Xian respite

A view of Xian (hazy)

While it was difficult making the choice to leave Urumqi earlier than I had planned, in these last few weeks seeing the connections as well as musical and linguistic progress I have made in Xian has affirmed that this was a good move, literally.

(Yusi and Liu Zhang are on my right)

I am currently unofficially affiliated with (read: loitering around) the Xian Conservatory of Music thanks to Liu Zhang, a faculty composer who has gone above and beyond to connect me with students and resources at the school. He has been incredibly generous, driving me to and from the airport multiple times, finding me housing in Xian on about one week's notice, and connecting me with many of his own students who have quickly become my good friends (as well as erhu teacher and violin student). For the first time I have been having a complete Chinese immersion experience, as around here I don't encounter anyone who speaks English beyond basic greetings. It has been exhilarating to experience my own Chinese proficiency increase daily; my Chinese is probably not becoming more pleasing to the ear, but my ability to interact verbally with unabashed confidence continues to grow while any shame I have about speaking a language I'm not fluent in is certainly shrinking. And everyday situations and obstacles are definitely expanding my vocabulary—when I sprayed myself in the face trying to get the washing machine to work I learned the hose is called a guǎnzi (管子), when I helped my beginning violin student with her bow technique I learned to tell her that her pinky finger should be wānqū (弯曲) and not straight, and when my friends in Xian went out for dinner and marveled at our good fortune to have met, I learned the word yuánfèn (缘分)—destiny.

I’ve been taking regular lessons with Zeng Chu, a petite girl who is a terrifyingly fierce erhu player (she’s come in second place in national competitions and played erhu for stadium concerts with pop star Wang Leehom). She has proven a tough but wonderful teacher—our first lesson was an hour and a half of playing open notes while she corrected my bow technique. By our third lesson, she remarked that I had made some improvement: “Finally it looks like you’re playing like an erhu player, not a violinist!” Zeng Chu pays attention to the smallest details and is enthusiastic about making sure I grasp the fengwei, or distinct local flavor, of the music. She also draws comparisons between Chinese musical ornamentation and regional cultural and linguistic variations, likening the relatively lyrical and melodic Jiangnan musical style to the lilting accent of the region and asserting that Mongolian music is more brusk and forceful because of their fatty meat-based diet. Still, I find that musical interpretation is becoming more intuitive. Once she had me pull out my violin and play the same passage I was practicing on erhu.

“Show me how you Western musicians would play this part.”

I obliged, not only putting in the requisite trills and slides, but also taking liberties with dynamics and phrasing—intense vibrato one moment, a breath before reentering the phrase much quieter.

“See!” Zeng Chu exclaimed. “How you naturally play this piece on violin is not so different from how you should play it on erhu!”

In addition to working on Chinese erhu music (and staring at my bow arm in the mirror while playing long open notes), I have also had a blast with Zeng Chu playing baroque duets for two violins on erhu and violin. I showed her Telemann’s Gulliver’s Travels Suite, which portrays the giants, tiny people, and other characters from Gulliver’s Travels through creative musical methods (for instance, using outlandish time signatures such as 24/1 to render “giants” as whole notes in the written music). We sight-read the duets for fun, and actually didn’t sound half bad! She had such a good time that she asked me to bring more duets for us to play. I’ll try to record us next time!

These days I have been both student and teacher—I have a beginning violin student, Yusi, who is another student of Liu Zhang at the conservatory. She is a pianist and singer, and apparently a desire to become a violinist as well. Although she has a musical background she has never played violin before, so we started from square one: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. I am a product of the Suzuki Method of teaching music, so I’m doing my best to draw upon my own experience to teach Yusi. It has been enjoyable and nostalgic to hear such blasts from the past as “Lightly Row” and “Long Long Ago,” since the last time I played them I was preschool age. I’m lucky to have Yusi as a student—she is completely focused and extremely diligent about practicing, and she already has an ear for music. In other words, my job is more to teach her violin technique than to impart the overall concept of music-making (though I certainly enjoy the latter).

One thing that has been fascinating and a bit disturbing to learn about through my now two unofficial affiliations with conservatories in China is the extent to which under-qualified students make up the student body of music schools. Because admission standards to good universities in China continue to increase along with the exponentially growing number of applicants, students sometimes look to music conservatories as easier routes to obtain a college degree. The gaokao (college entrance examination) standards are much lower for music schools; even more than that, money talks--families with financial means often pay hundreds of dollars for lessons (and thus to develop guanxi, or connections) with conservatory teachers to ensure their children's admission. Music schools in China are notoriously expensive with very few partial scholarships awarded annually, and so the schools' faculty members view students as veritable cash cows. Even after admission, teachers sometimes encourage students to take expensive "supplemental" lessons with them or to give them lavish gifts to guarantee high enough marks on year-end tests. A faculty member at the Xian Conservatory (who estimates about 20% of his fellow teachers financially exploit their students) told me his sister, a current student, was pressured into purchasing a 2000 RMB (around $325) necklace for her teacher before her final exams last year. Trying to break into the arts world also subjects students to other vulnerabilities; I have also heard firsthand multiple anecdotes about exploitative or even nonconsensual personal relationships between teachers and students at conservatories from friends at three arts and music institutes in China. 

To add insult to injury, musical standards are apparently dropping annually at the Xian Conservatory. The same professor told me that many students enter not knowing how to read musical notation, while another current student told me that about 60% of her classmates paid their way into the school. I heard a similar figure describing demographics at the Xinjiang Arts Institute--my friends there estimated that half of the student body had paid their way in. I have attended a handful of student recitals at the Xian Conservatory these last few weeks, and while some players have blown me away with their high-level performances, others were frightfully mediocre. It's hard to conceive of committing four years of your life entirely to music if it is not your passion; it's also difficult for me to wrap my mind around the fact that a music conservatory (theoretically a place specifically devoted to students honing their musical talents) would allow, and perhaps even promote, a non-meritocratic admissions environment.

