Producer vii M’s Debut Album ‘Sublunary’ is a Stunning Soundscape

On November 22, Qin Ming, aka vii M, a Shanghai-based music producer, bassist, and DJ, released her debut album Sublunary via the Chinese label Eating Music.


This 10-track album conceptualizes a fictional world as the artist attempts to build a “nirvana between the Earth and moon where people are still trapped in mundanity despite their wish to escape from earthly life.”



Although Qin’s music is often eclectically defined as electronica, jazz, alternative, and trip-hop, she is not restricted to these styles. Instead of tagging her music with any specific genres, Qin tells RADII that she is simply attempting to “unveil the imagery and emotions hidden behind the sonics.”


In this album, Qin conjures up an electronica cosmos with mellow basslines, organic synth sounds, and muttered words. It includes both digital and analog recordings, as well as acoustic and electronic elements.


“No matter how chaotic this world can be, no matter what stage we’re in (present or future), or whatever struggles we will go through, music, especially the sounds in our heads, can serve as an ultimate asylum to all humans,” shares Qin, explaining the core ideas behind the album.


promo photo of vii M

Promo photo of vii M


Born in Chengdu, the capital city of Southwest China’s Sichuan province, Qin grew up playing piano and guitar. She started to play electronic bass as her principal instrument before she entered Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, in 2017.


With the aim of creating a soundscape of her own, Qin has been producing music since 2019.


During her time in the U.S., Qin was active on stage as a jazz musician and electronic music producer.


“Back then, I didn’t think too much about what kind of music I’m going to make,” says Qin. “I was trying to absorb as much as possible, and I mainly wrote things with my free will.”

After relocating to Shanghai in 2021, Qin started a new musical journey as vii M for her solo project and live performances. Her works often blend mysterious and trippy grooves.

Two weeks before releasing her first full-length album, the title track ‘Right Now, Wrong Then’ was unveiled as a warmup.


Following the release of Sublunary, Qin said the vinyl version would hopefully be available at the end of the year. Meanwhile, she is also actively gearing up for live sets, band performances, and other solo projects.


All images courtesy of Eating Music

Chinese Woman Learns Online That She’s Been Dead for Over a Decade

Earlier this month, RADII told you how some young people in China are commemorating the deceased online. Specifically, some Chinese youth are paying their respects to their dearly departed at a digital graveyard on the IMDb-like platform Douban.


The Chinese government has been encouraging online memorials over the traditional ritual of burning joss paper or ghost money (believed to be transferred to one’s loved ones in the afterlife). Not only is the latter detrimental to the environment, but it is also a fire hazard: many cemeteries were built near forests and mountains.


As such, more than one online platform designed for digital memorials has sprung up over the past few years.


However, the well-intentioned digital space also has its dark side, as Lulu from Xiamen, a port city on China’s southeastern coast, can tell you. Imagine the shock she felt when she recently stumbled upon her own online obituary.


Apparently, in 2016, someone created a digital mourning hall for her, complete with her name, date of birth, hometown, and 10 personal photos from the internet. According to the post, she had disappeared shortly after leaving campus one night in January 2010, and her barely recognizable body was discovered in the sea several days later.


Lulu understandably found the post extremely disturbing and was infuriated when she realized that it had been viewed around 43,000 times since it was created.


She immediately contacted the platform to have it removed and to discover the identity of the person behind the mean prank. However, the platform could not provide a name, as users weren’t required to register with their real identities back in 2016.


Lulu then sued the platform for infringing on her rights and reputation. According to the Shanghai Morning Post, a Chinese daily newspaper, the judge in the case sided with her. However, little else has been disclosed.


The case recently went viral on the Chinese internet, with a related hashtag garnering more than 320 million views on Weibo, China’s top microblogging site.


Cover image via Depositphotos

What Is Bullet Screen and Why Is It so Popular?

When you open a video on one of China’s video streaming platforms nowadays, whether on your phone or computer, chances are that you will see lines of Chinese characters rapidly firing across the screen.


Commonly referred to as ‘danmu’ (弹幕) or ‘bullet screen’ in English, the function is offered by some video-streaming websites and allows users to superimpose their comments over the video that’s playing. The viewers’ thoughts and opinions, usually in the form of ‘text + emoticons,’ will shift across the video or hover in a particular position on the screen.


It has become so popular that some people won’t watch videos without the bullet screen function turned on, and some even spend more time reading bullet comments than watching the videos themselves.


