Revolutionary Poetry: 长征组歌

2009 marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. Accordingly, this year’s art and cultural scene in Beijing has been inundated with activities with an unmistakably revolutionary theme. One such activity is the revival of the monumental 长征组歌, a Liederkreis that poetically draws up the poignant history of the Chinese Red Army’s Long March between 1934 and 1936.

The cycle starts with Bidding Farewell (告别), a serious number portraying the scene where marchers parted with their families to fight for a greater cause. In the middle of the cycle, Traversing the Snow Mountains and Grasslands (过雪山草地) depicts the great difficulty when the marchers scaled the rugged mountains in the brutal continental winter. The cycle ends with a predictably upbeat but still stunningly rapturous finale, set at Gansu’s Huining (甘肃会宁), where the choir tutti praises Chairman Mao and the Communist Party. This struggle-to-victory story flow is understandably similar to that of Flower Girl, the DPRK revolutionary opera that I attended and wrote about last year.

In keeping with tradition, the musicians wear red army uniforms (红军服) and straw sandals during the performance of the cycle. The evening’s performance also includes recitals of a few revolutionary classics, including Our Soldiers (咱当兵的人; video) and Motherland (祖国慈祥的母亲; video).

As someone who does not regularly tune into CCTV’s entertainment programming that caters to the patriotic crowd, I must confess I am not at all familiar with revolutionary music — the genre. I am attracted to and intrigued by last night’s performance not least because the performance is supposedly a defining moment in this year’s gargantuan slate of anniversary activities, but because I like to wean on and study more about this patriotic culture that grows beyond what is parochially required of all citizens in China. After all, the tickets are not cheap; and no one (at least for people like me) is forced to attend the concert. Still, judging by the way the audience connects with the music and its stars, it is obvious to me that: (1) many audience members are intimately familiar with the music’s genre and can readily recite most of the lyrics by memory; and (2) some of these stars, including Liu Bin (刘斌; bio, in Chinese) and Geng Lianfeng (耿莲凤; bio, in Chinese), are genuine heavyweights in the genre of revolutionary music, much like Pavarotti and Sutherland in opera. They draw a rabid fan following – as evidenced by fans’ enthusiastic reception upon their entrance on stage. They issue their own CDs (revolutionary music usually has its separate section at CD shops all over Beijing), run their music troupes, write new music (咱当兵的人, which was used by President Jiang Zemin to inspect the line during 1999’s military parade, was written by Liu Bin) and star regularly in CCTV’s plethora of entertainment programming. This culture is something that I am only recently introduced to; in fact, I am eager to find out if this culture exists all across China, or only in the unabashedly patriotic fishbowl of Beijing.

I was grateful to find one friend willing to attend this amazing performance with me. Our attendance was quite improbable: considering that most of these sing-along attendees — some in their uniforms — were in their 50s or 60s, we were conspicuous by virtue of our relatively young age. In the end however, we, or at least I, realized that well-written lyrics and melodic tunes find no bounds in affecting the audience and bringing the audience back for a brief ride back to history’s past.

A Train ride home, during China’s Great Migration

Words cannot begin to describe how gleeful I am to have spent an entire day traveling by train from Beijing to Hong Kong, four days before the Chinese new year, to partake in the annual homecoming ritual for migrant workers. These few days before the Chinese new year mark the annual period (春运) during which migrant workers in job-rich coastal cities like Beijing bring their bounty home and share their faraway tales. To be sure, my family in Hong Kong hardly needs me to lavish them with largesse from the north, and, most certainly, my faraway tales, already piped a few times a week back to Hong Kong by way of cellular and electronic communications, are hardly so outrageously sodden with juicy bits as to command an in-person delivery.

But the presentation of a bounty and a tale is not the point. This annual period is also when migrant workers would go out of their way to find their way home, despite the all-impossible task of scoring a ticket when millions of other souls would try to do the exact same thing; despite the fact that China’s domestic train system would be stretched way beyond its designed capacity; and despite the fact that a good portion of this migrating population would actually travel without an assigned seat, be left standing in the train car for hours upon hours before legs would buckle and knees yield, only to still manage to drag their carcasses home and then be awakened from the dead by the heroic cheers of their home crowd upon their return. The point: I want to participate and immerse myself in the migration process in order to fully understand what it means to survive the journey and find destination, where, allegedly, pompoms gyrate and firecrackers await for the hero returning from the capital city. A train ticket would buy me an immersive experience that my Dragonair ticket, bought a month ago, never would. Thus, three days before I were to fly back, I canceled my flight and opted instead to take a train — with a standing room ticket for the most honest, proletarian form of experience — from Beijing to Shenzhen. From there I would take the MTR home.

