Foreign artists’ concerts bring a piece of home to immigrants

“G.E.M. is touring here.”

When I saw this text from my sister, I darted to my computer and searched for “G.E.M. San Francisco tickets, March 22, 2019.” After getting my parents’ approval (which took quite a while), I ordered the tickets immediately. 

    G.E.M. is a Mandarin artist who debuted in Hong Kong and rose to fame in the early 2010s. I started listening to her music after I heard a clip of her cover of the famous Cantonese song “喜欢你,”（” I Like You”) on a music show called, “我是歌手,” (“I’m a Singer”) and she’s been one of my favorite artists ever since.

However, for the past few years, I could only live the experience of her tours vicariously through pictures and videos from social media. 

Asian artists typically need a far-reaching fan base to expand their tours to North America, so I could previously only dream that she would one day visit the Bay Area. 

    During the two weeks leading up to the day of the concert, my excitement overrode everything around me. 

    As I was lining up to enter the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for the concert, I was surrounded by people who spoke my native language and likely had similar cultural backgrounds. The experience reminded me of the time that I spent in China. 

I moved to the U.S. six years ago from China. As an immigrant, I missed hearing the different dialects that I used to hear on the streets of China(although I don’t understand it), and I missed being surrounded by people who share the same background. 

Before the concert even began, I already felt a heartwarming sense of solidarity. I looked around the auditorium, and almost all of the seats were filled. The other concert attendees and I had gathered together in a foreign country for a musician from a home country that we all have deep, intimate connections to. 

Overhearing other attendees speaking Mandarin sparked memories of my friends in China, whose lives I only catch glimpses of when connecting with them online.

The majority of the people who went to the G.E.M. concert, like me, had moved to the U.S. from a foreign country, but we had congregated there for the same purpose — to celebrate an artist from home whom we adore.

Since then, going to concerts of Asian artists has been a chance for me to reconnect with my roots. Besides the G.E.M. concert, I’ve been to concerts by Eason Chan, a Cantonese artist who gained popularity in the 2000s, and Joker Xue, a Chinese artist who attracted attention for his heartbreaking love songs.

It is one thing to meet the artists that I love and listen to, but it’s another to experience a part of the culture that I deeply missed.