Songs you absolutely have to know

[gougou]

Anyways, a fair number of my foreign friends here can/seem to enjoy singing that song.

I think the OP rather wanted to know songs Chinese people know/enjoy, rather than those foreigners in China enjoy, because he wants to understand Chinese culture.

Also, I think a lot of foreigners don't like songs with interspersed English.

[GreenArrow45]

Partially true, I should have clarified that both the Chinese and Expats seem to enjoy singing it, with the Chinese liking it more. Anyways, the song is 那些花, its not too difficult to sing. Whether or not there is cultural significance to the song, I couldn't tell you...

however, what everyone thinks of as being culturally significant I think varies from person to person (for instance I am American and have no idea what Camptown Races is). If you're looking for a big pop star though, 王菲 is/was one of the bigger ones - I think roddy made a thread about her the other day.

[天人合一]

pop song --walking life （漫步人生路）邓丽君

[aristotle1990]

Oh, another one you only start noticing when you go to KTV with Chinese people: 童话 by 光良. I actually really dislike the song, but nearly all Chinese people can belt out every sentence at KTV, it seems, so get memorizing...

[zhuhao]

I'll throw my lot in with 任賢齊，對面的女孩看過來. It was one of my favorite pop songs when I first went to China ins 2000. Any of Richie's songs, actually, are pretty easy to learn - I'm also partial to 我是一只魚 and 睡到12點, and the latter is GREAT for vocab building.

[carlo]

At least one song by Beyond, eg 光辉岁月.

[zening]

Somewhere faraway在那遥远的地方

[Zomac]

If this thread covers all taiwan, hong kong and international songs, the list will be huge. I pick up a few songs of a genuine origin of mainland china.

曾經的你 (許巍's song may be (one of) the most popular in all pubs across the whole country with a live band. After passively hearing his songs for more than 500 times, I just couldn't ignore him.)

我在馬路旁撿到一分錢 (the corrupted version seems to be more popular and it's one of the rare chance for foreigners to be satirical at the chinese gov't without offending anyone).

歌唱祖國 (one bad trick to please Chinese hosts is to sing some "red" songs but in my experience, Chinese don't always like to see you sing 東方紅 or 社會主義好 in these days. Try this one. it's as popular as the national anthem and Chinese love it.)

Not sure about this:

北京一夜 (it was very popular in KTV in 2008 -2009 and many people, regardless of ages, like to sing it in Castrato's voice...is it an influence of Vitas? absolutely a disaster...)

hope you enjoy!

[helenwhite]

They are:

Putong Pengyou, David Tao

Ai wo haishi ta, David Tao

Ai Wo Bie Zou, Zhang Zhenyue

Qing Ren, Dao Lang

Mama, Yi creation

Tibet - Qinqzang Gaoyuan

Jixiang San Bao, Burenbayaer