Jasmine Zhu writes about her disconnect from classic rock and growing up listening to C-pop.

I never grew up with The Beatles. The first time I heard Elvis Presley was through a karaoke machine, and it wasn’t even him singing in the backdrop, it was some drunk dude. Consequently, I’ve never held a lot of reverence for classics—the familiar tracks my peers knew all the words to by heart, passed down from their parents and grandparents.

I’m pretty sure the first time I was even really cognizant that there was a band called The Beach Boys was in my Humanities class, senior year of high school. “Is this the Beatles?” I asked dubiously. That was pretty embarrassing, I guess. I dropped Humanities second semester.

I never really sought out anything from the baby boomer generation because I thought it was futile—the present was entertaining enough, plus it always made me feel sad to think that everyone else already had embedded associations from childhood whereas I would be starting over from scratch. Why dredge up the past? I didn’t think I had anything substantive enough to glean from it and anyways, it would only be a thin simulacra compared to what everyone else had—it wasn’t a natural part of me or my upbringing, but an artificial insertion, or some weird form of make-believe.

Not that I haven’t learned to appreciate these musicians. But they were never a part of my formative experience, and will never hold a special place in my heart the way certain arguably embarrassing 90′s bands have. I’m awash in nostalgia for Smash Mouth and instantly transported to middle school, but I don’t have any fond memories connected to “Born in the U.S.A.” (I was born in Nanjing, China).

C-pop was the music of my early childhood. An abbreviation for Chinese popular music, it’s a loose umbrella term that covers all Chinese music. Interestingly (and perhaps ironically) since music and lyrical content is closely censored by the government, a lot of the songs that I thought of as classics include English words and phrases.

Teresa Teng was my grandma’s absolute favorite singer, and also one of the most famous musicians associated with C-pop. I think I still have one of her cassettes lying around somewhere. My grandma told me the country thought of her as a national treasure, and bemoaned her untimely death at age 42. A lot of my favorite songs by Teresa Teng have English titles and lyrics—“The Moon Represents My Heart” and “Goodbye My Love,” for instance. Her music reminds me of watering vegetables in the garden with my grandma and consequently makes me feel happy although most of her songs are pretty sad.

Alan Tam was someone my dad used to always jam out to. He was basically China’s Michael Jackson. He did a lot of covers and reinterpretations of popular American acts like Don Mclean and Roxette, although I only figured this out recently. For a while I thought the original versions were just Alan Tam covers. I closely associate the years in which I had a terrible bowl haircut with his music.

Faye Wong is an artist some of you might be more familiar with—her songs are included in the Final Fantasy soundtracks. My mom really liked her music.

I don’t really consider myself an outsider anymore because I don’t have anything more than a passing familiarity with Harry Nilsson or The Who. I enjoyed being brought up with something a little different. It’s all right that I don’t know any of the words to “Eleanor Rigby.” I think.