*

With Helen and Yuting in Shanghai (again...)

I have gotten behind on writing my blog as of late. I can partially attribute it to being in a transient state--I took a weekend away to go to Shanghai (I used getting a Japanese encephalitis vaccine as an excuse to go see my dear friends Helen and Yuting again)--but also a deeper sense of impermanence and lull as I confront my next big move for my fellowship. I haven't been practicing as regularly for the last few weeks, and have found myself somewhat unmotivated to "do" anything productive. My one daily guarantee is that I'll be speaking a lot of Chinese, whether teaching my violin student, doing Uyghur dance with old women in the nearby public square, or roaming around the outdoor nightmarkets as I have been frequently.

Xian nightmarket

I'm not too worried--I had a low week or two like this in Hong Kong, and ultimately came back from it more energized than ever. Still, it's bittersweet and frustrating to feel like I am passively observing the end of the year, and even more imminently, the end of my time in China. Nonetheless, I can appreciate the significant strides I have made in Xian--in these last few weeks, it has been incredibly rewarding to find confidence in my Mandarin language ability, and to develop meaningful relationships with people with whom I can't speak English. I no longer feel constrained by my vocabulary--it's by no means expansive, but now I don't fear that it will inhibit my ability to express complex thoughts and opinions. In particular, I marvel that I have been able to discuss how people make and experience music and the world using a completely different vocabulary, and therefore think about my own process differently as well. Being able to talk with Zeng Chu about relaying musical expression and hearing her marvel that our ways of thinking about music are so similar is a huge affirmation that we can understand each other, despite our apparent cultural differences, in terms of language and in terms of music.

Dinner with Xian friends (Zeng Chu is on my left)

Catholic Basilica, Sheshan, Shanghai

BFF = Baijiu Friends Forever

Given that, in describing my entrance into Xinjiang, such terms as "traumatic" or "agonizing" or "consuming all truth and reason" would not be amiss, it seemed that as I finally got settled in Urumqi there was no way things wouldn't start going my way. But three weeks in, that's just it--I guess I assumed that once I arrived I would get my bearings and things would just fall into place immediately. In fact, every single day around here feels like an uphill battle, and an especially frustrating one at that because so much of the time I find I don't have a clue about what's going on (even when I thought I did)! Even the smallest tasks can require wading through many iterations of bureaucracy and procedure (not my natural proclivity, as you may know). Lest you think I'm just complaining about language barriers and culture shock--yes, there's some truth to that, but it's more than just that.

For instance: 

Instructions for enrolling in school as foreign language student 

1) Email school at address posted on official website
2) Wait for email to bounce
3) Track down current exchange student to give you email address of exchange program director, send message
4) Receive no response because "she doesn't check her email during the summer"
5) Get cell phone number of exchange program director
6) Call and explain that you would like to take classes, get vague directive to fill out application
7) Submit application and receive no confirmation
8) Show up months later at school, hope for the best

Even now that I am theoretically enrolled in the Arts Institute, I deal with a host of daily challenges. It took me nearly two weeks to get the correct card to check out a key to a practice room because no one in the Music Department seemed to know the correct procedure--professors would direct me to other professors, who would point me back to the original person I asked. For a few weeks my ghijak teacher was not responding to my inquiries about when we could meet for a first lesson--I thought he had dropped me as a student. Classes change meeting times sporadically, or are canceled without warning (at least for those who aren't connected via social media with the teacher). Xinjiang also operates on two timezones--the official time, which like the rest of China is calibrated to Beijing, and unofficial "Xinjiang time," which is two hours behind. This is a constant point of clarification that recently was only further convoluted by the school's take on daylight savings time--shaving off thirty minutes from class start times in two directions. My ATM card still hasn't arrived, although I discovered that it had been languishing in the Urumqi FedEx facility for a week and a half because they didn't have the right address on it. Even once I contacted them and they assured me that they would deliver it within a few days, it is nowhere to be found and I am no closer to paying my rent. In other words, even the things that seem like they should run like clockwork, well, don't. Even the clock! When my sister and I were little our mom used to give us these stickers of frogs wearing prize ribbons with sayings like, "I tried my best!" and "I solved my own problem!" I'm keeping morale up now by mentally awarding myself a frog ribbon daily.

Besides my frustration about how difficult it has been to get started in Urumqi, I also was feeling a bit blue about how codependent I am on my host. She's absolutely lovely and I am learning a lot from her about local music and culture, but the fact remains that she has her own life, work, and circle of friends that I can only encroach on so much. In addition to such trivial tasks as calling FedEx Urumqi and getting student ID photos taken, I set myself the goal last week to "make friends." Hong Kong was such a crutch--between the vast sea of English speakers and the easily accessible online events postings, I had no trouble connecting with new people. Not so in Urumqi--for one, there is virtually no English except among the few expats here*, and you're considered lucky to come across a non-belated concert poster. Beyond that, I just have had trouble finding opportunities to plug in with the community at the Arts Institute because it is so insular.

*A side note about the expat community in Urumqi--from what I have been told the expats here are  largely divided into two distinct camps: researchers and missionaries. While religion does underly many of the tensions in the region, I guess the missionaries are either discreet enough, or more likely considered a religious buffer against extremism by the government, to avoid notice. Still, they aren't discreet enough for the tastes of some here--my favorite anecdotes are the Uyghur who complained that the leaders of his English language circle "only want to talk about Jesus," and the missionaries in language classes who use biblical references in all of their example sentences. 

This downtrodden note seems like a great lead-in for what shall be hereinafter referred "The Great Uyghur Baijiu Bash of 2015." A little background: months before I departed for my Watson year, I came across this gem of a video--a Uyghur music rendition of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean." 