A popular 10-minute video can receive more than half a million bullet screen comments, a much higher volume of commentary than one would find in the traditional comments section below most videos.


While the function is not particularly new, RADII is here to explain the phenomenon to the blissfully unaware, exploring its origins and importance in Chinese internet culture.

From Military Term to Viewing Habit

Bullet screen first gained popularity in China in 2014 when a theater in Shanghai offered special screenings of the poorly received films Tiny Times and The Legend of Qin, where attendees could shoot bullet comments across the screen.


However, bullet screen has been popular among fans of Japanese ACG (animation, comics, games) for decades. Originally a Chinese military term, in a combat context, bullet screen refers to when many guns and artillery are fired simultaneously, and the ammunition becomes so dense that it covers the sky like a screen.


Its usage among ACG fans can be traced back to one particular anime from 1979: Mobile Suit Gundam, a sci-fi drama set in an unknown future and replete with violent wars throughout a made-up universe. In the story, the battalion commander famously says to his soldiers, “The bullet screen on the left side of the ship is too thin!”


The commander’s words, which frequently recur in the anime, rubbed off on ACG lovers, who started playfully using the term.


Touhou Project

A colorful onslaught of bullets in the game Touhou Project


In the 1990s, the phrase went viral again because of a Japanese shooting game titled Touhou Project, which gained popularity among ACG fans. In the game, players must operate their characters to dodge enemy attacks while firing ‘screens’ of bullets to kill their opponents. The game’s plot was not particularly noteworthy, but the colorful and abstract bullet barrages that gamers could fire quickly gained popularity.


This is when the term ‘bullet screen’ took on a new meaning, referring to when players unleash bursts of colorful bullets that light up the screen.


However, it wasn’t until the Japanese video platform Niconico introduced a new function — allowing users’ comments to float across their screens — in 2006 that ‘bullet screen’ began to carry its current meaning.


The concept was then introduced to China by AcFun in 2007 before blowing up thanks to one of China’s most popular video-streaming websites, Bilibili.

Bullet Screen Slang

Bilibili has been publishing its ‘Bullet Screen of the Year’ report, a roundup and explainer of the most used bullet screen slang on its platform, for five consecutive years. 2021’s winner is ‘It breaks down my defenses’ (破防了, pofangle).


‘Break the defense’ was initially used in combat video games to describe when substantial physical damage is exacted upon one’s enemies.


Chinese netizens now use the phrase to express what it’d be like if the metaphorical line inside one’s heart has been breached.


For instance, one’s defenses can be broken down by a touching movie. Real-world heroes, from Olympic athletes who make great efforts to overcome their opponents to scientific titans who are making their mark on history, can also ‘break down one’s defenses.’


bullet screen bullet comments bilibili

Bullet comments from users watching a fan edit of the 1987 film Dream of the Red Chamber


Some of the most popular bullet screen phrases in recent years include ‘Congratulations on your marriage’ (囍), ‘True’ (真实), and ‘My youthful years have returned’ (爷青回). The last of these was widely used in 2020, beating ‘Go for it! Wuhan! ‘(武汉加油), ‘That’s the spirit’ (有内味了), and some other buzzwords.


‘AWSL,’ the top bullet comment in 2019, is an acronym for ‘Oh! I’m dead’ (啊!我死了) in Chinese pinyin. Generally speaking, it indicates an intensely positive response to something, for example, a video of cute puppies tussling with each other.


A simple but profound word, ‘True’ was 2018’s top bullet comment on Bilibili. At first glance, it might seem an unlikely winner for its brevity. However, the word has gained a new cultural meaning online. ‘True’ can be used when a video’s content is unexpected but reasonable or to show that you resonate with its characters and their experiences.


As shown above, popular bullet screen phrases are varied but share one thing in common: all focus on the audience’s overall mood and feelings.

Emotional Internet ‘Gunmen’

But what about the bullet screen mechanism makes it irresistible to viewers?


Jiemian News believes that it is so popular because it gives lonesome young people a chance to communicate from behind their screens. Bullet screen allows them to speak to strangers hundreds of miles away and find empathy despite spatial and temporal hindrances.


They can finally drop their pretense in the virtual world, freely express themselves, and feel released. They voluntarily participate in the story and undergo the joys and sorrows of the characters.


As the bullet comments flow across the screen, they magnify the excitement, the anger, or whatever other emotions the crowd is experiencing.


