Girlhood

artwork by Justin Liu

By Haley Lam

I began listening to reggaeton because of a man. There. I said it. He was older, he had tattoos, and he spoke my mother tongue with a deliciously flirtatious accent. Can you imagine him driving with one hand on the wheel and the other idly resting on my knee, Siri warbling directions in Spanish? (Did I mention his first language was Spanish?) Men like this are part of the female development arc – the ones you don’t actually get into a relationship with but you somehow lose your mind over. He gave me free reign of the car stereo, but in the end I would always go back to his playlist which consisted mostly of reggaeton. The subtle intensity of the rap fitted in so perfectly with the atmosphere, or more specifically, with this brooding, silent heartthrob that was the epitome of the classic bad boy. 

The various genres of music I have liked almost directly parallel different stages of my life, a fact I find oddly comical. For one, the only music I listened to during the two years I lived in the UK was Cantopop. I couldn’t help it. I despaired for home. And the music was my way of preserving my sense of identity, which for so long had been tied to my home country. There was just something cathartic about singing Hins Cheung’s songs from 2008 and marveling over the way the language – my language – felt on my tongue. The poignancy and nostalgic tones of Cantopop – and the occasional Taiwanese song – aligned with the despondency I felt as a result of living away from home and being a moody, sanctimonious teenager. Lonely music for a lonely time. Reggaeton, on the other hand, reflected the exact opposite. Fresh out of a five-year relationship that worsened my mental health more than anything I’ve ever been through, I had spent months doing little else but obsessing over college coursework as a means of distraction from both my misery and the mundane of my everyday life. And all of a sudden it was midnight on a Friday, and I was sitting on a park bench with my legs crossed over the lap of a cute boy who smelled good. The attraction I felt for him was genuine, but more than that, he was an escape. His rebelliousness was like a lifeline, a breakthrough in the unhappiness that had plagued me for so long. Listening to reggaeton reminded me not of him per se, but of that feeling of freedom and empowerment, of regaining control of my life, of the time I finally felt alive after a very long phase of thinking I had lost myself. 

Not too surprisingly, the next genre I became fixated on was starkly different, and so was the man who inspired it. He had the typical artistic, free-spirited personality and Instagram feed you would expect of a film major whose favourite movie is Chungking Express. While he had none of the aforementioned boy’s devilish charm, he was intelligent, thoughtful, and, as artists usually are, extremely romantic. An avid lover of indie music, he gifted me a keepsake before I returned to New York: a customised cassette tape he had made himself. He even quoted Murakami on the card (Not my first choice for a favourite book, but the last man I properly dated could not even spell ‘February,’ so I’ll gladly take Norwegian Wood). I had never liked indie music. To me this genre always lay in the realm of neutrality – with none of the zealous rhythms of rap or emotionality of Cantopop. But as I lay in my childhood bedroom, listening to the songs he spent weeks selecting and fixing onto the cassette, I fell in love with it. If I associated the addictive, all-consuming infatuation I felt for my bad boy with the fervour of reggaeton, then the slow buildup of feelings I felt for this man that was less intense but much more substantial, much more real, certainly mirror the soft, sentimental themes of indie music. I didn’t know it at the time, but my newfound appreciation for the genre marked a new chapter in my life, a chapter I have delightfully christened my soft girl era. 

Music has been a longtime source of intimacy for me. It is so wonderfully soothing to discover a song that embodies the very emotion you’ve been harbouring for a while, manifested in the form of rhythm and tune. Unhappy periods of my life may have inspired me to listen to them – I admit I still get the occasional flashback of scrolling through a man’s Instagram at four a.m., going out of my mind wondering why there were so many women in his following, why did he gain two followers in a week? – but I have since moved on. I ended things with both men. I moved from York to New York, a city that I fell in love with since the first week I arrived. I see now with newfound clarity why I appreciated Eric Chou’s mournful lyrics when I was living in boarding school. Why I enjoyed the strong bass of something like Bad Bunny’s Me Porto Bonito or indie pop like Peach Pit¹. They were like quiet, unwavering companions throughout all the change. I can’t be certain I won’t always associate these songs with places or people that shouldn’t be on my mind at all. But at least I am much happier now. 

Hayley is a junior majoring in Psychology. This is her fifth contribution to Generasian. When she’s not writing or listening to music, you can find her reading in a cafe, skateboarding, baking, taking pictures with her film camera, or exploring some forest or mountain somewhere.

Hayley’s playlist, in honour of…

… the bad boy 

WHERE SHE GOES – Bad Bunny

LA FAMA – ROSALÍA, The Weeknd

Si Antes Te Hubiera Conocido – Karol G

… the artist 

Hey There Delilah – Plain White T’s

Nice To See You – Vansire

永不失聯的愛 – Eric Chou

… Hong Kong 

春秋 — Hins Cheung

富士山下 — Eason Chan

難得一遇 — Phil Lam

1. The band Peach Pit has a song called Peach Pit. ↩︎