It turns out that Abduwali, the musician himself, is an instructor in Urumqi, and the former teacher of a friend who just left the city. She had introduced us, and one evening I ran into him as I left the Arts Institute. We chatted and he invited me to come watch his ensemble's rehearsal, a Uyghur jazz combo-type affair. I eagerly agreed and watched them jam out until the bassist literally wore out his fingers. The musicians were great, and afterward some of them invited me to join them for dinner. We bonded over hotpot, one of them telling me about his Uzbekistan conservatory days and showing me videos of his award-winning performance in an international competition. They were excited to hear I was from Texas, and insisted they take me to Urumqi's aptly-named Texas Cafe after dinner ("It's owned by a Texan!" they exclaimed). Sadly, Texas Cafe was closed, but the night was just beginning. We went back to one of their homes, where they pulled out naan (Uyghur bread), a dutar (two-stringed lute) and a large bottle of baijiu, China's infamously pungent and potent alcohol of choice. After the musicians launched into singing muqam songs from Islamic poetry and Uyghur pop, they pulled out a shot glass. 

"Us Uyghurs, we like to make long toasts and tell stories when we drink." 

They filled up the glass. 

"We are so glad to have met you tonight. We are your friends for life, and if you ever need anything, ever, let us know and we will help you! Hosh!" 

They passed the shot glass to me.  

"Uh....um...it makes me so happy to have gotten to know you tonight and heard your wonderful music. Ours was truly a fortuitous meeting tonight. I am so grateful for your help and hope that I, too, can help you in the future! Hosh!" 

We toasted many things that evening ("To music!" "To friendship!" "Hosh!") and as we approached the end of the baijiu bottle, one of the musicians emptied it completely into the shot glass and handed it to me. I tried to politely refuse, but:

"This is me giving you my good luck! You cannot refuse!"

I figured that at least that would mean the baijiu consumption would be over. But then they pulled out a second bottle.

I just want to take this opportunity to clarify that until that evening, I had been drunk once in my life (one month prior) and had certainly never thrown up from drinking. In college, my exposure to extreme alcohol consumption was as the person keeping friends from choking on their own vomit. And so after I returned to my apartment that evening and slapped myself in the face to retain consciousness while throwing back liters of water, I had a chance for hazy introspection about the evening and where things had gone awry. My head was spinning and I was stumbling and slurring as I vocally coached my liver: "Hang in there--you can do this!" Barf. This is probably a sensation most of you have experienced long before I did last week; however, now that I have finally been naan-tossing drunk, I can confirm that the baijiu shots hellhole is one into which one should never descend, and that I have no intention of drinking to excess ever again. That said, I did feel a strong glimmer of pride as I stared into the toilet basin--I had gone to a Uyghur drinking party with fantastic musicians, held my own (at least in terms of speaking Chinese language), and left with self-proclaimed lifelong friends. Culturally speaking, this felt really significant because these types of get-togethers are a huge part of the social culture; moreover, as a female it was amazing to have had the chance to attend since gender divides are so strong in Uyghur culture.

As for less alcohol-soaked social gatherings, the girl who had introduced me to an erhu teacher at the Arts Institute has been very sweet and invited me to visit her family home in Shehezi, a town two hours away from Xinjiang. Her parents come from Gansu Province and speak Mandarin with a really strong accent, and so they would say something to me and she would translate it to more standard Mandarin. That said, we had some pretty eye-opening exchanges--for instance, they were amazed to hear that there are Chinese people in the United States who own Chinese restaurants where they make and sell dumplings. I gave her dad an English name, Mark, and then was at a loss when he immediately asked, "So what does it mean?" I looked it up and got "Mars" and "warlike," which I didn't tell him, so I settled for a happy medium: "It means you're fiercely awesome!" He seemed placated. Her family was welcoming to a fault, insisting that I sleep in their daughters' single bedroom while both of their daughters slept out on the couch. I felt bad (also stuffed because I had gorged myself on the aforementioned dumplings) but they wouldn't have it any other way. As for Shihezi itself, if you have the chance to go, I wouldn't--the city was constructed fifty years ago in the middle of the desert as a semi-colonial project. With massive streets, empty monolithic buildings, and a gentrified Han population it has all the charm of a waiting room. (Surprisingly it is home to a university of 40,000 students and participates in many international exchanges. Regardless, I can without a doubt say I have seen it, and helped you dodge a bullet in the process...)

I have had my first two ghijak lessons, and while it's still to early to offer any serious commentary on the learning process, it's a great time to post a new video of lackluster stringed instrument playing! Ghijak presents unique challenges from erhu, especially since it has four strings instead of two and the bow, which is not attached to the instrument, has a higher contact point with the string than it does on the erhu. My biggest challenge right now, beyond keeping the bow on the string, is keeping the bow on the right string--the whole instrument pivots on the spike that rests on one's lap, so there is a swiveling motion to account for when playing that I have never dealt with before. I really like my teacher, though. He's a really nice guy who is seriously picky and sounds like he is screaming all the time; in fact he just cares a lot and tends to talk loudly, especially about the history of Uyghur instruments and music. He showed me this very cool instrument which he called the "grandfather of the erhu"--it looks like a large erhu with a metal body and five sympathetic strings (not played but  that vibrate when the two main strings are played). Because of the sympathetic strings and the metal chamber the instrument echoes the notes long after they have been played, and the sound has a distant and haunting timbre not unlike a sitar. He complained that no one wants to study the instrument these days, and I told him I was very interested, so tentatively I am going to take lessons on both instruments! In the meantime, here's the video status report on ghijak and erhu:

I regret that there are not more pictures in this post--I haven't been toting my camera as freely because I don't want to draw attention to myself and also don't want to jeopardize anyone whose image I might post. That said, I'm working on it--more pictures to come!

First Quarterly Report: the spider was a metaphor

While the Watson Foundation does not require its Fellows to produce a research paper or findings from their year abroad, they do ask for quarterly reports in the form of a "long letter home." Mine is due today, and I thought I'd share it on the blog as well.