For example, in a recent viral video that profiled the life and struggles of a rural craftsman living with disabilities, many of the bullet comments highlight viewers’ sympathy and admiration for the man. Some comments that exemplify the overall sentiment of the online crowd include: “I was moved to tears,” “I have watched this video many times,” and “I respect this man.”


bullet screen comments on bilibili

Bullet comments fire across the screen of a tech-related video on Bilibili


But as with almost everything else on the internet, some viewers use the function for less wholesome expressions of emotion — criticizing video makers or complaining about society (among a whole range of other grievances).


Vulgar language can sometimes appear, but many platforms automatically censor this content by singling out offensive keywords or employing people to monitor chats and delete immoral or illegal messages.


Rude remarks aside, the bullet screen format is so popular in China that Chinese tech companies are now investing in its development.


In September, Alibaba Group was granted a patent for a ‘verbal bullet screen’: When a video is played, a program will collect audiences’ voice data to generate ‘verbal bullet comments,’ which will presumably be more vivid and entertaining than just text.


All images/screengrabs via Bilibili

We Spoke to Amber Liu, Exo’s Lay Zhang About MetaMoon Music Festival

Attention New Yorkers! Looking to let loose this Thanksgiving break? We got you. The inaugural MetaMoon Music Festival, a celebration bridging the cultures of Asia and America, is set to come to New York City’s Barclays Center on November 26.


Hosted by the Chinese American rapper and comedian MC Jin, the music festival was co-founded by Hong Kong-based advertising agency Graceful Media and California-based entertainment company Live Nation.


The one-day event features high-profile Asian artists, including former Exo member Lay Zhang and Amber Liu, a former member of the South Korean girl group f(x).


@layzhang

Excited to see you at the Metamoon Music Festival at the Barclays Center on November 26th!

♬ original sound – Lay Zhang 张艺兴


We spoke to Zhang, Liu, and Grace Chen, the latter being the founder of MetaMoon and Graceful Media, to learn more about them as creators and what we can expect at the upcoming music festival. The responses below have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.


RADII: What inspired you to create MetaMoon Music Festival?

Grace Chen: There is still a lot of work to be done to combat anti-Asian hate. However, an encouraging sign is that more Asian voices across media and pop culture are being heard and showcased. Asian culture has always been a part of American culture.


With pop culture and the arts, Asian artists and creatives are now getting more opportunities to be recognized. The talent, the stories, and the culture have always been there; it’s now more seen, shared, and celebrated. MetaMoon was created to be part of that celebration.


We want to expose music fans in the U.S. to something new through our lineup of artists whom they’re likely not familiar with, while at the same time giving fans of these artists a chance to see them live.


Therefore, we purposely chose the Saturday after Thanksgiving for our event, as many college students, young professionals, and some families may be unable to travel home for the holidays. It’s a long weekend, so we invite them to join us at Barclays Center for a night of good fun and great music.


Our goal is for MetaMoon to become an annual event in Brooklyn and other cities around the U.S. If fans continue to respond with excitement, we would love to bring it overseas to other countries as well.


88rising’s Head in the Clouds Festival is another example of a music festival that celebrates AAPI artists. Image via Twitter


One other major AAPI music festival would be Head in the Clouds. What makes MetaMoon different?

GC: MetaMoon [will be] a different experience than Head in the Clouds. For our inaugural year, we have four hours of music in one night, in one of the country’s best arenas, in one of the most dynamic cities in the world. Head in the Clouds has some great artists in their lineup, and maybe someday in the future, we will have the opportunity to host some of those artists on our stage.


How does it feel to be one of the highlights of the MetaMoon music festival?

Amber Liu: I am honored to be part of the lineup […] it is pretty cool to be in all these places and think, wow, I can represent so many different communities. It is a tiny bit of pressure, I won’t lie. But I am always honored to be part of it and represent my community. Being able to be part of the concert, perform, and vibe with the people is always a fun time.


What have you prepared for the MetaMoon music festival?

Lay Zhang: I have been working hard all year […] I’ve practiced hard and learned a lot of things, such as vocals and krumping in the U.S.


AL: It has been a while since I performed in New York, so I’m super excited about that. I’ve got a full band with my homies, and we finally get to come together. We have been working on different projects, and now we are all together, which is really cool. I am looking forward to vibing out on stage.


Amber, do you plan to perform any unreleased songs at MetaMoon?

