Yin Lin, known as a singer and composer, is leading the trend of gufeng music.

Tagged with various social labels, a group of people wearing earphones regardless of gender and ages could find something common in their playlists. Gufeng music, which is roughly translated as a nostalgic trend of traditional Chinese music, has been gradually becoming popular in the ears of Chinese people.

"Pop music is easier to popularize while gufeng music is easier to appreciate and relish," 23-year-old graduate at Beijing University of Technology surnamed Zhou told the Global Times.

Hard to define

For certain Chinese who have special affection for traditional Chinese culture and classical literature, they have become the cornerstone of contemporary gufeng composers.

Yin Lin, a gufeng singer who graduated from Nanjing University, is one of composers leading the gufeng music trend. As a popular composer and singer, she has more than one million followers on Sina Weibo. Over 100,000 comments are posted about her best-known song Jinlichao (a love story about a koi fish and a painter) on Chinese music platforms such as Kugou.

Distinct from zhongguofeng, gufeng is a subculture consisting of music, costumes, poems, and architecture. This group of people who are addicted to classical Chinese culture have been devoting themselves to studying ancient Chinese history.

Despite the stereotype of gufeng music, Yin Lin defines gufeng music in a more inclusive way.

"All the songs that convey traditional Chinese culture can be defined as gufeng songs," she added. "Even if a song has a jazzy style, it can still be categorized as gufeng as long as the theme is to express traditional Chinese culture."

Chic tradition



The number of gufeng enthusiasts has ballooned among China's younger generations with their interests in costumes and playlists.

Instead of feeling awkward, wearing hanfu (traditional Han Chinese clothing) on a daily basis has become a normal lifestyle among China's younger generations.

"Those young girls wearing hanfu are walking in beauty," 32-year-old producer surnamed Liu said.

According to Dong Rui, chairman of Bilibili, the number of users on Bilibili interested in gufeng has grown 20 times in the past five years since 2017.Several reality TV shows were produced to follow suit, such as Guofengmeishaonian [2019], which has become one of the top TV shows this year.

Why gufeng is so popular among China's younger generations? 

From Yin Lin's perspective, millennial audiences have received relatively high-quality education on traditional Chinese culture, which provides them a qualified aesthetic to appreciate classical Chinese literature.

However, it's not to say that people fond of gufeng music always bond with a single musical style. The aesthetic of music genres remains diverse. At the same time, gufeng music has become more inclusive to include elements in different styles of music. She told the Gobal Times that her fans are fond of auto-remix gufeng music.

"Now you can feel pop music and traditional music are melding," Yin said.

Rising cultural identity, confidence

Why do so many young Chinese still choose to listen to gufeng music when they have so many other music options in their music apps?

Yin Lin contributed it to cultural confidence and diversification.

Different from a time when radio and TV dominated the aesthetic orientation of entertainment, Chinese audiences now are free to choose what kind of music genres they like on new media platforms rather than be guided by mainstream values.

"On platforms like Bilibili and Netease cloud music, we can like gufeng music as well as ACG [Anime, Comics and Games], " Yin Lin said.

"Similar with wuxia novels [martial arts novel], costume dramas, gufeng video games, people love the traditional Chinese music just because it is excellent," Yin said.

The cultural confidence and diversification are embodied not only in China, but overseas as well. The song Dongfengzhi, translated as "Yearn for East Wind" has been played over two million times on Youtube.

"I'm confident that gufeng music will stretch its reach to Japan and the Western world."Yin said.