Dear Chris, Michelle, and Sneha,

Greetings from Urumqi, where at the moment I am sitting in a muqam performance class at the Xinjiang Arts Institute. Since the class is taught in the Uyghur language and thus I can’t really appreciate much more than the music, I’m also practicing writing the Uyghur alphabet in the hopes that picking up even a bit of the language will serve me during my time here.

I want to let you know that starting off my Watson in Hong Kong was truly a phenomenal experience, daunting though it was at the beginning. My first few weeks were overshadowed by trying to salvage my Wall Street Journal internship, only to find out that a variety of circumstances had made it impossible to do it at all this summer. (WSJ is happy to have me come back for the internship next summer/fall after my Watson year, which is my current plan.) So in my first week I was without a plan or established network.

On my first day of ‘funemployment’ I went to lunch by myself, and then decided I would walk uphill for as long as I could. Four hours later I was at the top of Victoria Peak, where the usually panoramic view was entirely obscured by thick mist. I resigned myself to a contemplative walk down the mountain, which went smoothly until I spotted a huge, face-sized spider dangling nonchalantly overhead. I am deathly afraid of long-legged spiders, and seeing this one I felt myself start to hyperventilate. I suddenly realized that Hong Kong is in a tropical environment, as is Indonesia, another of my Watson year destinations, and if I were going to survive this year I would have to accept the inevitability of spiders and learn to keep my cool even if they were hanging over my head. And I’m pretty sure the spider was a metaphor.

Later that day I walked into a random music school and signed up, sight unseen, for erhu lessons. My teacher ended up being a patient, talented, and generous young guy who, beyond teaching me how to play the instrument, shared his insight on attitudes toward music acquisition and preservation in China, and also invited me to join his Chinese orchestra. I performed with them for their Mid-Autumn Festival concert on erhu and as a solo violinist, playing a Cantonese opera piece and a violin showpiece.

One of the biggest things I took away from my time in Hong Kong was how interconnected the world is if you are open to it, and proactively seek out new connections and opportunities. I was warned by multiple previous Watson Fellows that this year would be lonely and miserable. Thus, expecting this would be the case, I made an events calendar, attending everything from an experimental jazz vocal concert to a dramatic reading of short fiction. I set up meetings with acquaintances of acquaintances, and then volunteered to help them out on their projects, no matter whether they seemed related to my own project or not.

And in fact, even those activities and connections that seemed so tangential ended up serving me in major ways I would never have foreseen. I worked closely with a composer and music critic who I met through a markets editor at WSJ. She invited me to a concert she was reviewing, at which time I discovered she had done her graduate studies with composer Lou Harrison and played gamelan on the recording of his work that inspired me to play it and write about him for my senior honors thesis. I volunteered to assist her in her work in any way I could, and soon was regularly going to concerts with her, traveling out to the island where she lives to help her with her work, and play her music (which draws on both ‘Western’ and Chinese influences).

Through the composer I met multiple wonderful people, including a Chinese linguist and professor at Hong Kong University who became my Mandarin teacher, mentor, and closest friend. He is a renaissance man with a self-declared ‘perfect’ memory and extremely strong democratic leanings despite having grown up and studied in northwest China. Discussing notions of cultural purity and propaganda in music with him in Mandarin helped my language skills, and made me think about the potential political and cultural implications of performing music from an “outside” culture or with ideological ties. “The thing with propaganda music is,” he said one time, “you may be singing ‘The Sun is Red,’ but the melody is really nice!”

I won’t go into the play-by-play of how I fell into all of these projects (I have recounted them on my blog) but here are some of the other highlights, in no particular order:

• Coaching chamber music for a quintet of middle school boys
• Becoming a classical music reviewer for TimeOut Hong Kong
• Meeting John Thompson, a preeminent scholar and performer of Ming Dynasty guqin, on a far-flung island
• Taking a few-day trip to Hangzhou, where quite by accident I met some of China’s top erhu players. I traveled with them to a rural village to meet their master teacher and join their family reunion, and then put on a recital of my own in a public square
• Working at Hong Kong University’s Centre for Journalism and Media Studies a day or two each week in exchange for free housing at one of the Residential Colleges (I was named a “Junior Visiting Scholar” and a “good role model for the students”). I also joined HKU’s Gamelan Ensemble and played violin and erhu with HKU students
• Spending multiple nights observing the Hong Kong democracy protests

Without realizing it, I had found a really wonderful niche in Hong Kong through the incredible relationships I had formed, and the prospect of leaving the place that was never supposed to be part of my Watson project became overwhelming. Many people, including my mother, suggested I not leave Hong Kong at all. But while there was so much more I could have done had I stayed longer, it felt important to stay faithful to my initial proposal, and that I would be cheating myself if I didn’t get out of my comfort zone.

And so, I arrived a little past midnight in Urumqi two weeks ago, a trial-by-fire start to my time in Xinjiang because my host had mixed up the date I was arriving and wouldn’t be returning to the city for two more days—which I discovered after the airport shut down at 2 am. Also, I had discovered a few days prior that my ATM card had expired and was subsisting on the cash I had borrowed from a friend. (I am still waiting on my new ATM card to arrive—fingers crossed it makes it!) I ended up getting in an unmarked car with a strange man and going to an airport hotel I could barely afford, where I started freaking out. Thankfully my host got in touch the next day and put me in contact with my first friends in Urumqi.

Things have steadily improved from that low point, although adjusting from a largely English-speaking, generally politically free island financial capital/culinary paradise to a frigid Uyhgur-speaking [SELF-CENSORING] that subsists on carbs and lamb has meant some significant culture shock. I am in my second week here, but only now starting to get my Xinjiang sea legs. I am planning to take a week long detour to Taiwan and Shanghai at the beginning of November to shadow Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble for part of their Asia tour. I was only planning to spend two months in Xinjiang, but because it has taken me this time to settle in, and because I will be taking that week away, I am thinking that for this part of my year to be productive (in terms of learning erhu and ghijak, a Uyghur stringed instrument, and Uyghur and Mandarin languages) I should stay longer than I originally planned—possibly through some of the winter (so much for my plan to avoid freezing climates). I also am really enjoying learning erhu, and am vaguely entertaining the notion of going back to Hangzhou to find those erhu musicians and study with them—they offered to teach me after all! I am still wrangling with questions about how to prioritize my time, energy, and focus, so of course, if you have any insight I absolutely welcome it.