AL: I won’t be performing any unreleased songs because they are not quite ready yet. But, at MetaMoon, there will be songs that I have released in the past that I haven’t performed before. I am really excited to perform these songs because I probably only sang them in the studio, and it will be my first time performing them onstage.

In recent years, K-pop has become very popular in the West. Is Chinese music ready for the same level of recognition?

LZ: K-pop right now has become so big. As a Chinese artist, I have been trying to find songs that work both in China and in the West. But I believe soon we will see Chinese artists on the world stage.


AL: In my humble opinion, I think it is time. I was doing K-pop when it first got into the Western market — six or seven years ago. So it’s definitely time, in my opinion. With people like Lay and me, everybody on the lineup, [MetaMoon] is one of those big opportunities where Chinese artists can come and show [audiences] who we are.


From your experience, Grace, how does sharing music and pop culture help bridge the gap between communities?

GC: Few things in the world can truly unite and cross borders and cultures like music. If you look at K-pop, many fans may not understand every word in the songs, but everyone can still sing along. The same thing with Latin music; even if you don’t understand the lyrics, you can still dance to the beat.


MetaMoon was created to bring people together. When you’re in an arena with 10,000 strangers dancing and singing along with the artist on stage, regardless of your background, ethnicity, language, age, or geography, we all have something in common.


K-pop boy group BTS. Image via Twitter


Regarding your music journey, Lay, how has your style evolved over the years? And now that you are a solo artist, what has been the biggest difference between working alone versus performing in a group?

LZ: I was born in China, but I learned a lot of things from music in Korea and the U.S., and that’s why I have been mixing things to create something new.


Working with my boys is not that stressful. Doing solo [work] is a bit more lonely — you have to do the whole thing yourself. But that’s okay. It’s also a great thing and quite cool.


Amber, what does your creative process look like?

AL: The process of songwriting is so random. Most of my inspiration comes from the shower. Sometimes I will run out of the shower and grab my phone just to record something. Sometimes it’s when I am walking and talking with a friend, and I am like, “Wait, say that again!”


How do vulnerability and openness impact your artistry?

AL: Growing up, I felt alone and misunderstood. But through music, it is like this weird click that happened — I felt less alone. It is okay to be sad. I made mistakes, and I can do better. Putting that into my writing has been therapeutic. When my fans say to me, ‘Thank you for writing that music,’ it goes full circle. I want to make music to help people.


Is there anything you are looking forward to while you are in New York?

LZ: Hotdogs! Hotdogs are one of my favorite foods. It is so easy to gain weight in the U.S. There are so many good foods, and they are all delicious.

Besides Zhang and Liu, MetaMoon also features high-profile Taiwanese musician 9m88, Chinese-American singer Karencici Lam, Taiwanese-American rapper Øzi, and Chinese singer, dancer, and rapper Sury.


Can’t wait to see these talented artists perform on stage? Get your tickets now before they sell out!


Additional reporting by Joanna Zhang. Cover image via Depositphotos

Hong Kong Ballet Pirouettes Its Way Into the Metaverse This Christmas

As much a Christmas classic as Frank Capra’s 1946 film It’s A Wonderful Life and Mariah Carey’s 1994 earworm ‘All I Want for Christmas Is You,’ The Nutcracker ballet is a visual masterpiece featuring toys that come to life, gingerbread soldiers, a Sugar Plum Fairy, and… racist depictions of Chinese dancers, complete with yellowface, Fu Manchu mustaches, and subservient ‘kowtow’ steps.


Better late than never, dance companies the world over, including the Hong Kong Ballet, have begun liberating The Nutcracker (胡桃夾子) from its original plot and problematic facets.


hong kong ballet sun wukong

Jeremy Chan in the Hong Kong Ballet’s The Nutcracker. Photo by Tony Luk


A free-wheeling tour de force, artistic director Septime Webre’s version of the ballet is just as — if not more — colorful, with elements of wuxia, localized settings, and new yet familiar characters, like the mischievous Monkey King of Chinese folklore, Sun Wukong.


Plus, the best bits, like the epic battle scene between the titular Nutcracker Prince and the Mouse King, get to stay.


hong kong ballet the nutcracker christmas


The family-friendly production, which will run at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre’s Grand Theatre through December, is also a love letter to Hong Kong. Take, for instance, the production’s set design, which is inspired by the city’s storied architecture.


