In Hangzhou’s Nine Club, the guitars are loud, the lyrics are unapologetic, and the crowd is a sweaty blur of spiked hair, torn jeans, and authenticity. Welcome to the new wave of Chinese punk—a scene that never really went away, but is now mutating into something stranger and stronger.
At a recent Unite Punk Music Festival, several hundred kids crushed into a dark venue to scream, slam, and stage-dive to bands like Labor Glory and System Chaos. The lineup isn’t headlining Coachella anytime soon, but for a generation of young Chinese punks, it’s church.
This isn’t the glossy, emo fashion brands or 2000s MySpace nostalgia. It’s underground, self-funded, and very much about emotional survival. “They need channels to relieve pressure and release negativity to help themselves adjust,” said Zedd, a mechanical engineering student and guitarist for System Chaos, in an interview with the AP.
Punk hit China hard in the late ’90s, with bands like Brain Failure and SMZB channeling raw frustration into rebellion. But even as the hype waned and state censorship ramped up, the scene didn’t vanish—it evolved.
“It may be more difficult to do punk rock in China, but in different environments, it has its own way of survival,” said Liu Fei, co-founder of Beijing’s legendary School Bar, which morphed from a forgettable dance venue into a full-on DIY hub. It’s still standing, even as censorship, rent hikes, and endless government crackdowns try to silence it.
The lyrics have shifted, too. Today’s punks aren’t just raging against the system—they’re drowning in “sang” culture, a Gen Z Chinese slang for existential burnout. The rebellion is still there, but now it’s paired with bleakness, humor, and poetry. Bands like Chengdu’s Hiperson are fusing post-punk with spoken word. Gong Gong Gong uses minimalist riffs to deconstruct traditional Chinese sounds. It’s weird. It works.
Punk in China isn’t trending on Weibo. It’s not safe, and it definitely doesn’t care about being marketable. But in packed basements and battered bars across cities like Beijing, Chengdu, and Hangzhou, it’s very much alive—and for a new generation of kids suffocating under pressure, it might be the only thing that still feels real.
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