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The aM calester International Roundtable 2007 Institute for Global Citizenship

9-26-2007 MUSIC, GLOBALIZATION, AND THE CHINESE SELF Joseph Lam

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Recommended Citation Lam, Joseph, "MUSIC, GLOBALIZATION, AND THE CHINESE SELF" (2007). The Macalester International Roundtable 2007. Paper 2. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/intlrdtable/2

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Institute for Global Citizenship at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in The aM calester International Roundtable 2007 by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Music,Globalization, and the ChineseSelfl

A draft by

JosephS.C. Lam

Universityof Michigan lntroduction

In September2006,I touredChina with a groupof highly educatedand musically sophisticatedAmerican businessmen, professionals, and retirees. During thetour , we took a boatride going upstreamThe AgriculturalProgenitor's Stream (Shennongxi), a tributaryof the YangziRiver. There and then, we witnessedboatmen' calls, female tour guides'singing of Chineseethnic songs and American favorites. Prompted by the tour guides,we alsosang, creating American echoes in scenicand tourist .

Illustration 1. Shennongxiboat ride

I found the boat ride an authentic and inspiring experience of musical globalization,as it raisedmany questions.2Are the Chinesesongs authentic?3 Why do they sing American tunes?Do American songsbecome Chinese when they are sung by Chinese girls in Chinese land? What is traditional and contemporary in globalized China or America anyway?What is at stakeand being negotiated?

As an attemptto understandglobalized Chinesemusic,4 this paperposits the following interpretation.Music is a medium with which contemporaryChinese people 2 negotiatetheir empirical and imagined Chinese self with thenon-Chinese others in this globalizedworld. Chinese have urgent needs to reconstitutetheir self because their recent successesin globalpolitics and economy have prompted them to assertChina as a global superpower.Thus, Chinese engage in manyglobal discourses, one of whichis music,a mediumthat appeals to people'shearts and minds alike. To renderChinese music an expressiveand efficacious discourse of theChinese self, Chinese music practitioners, namelyall who areinvolved in theproduction, consumption, interpretations, and negotiationsof Chinesemusic, shape globalized Chinese music with historicallyand culturally rootedideologies and practices, which help defineand project their subjectivitiesand imaginations. The rememberedpast not only guidesbut also authenticatesthe Chineseself constructedin the presentbut for the presentand the future.

In otherwords, as globalized Chinese music embodies particularized Chinese ideologies,practices, biographies, sites, and temporalities, it vividly manifestsa multi- facetedand multivalent Chinese self, one that blends collective realities and imaginations. It is alsoa selfthat alloys a collectionof nativeand foreign elements. Declaring this alloyedself as authentically Chinese, Chinese downplay its heterogeneousnature, discipliningthe foreign as something universal, learned, and owned, and highlighting the nativeas being the fundamentaland salient. This self-servingstrategy smoothly operates in globalizedChinese music. Rather than denying the foreign origins of someof the elementsin their globalizedmusic, Chinese declare that the foreignelements have becomeChinese after their beingused in Chinafor a substantivelength of time and after theirbeing adjusted to copewith Chineseneeds and aesthetics. Chinese also assert that theChinese nature of theirglobalized music is fundamentallyand saliently defined by whatthe music signifies, not how someof its soundsreference the non-Chinese.

To illustratethis nature of globalizedChinese music and how it subjectivelyand imaginativelyrepresent the Chinese self, this paper presents nine samples of Chinese musicdiscourses. To theoreticallyand factually contextualize the discourses, this paper beginswith an overviewof China'sglobalized present and past, highlighting their interrelations.Then, the paperbriefly analyzesnine music works that representspecific facetsof the Chineseself, demonstratingthe waysmusical features, performance contexts, andcultural-historical ideologies and practices collectively generate negotiations of the Chineseself.

Giventhat globalized Chinese music can be investigatedwith different perspectives,I choose to discussit with thefollowing heuristic definitions. Chinese music is musicthat is essentiallyproduced for andconsumed by Chinesepeople of thepresent, expressingand addressing their artistic, ritual, economic, political, and social subjectivities,experiences, and needs. This broadand inclusive definition underscores the diversityand complexity of Chinesemusic. The word "essentially"implies that some Chinesemusic practitioners may not considerthemselves Chinese. Globalized Chinese musicis musicthat involves not only indigenouselements but alsothose that have originatedfrom farawaylands, referencing non-Chinese peoples and cultures; despite that theproduction and consumption of suchmusic transcend the geographical, political, and socialboundaries of China,it is embracedas Chinese music by its practitioners. China'sglobalized present

Thereis no secretthat Chinesemusic has been globalizing in Chineseways. The questionto askis how the global and the Chineseinteract, and what resultsand meanings the interactionshave generated. To investigatethe phenomenonas merely a resultof globalizingforces denies agency for theChinese people who subjectivelyand actively constructwho theyare, manipulate globalizing forces to servetheir agendas, and effectivelynegotiate their self with theothers. Globalized China is an alloy of diverse elementswhich can hardly be meaningfullysplit from oneanother, a phenomenonthat canbe poignantlyexperienced by visitingChina and experiencing her tourism and media.

Many citiesin Chinaare in someways confusingly similar to New York,London, Parisand Tokyo and in someother ways poignantly distinctive.s In Beijing,Shanghai, andHong Kong, for example,one finds giganticairports, extensive transportation systemsof subwaysand highways, spacious parks and plazas surrounding governmental office buildings,museums and other civic institutionsthat showcasenational and local treasuresand prides, glassy and tall skyscraperswith logosof internationalcorporations or mammothTV screensannouncing cunent news and advertisements, posh shopping malls androws of restaurantsserving world cuisines.Shuttling among these globalized Chineselocations are people, many of whomare talking at thecell phonesheld close to theirears, and wearing suits, jeans and other globalized costumes.

Illustration2. Tiananmenand Chairman Mao Illustration3. Wangfujingshopping area, Beijing

If oneexamines the cities and the peoplea bit closer,however, one finds many localand distinctive elements, challenging us to askwhat is globalor Chinese,and whethersuch analytical splitting of theelements explains what one sees, and what is beingimagined and negotiated. In Beijing,for example,one finds the Forbidden City, ChairmanMao's Mausoleum, the hutong of old Chinesehouses that non-Chinese tourists shuttlingin ricksawsgaze &t, and the Panjiayuan bazaar of antiqueswhere all kindsof remnants,mostly fake, from historicalChina can be purchasedfor meagersums of cash. And just outsideBeijing, one finds the Great Wall, the Ming Tombs,the Chinese Minorities Park,and othersites where the global,the local, the old, and the new blend into a new andpostmodern China.

