Lives Of Dakou In China. From Waste To Nostalgia.

Abstract

A peculiar object deeply transformed Chinese cultural sphere in the 1990s: dakou (打口) CDs and tapes. Literally “cut”, the term dakou refers to CDs and tapes illegally sold on the Chinese black market. In the 1990s the Western musical industry suffered from a crisis, and exported to China unsold CDs and tapes in order to be recycled. To prevent them from being sold on the black market, the CDs are cut on their extremity; but since a CD is read from the center to the periphery, only the last track was lost. A large part of this musical waste was sold for a cheap price on several Chinese cities black market, defying Chinese censorship, since a lot of Western pop music was forbidden. Through the consumption of dakou, a whole generation of young Chinese was opened to Western pop, rock and punk. This object destined to be recycled was the symbol of the Chinese 1990s “cultural fever” (文化热). This presentation aims at analyzing this object, which was exchanged on the black market, and shaped the Chinese (counter) cultural sphere by helping create the “D-Generation”, associated with piracy. It will also be the occasion to investigate dakou’s nostalgia through cultural productions which celebrate this object now obsolete.