The Accidental Choir

Somehow, I've managed to be in Beijing for nearly six weeks and still haven't made it to the forbidden city. Those of you that know me well will probably see something telling in this; after all, I am the guy who is always inclined to think that the best experiences in life are waiting to be found just around the odd corner, rather than highlighted in block letters in the guide book. At the same time I claim to be a budding China specialist, so it is something of a professional imperative to check out the seat of imperial power at some point. I worked out a compromise between the demands of self and career a few weekends back and went to Jingshan Gongyuan 景山公园, the hill park behind the forbidden city that offers sweeping views of its red walls and yellow tiled roofs. From there I hoped to contemplate imperial splendor while enjoying the sense of discovery that comes with being at least a few steps off of the beaten path. Yes, the park is in Lonely Planet, but I have to imagine that no one visits it with any intention other than to charge up the hill and snap a few pictures from the top. That should leave plenty of untouched park on the back side of the hill for me to ramble in, and hope to stumble upon something inspiring.

Upon arriving at the park, the impulse to gawk proved overpowering, and I charged up the hill to drink in the anticipated overpowering view. It's impressive all right. A damn good place to put a hill, and a convenient way to dispose of the earth that was dug out of the imperial moat, or so the guidebooks say. As you can see in this picture, the curiosity of foreign tourists is overmatched by the enthusiasm that the Chinese exhibit for their own past. It was nearing sunset and the highest viewing platform on the hill was crowded with Chinese snapping pictures of sweeping ranks of yellow-tiled roofs.

As I snapped pictures of Chinese snapping pictures faint wisps of song floated up from the bottom of the hill. I circled the viewing platform trying to pinpoint their source. The voices became distinct when I worked my way through the crowd to the backside of the platform, coalescing into an erie polyphonic mix. I had no idea what I was listening to. Sections of the choir competed in sending their ascending melodies up the face of hill, seemingly without regard for the meter, tone, or key of their counterparts. When did anyone ever compose music like this? In its atmospheric majesty, it approached Tallis's "Spem in Alium"; yet there was a threat of impending chaos that reminded me of the terrifying choir heard in the soundtrack to "2001" in the final scenes depicting the approach of the obelisk. All interest in the view dissolved. My most profound musical discovery was calling!

Half-jogging the trails down the back of the hill gifted my ears with musical vignettes of every kind: a handful of musicians from Xinjiang, two saxophonists trading jazz licks, local opera accompanied by shrill and resinous bowed instruments-- Chinese parks are always centers of the cultural activity-- but the main prize still lay ahead: that magnificent choir!

The trees cleared and the sounds clarified, not into the one mad modernist choir I expected, but into the songs of separate clumps  of singers sprouting like mushrooms from the vast lawn, 20 or 30 to a group, usually centered on a vigorous conductor and an accompanist on accordion. Their music was surprisingly conventional in style, if exceptional in the enthusiasm with which it was performed. What had become of my shock-and-awe choristers? Nothing at all. When close to one group, their voices completely drown out the adjacent groups spaced perhaps 10 yards away. It was only high on the hill that their separate rehearsals combined into the divinely mad vocal performance that had lit my imagination. My disappointment at the dissolution of the powerful strains I heard on the hill was easily overcome by the joy of wandering between groups, enjoying the fervor with which they sang old love songs and patriotic tunes.

I ran into a long-haired European, a romantic for sure, gazing at one group, his face glowing with the satisfaction of some private conviction. 

"Do you speak English?", he asked.

Yes.

"At home we think we are free. We think the Chinese  lack freedom. But look at this. There is no park in Germany like this. No one would sing like this. No one would dare to sing so freely. They would just get stared at. People would think you are mad. But here, they just sing. They love it."

What gets done when not working on ones thesis

Life back in Santa Barbara obviously doesn't get me fired up like life in the Orient, otherwise you would see more postings here! Still, it doesn't mean life isn't good. My girlfriend and I have taken trips to the East coast (Christmas), San Diego, and the Northwest (Spring break), and also to that funky little patch of Danish culture nestled in the Central California hills, Solvang.