Illustration 4. Panjiayuanantique bazaar, Beijing

In Hong Kong, one finds the tallest (85 feet) outdoor Bronze Buddha in the world sitting on a hilltop in Lantau Island, Disneyland,and rows and rows of skyscrapersin 5

Central,one of the top five financialdistricts in the world. Severalbuildings there are particularlystriking. The sharpsilhouette of the ChinaBank designed by I.M. Peicuts like a dagger,symbolizing perhaps the cutting-edge of thenew socialisrcapitalistChina. The avant-gardeHSBC Groupbuilding featuresa groundfloor that hasno walls, an open spacemarked by a pair of bronzelions. The buildingprojects proud history of thepast andconfidence for thefuture, HSBC Group grew out of theHong Kong Shanghai BankingCorporation Limited, a Britishfinancial firm thatwas first launchedin colonial HongKong in 1865,but subsequentlymatured in semi-colonialand early20h century Shanghaiand in internationalizedHong Kong of themid andlate 20fr century; currently headquarteredin London,the firm hasits financialarms spread to all over the world. Many clientsdoing businesswith HSBC Groupown commercialbusiness and factories in China,which literally stretchalong coastal China, from Hong Kong in the southto Shenyangin thenorth.

Illustration 5. An overview of Hong Kong

Illusfation 6. BronzeBuddha in LantauIsland. 6

HongKon96

It is obviousthat globalized China is drivenby diverseelements, be they Chineseand non-Chinese memories, realities, subjectivities, and imaginations. How the elementsinteract can be probedthrough the exampleof Chinesetourism. Inside Chinese cities aremany hotels built to accommodatenational and international travelers. In these homesaway from homesthat offer all kinds of globaland brandedluxuries and desires, Chineseand non-Chinese people conduct their out-of-townbusiness, or comfortably enjoy their encounterswith China.As muchas the hotelsreveal foreign investments, technologies,and other global dreamsthat contemporaryChina has learned, hotels do not by themselvessuppress or invalidatewhat appearsor is believedto be Chineseand local. In fact, hotelsprovide many launchingpads for touriststo journey into Chinesehearts andminds. which cannot be accessedotherwise.

As a matterof fact,it is from hotels,most tourists board tour busesor limousines to visit naturaland historical vistas that monumentalize China. Traveling along congested roads,the tourists would sit in theircomfortable vehicles, breathe cleansed air, and listen to theirguides'introduction to the sites;sometimes they get mini-lectures on Chinese cultureand history-some toursguides are highly educatedspecialists who havejoined the tour industriesfor financialsurvival. Between the guides' talks, the touristswould rest with soft Chinesemusic specifically packaged to soothetheir bodies and souls. In additionto theirsightseeing and exploring activities, tourists would also attend cultural performances.These range from showsof Chinesefolk songsand dances,to traditional operasand ensemble music, and to acrobaticstunts accompanied by popularand Westernizedmusic. In short,if globalizedChinese tourism essentializes Chinese people andculture, it alsostimulates imaginations about them.

For this reason,one cannot categorically characterize touristic images and messagesabout China as inauthentic and devoid of Chinesemeanings. One should note that many tourist sitesin China,especially those built as theme-parksor entertainment centers,are created to satisfyChinese dreams and desires. The caseof SongCheng (Song City) in Hangzhouprovides a fascinatingcase, demonstrating how the global and the localjoined their forcesto stimulate memoriesabout a historicaltime andplace in China, whichis Lin'an, thecapital of the SouthernSong China (It27-1279). Hangzhou is where Lin'an oncestood. Built asa miniatureof thehistorical city, complete with streets, temples,shops, restaurants and homes, the theme-park sells dreams with a catchyslogan: "Geiwoyitian, huan ni qiannian."Literally it says"Give me oneday, and I will returnto you a thousandyears"-the promiseof makinghuge profits with a minusculeinvestment underscoresthe current Chinese gestalt of gettingrich quicklyand dramatically. In less emotivelanguage, what the sloganclaims is: "If you cometo visit this theme-parkfor oneday, you will leavewith memoriesof theSouthern Song dynasty of a thousandyears ago." lllustration7. Postsign,Songcheng, Hangzhou

Illustration 8. Drum and ribbon dance,Songcheng

Lin'an of thirteenth century China was a culturally creative and socially dynamic metropolis with a population of over one million. It was where romantic scholar-officials and beautiful courtesansfrolicked around its famous and scenic West Lake.? To help Chinesepeople get in touch with such a romantic past of the SouthernSong-one that Chineseoperas glamorizes, the Song Cheng was launchedin 1995;needless to say,the theme-parkwas also launchedto promote tourism in Hangzhou,uand to make money for the investors.In addition to manufacturing"southern Song" objectsand sights,the theme-park programs many daily activities and musical shows, such as the escorting of dignitarieswith drum and wind processionalmusic, and drumming by energeticyoung men at the city gate. Featuring catchy melodies and dynamic rhythms, the music is created to help visitors experience the exotic past of Southern Song China. Jaded world travelers will probably find nothing artistic and significant in these manufactured sights 8 and sounds.Some would not hesitateto criticize themas bastardized sounds of global tourism.Nevertheless, one shouldremember that Chinesemusic practitioners choose mix factswith fiction to makedreams. Their choice, needless to say,reflects not only their intellectualand emotional beings, but alsothe practical realities in theirdaily lives.

The mergingof realitiesand dreams in globalizedChina is propelledand reflected by hermedia. Like theirWestern counterparts, Chinese TV, radiostations and music corporationstrace consumers needs, design fashions for themto follow, andproduce and sell the productsthat they desire.The musicproducts thus marketed significantly overlap with what the consumersexperience in tourist vistas,theme- parks and entertainment centers.Listening to the commerciallypackaged music, consumers can relive the pleasuresthey haveexperienced in the tourist sitesor throughmovies and TV shows.As Chineseconsumers purchase music of their desire,they supporta rapidly expanding marketof musiccds, vcds, and dvds. In majorChinese cities, such as Beijing and Shanghai,there are multi-storied music shops that sell all kinds of musicproducts. These include,for example,Chinese and western musical instruments, manuals on how to composeand perform all kinds of Chineseand Western music genresand styles,books on musichistories and biographies, and so forth. The varietyof choicesavailable attests to thefact thatthe Chinese consumers have some agency in makingmusic the way theydo: manymake the music to specificallynegotiate who they are or hopeto become.

What makesglobalized Chinese music media a critical channelof music discoursesis the fact that it arguablyprovides the only officially sanctionedpublic and availablestage for Chineseto musicallynegotiate among themselves and with their nationaland international other. China has relatively few public musicperformance venues,and most live performancesare programmed as events in large-scalecultural festivalsthat the Chinesegovernment controls. China does not havephilanthropic and civic foundationsthat sponsorregular and affordable concerts for the generalpublic. Few Chineseuniversities have music departments and established concert programs that are opento the generalpublic, Large-scale and commercial concerts of popularmusic have recentlybecome an acceptedpractice in China;such concerts are, however, still occasionaland expensive events that mostChinese consumers can hardly afford.Many genresof popularmusic, especially those that involve musicallycreative and politically bold performers,can only be heardin smallcafes or bars.

