WHILE CHINA HUMS along to the slow demise of Mando-pop, the capital, like London and Washington DC, remains essentially a rock'n'roll town. At the forefront are punk rockers Reflector, who headline Hong Kong's inaugural Punk-Hardcore-Metal Festival on Sunday.
Corrupted by a love of Guns N' Roses and stadium-sized hair, childhood friends Li Peng (lead vocals, guitar), Tian Jianhua 'TJ' (bass, vocals) and Ye Jingying (drums, background vocals) formed in 1996. Inhabiting the storied Scream Club, the band swiftly became strong live favourites - and the centre of much of the media frenzy that surrounded Beijing's fledgling punk scene at that time. Everyone from CNN to Sky and Newsweek wanted a piece of the band.
Having toured the US (the first Chinese punk band to do so), Reflector have been creating fierce, thrashed-up waves far beyond the South China Sea. Armed with an arsenal of razor sharp, melodic ska-punk anthems, the band take their musical cues from Green Day and NOFX. Singing principally in Putonghua, they have forged a sound and style of their own and given it a skate-punk edge.
Contextually, this is punk music constructed by people who actually have something to rebel against. It's questionable how political the fashionable Beijing punk bands were, amid the hype.
'We don't really stand for anything except self-expression of where we are at in musical development and life, in general,' says Tian. 'We're not a political band, but we try to keep our own opinions and express them as often as possible.
'We have a constantly growing fan base of Chinese youth, who we really identify with and want to communicate punk rock, spirit and unity to.'
First-time visitors to Hong Kong, the band are optimistic that this is just the beginning for a symbiotic flowering of shared musical experience. 'We see Hong Kong as the kingdom of Asian pop, and that indie rock'n'rock in general has suffered as a result,' Tian says. 'We hope to build stronger bridges of indie rock culture between Hong Kong and Beijing, and are confident that will happen.'