On the night of my departure, Beijing’s temperature dropped precipitously from mid single digits to negative teens, yielding a severe condition that was depicted, ever so creatively, as “colder’n a witch’s titty” by Kaiser Kuo, a friend in Beijing. Because I came to the train station prepared for a Siberian winter, I was happily surprised to find a train compartment filled with fuzzy warmth upon entry. While this warmth was partially attributable to the train’s adequate heating system, I suspected that the fuzziness was chiefly due to a combination of air-tight insulation and the sheer overcrowding in the train car. The train car in which I stayed, apparently designed for 120 sitting folks and another dozen or so stand-uppers, ended up engulfing, by my count, more than 200 homecoming souls. This insular body heat, together with the corresponding body odor and bad breath, was much of what I had to come to terms with on the way home. The standing room was jam packed with standers and littered with bounty bags. The compressed crowd reminded me of the Hong Kong MTR during the rush hours, but such comparison would end as soon as I reminded myself that I never had to stand in the MTR for 23 hours with neither a bed nor an assigned seat.

As soon as the train started to move, the first order of business, for those with standing room tickets, was to jostle for valuable space. Reclining surfaces for leaning onto, valuable; middle aisles, not. Since I didn’t act quickly enough, the only spot left for me to claim was between a six-foot tall man and a broad-shouldered college student; both, like me, were left standing in the middle aisle, with neither reclining surfaces to lean on nor enough space to fold ourselves in a more restful, genuflecting/squatting position.

The unintended intimacy with my two fellow passengers could have been very awkward had we not attempted to strike up some conversation – after all, parts of our bodies would occasionally touch each other for the ensuing 7 to 8 hours. The tall man has been working in Beijing for the past 7 years, first as a construction worker and now as a HVAC manager at a commercial building in the CBD area. The man, with an acutely chiseled countenance and a robust body frame, was at first terse in his conversation and overly protective of his privacy. But after half an hour or so, he warmed up enough to slowly reveal his usual loquacious self, and started talking incessantly about his work and life in Beijing. He beamed a clear partisan affection for Beijing, and was obviously very proud of what he had achieved while managing about in the capital city. He was excited about going back to his hometown, near Ganzhou (赣州), for the first time since he left for a job opportunity in Beijing, a heavy handling gig in the construction of one of those spaceship-looking buildings in Zhongguancun (中关村). He was also slightly perturbed by his prolonged absence – that he wouldn’t recognize his rapidly developing hometown. A cloud of anxiety also gathered around him as he explained how everyone back home had expectations of him, and how he, the supposedly vagabond shoes-wearing king of the hill Beijinger, would now not only recount his experience in the vast land’s capital but also spread and share the material wealth. That was the focal point of his anxiety: he confessed that while he brought dozens of MP3 players, cell phones and other electronics, he may still not have enough units to go around. More significantly, he may not have bought enough good-quality trappings to satisfy the mushrooming level of expectations. After all, in this age of ferocious advertising and relentless product placements, his folks back home are all too familiar with the iPods and iPhones of the world, and the knockoffs (山寨机) that he could afford and bought, considering the not-so-insignificant quantity needed, were anything but. His honest re-weaving of the social fabric of his more down-to-earth hometown vis-a-vis that of a rapidly cosmopolitan-izing coastal city like Beijing caught my full attention, but apparently didn’t impress the computer engineering college student well enough to keep him from leaving our conversation and submerging into his PSP screen.

Kneeling on the floor next to us was an affable couple, a husband and a wife who were both janitors at a military hospital in Beijing. They told us that they moved to Beijing to work at their current jobs a few years ago after getting recommended by a militarily-connected relative in Jian (吉安), their hometown. While reminiscing their previous journeys on the same train in the years gone by, they were initially perplexed by how this year’s bounty bags were plumper, and the fellow passengers’ wardrobe sharper, despite all indications of a recessing economy and a tougher road ahead, even for these richer coastal workers migrating home for the new year. They professed that, while their jobs were relatively secure, they could observe society’s economic anxiety by how people would spend at the grocery store or at the eateries – that the days of unruly big spending, noted the wife, were gone. Her theory was that these migrant workers had to channel the “all is good” message back home, lest their family back home be disgraced by a returnee not living up to full expectations. Her intuition was grim but, in my view, dead-on.

A few hours later, the sardine-like packing eased up slightly because, as if by osmosis, some folks eventually found less crowded cars to stand in. Some other passengers would arrive and disembark. It was by this time that we had more space to move around, untangle our legs, and either find fresh faces to chat with or just slip away into solitude.

As folks began to acknowledge each other’s presence and acquaint oneself with others, they loosened up not only their guard but their bounty bags too: a few took out fruits, biscuits, breads and noodles to share with fellow passengers, cultivating a season of warmth and good fellowship in an improvised pot-luck feast. The camaraderie of this working class underscored all the goodness of humanity, and presented a welcoming contrast to the foreign media’s oft-Hobbesian portrayal of an unruly Chinese populace…at least that portion of the population practicing ruthless entrepreneurship and those now embroiled in food safety, toy safety and corruption scandals.