Act one, scene one of the ballet opens at protagonist Clara Stahlbaum’s family home on Christmas Eve, and in Septime Webre’s version, the grand house takes a page from Hong Kong’s iconic Kom Tong Hall, which was declared a monument in 2010. Architecture and history lovers may also recognize a reference to the former Kowloon-Canton Railway Clock Tower, which has withstood the ravages of World War II.


Hong Kong Ballet Nutcracker set design

A side-by-side look at the Hong Kong Ballet’s set design for the Stahlbaum family’s home in The Nutcracker and Kom Tong Hall, which was constructed during the Edwardian era of British colonial rule. Photos via the company and Gwulo.com


Some watch The Nutcracker with religious fervor every holiday season, but imagine accessing photographic memories of the Christmas extravaganza in the metaverse year-round — the Hong Kong Ballet’s NFT tickets turn this fantasy into a reality.

First unveiled at the Digital Art Fair Xperience Hong Kong 2022 from October 22 until November 6 but still available online, the NFT tickets feature interactive artwork of four main characters — Clara, the Nutcracker Prince, the Candy Ribbon Ballerina, and the Rat King — and stage photos.


Furthermore, ownership of each NFT ticket includes two VIP seats to a live performance of the ballet, The Nutcracker pins, and passes to a meet-and-greet session with the stars of the Hong Kong Ballet.


Get your tickets (regular or NFTs) to see the Hong Kong Ballet in ‘The Nutcracker’ on December 16-18, 21-26, and 28-31


Cover image of Henry Seldon and Leung Chunlong in the Hong Kong Ballet’s ‘The Nutcracker’ by Bobyeah

Crawling on the Ground Is All the Rage Among Chinese College Students

Chinese college students are growing increasingly dissatisfied with the rolling campus lockdowns that have become commonplace amid China’s hardline approach to managing the Covid-19 pandemic. Some are venting their frustration by taking handmade cardboard ‘pets’ out for a walk (seriously, we aren’t making this shit up) or, more recently, by crawling on the ground.

Xiaoyuanpa (校园爬, crawling on campus) is a new trend among Chinese college students, including at some elite schools such as the Communication University of China (shown in the video above). According to Baidu Index, the number of searches for the term ‘crawling’ increased sixfold from November 10 to 14. Chinese lifestyle platform Xiaohongshu has even hosted a crawling competition, which has generated almost 4 million views.


Crawling pals, or payou (爬友) in Chinese, coordinate a time and location in group chats and meet up to crawl around their campus per the organizer’s instructions.


Crawling workout, Crawling exercise, campus crawling

Image via Xiaohongshu


Crawling as a form of workout is nothing new. These multi-joint movements are believed to be the ultimate total-body exercise and include many different styles — such as the bear crawl and gorilla crawl. Chinese physician Hua Tuo included similar crawling movements in his ‘Five-Animal Exercises’ over a thousand years ago.


And more recently, a group of crocodile-crawling enthusiasts went viral on the Chinese internet:

The college students embracing crawling as an exercise and method of venting their angst were inspired by a viral meme: crawling in the dark (阴暗地爬行). This is part of a more significant trend called ‘insane writing’ (发疯文学, fafeng wenxue), which has made waves on the Chinese internet, where netizens express their emotions in illogical and inconsistent words and phrases.


Netizens initially used ‘insane writing’ when arguing with ecommerce customer service staff, but the writing format soon became popular among college students. The mobile game Arknights has made it even more well-known, especially among anime-loving Gen Zers, as it uses strangely worded in-game text.


According to one expert, the crawling college students are bringing the insanity of their online text-based communications to the real world to reestablish control over their current situation (Covid-19 lockdowns and bleak job prospects) and build a sense of community.


Crawling college students in China amid lockdowns

Image via Xiaohongshu


However, the activity is viewed as disturbing to some people who are unfamiliar with the context. Criticism such as “It looks terrifying. They must have mental health problems” is not uncommon on the internet. Some schools have allegedly banned students from crawling together.


Nonetheless, many netizens have expressed their sympathy: “These students didn’t do anything harmful; this is their freedom, don’t overthink it,” or “These college students are not drinking, smoking, or committing crimes. They’re just crawling around at the end of the day; what’s wrong with that?”


Meanwhile, some medical experts have stated that crawling can be beneficial to our bodies as it improves blood circulation and core strength. However, the movements require professional guidance to prevent injuries and achieve expected outcomes.


Cover image designed by Haedi Yue