Okay, muqam class is out—time for Mandarin! Hope all is well with you.

Audrey

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Scratching out my first Watson quarterly report

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A Mid-Autumn Crisis

Last Friday marked my double debut on erhu and violin in Hong Kong. Sitting onstage before the concert, I felt like the obvious black sheep as the only non-Hong Konger in City University's Chinese Orchestra. I anticipated the audience members' thoughts as they ogled me: "Who does she think she is, holding an erhu and attempting to play Chinese music?" Or even more simply: "White girl with an erhu? This is gonna be good."

While no one in the orchestra had been unkind (and I made good friends with some of the players), they had been standoffish and aloof at first--not sure how to regard the random outsider who had showed up with an erhu a few weeks before their concert. They all seemed to mean well, but even though nearly all of them were bilingual in English they avoided using it at all costs, leaving me in the dark except when absolutely necessary. Not that I expected them to change the language of the rehearsal or go out of their way to include me--but in any case I was a de facto alien. I couldn't tell what they thought of me, and while I didn't care about being out of place linguistically, I felt the isolation acutely as I struggled to keep up playing music that wasn't "my own" on an instrument that wasn't "my own." Which leads to a question, or perhaps comment, I have received multiple times since starting to learn erhu and practice Chinese music: "Since you are not Chinese, can you play Chinese music?" People don't ask to be insulting, though some do have firm opinions on the matter--they are genuinely curious, as am I, if the ability to learn and play Chinese music relies upon membership in a community with some shared experience of culture, history, and region. From my erhu teacher telling me that Guangdong style is just too hard to teach if you aren't familiar with it, to one of the players in the Chinese Orchestra telling me that he didn't think it was possible for non-Chinese to play Chinese music, recently I was really questioning whether my efforts--and this year's project in general--were misguided and inevitably pointless.

Photo compilation by one of the CityU Chinese Orchestra players

While I previously mentioned my excitement to be asked to play solos on violin with the Chinese Orchestra in addition to playing erhu with the ensemble, after I eagerly agreed, a general feeling of unease set in. They had asked me to play a solo violin piece ("Play Czardas! Play Ziguenerweisen!" they asked, naming two flashy crowd-pleasers from the violin repertoire) but given that the rest of the concert featured traditional Chinese music played by an ensemble, the prospect of me playing a Western classical showpiece by myself seemed very out of place, and even somewhat profane ("Don't worry--it's fusion!" they said when I voiced my concerns). I also didn't really know what place I had playing a solo--there were plenty of talented performers in the ensemble, why not feature one of them? Nonetheless, I wasn't going to turn down their request that I play violin in the concert, so I told them that I would come up with some solo piece to play, and that I also wanted to play a Chinese piece on violin. (They seemed a bit baffled as to why I would want to do that, but went with it.) At the very least, I figured the casual concert was a good chance for me to test out the solo Kreisler piece I had been working on, and wasn't combining multiple music traditions the exact theme of my Watson Project? 

We rehearsed the Chinese piece for the first time a few days before the performance. Rehearsals with the Chinese Orchestra were a stark contrast with my rehearsals with the MIT Symphony--I don't think there was ever a moment the players weren't chattering away happily as the conductor tried to keep everyone's attention. Everyone had amicably ignored me until that day--when I started playing the Cantonese opera piece on violin, the room became noticeably quieter as the players came to grips with the fact that the non-Chinese girl was playing a traditional song they knew well on violin. I had 'studied' the piece the day before, listening to recordings of singers performing the piece and notating their embellishments and slides to incorporate into my own playing. When I finished, the room burst into applause, and I breathed a sigh of relief. "Sounds great!" my erhu teacher told me. "Play freely! You can improvise naturally--we will follow you!" I guess I had emulated the Cantonese singer well-enough to convince him that I knew what organic improvisation in Cantonese opera style would sound like. This point was lost on him--he continued to encourage me to add ornamentations to my liking. I was terrified by this prospect--at least half of the time, my own musical add-ons sound more like psuedo-country music drawling rather than the falling sighs of erhu sliding.

From that day on, the players started to talk to me, and I came to realize that they weren't discouraging my erhu and Chinese music pursuits, but just curious and even gratified by my interest in the music. A percussionist told me she was so excited to meet a foreign player of Chinese music, and an erhu player played me some Paganini on erhu and told me about a Xinjiang-style erhu piece whose title he translated as "Grape Grows Up" (I later found out the more commonly accepted translation is "The Grapes are Ripe," but isn't "Grape Grows Up" so much cuter?)

The concert was highly casual. It was held at a covered outdoor performance space at City University of Hong Kong in honor of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the performers wearing orchestra tees-shirts and jeans. The atmosphere was very laid-back (if immensely hot and humid), and sitting onstage, I wasn't nervous because I could sense how low the audience's expectations were (I mean this in only the best of ways--it was the perfect environment for me to make my onstage erhu debut!) The performance itself was hardly flawless--perhaps a little less talking in rehearsals would have addressed that--but the players' enthusiasm was palpable, and more than compensated for shortcomings in execution. (A few of my new pals, international students from Hong Kong University who had never heard Chinese music before, kindly came to the performance and stayed to the bitter end, proving themselves true friends. "It was really...interesting!" they said.)