Also known as the setting for the film 'Sideways', Solvang offers a few square blocks of charming faux-Scandinavian architecture, and baked treats which go beyond their flaky facades to deliver real old-world flavor. Most notable is the unassuming kransekager, a pinky-finger sized log of marzipan pinched so that it has a triangular cross-section, and baked in a thin crust. You will wonder at $1.75 price tag attached to this wee treat only until the moment it touches your tongue, after which you will gladly buy two more to perfectly complement your afternoon coffee. The Swedish Delight did not fail its titular promise, and went well with the second coffee. Main courses were hearty and  tasted best with a sour red cabbage dish reminiscent of sauerkraut, but did not achieve a lasting place within my gustatory fantasies as the pastries have. Kransekager... I know not how to pronounce your name, but I long for you so...

In between jaunts across the country I continue to study and find myself unnervingly close to the date I should produce a longish, and sadly, required piece of writing called a thesis. I do enjoy my topic, an 11th century Chinese lyricist, but until recently there have been any number of things that demand their due attention and prevent me from getting immersed in the writing process. There were scholarship applications, taxes, financial aid applications, a somewhat impractical translation project, and even a lot of cavities and a tooth that needed pulling before my student health insurance runs out. Fortunately, Lianting, my girlfriend and fellow MA student, is providing a stellar model of thesis writing behavior to make me properly ashamed of my casual attitude towards what should be a scholarly statement of some substance. I need to whip out a chapter soon, if only to preserve some dignity!

My dilatory tactics have not been in vain, however. A scholarship has been offered which will cover a significant portion of the costs of studying more Chinese in Taiwan for 6 months. Another scholarship offer seems likely which could land me in China for 6 months as well. Seems that I have filled the coming school year, and only need to make sure I actually graduate before the next adventure begins. 

Shanghai (and afterthoughts concerning Beijing)

On the 29th of Aug. I flew from Taipei to Shanghai, marking my first visit to mainland China, which felt rather late for someone who has been studying the language for the last 4-5 years. My girlfriend, Lianting, would be flying in on the 1st from Japan to take me to her hometown in Shaoxing. In the meantime, I was entertained and toured around by members of her extended family. Her uncle, Tu Guanda, was in charge of setting me up with lodging and cooking fantastic meals for me, while two cousins, Tu Ying and Tu Wentian, became my willing tour guides to the sights of Shanghai.

My first day of touring began at the Bund. It was an overcast day, not ideal for taking in the views, but it was still nice to visit one of those I've-only-seen-it-in-pictures spots. The fake Rolex racket wears on one's nerves after about the 11th offer, so it was nice to escape the Bund for another touristy spot that was somehow free of street hawkers, the Cheng Huang Miao, or City Temple area. Chinese tourists outnumber the foreign tourists in this extensive maze of shops all done in traditional Chinese architectural style. The center of it all is the Yu Yuan, a classical Chinese garden that is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding stops a tourist can make in Shanghai. Like any good Chinese garden, it excels at offering layered views into intimate courtyards, and recreating the wonders of nature on a small scale. Latticed windows, winding verandas, laced tree branches, hanging eaves, and tilting rock formations always define the boundaries of your view, and obscure the object of your gaze, making you feel that in each adjacent courtyard, or around the next bend, is a hidden world that you can't quite reach. Often I found myself peering through a moon-shaped doorway, or through a lattice, amazed that there could be yet another perfectly tranquil, and sublimely evocative courtyard, only to realize that I had already been there. The genius of this garden lies not in the space it creates, but in the views into spaces, such that each view conjures your delight anew, even if it is something you're already seen, albeit from a different angle.

On the second day I hit the Shanghai museum of art, which is another must-see destination. For students of Chinese history, art, or literature, it will open up a portal onto the past. I particularly enjoyed the ancient bronze work and the brush painting exhibits.

Before you pack your bags for Shanghai, though, I feel I should warn you that manners and etiquette here are not as developed as I expected given Shanghai's reputation as a global city. Lining up behaviors seem to be good microcosms for understanding a culture's sense of manners and personal space. While in India, you could never even hope for a line, and simply have to join the tussle to get what you need, Shanghai seems to be in transition, such that there appears to be lines, but there is constant jockeying for position. I found this particularly disturbing because the semblance of well-mannered lining behavior is quite convincing, but as soon as your guard is down, someone cuts in. At Watson's, an international chain that sells daily necessities, I made it to the front of an orderly line, only to have the two customers behind me actually reach under my armpits, shoving their goods and money into the face of the cashier, who readily accepted them!  It seems that you line up in order to get within reach of the cashier, and from there it's a free-for-all. This is an monumental shock after coming from Taiwan where things can be a little loose at, say, a street stall, but once you get into a chain store, an upscale restaurant, or onto the subway, manners are top-notch.