Suchgovernment controlled media, nevertheless, did not stopChinese music practitionersfrom effectivelyprojecting and negotiatingtheir memoriesand imaginations. For the first time in Chinesemusic history, Chinese people can freely and strategically chooseand engage with a variety of historicaland contemporary geffes of Chinese music.'Visitingdifferent music stores in Chinaor globalwebsites, consumers can, for example,purchase bell-chime music associated with theancient Warring States (4758.C.8.-22IB.C.E.); (four-stringedlute) music notated in thousandyears old manuscriptsthat were once archived in theDunhuang caves and are now heldby museumsoutside China; lyrical ci songswritten by JiangKui (1155-1221),a thirteenth centuryChinese musical genius; virtuosic qin musicthat Zhu Quan(1378-1448), a Ming prince,has collected and published in his anthologyof 1425;flowing melodiesof Kun 9 ariasthat Wei Liangfu(1522-1572), a medicaldoctor, first developedin Taicangin JiangsuProvince; festive ensemble music of gongs,drums, and that flourished in lTtnand 18thcentury Jiangnan; masterpieces. of Peking operas that Mei Lanfan(1S94- 196l) createdin the early decadesof the 20tncentury; 'timeless"ethnic musics heard in contemporaryYunnan and other ethnic enclaves/autonomous regions; and avant-garde concertmusic composed by Chinesecomposers trained in theUS andin Europe.The list cango on andon.

This diversityis significant,and its representationof Chinesememories and imaginationscannot be underestimated.As differentgenres of historicaland contemporaryChinese music flourish in particularcontexts, they embodyparticularized Chinesetimes, places, aesthetics, peoples and events. Thus, when Chinese audiences individually,collectively, selectively, or sequentiallyconsume these different expressions of Chinesemusic, they are finding different musical roots and platforms to consructand negotiatetheir Chinese self. In a sense,globalized media has allowed Chinese to musicallyexercise their individual agency and to betterconstruct and communicate who theyare and want to become.Chinese people know how to dealwith hegemonicforces, a wisdomthat is encapsulatedby theirsaying that if theauthorities have controlling policies,the mass have their counteracting strategies (shang you zhengce,xia you duiche).

This doesnot meanglobalized Chinese media do not blur differencesand create new homogeneities,the cultural,political, and artisticramifications of which can be conffoversial.One amongmany of suchhomogeneities is a contemporaryand popular sonictexture that can be found in many genresof globalizedChinese musics, popular, ethnic,or elite. It generallyfeatures melodies played by someChinese string or wind instrumentsto the rhythmic, harmonic,and contrapuntalaccompaniments played by pipa, the dulcimer$tangyin), the expandedmoon-guitar (ruan), cello or otherbass instruments. The harmonicappreggios, short counterpoints, and deepbass lines of the textureare very distinctive,and evocative of Westernconcert music of eighteenthand nineteenth century Europe.

Music example 1. An aria from the Peony Pavilion, the Young Lovers'Edition

Historical sources and recordings render it clear that such a sonic texture has only becomea homogenizedand homogenizingstandard since the 1960s.Needless to say,its musical and cultural merits can be debated.Rather than analyzing how the texture is Westernor Chinese, global or local, artistically empowering or suffocating, it is perhaps more constructiveto investigatehow the textureembodies Chinese ideologies, practices, experiences,and desires.

To do so, one needsto review the developmentof contemporaryChinese instrumentalmusic since at least the 1950s,a complex story that vividly tells how Chinese manipulate the global and the Chinese to musically negotiate their Chinese self.l0The sonic texture being discussedcomes out of Chineseinstrumental music that is flexibly labeled minyue (commoners' music), Chinese instrumental music (zhongguo qiyue), or Chinesemusic (minzuyinyue). Played with mostly Chinesemusical 10 instruments,such as , pipa, guz.heng,and , and featuring melodies and rhythmsthat evoke traditional China, contemporary Chinese instrumental music is sonicallyquite distinct from Westernand other world musics. This doesnot meanthat it includesno non-Chineseand global elements. As a matterof fact,the music is essentially a resultof the extensiveand drasticmusic reforms that the socialistChinese government launchedsince it took control of the Chinesenation and culturein 1949.Vigorously implementedbetween the 1950sand the early mid 1980s,the musicreforms were propelledby both internationaland national forces, political, cultural,and musical.

ImperialChina collapsed in 1911,after beinp invaded by Westerngun power and scientificand technological might sincethe 1830s,"and downgraded into a backward andsemi-colonial nation and culture. To reviveand modernize China, China imported all kindsof Westernideologies and practices, including those of music.In fact,many leading earlytwentieth century Chinese intellectuals and officials, such as Youmei(1884- 1940),openly argued that traditionalChinese music wasbackward, and that musical Chinacould only be modernizedbyemulating the West.12To materializetheir musical vision, the modernizedmusic intellectualsand officials adoptednot only westernmusic languageof tonal harmoniesand orchestral textures, but alsopromoted Western music in thenewly established schools and conservatories.

Beforemusical China became totally westernized, however, China became a socialistnation-state that asserted her own independenceand identity. To projecther musicalindependence and self, socialist China promote commoners'musics at the expenseof eliteand westernized genres. This is to saythat since 1949,all genres of traditionalChinese musics produced and consumed by Chinesecommoners, ranging from folksongsto narrativesinging to operas,were nominally "liberated" and performed as musicalexpressions of thenew China.

This musicalliberation was significant, because it politicallyand nominally removedthe socialand cultural stigmaassociated with Chinesecommoner musicians and their music.In imperial China,cornmoner musicians enjoyed little socialprestige; they mostly operatedas music entertainers and music servants,and their music was delegated as vernacular,if not vulgar andundesirable, games and hobbies. Historically speaking, Chineseplayed a lot of musicalinstruments in ritual,processional, dramatic, and leisure contexts,but they hardly performedconcerts of instrumentalmusic-only the elite could affordto play theirqin andpipain theirprivate studios for dedicatedlisteners.

To totallyliberate Chinese commoners' music and to renderit a proudexpression of the new China,it hasto be transformed.Music of the new Chinacannot sonically remindits audiencesof the "feudalistic"and "backward"China. In musicalterms. this demandsa new type of soundsthat is both Westernand Chinese. The new soundsshould, on onehand, favorably compete with Westernmusic, the internationalstandard, and on the otherhand, sonically projects China as distinctive and independent. Traditional genres, especiallythe operatic and narrative ones, and their heterophonic textures may sound distinctivelyChinese, but theycannot serve the modern and westernized needs of socialistChina. They do not havepowerful harmonies and sophisticated counterpoints. 11

And they haveChinese lyrics which areonly intelligible to Chinese.In this context, contemporaryChinese instrumental music, and the sonictexture of melodies, counterpoints,harmonies and rhythms played by Chinesemusical instruments rapidly emerges.

It is a developmentthat hassignificantly benefited from westernizedmusic educationin new China.Even thougha numberof commonermusic masters were invited asprofessors to teachtraditional genres and music practices in the newly established conservatoriesand music academies, the westernized institutions were staffed by many musiciansand administrators who grewup in republicChina and admired Western instrumentaland concert musicas an "universallanguage" fhat is not limitedby national linguisticsor regionaldialects. Thus, out of theconservatories, creative and imaginative contemporaryChinese instrumental music arises.That it hasarrived is vividly confirmed by theinstitution of professionalChinese musical orchestras; since the mid 1970s,all Chinesecities have their own Chineseorchestras,l3 just asBerlin, London, New York, andParis have their philharmonicenterprises.