Here's an abridged video of the concert--

As I got up for my Cantonese opera violin solo, I wasn't nervous at all, but after the applause, when my solo Kreisler moment arrived I was met with a wave of nerves and adrenaline, combined with sweaty hands and shaking knees. (Video of my solo parts below.) Knowing the only way out was through, I launched into the piece. At the time, I was sure it went terribly, but looking back, though it was far from perfect it actually went quite well under the circumstances, and was well-received. My one regret is that in my mortification I didn't give a proper bow and instead went power-walking off the stage, defying my life mantra to "fake it 'till you make it." 

A quick photo interlude--pictures from a Mid-Autumn Festival celebration in one of Hong Kong's neighborhoods:

Chiu Chow opera performance

If you didn't know any better, it could be the Austin City Limits Music Festival

My friend said these were "priests reading aloud the Taoist bible," so that's the best I can do to describe this scene

Later that weekend, I went to the premiere performance of Alexis' new work, Shadow in the Moon, a Peter and the Wolf-like narrated chamber work for Western and Chinese instruments that tells the story of the Mid-Autumn Festival. The ensemble consisted of a pianist, a violinist, an erhu player, a clarinetist, a dizi (Chinese flute) player, a guzheng (plucked zither) player, a cellist, and a Chinese percussionist--so definitely not the typical octet. Alexis had partnered with a writer, Christina, who just published a children's book about the Mid-Autumn Festival story, and used the book's text as inspiration for the piece. Since the performance was geared toward children, I wasn't sure what to expect of the music, but the two times I heard the piece in the dress rehearsal and the actual concert, I teared up--the music Alexis composed is gorgeous and moving, and highlights the instruments' similarities and contrasting timbres flawlessly. (Also, seeing all of the families together enjoying the music got me a little emotional, too...) It was striking how she combined the instruments--for instance, the sounds of the violin and the erhu complemented each other, but were in no way interchangeable substitutes. Similarly, it was interesting to hear the guzheng player pluck a passage, and then hear the cellist say, "I liked how you played that--let me try that interpretation for my part," adding some lyrical slides to his own version of the same melody. There are moments in the music that conjure the sound of Chinese folk songs, and others that bring the passion and lyricism of Romantic era serenades--and it all works. While I had come to the performance wondering whether the music and text would resonate with the audience (myself included), watching the children literally dance in the aisles and feeling myself moved by the music, I was truly wowed by what Alexis had accomplished--a true cross-cultural masterpiece. It was so well-received that I think there's talk of turning it into a perennial Hong Kong performance for the Mid-Autumn Festival, as well as part of a larger musical project about Chinese festivals and legends.

Alexis addressing the players at the dress rehearsal

Alexis and Christina at the premiere

I talked to Alexis later about my concerns about being an "outsider" when it comes to Chinese, or more generally, non-Western classical, music--I figured that as her compositional career and own erhu study center around the notion that non-Chinese can approach Chinese music, she would have some insight and opinions on the matter. "You know, when I was in music grad school, Yo-Yo Ma was still new in the music world and making a name for himself, and people said that there was an 'Asian' way of playing classical music--that you could hear it in his playing," she said. "No one says that anymore. Thanks to globalization, Chinese music is all around the world--Chinese music is the world's music." She talked about the difference between trying to distill Chinese music to a formula ("like bad Hollywood music--I'm not trying to be a fake Chinese musician") and studying it and understanding it enough to be influenced by it. As for learning erhu: "I think that anyone, if they put in the time and practice, can learn to play in the style at a high level." It was encouraging to talk with her, and especially seeing how successfully she has created cohesive musical from multiple cultures I am convinced it is not time for me to throw in the towel on my own project just yet.

Hard to beat this commute, eh?

Flashing our matching Wellesley bling

A few final photos and a story--I got together for tea with a Wellesley alum, who was totally lovely to hang out with. It turns out that her son plays violin and is in a chamber music group with some other seventh grade boys, so I offered to coach them. In case you haven't been around seventh grade boys for a while--it's crazy, I tell you. A few were constantly talking and easily distracted, while others were immensely shy--and it was my job to get them to play an arrangement of the highly passionate Intermezzo from Mascagni's opera Cavalleria Rusticana. My work was indeed cut out for me, but knowing that they would spiral out of control if they sensed any insecurity from me, I balanced positive encouragement with sass and condescension to keep them on task and amused. Having  been in a chamber music group with my friends as a seventh grader and been the recipient of hundreds of hours of chamber music coaching over the years, it was fun to have come full circle--preaching about the importance of eye contact, clear cues, and bringing out the viola melodies.

"Do I have to cue, too?" the cellist whined.
"Yes, and you're going to do it right now. Feel free to cue at any time. We'll all wait for you."
"My hands are sweating!"
"I'm sorry, that must be very stressful for you. You still have to cue. And you with the pizzicato!" I addressed the extremely timid second violinist, who hadn't said a word. "You need to play it at least three times as loud. Everyone's relying on you for the beat, so don't actually break your string, but get really close."

Just call me "Cadet Kelly." Or "Quartet Kelly"--too much of a stretch?

S'merhu (some more erhu)

I figured it's about time for another video to mark my erhu progress, so here we go:

The piece is called 江南春色 or "Springtime in Jiangnan," and was written by composer Zhu Changyao pretty recently (not sure of the exact year, but within the last fifty years, if not the last twenty--he's still alive and performing, if that tells you anything). Jiangnan is a region containing Shanghai and Hangzhou, where I visited a few weeks ago, and the area has its own characteristic erhu style that I find quite lyrical. It's also difficult to pick up from the score, as there are lots of semi-improvised ornaments and embellishments (such as trills and slides) that aren't written in. As someone learning the style from scratch it's hard to anticipate unless you have someone telling you where to put all the add-ins! My trills are still a work in progress--they are too Baroque and not Jiangnan enough. A huge highlight from my Hangzhou trip was getting to see one of the local erhu masters we met perform the piece--a Jiangnan person playing a Jiangnan piece in Jiangnan!