When I was in Taiwan, my main issues with regards to manners had to do with personal space, as the Taiwanese are always friendly, but sometimes so insistently friendly that you feel that it is difficult to extricate yourself from undesirable situations. Shanghai is far colder, and every man for himself is obviously the main operating principle. None of this applies, of course, to every last person, as Lianting's family treated me with every courtesy imaginable, but is simply a statement about the feeling one gets moving through public spaces.

Previously in this blog I had attributed this aggression and lack of courtesy to China's complex history and particularly to the effects of the cultural revolution, where manners were considered a bourgeois relic that needed to be excised, and also the rapid, and unequal, economic development which has created very real fears of being left out of the boom, and stoked competitive instincts. However, now that I have visited Beijing, I feel I must amend my statements, and even apologize for any hurt feelings caused by such judgements. Certainly I should not have been so rash as to assume that I could understand all of China through the microcosm of Shanghai. Beijing, for example, is a warm and courteous place. I can't say it is orderly or that queueing behavior earns top marks, but it is a place with a heart, where the kindly interest of strangers more than makes up for the occasional tussles and confusions that occur everyday in traffic, in communication, and yes, in lines. Are the striking differences between these Chinese cities due to their differing histories, local customs, or to the effects of the Chinese government's Olympian efforts to update codes of behavior to better receive Olympic guests? Who could ever know? But as far as the casual visitor need be concerned, the Beijing Olympics theme song says it all: "北京欢迎你“ or "Beijing Welcomes You".

You Can't Take the Taiwan out of the Surfer

Well, I couldn't access my blog from the mainland thanks to the great firewall of China, so now that I am back in the States I will try to fill in what happened during my last days in Taiwan and while in China over the next few entries.

School finished on the 24th of August and I left for the mainland on the 29th, which left me a few days to fill. If you recall, my original plan was to seek waves in the South, but weather was not on my side. Reports came in that Kending, the main Southern surf spot, was flat. At the same time, Jason, the friend who braved the crowds with me on my last surf expedition, called in to say it was double-overhead in the North, an aberration for this time of year. I responded to this call-to-arms by hopping the train for Yilan, armed only my surf trunks and the phone number of Brother Song, owner of a surf-shop/dormitory that rents boards and beds for the night. A mix-up caused by poor cell-phone reception and a thick Taiwanese accent left me stranded at the wrong train station for an a few hours, worried that I might not get to the beach before sunset. Things worked out, as they do, and Brother Song's daughter found me and got me to the beach with an hour or so of sunlight left.

The swell had died down and the wind had picked up, making for sloppy head to shoulder high waves, with sets at perhaps one to two feet overhead. I rented a 7'6" fun board, as there were no short boards to be found. The paddle out was into the wind, and brutal. Out of shape from a summer of hitting the books, and unable to duck-dive the plank I had rented, I only made it outside 3 times. On the fourth paddle-out as I marked my progess against a jetty 50 yards up the beach, I realized I was going nowhere. I hopped the next inside reform back to the beach and called it a day. Overall it was fun to be in some bigger waves again, though they tended to die right after the drop-in, then reform further in on a sandbar. For those of you familiar with Mondo's, north of Ventura, you'll get an idea of the conditions.

After a night of sleep frequently disturbed by late-night arrivals of surfers from other parts of the island chasing the swell, I made a 6 am dash for the waves. The swell had further died, but conditions were clean and glassy: consistent waist-high waves with occaisonal head-high sets. I went with a 7'2" fun board this time, figuring I didn't need to duck-dive, and wanting the extra float to compensate for my weak paddling muscles. This turned out to be a great morning and I caught numerous waves, though it was really a day for long-boarders in the end. I swapped to a bigger board and upped my wave count for the final 40 minutes before completely exhausting myself at about 9 am.