After standing on my feet for 18 hours, I finally found myself an empty bench of seats vacated by a group of disembarking passengers. In the subsequent hours, I rolled myself into a deep coma, thoroughly exhausted but amazed by my two legs – a couple of workhorses that never let up and buckle. When the train finally stopped in Shenzhen, I felt renewed and profoundly enriched. The erstwhile day slipped by as if in a blink of a moment. Two hours later, and after a dinner with a friend gracious enough to cross the HK-China border to meet up with me at the Shenzhen train station, I reached home, glad to see my parents and happy to unload my bounty of a thoroughly sumptuous, uniquely relishing experience.

Dudamel conducts Bernstein and Mahler in Beijing

This past Friday evening, my friend and I attended a concert by Simón Bolívar National Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, conducted by the 27-year-old phenomenon, Gustavo Dudamel.

Gustavo Dudamel in Beijing.

Simón Bolívar and Dudamel performed two pieces: Bernstein’s West Side Story Symphonic Dances and, after intermission, Mahler’s First. The rendition of Bernstein’s West Side Story was, for me to put it mildly, less than enthusiastic. The outcome was stiff and uninspiring, and lacked the interplay between jubilance and mellowness, as well as the mischievous energy that was called upon by Bernstein. The performance was sourly disappointing, not least because I was eagerly looking forward to this performance after having read and heard so much about Dudamel, who was to become L.A. Phil’s youngest-ever music director starting next (2009-10) season, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, one of more than 200 youth orchestras in Venezuela funded by the Venezuelan government with the aim of uplifting poor neighborhoods and children who live in them through structured music education. Simón Bolívar, considered the apex of this wildly successful art and social experiment, has won accolades and praises not just for its narrative as a pioneering, broad-reaching social program but also for its symphonic prowess and artistic balance. Therefore, when we heard something that was more like my high school band than one with multiple DG recordings, at least I was so crestfallen that, before the Bernstein was half completed, my mind was drifting away, not into Manhattan’s west side as Dudamel probably had hoped, but to endless permutations of how to salvage this Friday evening if we were to skip after intermission.

After intermission, we went back nevertheless, with her Proustian reminder that, even if we had tried, we couldn’t have found a better place to be on a brutally cold Friday night in Beijing than in the embrace of the National Centre for Performing Arts. And boy, we were glad we didn’t bail! When the first sets of A chords came out, we knew right away that our concerns were unnecessary – they came out with plenty of force and confidence, projecting one-part of controlled balance and one-part of sensual opulence. The Gesellen passages were superbly rendered with meticulousness — evoking, rightfully so, memories of listening to the Wayfarer Lieder with Kubelik and Fischer-Dieskau, on which part of the first movement is based. The galore continued with a majestic entrance to the second movement, intermingled with a velvety, triple-time mid-passage. The third movement was spacious but not in any way dragging. The voicing of the Frère Jacques passage was smooth and gleeful, with a perfect relay of windwinds meandering through Mahler’s handcrafted dazzle. By the fourth movement, I was wondering how much, during the Bernstein, I had missed under the cloak of my suspicion and unwarranted anxiety. The fourth movement was perhaps the high point of the evening, with monstrous horns, plush strings, and a percussion section that made me feel inadequate.

Without a doubt, Dudamel’s baton managed to control all of that artistry with precision, raising Simón Bolívar’s spirit and energy as he saw fit. And mind you, Simón Bolívar was not an easy baby to control: it had about 150 musicians for the Mahler and over 200 for the Bernstein. By the time the Mahler was marching towards its grand finale, Dudamel was at his best, unleashing a galloping orchestral splendor filled with dramatic outbursts, ending the evening with a feeling of finality and authority. I have always been a huge fan of Mahler, but always in a subdued, measured kind of way. But the way I reacted to Dudamel’s Mahler was alien to me — it was warm, emotional, and fulfilling. Toasting to that, this Mahler by Simón Bolívar and Dudamel was as good as any Mahler’s First I have heard.

In search of the best burger in Beijing

A mundane burger often reminds me of those years when I lived in America, when I often had to subsist on mass-produced burgers that I’d imagine tasted like dirty socks soaked in sewage-diluted ketchup. A great burger, however, reminds me of the good times I’ve had, mainly in two places: Texas, and California. Texas’ burgers are memorable because the beef is always fresh and flavorful, and often charcoal-grilled with cracking mesquite wood that gives an additional layer of sweetness. Californian burgers are great because they dare to be inventive: new ingredients (e.g. organic greens), new sauces (e.g. sweet aioli, jalapeño-flavored salsa), and new ways of ordering (e.g. secret menu, at In-N-Out).

