Such concerns were familiar to the songwriters and those around them too. “My Beloved Hometown” was written in a private music salon called Damucang in 1987.27 Before the draft of the lyrics was shown to other musicians, the manager of salon Liu Weiren approached lyricist Meng Guangzheng (Figure 1) to check whether he dared to release such a work. Meng explained: “I visited my wife’s hometown, and I found it didn’t look as beautiful as I had been told. But I wish the village can become pretty.” Composer Xu Peidong (Figure 2) was interested in the draft. In their collaboration, the lyricist and musician incorporated the multiple ideologies of the time into the song in a way that they hoped might not raise official objections but carry a new pop song style. For instance, the first line of the lyrics was originally, “My hometown is not such a beautiful place” using the word “place” (difang ). Yet “place” was a keyword in official songs, such as “In the Place of Peach Blossoms in Full Bloom” (Zai na taohua shengkaide difang ), where it always carried a positive gloss. In order to avoid running counter to that official norm, Xu Peidong changed the phrase to the more straightforward words: “My hometown is not at all beautiful”.28