As demandfor Chineseinstrumental music increases,and as the potentialsto makemoney with themusic presents themselves since the late 1980s,new formsof teaching,learning, and marketing have emerged, all of which combineto homogenize Chineseinstrumental music directly andindirectly. Thus, many individual master instrumentalistshave set up commercialstudios to teachprivate students. With the advanceof vcdsand dvds,enterprising teachers have compiled and produced printed and electronictutors for studentsto learnat homeand on their own, transmittingChinese instrumentalcompositions and performance techniques wide andfar.la Some teachers and their educationalinstitutions have in the last five or six yearsbegun to promote"distant learning,"that is teachingand learning via TV programsand internet.Such electronic outreachprograms, needless to say,not only affirm the diversifyingand homogenizing forcesof the Chinesemedia, but alsoreveal the cultural and social dimensions in globalizedChinese music.

In fact,the development of contemporaryChinese instrumental music and its typicalsonic texture would not be so successfulif theyare not supportedby all kindsof musicpractitioners. Realizing the charm of music,their cultural and social meanings, and potentialsfor makingprofits or socialclimbing, manyChinese parents make their childrenlearn to play musicalinstruments. The parents'top choicesof musicalinstrument alwaysinvolve piano,ls violin, ,erhu, andpipa, themost popular western and Chinesemusical instruments in China.It is significantthat the piano and violin figure prominentlyin this cultural and socialdiscourse; it underscoresthe hegemonicposition of Western/westernizedmusic in China.Anyway, growing up with yearsand years of music lessons,many become dedicated audiences, if not skilledamateurs. Some even go on to conservatoriesto try to becomeprofessional musicians. Many would give up their dreams beforeor after their graduation,learning new trades.

If suchtrades or thenecessity of findingnew means of livelihoodtrades prompt themto emigrateout China,they bring theirglobalized Chinese insffumental music to T2

their new homesin North America,Australia, and Europe. As a result,throughout the globalizedworld, wherever there are Chinese people, there is Chinesemusic, which often meanscontemporary Chinese instrumental music, whether it is playedon thepiano or on theguzheng. And in many overseasChinese communities, there are always a numberof professionalor semi-professionalChinese music ensembles perpetuating and spreading theirarts and Chinese self privately or publicly.Many collaboratewith localand non- Chineseartists, creating music that fuses diverse genres ranging from bluesto concertos, andfrom jazz and to world music.Through the effortsof the overseasChinese musicians. manynon-Chinese audiences have become exposed to Chinesemusic, traditional, contemporary,or fusion.When their understandingsof suchsounds are confirmed by their visits to Chinaor viewing of Chinesehit movies,such as Ang Lee's CrouchingTiger and HiddenDragons, they learnto imagineChina through the instrumentalsounds that they haveexperienced.

The interactionsof globaland local elements and the operation of Chineseagency in contemporaryChinese instrumental music constitute an uniquediscourse of the Chineseself. It is neverthelessnot an isolatednegotiation; related discourses can be foundwith othergenres of Chinesemusic, the compositions of whichinclude many examplesof the sonictexture being discussed here. To illustrate,the genres of Chinese concertmusic, Chinese tongsuyinyue, and Chinese minority music can be brieflv discussedhere.

Chineseconcert music, namely music that Chinese composers create with the languageof Westernor internationalconcert, holds a particularlyvalorized niche in Chinesemusical imaginations of the Chineseself andthe Westernother. To appealto bothChinese but non-Chineseaudiences, Chinese concert music closely emulites Westernconcert music-many Chineseartists perform the two genresinterchangeably.

To engagewith thisdiscourse, Chinese conservatories devote a lot of energies andresources to ffain generationsof Chinesepianists, violinists, singers, conductois, and composerswho canmusically compete with their Westerncounterparts. In return, wheneverthese Chinese musicians achieve international successes, they certify China' musicalprowess. This is why when Chineseperformers won internationalcompetitions, they makenational history, and why the winnersare national heroes. Li Yundi, *ho *on the grandprize of the InternationalFrederick Chopin Piano Competition in 2000,is, for example,is a shiningstar among such heroes. Chinese admiration of musicalheroes extendsto overseasChinese. To citebut a few,these include Chinese or Chinese- Americancomposers like TanDun, Bright sheng,Chen Yi, andZhou Long who havehad musicaltraining in Chinabefore their immigration to theWest and earning international famethere; their individual glories are collectively clarmed by Chinesepeople. And their individualizedand westernized musical styles become models for thosestruggling to achieveinternational fame.

Anotherunique music discourseof Chineserealities and desires can be found in chinesetongsu yinyue,r6 a particularlytype of popularmusic that the chinese governmentand government controlled media have engineered and promoted, one that 13 highlightslocalized expressions and competitions among Chinese people. When China openedher doors in theearly 1980s,Hong Kong andThiwanese popular music promptly floodedMainland China. With newsounds and styles, which have significantly emulated Westernand Japanese popular musics, the music of peripheralChina captivated Mainland Chineseaudiences by satisfyingtheir needsfor musicalexpression. During the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976), one shouldremember, Chinese music audiencelistened to only revolutionarysongs and operas, music that rigidly followedofficial guidelines.Socialist Chinaof theearly 1980shad no popularmusic in thewestern and current sense of the term.

To counteractthe "invasion"of Chinesemusical imports, Mainland China promptlydeveloped a newcontrolled version of popularmusic. Subsequently known as tongsuyinyue,it features sounds more stylistically varied and innovative than what mainlandChinese audience knew in therecent past. To fight for audiences,it actually incorporatesmusical elements from the West,the WesternizedAsia of Japan,Korea, Taiwan,and Hong Kong, andfrom otherexotic landsand peoples. To serveits political and socialgoals, however, the musichas to makestylistic and compositional compromises.As a result,while tongsuyinyue has successfully appealed to a large numberof Chinesemusic consumers, it doesnot satisfythe musicalneeds of the young andadventurous. It alsodoes not temptthose who havestudied in the Westand have returnedto China to maketheir fortunes.They would prefer actualimports from the West; somewould alsoengage with morechallenging and more hybridized genres of Chinese popularmusic, such as yaogunyinyue, a genrethat mixes American rock n roll practices with Chineseaesthetics.

The youngand challenging genres have already critically impacted musical China, andin particularthey have encouraged Chinese minority musicians to singtheir own tunes.Nominally, socialist China embraces her minority peoples as equals, but gives them,in reality,only controlledrooms for self-expressionand representation. Until recent years,when Chineseethnic music is heardoutside its own homelandand insideMainland China,it is often adjustedand packaged with Han aestheticsand practices. With China beingglobalized, and becoming politically andculturally more andmore open, governmentconffol has loosened. And astourism opens exotic and ethnic Chinas to the world, and asnational policies and traffic stimulatesdialogues, Chinese ethnic minorities beginto singmore openly, mixing theglobal and the local in theirown ways,and negotiatingtheir Chinese and ethnic self.