The Mission

Burger is not something that pops into my mind when I talk about my foodie experience in Beijing. While many Beijing hotels have coffee shops that can offer a decent burger, albeit at exorbitant prices, I have yet to find, until now, a burger joint that I could confidently recommend to others. Hooters, Durty Nellie’s and Paddy O’Shea’s serve up good burgers as pub grubs, but I recommend those places with reasons that are far more important than, say, to get a half-decent burger. Therefore, I decided to undertake a mission to find the best burger, as I know it, in a town better known for roast ducks wrapped with steamed pancakes than beef patty on a bun — with one additional requirement: that any restaurant’s burger must be the #1 reason why I, or anyone to whom I pass on my recommendation, would want to go to that restaurant. Therefore, places like Durty Nellie’s and Outback Steakhouse won’t count. With some input from some well-fed Beijingers, I tried out twelve burger joints in a little under five weeks, and came up with four good recommendations, below.

The Taste Test

Tim’s Texas BBQ (Guanghua Road)

Tim’s offers an all-American Border burger laden with bacon, cheese, jalapeños. The beef patty was supremely grilled with a dense, robust flavor. The bacon had a nice, smoky nose and a chewy texture. The winning ingredient was the pungent jalapeños, which nicely cut into the excess fat of the beef and the bacon and provided that extra zing. Tim’s also serves up a superb chopped beef brisket sandwich, which by itself is worthy of a separate visit (or, if self-indulgence shall be forgiven, of a same-visit, side-by-side burger-sandwich face/off).

Exploit: one Border burger, one frozen margarita: ￥80.

One East on Third (Hilton Hotel Beijing)

With foie gras, black truffles and Waygu beef, the Waygu burger oozed more pomp and circumstance than cheeses and mushroom juices. It was tough for me not to feel a little pugnacious after shelling out ￥325 just so that I got to feel like an aristocratic jackass for half an hour. Nevertheless, I have to admit that, strictly in terms of taste, the burger was actually more than just a garbled pile of dollar signs; I would freely admit that it was not too far away from the majestic double truffle burger royale that I had at Daniel Boulud’s joint in New York two years ago.

Exploit: one Waygu burger, one glass of Californian red wine, one expresso: ￥420.

Let’s Burger (The Village at Sanlitun)

This is a straight-up, burger-only joint that serves up some juicy patties in a bistro environment. My order: an Australian double burger with six ounces (by my estimate) of ground sirloin. The Australian was amply dressed with lettuce, tomatoes, two fat slices of bacon, and a fried egg. I felt like my life was ticking away as the burger was being devoured. The only thing that kept me from putting the burger down and calling it quits was the devil in me, reminding me that if my blood vessels were to clot and if I were to drop dead on the spot, I would still die a very, very happy man. On my first visit, the patties were a little disappointing because they were overcooked, bland, and devoid of beefy flavors, but on my second visit (revisiting the exact same order), the patties came to life with all the beefy aromatics and succulent juices. The fries were hand-cut and well-fried, with a crunchy shell and a soft, starchy body. A winning feature at this joint was the impressive array of dipping sauces (over ten of them!), including two that I would recommend in a heartbeat (if I still have one): a creamy remoulade and a flavorful wasabi mayonnaise.

Twice exploited: The Australian, one order of hand-cut fries, one glass of house red: ￥150 per exploit.

25 Degrees (Hotel G)

Named after the temperature (in Celsius) between a raw and a well-done burger,  25 Degrees provides the diner an art-meets-science flavor to the burger experience. One can design and build one’s own burger with dozens of a la carte toppings to choose from, or pick from three excellent preset choices. My choice on my first visit (preset #1) was a ground-sirloin burger dressed with carmelized onions, arugula salad, thousand island dressing and a wedge of Gorgonzola cheese –this combination reminds me of Father’s Office burger in Santa Monica, California, which has a nearly verbatim rendition, except the bun: Father’s Office uses a fluffy and long French baguette, while 25 Degrees uses a round, wheat/rye bun. This resemblance of taste, however, is not entirely accidental, as 25 Degrees is an aspiring burger concept originated in Los Angeles, a stone’s throw away from Father’s Office. In any case, 25 Degrees’ burger was a protein-carb-veg juggernaut with a good balance of flavor (juicily beefy but not oily), taste (the Gorgonzola danced merrily with the caramelized onion), and texture (the crispiness of the arugula salad jazzed perfectly with the softness of the onions and the chewiness of the beef). Like the original joint in Hollywood, the lettuces, tomatoes and sliced pickles were served on the side and readily available for the truly ambitious table-side burger engineers. The French fries were generously sprinkled with sea salt and thyme, and arrived at the table crispy and piping hot.

I got to build my own burger on my second visit: one identical to preset #1 except that I chose Gruyère over Gorgonzola. The result was equally impressive, and the taste was not materially discernible from the original in Hollywood. I mean, why mess with the battle-tested recipe when the original is already working brilliantly well? I also got to check out the wine list, which in my opinion was slightly excessive (in price) for a burger joint but nevertheless impressive given its geographical and varietal depth.