A solid breakfast and a nap restored me and I contemplated another session, but the offer of a free-ride back to Taipei tempted me to return to the dorm to pack my bags. After an hour, my ride still hadn't showed. A stroll back to the beach failed to find him, as well. Finally, as I scoured the surf-shops along the narrow road that fronts the beach, I spotted him doing a little "bai-bai", that is, burning incense in front of a pile of food offerings and ghost money in front a shop owned by his friend. After the ceremoney he apologized and explained that it was the beginning of ghost month on the lunar calendar, and a friend had asked him to offer some incense for the success of his store, and to protect it from the hordes of roaming spirits would that flood the world for the next 28 days. He had no way to politely refuse, and no way to contact me, so he just went ahead with the offering, hoping I would still be around when he was done. While on the whole, surf culture is surprizingly stable the world over; surfers wear the same fashions, read the same magazines, watch the same videos; surf lingo is even consistent, or imported into Chinese via direct translation (inside/outside, shoulder/head high...) but there are still moments like these when local culture prevails, and even the most dedicated beach bum becomes a devotee of the local proctector gods.

Nothing like a woman skinning a rabbit...

I've gotten a few more hikes in, and had a pretty lively night on the town, all of which would be interesting to blog about, but I realize that I haven't talked much about classes, which may leave you all with the impression that I'm not studying that hard. Well, I assure you all, and Uncle Sam too, who generously supported this trip, that there is indeed a whole lot of learning going on, though, as you are about to see, some of that learning is pretty fun, too.

Having no shortage of language teaching experience, I can be pretty critical of language teachers, but I have to say that the teacher I've had here at NTNU's (National Taiwan Normal University) Mandarin Training Center has been top-notch. She keeps things structured, sets a good pace, and makes sure that our assignments are truly relevant and appropriate to our needs. So far quite good, but she also posseses the rarer skill of knowing, and responding to, the mood of the classroom, and when the last-hour blahs set in, she can get us back in the game with a lively discussion. Thus in the midst of our unit on changing family values in contemporary Taiwan, we embarked on a discussion of dating practices in our various countries of origin, which then became a discussion of the latest outrageous dating shows. I'm not sure if this will be a relief to you all, or a cause for dismay, but the degeneration of television into an repugnant mixture of reality show voyeurism and talk-show sleaze is already a global phenomenon.

My Japanese classmates reported on the "Love Bus" show, which apparently aims to have something for everyone. 7 single men and 7 single women started out on a bus with a camera crew 5 years ago, and since then the bus has visited every inhabited continent and produced 80-something happy couples. Once you are selected to be on the show, there are only two ways off of the bus: 1. You fall in love with one of your counterparts and leave together, or 2. you get voted off by the opposite sex because they've judged you unworthy and want you replaced with someone else that might have more partner-potential. Part travel show, part reality show, part dating game. The setup gaurantees a steady level of angst and infighting. Do you hold out for the next round and see what new options arrive, or shack up with the best of the current lot? When the one you like gets voted off do you seek revenge and conspire to vote off someone else's sweetie?

As intriguing as I found the "Love Bus" concept, I'm afraid that the Russians outdo it with their own unique hybrid: dating and survival. The lucky contestants are stranded in remote tract of Russian wilderness and get to shop around for romantic fulfillment while pitching their huts and scavenging for sustenance. There is a certain romantic appeal to dating in the great outdoors, but it simply can't hold up once everyone has acquired a 3-month cake of dirt. Just ask yourself, how alluring would your partner look while gutting a rabbit without a knife? I never did get the mechanics of the show because class ended in the midst of my classmate Andrei's description, though he was very clear on the fact that the shows main appeal is watching nature operate as the great equalizer. The model-perfect good looks of the participants are slowly eroded by the elements, until the point that the hoots and hollers that might accompany bold gestures of romance on other dating shows are transformed into squeels of disgust. Obviously, we'd all have to see it to know exactly how far they let their looks go, but Andrei's pantomimed mask of horror and shudder seem to indicate that it gets pretty bad.

Those two were the standouts. There you have it. The global race to the bottom will be televised. We've come quite a way since the last blog about forms of Chinese opera. Yet, even the most refined forms of Chinese opera had their critics in their day. The open depictions of romantic feelings were a bit too much for many Confucians. Who's to say that todays reality shows won't one day be regarded as national treasures, paradigms to be studied and imitated?

