Has China found its own Gangnam Style? From Beijing parks to Shanghai skyscrapers and in Guangzhou factories to karaoke rooms in Macau, people are singing Little Apple — a song apparently so catchy it has even won over the army and police.
Calling themselves the “Chopsticks Brothers,” Xiao Yang (肖央) and Wang Taili (王太利) are neither brothers nor composers, but are responsible for a hit that has become a nationwide phenomenon. Xiao Pingguo (“Little Apple”) was originally intended to promote their latest film when it was released in July, but has proven to be an earworm — the kind of song so insistent it gets stuck in the brain.
“This song is easy to follow, the pace is basic and repetitive. Even the old ladies in public gardens are learning it quickly,” said Zeng Qiumei, a marketing manager from Sichuan Province.
Photo: AFP
The accompanying music video has notched up more than 50 million views on Chinese video sites such as Sohu, iQiyi and Youku.
The surreal six-minute clip begins with a botched plastic surgery operation before cutting to Xiao and Wang naked in the Garden of Eden. They then appear in a number of sequences, including dressed as mermaids on a beach or acting as village children.
The lyrics are largely nonsense, with the chorus running: “You’re my little apple, you’re my little apple.”
Even so, and perhaps aided by relaxed attitudes toward intellectual property in China, the tune has become ubiquitous — whether playing on smartphone ringtones to shopping malls, nightclubs and gyms.
The People’s Liberation Army in Xian has used the song in a recruitment video, while police in Shandong last month modified the lyrics for a broadcast warning about phone-banking scams.
“We changed the words to make people aware,” a police officer said in comments broadcast on CCTV.
And a clip showing soldiers dancing to Xiao Pingguo with child survivors of an August earthquake that killed 600 people in the southwest became an online sensation.
There are countless other amateur videos of groups of people dancing to the song, including air stewardesses, cheerleaders, firefighters and students. One parody brings together North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, US President Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and UN Secretary-General UN Ban Ki-moon.
The song’s success has also put a spotlight on Da Ma — the old ladies who gather every morning and evening to dance in city squares across China.
Zheng Xiaomin, a 76-year-old retiree in Beijing, said the Xiao Pingguo dance phenomenon has brought more people together, although she was happy to remain a spectator.
“In a park, it is usually embarrassing to be seen putting your hands on the shoulder or hip of a partner,” said the former typographer, who used to translate official documents into the dialects of ethnic minorities.
“But with Xiao Pingguo that’s not the case,” she added.
Despite its nationwide appeal, there are few expectations that Little Apple will become the kind of global phenomenon that was Gangnam Style, the stratospheric 2012 hit by South Korea’s Psy that has been viewed on YouTube more than 2.1 billion times. In contrast, the Chopstick Brothers’ video has only clocked up 3 million hits on the site, which is blocked in China by the country’s vast network of Internet controls.
Experts say Xiao Pingguo lacks the Westernized ingredients that helped Psy find such success.
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