Twice exploited: one preset #1: ￥175; one build-my-own burger, one half-bottle of red wine (shared with two other friends): ￥180.

Conclusion

25 Degrees. Taste notwithstanding, 25 Degrees wins the ambiance test too. It has a hip but unassuming decor, and superior music. By contrast, the bistro-style dining and Henry Mancini-esque music at Let’s Burger are just a tad too formal. With a knowledgeable staff and attentive service, 25 Degrees also has the best service among the final four.

With pac’s Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. album playing in the background, my mind drifted, momentarily, back to the yesteryear when, after a burger at the original 25 Degrees, I would drive on Hollywood Blvd., with my windows rolled down, Cali. rap music blaring from the Cadillac in front and multiple Louboutin clogs clicking away on the sidewalk. That reconnection to the past, attentive but unobtrusive service, and plain ol’ good food are the reasons why 25 Degrees has my vote for the best burger in Beijing.

On Liu Xiang’s pull-out…why didn’t he just walk towards the finish line?

The most important and obvious news today is that Liu Xiang has pulled out of 110m hurdles, meaning that the most anticipated moment in this Beijing Olympics — a showdown between the national hero and Dayron Robles of Cuba — will not transpire.

Liu Xiang did and will continue to inspire millions of young athletes in China, and many around the world. His performance in Athens was a watershed moment in Asian sports history, not least because he delivered on his promise that Asians can beat the best sprinters in the world.

Liu Xiang will always have his place in Chinese sports history, but by comparison, today’s episode makes Li Ning’s (李寧) 1988 appearance even more special and endearing. By the time the Seoul Games began, Li was way past his prime. Li sustained an ankle injury but he endured Seoul because China gymnastics had no up-and-comers (接班人) at that time. He may have fallen, but he got up, finished his routines, and smiled for the whole world to see. He wasn’t made any less of a champion by falling, only more so because he got back up, because he smiled with dignity. In that respect, Li Ning is the true hero of the people (人民英雄). Nobody needs to finish first all the time; it is the spirit that matters.

I believe in what Liu Xiang’s coach, Sun Haiping, said when he announced on TV that Liu Xiang’s injury was serious. But I also wonder, if it were all that serious, why couldn’t Liu just skip the race, return to the stadium in street clothing and address the crowd regarding his health condition? If Liu felt that he was fit enough to be present at the lanes, couldn’t he have at least walked to the finish line? I wish he did. Because that would have been a class act, just to cross the finish line even knowing that he had no hopes of winning. I wish he did, because tomorrow’s newspapers would have been adorned with this image: Liu Xiang crossing the finish line, despite having limped through the distance, with two fists in mid air, full showing that he would refuse to quit. That would have been the Olympic spirit. That would have been THE moment for the Games. That would have been the image that Li Ning conveyed to us back in 1988. Now, tomorrow’s newspapers would likely be plastered with Sun Haiping’s tear-soaked face and the dreadful image of Liu walking into the darkness of the stadium interior. No matter how anyone spun it, today’s episode was still a quitter’s act. Liu Xiang may still come back (though, by my judgment only, not likely), but his act today would have left an indelible mark in the psyche of Chinese people — the same kind of mark that, if you shall allow me, Li Ning could have left if he had fallen from the rings and, neither smiling nor bowing out with grace, walked straight to the changing room amidst spectators’ bewilderment and confusion.

I wish Liu Xiang could have walked to the finish line. He would not have delivered a winning time, but he would have delivered a lot more.

Anne-Sophie Mutter in Beijing

Anne-Sophie Mutter has never moved me to tears. Until yesterday.

I have heard ASM a handful of times, most recently a few years back in the U.S. before her repertorial shift to focus more on pre-Romantic string works. By most accounts, she has few peers when it comes to nailing down the technicality and artistry of Romantic-period and Impressionist works, including Tchaikovsky’s marvel, and Sarasate’s lyricism. But with her technical achievements so flawless and her performance so consistently, emotionally juiced, I wonder if she could also rise as a star on the other side of the spectrum of great violinists: the kind who has the cerebral clarity and intellectual acumen to tackle the subtleties hidden in classical period pieces. Sure, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons was exuberant (and it was one of two pieces she performed last night; the other was Bach’s Magnificat, BWV1042 ), but it seems best amplified when performed (at least also) with the kind of intellectual seriousness that, for example, the legendary Isaac Stern would bestow upon his each and every melodic phrase, and in it, each and every played note — bringing a composition so alive as to genuinely connect with the audience.

Obviously, I went into the concert hall with trepidation, knowing that anything other than an exceptional experience would be a disappointment. Like any great violinist would do, she imposed her authority on her chamber players as soon as she basked in her spotlight. Soon enough, Bach’s notes gracefully filled the Concert Hall of the National Centre for Performing Arts, each with determination and nobility. Her string work was luxurious, with neither a slight feeling of decorative impurity nor excessive oomph. The only flaw was perhaps that she looked, it seems to me, a little stiff going into the glissando passages in the middle of Allegro non troppo. But as ASM worked through the Bach, she more than redeemed herself, ending before intermission with a joyous, jubilant Allegro assai that galloped towards a rapturous applause.

