surely have made fascinating study for some modern historians. 'Man in the Mirror', 'I Just Can't Stop Lovin' You' and 'The Way You Make Me Feel' also became popular, though nothing was as ubiquitous as Bad itself. In due course, the Thriller album was retrospectively discovered and similarly revered. MJ became an object of worship just as much as he was anywhere else. We couldn't wait for the next album (having just properly grasped the concepts of 'albums' and 'singles').

And boy, was it worth the wait. I can actually say with some confidence that I was one of the first owners of a copy of 'Dangerous' in mainland China, for that was exactly what it was: a pirate copy. Probably one of the first too, which I bought in a street market in Guangzhou (Guangdong province being, to this day, the manufacturing epicentre of Chinese pirate CDs). But unlike what you can get for 10p nowadays, back then the pirate recordings were Properly Made - they had real jewel cases! And proper lookalike booklets! And they were actually being passed off as bootlegged authentic copies, for a not-too-shabby price!! Alright, I was in the wrong AND also conned. But I was 14. I had just entered one of the most prestigious music conservatories in the country and discovered that what a lot of my classmates actually wanted to do was to be MJ. We collectively gaped at the video of 'Black and White' over and over again, and declared that nothing that would ever top this. 'Heal the World' became our love anthem. 'Will You Be There' made us regard Free Willy as the cinematic masterpiece of the decade. MJ remained the King, but in the meantime we had moved on much further - even as teenagers! - than we realised at the time. Or is evolution always like this, that we take progress and development for granted, even (or especially) when they come fast and furiously as they did in turn-of-the-century China? The pirate recording I bought was a CD. Several TV stations regularly featured music videos as special programmes, with an increasing amount of works by Chinese singers. We were already absolutely in-synch with Hong Kong pop (to this day an important well of Chinese talents). And I was spending a lot of time listening to The Police, Billy Joel, Prince, Sinead O'Connor, Tori Amos, and was soon to be gripped by Boyz II Men. The great thing about not growing up with the pop/rock narrative chronologically is that you don't have any pre-conception at all. Whatever I reacted to, whether intellectually or emotionally, was by intuition. I did also have the advantage of language skills superior to most of my fellow 70-ers, and was frequently begged/requested/hired to write down lyrics from songs in English by dictation, which in turn helped me to improve it further. I started to read in English. Short stories first, then the classics, then newspapers and journals.

When HIStory was released, I could afford to buy a legitimate copy of the CD, but I didn't. I didn't buy a pirate copy either. I listened to the new singles on the radio and decided that they were not worth the dough, and I preferred to hold on to my past favourite MJ hits. There were rumours that he would come to do some live shows in China but nothing ever materialised. I, and all my friends, were seventeen going on eighteen, ambitious, restless, hopeful for the future of ourselves and our country. But as every day went by, going abroad to study became a more urgent primary goal. Everyone was buying pirate CDs (and VCDs!) now, and I couldn't quite believe that this wasn't also the case in the West. I started listening to a lot of movie soundtrack albums, and was obsessed with Annie Lennox. And U2. And Take That - the perfect overture to my move to England, I have to say.

Year 1997. United Kingdom handed Hong Kong back to China in exchange for me. I remember buying quite a few pop/rock CDs from HMV during my first week in Newcastle, but none of the MJ albums. And I never did. I don't think I can hum a single song from 'Invincible'. I followed the child-abuse trials and the ever weirder news stories, watched the tearful public testimonials and the Martin Bashir documentary with much the same kind of mild, passive curiosity as the rest of the country. When talent could still shock and shock all the more because of its increasing scarcity, MJ became Just Another Boring Weird Celebrity.

Of all the incongruous and/or unsual things he said on the Bashir documentary, though, one thing stuck with me. 'No, I don't think of dying at all. Because I want to live forever', he said - I've completely forgotten what the precise context or what Bashir's question had been, but I remember the reply clearly. And this is how I had come to regard this being whose physcial looks appeared to be on the verge of falling apart at any moment. I wouldn't have been at all surprised to hear a BBC headline announce one day that MJ really was immortal. It would have only been the perfectly sensible conclusion to all that had gone on with him. All the creations, mysteries, glory, notoriety, adoration, hatred - only immortality could have sealed it all. Now we mourn him, but as I look back I also want to mourn that pure state of shockability that millions of Chinese were in when we first got 'Bad', an innocence lost twice over. Would any future pop artist, Chinese or Western, suddenly break on to the scene to deliver something mind-blowingly original to the Chinese youths of now, who're as dexterous at Googling, downloading or Facebooking as any of their Western counterparts, and who have had everything made ready and easy for them? I'm not holding my breath. Me and my generation, we didn't have it easy, but we had it good. Or Bad. Really, really deliriously BAD.