Ai Jing

Ai Jing (Chinese: 艾敬; pinyin: Ài Jìng; born 10 September 1969 in Shenyang, Liaoning[1][2]) is a mainland Chinese singer and painter. China's Northeast News called her "China's most talented female folk rock singer."[3]

Ai Jing 艾敬
Ai Jing in 2007
Background information
Born	(1969-09-10) September 10, 1969
Origin	People's Republic of China
Genres	Rock, pop
Instruments	Singing, guitar
Years active	1992–present
Website	https://www.artaijing.com/en/about/

Ai was born into a musical family: her father played several instruments, and her mother was a Pingju singer.[2][4] She attended the Shenyang Special School of Art,[5] joined the Oriental Song and Dance Troupe (Chinese: 东方歌舞团; pinyin: dōngfāng gēwǔ tuán) in Beijing at age 18, and first gained widespread attention with her 1992 song "My 1997" (Chinese: 我的1997; pinyin: wǒde yījiǔjiǔqī). A semi-autobiographical ballad[4] that has been compared to Cui Jian's "Nothing to My Name" in terms of its social impact,[6] the song tells about her love for a man living in Hong Kong, and how she eagerly awaits the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China so she can visit him.[5] After "My 1997", she performed throughout East and Southeast Asia for several years. The music video for her 1993 "Wandering Swallow" (Chinese: 流浪的燕子; pinyin: liúlàng de yànzi) won the Chunlan Cup MTV Convention.[4]

Nimrod Baranovitch describes Ai as one of China's first "independent, free, active, dynamic, perhaps even rebellious" female pop stars".[7] She is also known for having written and produced much of her own music, in a time when few Chinese artists were doing so.[7][8] Much of her music defied stylistic rules and incorporated Western folk and rock styles.[9] But after her early albums, Baranovitch claims, Ai's popularity decreased as her themes became more "personal and nonconformist",[10] and she faced "antagonism" from men within the music industry because she did not sexually objectify herself and because her introduction of new musical styles challenged the male-dominated industry.[10]

Ai moved to New York in 1997, and since then has mostly lived in the United States, although she recorded her 2003 album Is it a Dream? (是不是梦) in the United Kingdom.[8] In the late 1990s Ai switched her focus to painting, and had her first professional exhibition in 2008.[4] She has also acted in three[2] films: Five Girls and a Rope (五个女子和一根绳子; 1991), Beijing Bastards (北京杂种; 1993), and From the Queen to the Chief Executive (等候董建华发落; 2000).[5]