OK, I don't believe that for a second.

Opera minus the viking helmets and pigtails

As promised I took in some opera last weekend. Well, more than some. Two performances and one rehearsal's worth, encompassing two disctinct opera traditions: the more familiar Beijing variety, and the older Kunqu style, purported to be the mother of all forms of Chinese opera.

In case you're now wondering exactly how many forms of Chinese opera there are, I'll tell you now that I don't really know, but it seems that nearly every major dialect group in China has their own style, so there must be quite a few. I've listened to CDs that showcase twelve or so different forms.

But Beijing Opera is the best known outside of China, and that is how I started my weekend, attending the Saturday morning reahersal of an amateur musical group. In this style, the music is driven by drums, gongs and cymbals, but the percussion isn't incessant, rather percussion sections act as punctuation between bits of singing accompanied by two fiddle-like instruments (erhu) and a round and flat plucked instrument like a banjo with a wooden face (yueqin). Even as a world music afficianado, I have to admit that Beijing opera, with it's shrill timbre and use of harsh metallic percussion, has taken me a long time to develop an appreciation for. Something finally sunk in at this rehearsal, which I had never noticed before, namely that the cymbals and wood block drums each have two tones. Thus the clash and clatter of the percussive sections began to take form for me as a dialogue of sounds. Just like the drumming in a rock group is largely a matter of play between the contrasting tones of the snare and the bass drums, so chinese opera percussion plays with two cymbal crashes, and two different pitches of wooden clapper type sounds. With music, just as with language, the ear really does take time to develop a sensitivity to the logic and feel of a new culture.

The rehearsal was just music, but, of course, the point of Beijing opera is that it is a performance that combines music, singing, acrobatics, dance and dialogue, and that is what I took in Saturday night at the Taipei Eye. This venue is half theater and half living museum. As you enter you get to watch the performers as they apply their make-up in the lobby, accompanied by the musicians as they warm-up. During intermissions and after the show the performers chat with the audience and will pose for pictures.

While Beijing opera is something of a dying art, it retains a foothold in Taiwan due to a significant level of government sponsorship. Those familiar with the politics of the Taiwan straits will understand why the Kuomindang, or nationalist party, made a point of cultivating the quinttessential Chinese performance art form after their relocation to Taiwan. Now that the Kuomindang is no longer the sole voice in Taiwanese politics, and the new voices of the younger generation assert their Taiwanese identity in opposition to the Chinese identity imposed by the Kuomindang, the status of government funding for preserving Chinese heritage may come into question. But for now, new generations of actors and musicians are being trained, and were even exported to the mainland during the period after the Cultural Revolution when native lineages of opera-masters had been cut-off.*

Well enough about politics. On to the performance, which was fantastic! Kudos to the venue for supplying the orignal text and both English and Japanese translations on screens adjacent to the stage. The performance was a section of the opera version of The Journey to the West, which is one of the major classics in Chinese fiction. It's an allegorical tale of Buddhist enlightenment, following a monk as he travels from China to India to collect and translate Buddhist sutras. Along the way he picks of some magical animal guardians (very Joseph Campbell) who become his disciples on the Buddhist path. The most famous of these guardians is the mischievious and nearly invincible Monkey King. This character is the favourite of generations of Chinese readers, and truly comes to life on the Beijing opera stage. In the segment I viewed, he has to save the monk from a spider spirit and her minions. The level of acrobatic skill that these actors and actresses possess is beyond astounding. Backflips, front flips, hand springs and cartwheels become ho-hum after the first three minutes. The audience saves its oohs and ahs for things like double flips that land in the splits. The biggest crowd pleaser was a fight scene in which the actress playing the spider spirit leapt into the air and unleashed a double kick, neatly knocking two thrown spears out of the air into the hands of her minions. She did this about 10 times in a row, and only once did a minion even have to take a step to the side to receive her pass. The Monkey King prevails in the end, of course, but I think the spider spirit won the hearts of the audience by a slight margin.