China'sglobalized past

Collectively,contemporary Chinese instrumental music, Chinese concert music, Chinesetongsu yinyue, Chinese minority music,and other traditional as well asnew genresevidence a very complexChinese musical present, and a very distinctivemixing of theglobal, the local, the new, and the old. What drivessuch a phenomenoninvolves the Chinesepractitioners' human rights to acquirefor themselvesthe empiricalor T4 imaginedidentities and lives that they cavort.Thus, whenever that self is factuallyor psychologicallythreatened, the effortsto preserveand to adjustthe treasuredself promptly emerge.As successfulas Chinese are today, they feel "threatened."They have manypainful and shamefulmemories from recentand semi-colonialpast, and they know that the othersare watching and competing.lT They haveto constructa new Chineseself that allow themto establishthemselves and to successfullycomplete with the other.

Sucha constructionand renewal need guidance and authentication, and Chinese look everywherefor modelsand lessons. Oftentimes they look backto China'spast insights:they know that,in broadterms, their ancestorshave experienced and successfullyaddressed what they areexperiencing nowadays. A multitudeof people, ideas,and objectshave moved across diverse temporalities, great distances, contrasting culturesand rivaling socialunits in historicalChina, generating tensions and negotiations, producingparticularized needs and results, and satisfyingand crushing particularized desiresand dreams.Empirically speaking,historical Chinese regularly and actively engagedwith peoplesand cultures stretched across the Eurasian continent, and along its longcoast line. Needless to say,the speedand scale of thenegotiations and transformationswere slowerand limited, whencomparing to what is happeningin the 21'tcentury world. The negotiationsand transformations were, however, global in many sensesof theterm.

As Chineseexamine their historytrying to learnfrom their ancestors,they found perspicaciouslessons that demonstrate how a tenaciousand powerful Chinese self can be consffuctedin particularizedplaceand time, andhow changeand continuities can be authenticatedand justified to advanceChinese causes and interests. Many of these lessons,it shouldbe noted,involves music. To reviewthese lessons, their ideologies and practicescan be summarizedand discussed in generaland musical terms.

Chinesebelieve that their self is tenaciousand well-defined because it is richly andempirically supported.Chinese have written andpreserved a seaof documentsabout theirpast, projecting an official andcontinuous history of a peoplewho haveproduced a distinctivecivilization. Complementing this history are many unofficial but cherished oralhistories and personal memories. And confirmingsuch histories and memories are manyhistorical sites and monuments, among which the Chinese live theirdaily lives,and uponwhich numerous expressions of theChinese self have been inscribed. In other words,Chinese are constantly reminded of theirChinese self by theirmaterial and non- materialenvironment. And theysee themselves in sucha context.

Chinesealways know who they arebecause they know their family genealogies. They respectfullyworship their deadancestors, filially servethose who arealive, and tenderlynourish their children.This doesnot, however,mean that the Chineseself is largelya matterof DNAs. In additionto biologicaland racial matters, the Chinese self hasalways been constructed along religious, cultural, ethnic, and social fissures. Many Chinesebelieve they are Chinese because they practice Confucian, Daoist, or other ideologiesand practices that aredistinctively associated with the Chineseculture and 15 people.Chinese know that they alwayslive in a geographicalor intellectualhome called China.

Suchfirm beliefsin theChinese self are, however, very much a responseto the other.If Chinaproper is geographicallydefined as the landmarked by naturalboundaries, suchas the China Sea, the Gobi Desert,the Himalayan Mountains, and if Chinesepeople is understoodas Han Chinese,China is surroundedby a diversityof non-Hanpeoples living in landsalong the Chinese border. Throughout Chinese history, Han Chinesehave beenthreatened by thesenon-Han peoples. In fact,it is becauseof suchgeographical, historical,and ethnic realities that Han Chinesehave stamped on their culturalminds the evaluativedichotomies of theChinese (hua) versus the non-Chinese (yl),18 the inner (zhong)versus the outer(wai), andthe civilized (ya) versusthe vulgar (srz).Given their constantinteractions, especially those cross-ethnic and cross cultural marriages, the grey areasbetween the polaritiesare, nevertheless substantive and change as needed. There are alwaysquestions whether a personcan be racially a non-Hanbut culturally a Han.And given the fact that Han Chinesehave for the mostpart negotiatedfrom a dominant position,they subjectivelybelieve that they aresftong enough to absorband sincize anythingthat they take from thenon-Han and non-Chinese. This is why Chinesedeclare thatwhatever enters China, it eventuallytransforms or is transformedinto something Chinese.

Suchrhetorics work for the Chinese,because their temporalitiescan flexibly expandor shrink,and their pastand present are often deliberatelyand sfategically intermingled.When documentingthe pastas events that happened,Chinese meticulously traceits beginningsto primordialtimes, and minutely mark its long processas a continuousseries of dynasties,individual reigns, and chronological years when influentialindividuals performed significant acts, or expressedseminal idea. As a contrast, whenChinese engage with thepast as what it meansto thempersonally, the chronologicalage of thepast hardly matters. The past becomes something that is vividly rememberedand close at hand,and the differences between the past and the present can be easilydissolved. An artisticexpression of suchChinese sense of time is theiroperas, whichoften tell historicalstories with anachronisticaesthetics, costumes, practices, and otherdetails. Another testimonial is the fact that Chinesehave collected an abundanceof antiqueswhich they displayfor themselvesand for the other.Indeed, with the help of antiquesand archeologicalfinds, Chinesecan alwaysclaim that they can reconstructthe lost andforgotten past, no matterhow chronologicallyold it is andhow little its physical presencehas been preserved. Given their respectfor the meritoriousancestors, and given their survivalinstinct to forget the painful past,Chinese have no problemremembering the pastfondly. This is why throughoutChinese history Chinesehave often attemptedto returnto theglorious past, emulating the ancient ancestors' institutions and expressions. Thefugu (returnto the past)literary movementof Han Yu (768-824)and other Tang and Songauthors, is, for example,not an isolatedphenomenon. It echoesmany court efforts to emulate/reconstructperfect music of ancientsage-kings; one particularly grand exampleof theseefforts is theMusic of GreatBrilliance of Huizongof theNorthern Song.le I6

Being informedand pragmatic, however, Chinese know that they cannotliterally andcomprehensively reconstruct the past; thus they strategically focus on reconsffucting its essenceor spirit.This ideologyand practice is philosophicallyand empirically grounded.The world manifestsitself asa myriad of peoples,institutions, and animated andunanimated objects; they areconstantly changing, but they do not renderthe world a chaos;beneath the constantchanges are unchanging principles, namely the Dao or the Way,which explainseverything. Yijing, or The Classicsof Change,eloquently explains anddemonstrates such changes and principles with its constantlymutating trigrams and hexagrams.

