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1961: Cui Jian, born on August 2 into an ethnically Korean family, is immediately surrounded by an environment of music and dance. His father is a professional trumpet player and his mother a member of a Korean minority dance troupe.

1975: Begins learning trumpet at age 14.

1981: Lands a job as a classical trumpet player with the prestigious Beijing Philharmonic Orchestra. By this time Cui Jian has also become smitten by the Western rock and roll he is hearing on tapes spirited into the country by tourists and foreign students. Inspired by the likes of Simon and Garfunkel, and John Denver, he learns to play guitar and is soon singing in public.

1984: Cui Jian and six other classical musicians form the band - Seven-Ply Board - playing western pop songs in small restaurants and hotels around Beijing. It is one of the first bands of its kind in China. This year Cui Jian also records his first album, Langzigui - a record of syrupy Chinese pop ballads. Cui Jian does not contribute lyrics and the quality of the recording is thoroughly substandard. However, the record's attempts at progressive arrangements and inventive production are fresh experiments in the world of Chinese pop music. They provide the earliest glimpse of Cui Jian's musical character as it will later emerge. By the mid-1980's the bulk of western rock music has found its way into China's cultural underground and The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads, and The Police are influencing Cui Jian to try his own hand at rock'n'roll. His earliest effort is a rock/rap number entitled "It's Not That I Don't Understand".

1985: Cui Jian first attracts attention with an appearance in a Beijing talent contest. Even at this early stage in his career, Cui Jian's songs show a preoccupation with weightier issues than the usual gauzy romantic fantasies expressed in the pop ballads of the day. He dares to address such sensitive topics as individualism and sexuality. To a generation numbed by the deadening propaganda of the Cultural Revolution, the honesty of Cui Jian's lyrics is like a clarion call. And crucially, Cui Jian's tunes rock with an authenticity that other Chinese rockers have not yet successfully internalized.

1986: In May, at a Beijing concert commemorating the Year of World Peace, Cui Jian climbs onto the stage in peasant clothing and belts out his latest composition, "Nothing To My Name". As the song ends, a stunned audience erupts in standing ovation. Before long, young people all over China are banging out Cui Jian tunes on beat-up guitars in campus dormitories and coffeehouses.