Passion for strange tales of potent pop

I don't consider myself a pop fan, yet I've fallen in love with three pop songs, each of them downloaded millions of times online. They struck a chord with me because they all celebrate tragic love stories of ancient China. The lyrics are based on classical poetry and the tunes, although bristling with contemporary sound additives, carry distinctive Chinese features.

Chrysanthemum Platform (Juhua Tai) is the best known of the three. Songwriter and singer Jay Chou composed the song for the film Curse of the Golden Flowers, although he made a better job of the song than of his portrayal of the prince trying to defend his mother, the queen (Gong Li).

The court struggles depicted in the film are to many reminiscent of Hamlet, but the song has an eminently traditional Chinese theme: As the wife sits in a red chamber gazing at the moon, her husband fights for his life on the battlefield; neither knows whether they will ever see the other again.

The song evokes potently poetic images, such as comparing withered chrysanthemum blossoms with the fading smile on the face of the soldier's wife. The song has an overall ambience of chilling desperation.

The West Chamber (Xi Xiang) takes its title directly from the classic novel of the same title, about the young scholar who chances upon the lady of his dreams in a garden. When he comes back 12 years later after passing the civil service exam, she is nowhere to be found.

This song is much lighter and brighter than Chou's. The scholar asks the lady what she thinks is the best way to appreciate a flowering pot plant, then tells her that he would turn himself into mud in order always to be with the flower of his choice - the lady he addresses.

Young men and women were forbidden to meet, or even glance at each other for centuries in feudal China. But there were always daring attempts to break this social taboo. The West Chamber, written by Wang Shifu in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), is one of the earliest iconoclastic works in this respect.

The third song, named White Fox, may sound strange to a Westerner, but in China, the love between humans and the spirits of animals, birds, flowers and trees is a prevalent theme. Many of the protagonists in Pu Songlin's classic work Strange Tales from the Lonely Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi), compiled in the 17th century, are women who started life as foxes. The majority of fox spirits that feature in these short tales, however, meets a tragic end, as this was the fate of most women in feudal China.

Sun Hongying, known online as Jade Bracelet, focuses on the tale of the white fox that seeks to express thanks to the poor scholar who saved it from hunters. The fox attains the form of human after 1,000 years of strict training - only to find that the scholar has passed the imperial exam and that the emperor has given him a princess for a wife. Sun's song relates to the night of the scholar's wedding, when the fox spirit in her new human form asks him if she may dance for him one last time.

Of all three songs, White Fox is the simplest yet most touching.

(China Daily 06/19/2008 page20)