Listeningto theirmusical ancestors, Chinese music practitioners find many musicalimplementations of theabove ideologies and practices. They understand that musichelps distinguish the selffrom theother: similar and different sounds embody differentpeoples and cultures from differentlands. It is an understandingthat guides Chineseto classifytheir music according to landsand the people who live there.The Classicof Poetry$hijing), for examples,classifies the folksongs registered in its pages accordingto the fifteen nationsfrom wherethey originated.Chinese music history has many labelsof musicalgenres that identify peoplesand lands.These include for example, Songsfrom the Wu area,Songs from the Westernland, and the Xu schoolof qin music in theZhejiangarea (Xumen zhecao).

Organizingtheir musicalmemories, Chinese chronicle the origins,developments, andrepertories of their music.Thus they describethe Shao and Wu of the Zhou dynasty (ca.1066 BCE-77I BCE),the Chamber Music (Fangzhongyue)of theHan (206BCE- 220C8),and so forth. To evaluatethe musicthey haveexperienced, however, Chinese ask whetherthe historicized genres of music areya (civilizedand civilizing) or not.20All musicthat cultivate people's virtues and promote their social harmony are civilized music, a more or lessmonopoly of the elite Chinese.Hardly any music of the commoners, regardlessof whetherthey areHan or no, wereaccepted as civilized; they could only becomecivilized when they hadbeen disciplined by the Chineseelite. Lamentingthe corruptedand confused states of musicin theirown timesand places, Chinese musical elite in historicalChina often calledfor a returnto ancientmusic by emulatingperfect compositionsof the sagesand their harmonious societies, and by usingauthentic musical instrumentsof thepast.

Chinesemusicians can always reconnect with pastmusics because they emphasizefundamental and salientfeatures that havebeen preserved through the ages,or thatcan be reconstructedin thepresent. ZhangZai (1020-1077) of NorthernSong China,2lfor example,argued that peopleshould not try to find ancientmusic through only technicaldetails, such as measurements of pitch standardsand tuning; they should alsounderstand and reconstruct the musicalpasts though the fundamentalsof why and how ancientpeople make music to servetheir personaland socialneeds like they do. With sucha personaland pragmatic view of musicspast and present, Chinese can connectthe musical past and present with a minimumof verifiableevidence. In the 1840s, Xie Yuanhuai,for example,reconstructed Song dynasty ci melodieswith the T7 understandingthat their singingpractices directly developedfrom thoseof Thngand Songtimes.

Sucha broadview alsoallows Chinese to claimall kindsof musictheir own. and especiallythose that had foreign origins or wereinspired by externalforces. They know that over time, musicaldifferences can become blurred, and musical associations of peopleand cultures can shift. Supporting this view aremany well-documented and well- knowncases in chinesemusic history. These include, for examplezhangeian's (195BCE-114BCE)introduction of drumand wind musicfrom centralAsia into China,a traditionwhich subsequently took root in Chinaand blossomed among chinese commoners;Cao Zhi's (192-232)creation of Chinesechanting for Indianand Buddhist sutras,sounds that eventually permeated religious China; centralAsian musicians' importationof the quxiangpipa (pipa with bentneck) and musical modes into Sui (58 1 - 618)and Thng (618-907) China, which transformed Chinese music model theories; the localizationand sincization of ethnicentertainment music in the Tangcourt; the rise of stylisticallyrobust northern aria in YuanChina (I271-1368)that the Mongoliansand northernChinese ruled; the performancesof non-Hanethnic musics in early sixteenth centuryMing court; EmperorKangxi's (reigned166l-1722) embracing of European cultureand music. The list cango on andon, registering how theChinese have embraced andappropriated music with foreignorigins and elements.

Thecritical thread in theChinese embracing of differentmusic is theirability to selectivelyand imaginatively remember and forget complex musical exchanges in the pastso thatthey can meaningfully construct a musicalself in thepresent. Realizing the dynamicsof changeand non-change, and the permanenttruth of the Dao, Chineseadopts a music aestheticsthat handsomelyserves their subjectivitiesand realities. Rather than conceptualizingmusic as objects,Chinese theorize and practice music as a discourse. Music, as a genuineexpression from andcommunication between human hearts, should serveas a meansof self-cultivationand governance. This is why Confuciusasks: Oh music,music, does it meanonly the strikingof drumsand gongs?

In otherwords, as long asmusic expresses the participants' hearts and serves their agendas,the musicis theirs.Musical elementsincorporated from outsideChina do not shatterthe Chinese self, as long asthey have been embraced and sincized. Because Chinesehave to constantlyinteract with thenon-Chinese, they cannot stop non-Chinese elementsfrom seepinginto their music,and they cannever purge foreign impuritiesAnd they alsoembrace "foreign music," if it is the universallanguage that they needto speak to survive.

In the 1910sand 1920s,Mei Lanfang(1894-1961), the legendary Peking Opera performerand cultural diplomat,transformed the gelre as he adjustedhis performances for his American,Japanese and Russian audiences.'"I'o communicate the Chinese self to his foreignaudiences, a selfthat was constructed in oneof themost difficult, if not shameful,time in Chinesehistory, Mei boldly learnedfrom theWest. To askwhat is Chineseand what is Westernor whatis authenticand inauthentic in his Pekingopera trivializeshis Herculeanefforts. One should ask what he wasnegotiating, and how he 18 constructedthe Chineseself of his time throughhis operas.He declaredthat he had merelymoved the stepsof PekingOpera; he hadnot alteredits shapergibu bu huanxing).

MusicalDiscourses of the ChineseSelf

FollowingMei Langfan,many Chinese music practitioners, especially those in socialistChina, have boldly transformedChinese music as a mediumto negotiatethe Chineseself that they imaginefor themselvesand for the other.Remembering selected Chinesepasts, implementing native ideologies and practices, and sinicizingforeign and global elements,they haveproduced many musical works that representa multi-faceted Chineseself, an alloy of diverseelements. Nine examplesof suchworks andnine facets of the Chineseself that they representcan be discussedhere-for the convenienceof discussion.each musical work will be discussedwith onefacet of theChinese self; in reality,a Chinesemusical work can simultaneousproject one or more facets.The facets discussedare: the historical and spectacular, the civilized and expressive, the religious and social,the populistand regional, the imperialand orderly, the modernand international,the genderedand sensuous,the exotic andethnic, and the young and lovable.23

In October2005, I attendeda concertat the TropicalMuseum in Amsterdam,one eventin a month-longcelebration of Chineseculture in Holland.The starof the concert 2a wasa replicaof the ancient,gigantic, and world-renown Marquis Yi bell-chimes, which was specificallytransported to Holland for the occasion.The piecethat drew my attention in the perforrnancewas the "Plum Blossom(Meihua sannong)," a favoritecomposition for the qin, the Chineseseven-string . As performedin the Dutch museum,the piece wasa globaland schizophrenic mix of musicalelements, temporalities, sites, aesthetics, andagents; it simplifiesthe exquisite and complex qin compositioninto a shortand hummabletune played on a modernChinese zither (guz.heng) accompanied by thebell- Chimesand other Chinese musical instruments. The zitherist wore a costumethat evoked imagesof princesor noblemenacting on Chineseoperatic stages. The deepsounds of the big bellsechoed in thelarge and domed hall, generating sonic confrontations between ancientand modern Chinese pitches, and between Chinese musical insffuments and Europeanedifice.

