This study will examine the listening practices of Chinese immigrants in Montreal and their role
in shaping homeland imaginaries and a sense of diasporic agency. Based on ethnographic
observations of social gatherings, I will explore how Chinese residents of Montreal engage with
Mandarin pop music from diverse regions and historical periods of mainland China, including
songs like Shānlù Shíbā Wān (山路十八弯), Dōngběi Mínyáo (东北民谣), and Jiǔ Wěi Hú (九
尾狐). These songs circulate through transnational spaces via social media and manifest in
personal playlists and karaoke gatherings, demonstrating how mobility and media from China
are intertwined in their daily musical practices.
I will argue that these listening practices are a strategy that allows individuals to reconcile their
emotional attachment to China with the realities of life in a diasporic context. The expressions of
geographical locations in the lyrics, combined with a “Tuwei” (土味) aesthetic (an aesthetic from
early 21st-century China blending nostalgia and the sense of incoordination from urban-rural
integration), enable participants to construct new geographical imaginaries of China that
transcend their own regions of origin. For instance, participants from Hubei may construct an
imagination of Northern China through Northeast folk ballads. The agency and creative
self-narrative embodied in these practices stand in contrast to the essentialist framework of
Canadian multiculturalism, which tends to solidify tradition.
Drawing upon the theoretical framework of uncertainty, displacement, and the diasporic
imaginary (Wang, 2025), this research will combine ethnographic observation with reflections on
sensory experience and aesthetic engagement. By investigating these transnational practices, this
paper aims to position the musical life of Montreal’s Chinese diaspora as a dynamic field of
negotiation with multiculturalism in Canada. Ultimately, it will reveal how these listening
sessions highlight heterogeneity within the diaspora while simultaneously cultivating a
transnational consciousness and personal agency among its members.