Getting in cars with strangers, or: "Come for the music, stay for the turtle"

While my trip last week to Shanghai and Hangzhou did not mark my first steps into Mainland China this year, it was my first legal foray into the mainland this year (see previous post about accidentally crossing the border into Zhuhai a few weeks ago). My dear friend and former fellow State Department intern at the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou last summer, Haley, is the winner of a Fulbright Scholarship and is currently undertaking intensive Mandarin language training in Harbin, China, right now. We had talked for a while about meeting somewhere in China while we were both here, and her fall break was the perfect opportunity—however, as her language program is located in far northern China (Harbin is known for its ice festival and beer, if that gives you a sense of how north we’re talking) and I have been basking in sub-tropical Hong Kong, we had to find a way to literally meet in the middle. [Sadly, that meant staying in a yurt and riding horses in inner Mongolia was off the table this time.] 

After careful consideration and purposeful deliberation [read: cracking jokes over Skype] we ultimately settled on Shanghai—neither one of us had spent time there, it’s a major global city and center of culture, and it’s also within striking distance of the smaller but culturally significant lower-tier cities of Suzhou and Hangzhou. Also, tickets were cheapest—what’s not to love? We bought flights, booked a room for the first two nights, and figured we were set. Things went mostly smoothly until I boarded my flight from Hong Kong, emotionally prepared myself for takeoff, and then heard the announcement: “There are four flights to Shanghai in front of ours—we will be delayed until further notice.” I silently gave thanks that the flight time was just two hours and not fifteen—and after sitting for two hours on the tarmac and watching the grown man next to me cry very audibly at the live-action film “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” things went off without any further hitch. 

Haley and I reunited at the airport, and eagerly anticipated a week of putting our Mandarin to the test while fumbling around Shanghai, as well as the common phenomenon of being mistaken for twins. We resemble each other inasmuch as we are both fair with bangs, brownish hair, and have incredible senses of humor (aka we are quite self-amused) but that’s probably where the resemblance ends. [Yet, as predicted, I quickly lost track of the number of times we were asked if we were sisters.] As for the Mandarin—while there were certainly many moments where I has no idea what was being said (partially because Shanghai and Hangzhou have their own separate dialects in addition to Mandarin), after a month of constant Cantonese, hearing Mandarin around me felt like I had had the mufflers taken off my ears, or perhaps like I had emerged from an aquarium of ignorance. Either way, it was refreshing to feel like my years of Mandarin language study weren't entirely for naught. 

Shanghai's Jingan Temple

On our first night in Shanghai, we caught up with Wilson, my high school classmate who spent a year of high school living in China and since then has basically never left. The last time I had seen him was two years ago in Beijing, and it was great to hear about his current endeavors in China--launching a pie and taco business aptly named "Rager Pie" out of Beijing. We went with him and a few of his friends at a variety of nighttime venues, most memorably "Shelter," an actual underground bomb shelter that has been converted into a bar and music stage. They have done nothing to alter its appearance, and the atmosphere became even more authentic when a fuse blew and the electricity went out, killing the too-loud music and leaving only the emergency floodlights. We all thought it was an improvement, and enjoyed shooting the breeze (and occasionally letting out a blood-curdling scream) in the darkened tunnels.

In the tunnels of "Shelter"

Whatever we were looking for those first few days, we didn't find it as we wandered Shanghai's wide streets and monolithic public squares. Part of the problem is that Haley and I hadn't put any time into researching what exactly we should be doing in Shanghai, and our tactic of "just showing up" in various parts of the city had so far only gotten us hulking financial skyscrapers and dingy alleyways. So, we decided to apply the technique elsewhere, and booked high speed train tickets to Hangzhou, a second tier city known for its scenic West Lake and tea fields. We checked into our hostel that evening and then wandered around the area, encountering a handful of temples that had closed for the day, a bunch tables of elderly people playing card games, and no lake. Feeling depleted and defeated, we went for blind massage, and then on the suggestion of our masseuses went for dinner to Hangzhou's "Food Street," a street that becomes a pedestrian road full of open air tables and stalls where you can select your own meats, vegetables, seafoods, and insects to be cooked before your eyes. Although the chef at the roadside stand we chose to patronize was very chatty, Haley secretly condemned the fish with Hangzhou specialty sauce he had pushed on us: "I'm pretty sure that's just barbecue sauce."

Selfie at a closed temple in Hangzhou.... 

This man did not move an inch for the entire while we observed him

Hangzhou's "Food Street" by day

Hangzhou sunset

"Food Street" by night

Bug skewers for a late-night snack, anyone?

As we walked back toward our hostel, searching for something to cleanse our palettes of the Hangzhou BBQ sauce, I heard a sound that had recently become quite familiar--the mournful wail of an amplified erhu. As I've become somewhat of an erhu homing pigeon as of late, I insisted we discover the source of the sound, expecting it would be a souvenir shop blasting a traditional music soundtrack. Instead, we stumbled upon an ensemble of Chinese instrument players set up outside a restaurant patio, putting on an informal concert for the small group of bystanders who had stopped to listen. We stopped to listen to them, and they invited us to sit down and have some tea while enjoying the music. Turns out they were some of Hangzhou's top musicians. I explained to them that I am a violinist studying Chinese music and a new erhu student, and they enthusiastically told me that if I came back the following evening they would bring a violin for me to play. They also invited us for some outing the following morning (this was all happening in Mandarin, and Haley and I didn't really catch much besides "seeing our former teacher,"going up to the mountain," and "family reunion"). We didn't really know what was going on, but figured we would show up and try to get more details before committing. 