Somecultural critics would chastisethe performanceas tourist,inauthentic, and fractured.Given the global interestin the bell-chimesas an ancientmusical instrument andgiven contemporary Chinese musicians'efforts to incorporateits distinctivesounds in their compositionsand performances, it would be moremeaningful to interpretthe specialrendition of the"Plum Blossom"in Amsterdamas a musicaland globalized discourseof thehistorical and spectacular Chinese self. The physical being of the sixty- five bells,and the technologies that minted them in ancienttimes and replicated them in thepresent constitute a statementof Chinesehistoricity and technology, one that few can refute.The musicians'anachronistic use of youngtunes on ancientmusical instruments or their replicasis rootedin the Chineseideology and practices of returningto the past.The 19

Amsterdamperformance was no accidentbut a deliberateand internationalnegotiation of what is historically and spectacularlyChinese.

Illustration9. A performanceof bell-chimemusic

At theTropical Museum, Amsterdam

Music example2.The "PlumBlossom," performed with bell- chimes., and other Chinese musical instruments.

As the "Plum Blossom"echoed in theTropical Museum, it remindedme of many otherperformances and recordings of the piece,and of the scholarshipabout the genre. As documentedin traditionalChina and discussed nowadays, qin musicis themusic par excellenceof the traditionalChinese elite, namely scholar-officials, land owners,and sociallyprivileged artists.2s To illustratehow qin-musicevokes the civilized and expressiveChinese self, oneonly needsto listen to the "Plum Blossom"in its musical andhistorical contexts. Allegedly, the piecewas first composedby HengYi, an elite who lived in the late fourth century,as music;then it wasreafianged into a qin composition.By1425, Zhu Quan,a Ming prince,declared it asa classicfrom thirteen centuryChina, and had its musicnotated and explained.'o Since then, the pieceappears in manyqin handbooks,attesting to the vibrancyand continuity of the qin vadition, andthe civilizedand expressive Chinese elite it projects.This evocationis sonicallyanchored: as demonstratedby the "PlumBlossom," qin musicfeatures nuanced pitches, subtle rhythms,elaborate melodies, complex and developing structures.

If one takesqin musicas merely music of traditionalChinese elite, however, one missesits contemporaryand globalized timbres. Although it is still performedin the privatehomes of many4lre connoisseurs and amateurplayers, many of whom arehighly educated,socially privileged, and internationallyconnected, qin musicis more often performedin concerthalls andwith metal-stringswrapped in silk-the traditionalsilk strings,which easilygo out of tune,cannot produce sounds that can reachaudiences 20

sitting in the back of largeauditoriums. And to appealto the globalizedaudiences who listen to recordedqin musicto seektemporary relief from their fast andmundane lives, manylong 4lz compositionshave been abridged and condensed, and their unexpected tonal dissonancesand "white noises"produced by the performers'fingernails scraping silk stringshave been sanitized. If so,what do sanitizedversions of "Plum Blossom" negotiate?The civilized and expressive Chinese self of the20th and 21'tcenturies is an answerthat debates about the music obviously suggest.

Illustration 10 . An elite qin party; an excerpt from Du Jin's (active ca. 1465-1509)"Eighteen Scholars."

Music example 3. Li Xiangting plays the "Plum Blossom" onthe qin.27

In April and May of 2007,I visited Singapore,trying to learn somethingabout multi-cultural and multi-ethnic music in that former British colony, which is now a center of global finance and electronic technology. The hybrid sounds or avant-garde sonorities that I experienced there were impressive, but none overwhelmed me as the traditional chanting in Thian Hock Keng (the Temple of Heavenly Bliss). Through the sounds, I experienced the religious and social Chinese self. May 9 was the birthday of Mazu, the ChineseGoddess of Seaworshipped by numerousChinese, especially those who live along coastal China, and those who have immigrated to SoutheastAsia and North America. One performance among the chanting particularly contrasted with the hybrid soundsI heard in Singapore.Accompanied by the minimalist accompaniment of a tinkling bell and a wooden-fish (muyu), the rhythmic and monotonous chant of repentanceby the monk and his congregation had no easily identifiable traces of globalizationor hybridity. 2l

Illusffation 11.Thian Hock KengTemple in Singapore

Music example4. Chantingin Thian Hock Keng Temple,INday 9, 2007

Nevertheless,a brief conversationwith thetemple secretary promptly confirmed thata globaland highly intricatenetwork operated behind the "timeless"Chinese chant. As I learned,the 2007 celebrations at theThian Hock KengTemple represented a renewedpractice of hiringlocal Singaporean Buddhist and Daoist monks to performthe requiredrituals andchants. For the last decade,clergymen from Mainland China,were hired.The localmonks are, however, not withoutChinese connections.They constantly communicatewith their colleaguesin MeizhouIsland in Fujian Province,China, the hometownof the goddess,who oncelived thereas a womannamed Lin Mo. Many ChineseSingaporeans shuttle between China and Singapore,demonstrating the ways overseasChinese negotiate their Chineseself with the restof the world, influencing nationaland international politics.2s The administrationof theThian Hock Keng,one shouldnote, represents a local institution which has significant financial and civil holdingsin Singapore,and which works with the Singaporeangovernment to generatea Singaporeanidentity,2e The Thian Hock Kengchants beg the question what drives the ChineseSingaporean monk andcongegation to chantthe way they did. Oneobvious answeris thatthey want to andcan afford to singas Chinese as they can imagine, an observationthat many writings on Chinesereligion, overseasChinese, Chinese politics, and identitiesconfirm.3O When they sing in that way,they not only transportthemselves to a religiousand social China that they desire,but alsoconnect themselves to all Mazu worshippersliving insideand outside China. 22

Illustration 12. Cai Qiufengprays to Mazu

Musicexample 5. Cai Qiufengsings "Praise to Mazu."

