Ai Jing

b. 1969, Shenyang, Dongbei

Pop singer, actress

Ai Jing was one of the first in a series of music stars packaged by the Chinese recording industry. Ai Jing’s musical style is influenced by her parents who were able to play many kinds of traditional instruments, especially her mother who was also an actress of Peking opera. After receiving music training in Shenyang Special School of Art, she entered the Shenyang Performance Troupe in 1985 and became a contracted singer for the Oriental Performance Troupe (Dongfang gewutuan) in 1987.

Since 1992, Ai Jing (www.aijing.com) has recorded more than seven albums, including My 1997 (Wo de 1997, 1992), Once Upon a Time in Yanfen Street (Yanfenjie de gushi, 1995) and Made in China (1998). In addition, Ai Jing has also acted in films such as Five Girls and a Rope (Yeh Hung-Wei, dir., 1991), Beijing Bastards (Zhang Yuan, dir., 1993) and From the Queen to the Chief Executive (Herman Yao Lai-to, dir., 2000).

Her songs exude the light-heartedness of an ordinary girl. Her tunes are plain, a little understated, with a touch of humour on political issues. Her simple autobiographical rhetoric is very popular with Chinese audiences. The famous song ‘My 1997’ was issued four times between 1992 and 1997, both in China and in Hong Kong and Japan. It tells the story of a young mainland-born woman who anxiously waits for the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997 so that she can visit her boyfriend in Hong Kong.

Further reading

Baranovitch, Nimrod (2003). China’s New Voices: Popular Music, Ethnicity, Gender, and Politics. Berkeley: University of California Press, 161–73.

REN HAI