Our new pals jamming out

When we met them the next morning, they had already loaded up a car with instruments. There  was no time for deliberation: "Come on! Get in!" We had no idea where they were going, or even their names, but against all common sense, we got in. I don't know what it was--a mutual trust forged by shared musical interests? Two hours later, we were driving through a rural village well outside of the city and without paved roads, fairly certain we were going to die there, when we started following a seventy-year-old man on a motorized tricycle--back to his house. Turns out he was the musicians' former music teacher and a quite well-known performer in his day. They make a pilgrimage to visit him each year, and we just so happened to catch this one. The old teacher's house was full of photos and instruments from his performing days, art and artifacts from bygone dynasties, valuable rocks and minerals--truly a live-in museum. He and his wife served a heaping feast in honor of the visit, telling us that they had slaughtered a cow and a chicken especially for this meal, and that the cuisine was particular to their village ("You won't find this food anywhere else!") After the hours-long meal, the musicians pulled out their instruments and played with their old teacher and his grandson, and some of their wives sang along in the traditional, extremely nasal and high pitched, style. They encouraged Haley and I to sing along, but we resorted to smiling and nodding--yes, we had been daring up to that point, but we drew the line at singing high-pitched regional Chinese songs whose lyrics and melodies we didn't know. After more show and tell ("There are over 100 types of flowers in my garden, and I planted every single one!" the old teacher declared, showing us his scrapbook) we took a family photo and parted ways (although the musicians did say that if I liked it so much, I could stay in the village forever...) 

Out in the boonies of Qingshan, outside of Hangzhou

Traditional Chinese bed covered in other relics in the old teacher's home

  

"L'Chaim!" At least I think that's what they said...

Post-lunch music hour(s)

Checking out the old teacher's scrapbook of his flowers 

After all of the excitement of the day, we finally arrived back to the original Hangzhou restaurant where we met the musicians. Haley and I were eager to return to our hostel and reflect on the day's adventure--when the musicians told us they were treating us to dinner. They sat us back outside in front of the restaurant, and pulled out a large cardboard box containing an enormous tortoise. The purposefully-slaughtered cow and chicken (as well as snails) at lunch had already tested my culinary limits--and now a tortoise? They had taken the tortoise out of the box and put it out on the ground next to their token foreigners, and a small crowd was gathering to ogle all of the bizarre creatures how sitting outside the restaurant. 

"Are you going to cook this turtle?" I timidly enquired. 

"No, this turtle is too old to eat!" I guess it should have been obvious. "This turtle is 300 years old. Won't taste good."

Toi-tle gets a rare moment out of the box

The food was finally ready, but there was a final hurdle: "No dinner until you play violin." They handed me a violin and set up a microphone. So that was the time I put on an impromptu concert in a Hangzhou public square. The program was unconventional, in a word: Edelweiss, Ashokan Farewell, a virtuosic Kriesler piece, some solo Bach, "Meditation" from Thaïs, a Chinese piece I learned on erhu...after running through this bizarre selection, the musicians ruled that I had played enough for the meal. By this time we had spent over twelve hours with these people (whose names we still didn't know, I will remind you). Haley and I were fried after a day of nonstop Chinese music jam sessions ("This is what purgatory must be like," she moaned) and so excused ourselves at earliest opportunity. It was absolutely amazing and surreal day--and by that point we had just hit our limit for overwhelming and unbelievable adventures.

A thirteen-year-old girl we befriended in Hangzhou snapped this shot of me in the midst of my
impromptu pre-dinner violin spectacular

The rest of our time in Hangzhou and Shanghai was punctuated by other highlights: having a cup of tea in a teahouse in the middle of the famous Longjing tea fields, having a cup of tea in a beautiful patisserie in Shanghai's old French Concession, having a cup of something slightly stronger on top of a Shanghai skyscraper overlooking the city skyline (in case you haven't picked up on it, the theme is "beverages with a view.") [cue possibly too many photos of tea fields]

Haley is all 'tea-ed' up

Longjing tea fields

One huge highlight for me was visiting the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre, an unofficial, albeit government-sanctioned, hidden museum in the basement of an apartment building. It's a private collection of over 6000 propaganda posters from 1930s to the 1990s; it also includes original "large character posters" used to criticize intellectuals, landowners, and other accused opponents of the Cultural Revolution as well as "Shanghai Lady" advertisements from the first half of the twentieth century (advertisements for luxury products featuring elegant Chinese women painted in an art deco influenced style). It's the only exhibit of its kind in China (and the world, I believe)--the posters are particularly rare because, if I remember correctly, Deng Xiaoping banned the production of propaganda posters in the 90s. It was fascinating to see the artistic styles become less cartoonish and themes of the propaganda evolve over the years--the posters reflect political purges, regional relations, and the shifting focus of domestic policies. There were a handful that called for the Chinese people to "Support the struggle of black people against American imperialism" in the years leading up to the civil rights movement in the U.S., and others that encouraged the Chinese people to work hard with to surpass Britain within a decade. Pictures were not allowed in the exhibit, but I did pick up a lovely postcard of a scene from The Red Detachment of Women, an opera/musical show created by Chairman Mao's wife Jiang Qing. It was one of the eight "model plays" permitted to be performed during the Cultural Revolution, and bizarrely infuses Communist ideology with Western orchestral and dance elements. But it's gorgeous in it's own way, no?

Entrance to the elusive Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre

Scene from the Red Detachment of Women

The only downside of the trip was having to deal with terrible air and aggressive mosquitoes, which tore up my lungs and legs. I am currently combatting "secondhand smoker's lung" with herbal medicine while furiously applying very pungent Tiger Balm to my lower limbs--so I'm feeling a bit worse from the wear from the trip, and have the newfound ability to clear a subway car with my hacking cough. It's a huge shame, but I really don't think I can spend any more time in major Chinese cities  (Shanghai, Beijing, even Guangzhou) because of the intense pollution. (Hong Kong can have its polluted moments as well, but this summer it's been lovely, albeit hot and muggy.) I'm a bit worried about my next stop, Urumqi, which has historically been notorious for its bad air quality from burning coal--but I think they've worked to clean it up a bit? I guess can't really know until I'm there. I will say, it was such a relief to fly back into Hong Kong from Shanghai and descend onto the islands from a clear blue sky.

Shanghai skyline at night