ASM looked noticeably pleased after her Bach, and that seemed to build onto her confidence in her post-intermission Vivaldi. ASM tackled the Four Seasons with the same elegance, care, and grace that she so effortlessly displayed ever since she was a teenage phenomenon. A few absent notes notwithstanding, she was magnificent and, more importantly, in full control of the Vivaldi and Trondheim Solistene, the excellent Norwegian chamber orchestra. Her expression with Winter’s Largo provided ample evidence that ASM is not just a technically masterful violinist, but an expressive and intellectual artist that renders each note into part of a lyrical conversation with her audience.

Her composure was a sign of her experience, not of her age (she will be 45 in June). Considering that she was somewhat handicapped by a majority Chinese audience who was not exactly respectful: ringing cellphones, what seemed to be cameras hitting stubbornly onto the hall’s wooden floor (and why were they being fidgeted in a place that prohibited photography, anyway?!), and what seemed to be a bizarre, one-second-long dog howl (don’t get me started on why and how it happened), I have no doubt that she delivered her goods.

But delivering her goods was not why I went to an ASM concert, and certainly not why I was so moved as to shed a tear. After a regurgitation of Summer’s Presto as a cookie-cutter, uninspiring encore, I was ready to call it a night and leave. But after the sixth curtain call (and the third after the first encore), ASM walked up to the stage, and hinted to the concertmaster as if she was going to dictate something unusual. And she did. She turned to the audience, and, with her flawless English and terse to the point, she dedicated Bach’s Air (Suite No. 3, BWV1068 ) to the victims of the Sichuan earthquake. At that very instance when she finished her dedication, there was a slight commotion in the audience (with probably a few, unable to understand her, trying to get/guess what ASM just said). Soon thereafter, she engaged into Bach’s monumental, albeit perennially overplayed, Magnum Opus. Overplayed always, but not last night. The majestic tranquility of ASM’s air almost betrayed (or perhaps faultlessly portrayed?) the subject matter to which the piece was dedicated. The legato was one of the longest in my musical experience, not least because, as ASM ran with her fingers, a seemingly neverending surge of sad, somber images came rushing through my mind. I could also, right at that beginning moment, recall a Dallas Symphony concert I attended soon after 9/11, when the mood was similarly dreary, but because Maestro Andrew Litton picked DSCH’s 11 to reflect President Bush’s resolve, that night’s audience could not help but felt a little resilient and upbeat with DSCH’s faithful chimes and glorious symphonic march to the symphonic finale. Had ASM played something along the lines of DSCH 11’s majestic, monumental ending, her effort would have been valiant, and almost entirely predictable (and in fact, that was what I was expecting, given the not-to-be-soon-forgotten hindsight of the Chinese audience’s preference for big, optimistic endings, such as DPRK’s performance last month). But not Bach’s Air. And ASM’s Air started where it ended — morne et sombre, tranquility as an inevitable prelude to death, picture perfection as an antonymous juxtaposition to a harrowing episode of human tragedy. Bach’s Air described Sichuan in a way that Litton’s DSCH did not, in a way that, as it seems to me, was humane, genuine, and so calm as to condense the enormity of thousands of lost lives into three minutes of haunting stillness. I was totally plugged into that imagery. And right there, she nailed me.

And that was the very reason why I shed a tear.

Digesting 長生殿

長生殿 is a Kunju piece I don’t know much about, so it was a giant leap of faith to subscribe myself into four consecutive evenings of its performances, 3+ hours each evening. That surely complicated my already jam-packed schedule with 8+ hours in the office and another 3-4 hours manning other non-profit stuff I’m active with.

But then, this was not just another rendition of 長生殿. According to the program notes, 長生殿 has not been staged in Beijing in its entirety in the past 300-plus years, and the art politburo made it a point that 長生殿 was to return to the Imperial City in its monumental glory in the year when modern China is to open for the whole world to witness (rumors had it that Shanghai Kunju Troupe, the company staging the Kunju, was politely asked to move its performance schedule in Beijing to coincide with the pre-Olympics art schedule). In any case, to play up 長生殿’s return, the entire cast was even arranged to present themselves in a lavish ceremony at the Imperial Granary to pay homage to 老郎神, the assumed spiritual guardian of Chinese dramatic arts.

After four intense evenings of performances, I must say I am, more than ever, intrigued by the art form, but would probably stop short of saying that I am safely a lifelong convert. Nevertheless, I am quite hooked by its complex singing style, its elaborate costumes and makeups, its adroit limp artistry, and its tremendously efficient motion-as-metaphor stage arrangements. I find the stage in Kunju a bit more thoroughly exploited than the stage in Jingju, especially the use of diagonal movements, counter movements, mirroring juxtapositions, and other tricks that render the experience more fulfilling, dynamic, and wholesome.