In contrast, Sunday afternoon's viewing of Kunqu opera was very tame, though the setting was for more authentic than the targeted-for-tourists performance at Taipei Eye. Kunqu is considered the most refined of all opera forms, and the music will quickly capture the hearts of most listeners. Yes, the singing is quite shrill, but highly melodic and expressive. The real allures of Kunqu, however, are the romance, lush costumes, and the poetry of the lyrics. This performance, true to the roots of the form, took place in a tea house setting. Given the slow pace of Kunqu, it is best to enjoy it with refreshments and company. Quite talking during the performance is acceptable, though everyone comes to attention for the best passages, and for the climax. Fortunately, some of my acquaintances from Saturday's rehearsal were there to offer some polite conversation. Another stroke of good fortune was that this opera was based on a famous historical tale that has been recreated in countless literary forms, the tale of Yang Gui Fei. The plot follows the love affair of an Emperor and his favorite concubine, Yang Gui Fei, until her execution at the hands of some soldiers in revolt. Knowing the plot ahead of time is key, because Kunqu is sung in an archaic dialect, and even with the text projected on a screen, modern audiences have trouble with some of the characters. Obviously, the challenge is multiplied for us non-Chinese, and this time there was no translation. Still, it was very enjoyable, and in the passages that I could make sense of, the poetry of the language was quite evident. If you can get your hands on a documentary film about Kunqu, or video of a performance with subtititles, I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to get a feel for the acme of refinement in Chinese performance. For those who need a little more kick in their entertainment, a video of Beijing opera might be the thing. Of course, if musical theater has never been your thing, the brief intro I've provided here is probably all you need, if you happen to have even made it this far, that is.

Well, that's it for the big opera weekend. I think next weekend involves more hiking, but I'll have to check with my activities coordinator to be sure. Classes continue as usual, and my only regret is that I don't have more time to keep learning this thorny language. Only 3 more weeks in Taiwan, then I'm off to mainland to see Lianting. She promises to keep my language skills sharp once classes end, but I do like the feeling of progress that one gets from this intensive study format.

* Upon further investigation, it turns out that the real opera professionals are not in Taiwan, but still hanging out on the mainland, despite the cultural revolution. The Taiwanese did play an important role in revitalizing many Chinese art forms by acting as patrons for mainland masters who were at best ignored, and at worst reviled, during the cultural revolution. Many were paid to come to Taiwan to perform and teach, which allowed them to financial freedom to continue to practice and promote their art back home. Thus, the oft-heard myth that opera masters in Taiwan saved opera on the mainland is false, but probably emerged as a misunderstanding of the more complex relationship between artistic production and patronage.

Taiwan Surf Report

Yes, I went surfing last weekend. Rented a long board and totally destroyed some knee-high sets. Thrilling.

It was more of a cultural experience, I suppose. Unlike America, where it seems that one either is a surfer, or isn't, here there are a lot of folks who rent boards and goof around just because it's something to do at the beach. And when I say alot, I mean that in the Chinese sense of the word. A middle-school English teacher once told me that there are 3 basic plots in all of literature: Man vs. Man, Man vs. Nature and... what was the third? In any case, surfing in America is a man vs. nature sort of thing, while here it is man vs. man.

Not that anyone is violent, or even heavily competitive. It is just the sheer density of humanity afloat in the water that makes riding a wave feel like you're trying to wriggle your way to the source of an underground stream.

I was taken to the beach by a nice fellow named Jason, who I met under highly coincidental circumstances. He and his brother run a surf-theme restaurant in Taipei which I stumbled upon after getting off a bus at the wrong stop. These friendly guys were eager to help out a fellow surfer from across the globe, and tossed plenty of bar snacks and beers at me as we planned a trip to the coast.

While the waves were not impressive, the brothers assured me that there would be better to come, at least waist high. They also assured me that the crowds of rental-board newbies thins out considerably as wave height increases. If I don't see any bigger surf up here near Taipei, I will take a few days at the end of my trip to head south, where the waves are more consistent this time of year. Just like California, Taiwan gets its summer swells from the south.

This weekend I don't think I will try to surf again, as I caught a little cold and want to fully recover. However I do plan to catch a performance of Kunqu opera, which is like Beijing Opera buy older and less shrill. One of the main singers is actually a teacher at my school! I am very much looking forward to it though I fear I will not understand much of the archaic language. Let's hope that at least basic plot comes together for me.