I will regret making the following analogy in haste, but I’ll attempt so anyway: if Peking Opera is a fast ride on a Porsche that promises a rush of adrenaline and a taste of emotive exuberance, Kunju is an elegant experience in a Jaguar, not merely entertaining and not out-of-bounds, but comfortable, comforting, and feeling just like home.

A follow-up to a night at the opera

Using my Nokia 6280, I managed to take a couple of photos inside the opera house. Of course, the photo quality was mediocre but my phone camera was all that I had at the time. The first photo was taken during the final curtain call after nearly three hours of singing, and the second photo was taken when the percussionist was packing up her snare drum. As far as I can tell, she could rip a mean snare:

A different kind of opera

Last weekend I attended a production of “Flower Girl”, an opera staged at the National Theatre by a North Korean opera troupe.

“Flower Girl” focuses on the plight of a Korean family whose fortunes were ravaged by the selfish behavior of a landowner and his family, saved only at the end by the glory of the revolution (i.e. the Marxist-Lenin communist revolution). Without a doubt, “Flower Girl” was designed to be a partisan, propagandist surrogate whose message was simple and easy to understand. By the time the opera ended, the only question left unanswered, as it seems to me, was how soon (or not!) the supposedly inspired audience would arm themselves and join the revolution.

According to the program notes, the opera was commissioned by and written in the 30s by Kim Il-Sung, the founding father of the DPRK and father of North Korea’s current leader, Kim Jong-Il. The Chinese public got their first taste of the opera through a film version of the opera, which was briefly released in the mainland in the early 70s and was well received. Since then, the opera has made various rounds in the mainland, playing mainly for small, strategically selected crowds (i.e. the PLA, young communist brigades etc.). It seems to me that while the opera has gained Chinese fans over the years, but because it has never been widely staged, it has never gained widespread prominence in the country’s psyche. Over the years, the opera has been reedited by and for its chief patron, the Kim family, probably to perfect its underlying proletarian and revolutionary messages. To me, such messages were unmistakable: the landowners are(were) evil, Jesus Christ offers(-ed) no helping hand, and the proletarian revolution is(was) every Korean’s ultimate salvation. The surtitles would punch out verses upon verses that sing the virtues of proletarian values, all the while ripping apart property rights and capitalistic misadventures. I felt like a cliff-side rock, looking helplessly as rapturous waves of such messages soldiered towards me in an endless repetition, finally engulfing and obliterating me, as if obliging me to accept its imminent and inevitable victory.

Politics aside, the opera was, strictly speaking, not an opera, because the main singers were given microphones to sing with. Unusual in an opera, a non-acting choir located on both sides of the orchestra sang not only the chorus, but more significantly the part of the heavenly voice seeking to explain everything to the audience — for example, who to blame for all the poor people’s plight (the landowner) and who to get credit for saving the poor (the revolution). Without a sliver of a doubt, Kim Il-Sung was to live vicariously and eternally through the united voice of the choir –an arrangement that, in itself, was a fitting, if not accidental, metaphor. Operatically, it was somewhat difficult to pinpoint exactly where “Flower Girl” would fit. The music was comprised of a chain of short tunes, each of which was tonally structured like a romantic aria, but each also woven with more sincere philosophical discourse and less floral sentimentality. “Flower Girl” is, thus, as it seems to me, Wagnerian in its content but romantic in its delivery. The singing was superb, despite the horrifying presence of the microphone. The production direction was amply satisfying, especially a prison scene whereby prisoners, understood to be locked down by the autocratic class, thumped through the prison ground as if they were laboring mindlessly in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis. In the end, I was convinced that the mezzo soprano (the protagonist) and probably a few others could have sung their entire roles without the help of any electronics. Another mezzo soprano (the protagonist’s mother) also sang superbly, and I found it somewhat tragic that her role was small and limiting.

The highlight of the evening was at the end, when I made my way to the orchestral pit and shook hands with a couple of musicians. I could hardly speak Korean (and I would assume they could hardly understand a word of Chinese –though I could be wrong), but I found no such need to communicate verbally. We exchanged smiles in a way that spoke a thousand words: theirs, being appreciative of a keen audience and the sincerity of those who chose to stay behind to greet and thank the musicians; and ours, being thankful for a lovely spring evening imbued with fine music, talented singing and, most importantly, the North Korean’s rare but priceless presence. For different reasons, the night was special to each involved. I couldn’t help but felt the urge to summarize the evening with a tinge of romantic sentimentality: that while the exchange of human warmth was a small gesture between a few men (and women), it was a giant gesture for all of mankind, in an act that verily shows how humanity by way of musical and facial proxy can transcend language, politics, ideology. No word needed spoken, for music and facial gestures cultivated the seeds of understanding and mutual admiration. That moment was, to me, the singularly most heartwarming and unique experience I have ever had in an opera house.

CCTV idol

I am not a huge fan of reality TV, though when I was still living in the U.S. I used to watch Dancing with the Stars and The Apprentice. My viewing habit hasn’t changed much since moving to China, although I would watch reality shows from time to time, to catch a break from my otherwise mundane schedule. But I jumped at the chance when I was offered to sit in a live broadcast of a nation-wide singing competition produced by CCTV.

CCTV is not mainly known for its reality TV shows: the champ goes to Hunan Television, for its brazen copycat (but immensely popular) American Idol-like shows. But there is no doubt that CCTV’s 青歌赛 (Youth Singing Competition –my translation) is influential. Winners are often given spots to sing at one of those Spring Festival shows watched by every one and their mother during Chinese New Year –attaining the kind of prestige and glory that are hard to quantify. Equally importantly, these winners (and many contestants with a coattail of bulletin-board buzz long after the show) carry on by performing in public events, for regional television stations etc. Doors are open by virtue of “having made it” on CCTV.

The show is divided into various categories, including pop singing and ethnic music. There’s a category that is difficult to translate: 民族唱法, which I would liberally translate as anything that has something to do with Chinese culture (most contestants choose to belt out a nationalist song; many others sing songs that praise China’s nature, abundant resources, kind people etc. — you get the idea). I was invited to two live studio broadcasts over the past week, and I must say while there was nothing out of the ordinary, it was memorable, if only because I got to see the inside of CCTV’s headquarters in the west side of town before they move to the new OMA building in Chaoyang.

The format is not similar to American Idol –for one, there is no heart-ripping, reality-checking speeches by Simon Cowell. Contestants would come out and sing their song, and then would go through an interactive session whereby contestants are either asked to tell a story (from a selection of topics), answer a few culture-related questions, and/or do melodic dictation –all in front of a live television audience. For the singing, the contestants are judged by 10 judges, each of whom would give a maximum of 99 points. A maximum of one point would be given for a contestant’s performance during the interactive session. Needless to say, no serious contestant would spend his/her life trying to ace this interactive session, although it is this part that seemed to glue the television audience, if not for the heart-warming stories (a lot were about how contestants wished to thank their deceased mothers or fathers or teachers) or for the comic responses (especially in melodic dictation, where a seemingly good dictation would deteriorate into something between a jazzy improvisation and a melodically challenged fiasco) then certainly for the cultural commentator’s incisive social and cultural commentary. Most contestants are serious contenders (no pretenders or jokers), although my sampling points were skewed because I went at the final elimination rounds (the competition would begin at regional TV stations, who would then send their winners to Beijing for a final round of competition). Since the competition is only held once every two years, it is considered to be the Olympic of Chinese singing competition (if not for the follow-on lucrative commercial contracts, then certainly for the glory of winning a CCTV competition and the opportunity to be invited to sing at the Chinese New Year TV bash). A closer look at the contestants certainly reveals that while a majority of them were sent to the final round by regional television stations, many others were sent by government agencies (the “danwei”s), including the army, the navy, various music/art universities etc.

My conversation with a friend who has intimate knowledge about the show (and the necessary connection to sneak me in) revealed that many of these “danwei”s would send their representatives to these competitions mainly for bragging rights. She said that “danwei”s actually make a big deal out of a winner sent from their cohort. When I asked my friend why there was no representation from private enterprises, she explained that they just didn’t have to privilege of bypassing the “regionals” to go straight to the finals, as would be the case for those representatives from “danwei”s. While the arrangement may seem patrician and patronizing, she defended the practice by saying, to which I agree, that the competition within the “danwei”s to search for a winner is, by most standards, even more, not less, strenuous than the competition at a regional competition, simply because of the military-style training and the resources. Private companies simply don’t have the time and effort to train and nurture a final-ready contestant, and one may argue that “bypassing” the regionals is not by itself patronizing because the “bypassed” alternative is probably even more, not less, strenuous. And then there’s the dreaded cultural reality: face — a “danwei” simply can’t just send a mediocre contestant up for embarrassment on the national stage. Good enough is simply not good enough for these “danwei”s, and the superior quality of their representatives is the number one and only necessary testament that my friend’s explanation was adequate to me.

These idols aren’t necessarily commercially viable, especially when what they sing isn’t something that someone can hum to or follow through at a karaoke joint (some of these 民族歌 are scored to shock and awe with rapid firing of high notes). But these idols will have attained national fame by standing atop the CCTV stage and, by being there and performing well, will have made whom they represent proud. At the end of the day, anybody can sing, but only a few can sing on the CCTV stage and be given an opportunity to sing to hundreds of millions of people. Now, that’s bragging rights commercial success can’t buy.