Many of theseMazu worshippershave ancestral roots in Fujian, and they are proudto presentthemselves as Fujianese or Hokkien people,a cultural and socialidentity that atteststo the populistand regional in the Chineseself. A musicalrepresentation of this globalizedregional self is the "Praiseto Mazu" ("Mazu song),"a recordingof which I purchasedin Singapore.It featuresa Chinesefemale vocalist singing a religioustext in the Thiwanese/flokkiendialect-the melodyclosely match the linguistic tonesof the lyrics-and to theaccompaniment of Chinesewoodblock, gong, synthesizers and other globalizedmusical instruments. Listen to themusic, one asks what kind of Chinese wouldconsume such a populistand religious song in Singapore.They areapparently Chineseor ChineseSingaporean with Hokkienheritage who live in Singaporeor any contemporaryand globalized Chinese city. They honor Mazu with traditionaland sacred chantingin hertemple, but theycan also engage with thegoddess in privatesites with modernand secular music. As themusic store devoted to ChineseBuddhist and Daoist music that I shoppedin Singaporeattests, the boundarybetween their sacredand secular worlds is peneffable.The do not seewhy they shouldnot communicatewith their goddessin their daily dialectand in popularstyles-a practicethat generationsand generationsof religio-usChinese have perfected, and demonstrated with their musicaland religiousdocuments." This is particularlythe case, if populistand regional praises to Mazu can generatefinancial profits: the singerand the producerdid not cut the recording of the "Praiseto Mazu" in Taiwanfor nothing-the islandis a centerof Mazu worship andworshippers.32

Shoppingmusic in Chinaand Hong Kong in thelast couple of years,I havefound quitea numberof reissuesof the"East is Red,"a de factosonic symbol of ChairmanMao, andof the imperialand orderlyChinese self. The songwas originally composedin L943 by a farmerin Yan'anbut was subsequentlytransformed into a revolutionarystatement. As the themesong of a political andmulti-media spectacle of the early 1960s,the song wasregularly and prevailingly performed all over Chinaduring the Cultural Revolution 23

(1966 to 1976).33The song was also broadcastedto the world by the first Chinesesatellite, when it orbited around the earth (April 24 toMay 14,1970).

Illustration13. VCD jacketfor "The Eastis Red"

Music example6. The "Eastis Red."

Featuringa folksy melodyand a Chineselyric, and often performedwith vocal solosand choruses with orchestralaccompaniment of Chineseand Western musical instruments,the songis an anthemof contemporaryChina. Chinese of the 1960sand 70s sang"East is Red"as a politicalstatement. 2l't centuryChinese, who arenow more concernedabout making money than doing politics, engagewith the songfor more intellectualand cultural reasons. They are probably nostalgic of a recentpast, a time whenthey survived greattragedies and misfortunes, and a time whenChina appeared to be unitedand orderly. Like theirancestors, they remember spectacles-in imperial China, foundersof new dynastiesalways had grand spectacles performed to celebrateunification andnew order,

Currentstudies of Chinesepolitics and collective psychology have suggested that Chinesecrave the imperialand orderlyChinese self, '" when they facedifficult present anduncertain future. At suchtimes, historically and culturally rootedideologies and practiceswould powerfully promptthem to imaginethat a new and greatleader would emerge,bring orderto their world, andteach them how to competewith the West.When Chineseconsumers listen to the "Eastis Red" they hearechoes of the imperial and orderlyChinese self, do they not?Despite signs of greateconomic progress and material gains,contemporary China is plaguedwith social,environmental, and political problems. 24

This is why as chineseindulge themselves with grandechoes, they remind themselvesto act modernand internationalized,a representationof sucha Chineseself vividly emergeswith ThnDun's Symphony1997. Acontemporaryand unconventional work commissionedby the Chinesegovernment to celebrateHong Kong's returnto Chinain 1997,the symphonyfeatures a varietyof soundsthat reference diverse peoples, cultures,sites, and temporalities. The symphonyincludes, for example,ancient sounds playedon theoriginal set of theMarquis Yi bell-chimes,echoes of Beethoven'sNinth Symphony,field recordingof a streetperformance of a classicalCantonese opera, innocentvoices of Hong Kongchildren, and mesmerizing cello solos performed by Yo-yo Ma. And with the Westernorchestra sounds providing a grid for all the mixed timbres,the symphonyprojects Chinese and universaldreams about heaven, earth, mankind,and the humanspirit. Like the multi-mediaspectacle of "The Eastis Red," TanDun's Symphony 1997is a political statementand imagination that the Chinesegovernment penned with the handsof an internationalstar composer, one who whoseglobal preeminence is attestedby his OscarAward. To representthe modernand international Chinese self, and to reachintemational audiences, especially the Western elite, what would be more appropriatethan a globalizedsymphony? The symphonygenerated more Western reviews thanChinese ones."

Illustration14. Tan Dun, Bell-chimes,and a statement36

Music example7. Excerptsfrom TanDun's Symphony1997.

How the averageChinese commoners would respondto theSymphony 1997 is not a long-termissue for the Chinesegovernment." That they probablyprefer more pleasurablesounds is attestedby the internationalsuccess of the TwelveGirls Music Band,and their projection ofthe genderedand sensuous Chinese self. Featureing beautifuland virtuosic young Chinese women musicians playing a mixtureof Chinese andWestern tunes with Chinesemusical instruments in a stylethat can only be described asglobal and popular, the band, which was launched in Beijingin 2001and then marketedworldwide with Japanesehelp, has attracted many Chinese and non-Chinese audiencesinside and outside China.'o It hasalso attracted a lot of criticismamong Chineseaudiences and critics, just asgendered and vernacular Chinese music did in traditionaland Confucian China. Many criticsfind thegirls' blendof Chinese,Western 25

andworld musics,as demonstratedby their performanceof the "Liu sanjie(SisterThree of the Liu Family"tune, superficial;and many would objectto their sexistmarketing of Chinesemusic. The moralunderpinning of manycriticism of theband is a Confucian ideologyand practice: music should be usedto cultivatevirtues, not corruptpeople's aspirationsand topple nations with sexywomen performing vulgar sounds.

* a I ,,",.," g I TwelveCirlsBand

Illustration15. The Twelve Girls Band

Music example8. "SisterThree of the Liu Family," playedby the TwelveGirls Band.

To refutesuch criticisms, supporters of theband and their music argue that Chinesepeople had a long traditionof menhiring womento entertaintheir male eyes and ears.That the Twelve Girls Bandcontinues such an entertainmenttradition and satisfies thedesires of not only Chinesebut alsoglobal men is preciselywhy theyare successful. In short,the musicof the TwelveGirls Bandencapsulates the politics that the engendered andsensuous Chinese selfgenerates. One can hardly deny that sexuality andprofit are involvedin the TwelveGirls Bandphenomenon. One can neitherdeny that the phenomenonreflects women actions in 21ttcentury China-they are taking the initiatives to bettertheir femininelives. Professionallytrained and amazingly virtuosic, members of theTwelve Girls Band havevigorously competed for opportunitiesto play in the band, which bring themfame andriches, In socialistChina where men and womenare nominally equal,men, and especially older men,have managed to dominatetheir society andcontrol most of the riches.Young, smart, and talentedwomen realize that to advance theirown interests,they have to actwomanly and globally.3e They know thatif theycan charmnon-Chinese men, they can promptly demandrespect at home.They know that the genderedand sensuousChinese self inscribedon their bodiesand sonicallyprojected by their music is controversialbut marketable. 26

WhenWang Huiran (born 1936)composed, in 1960,"Y People'sDance Music" ("Yizuwuqu"), a classicalcomposition of contemporaryChinese instrumental music, he probablydid not anticipateanything controversial; he just musicallyprojected the exotic andethnic Chinese self as he knewit then,and as the use of pipa wouldelicit. Featuring melodicmotives evocative of Yi people'sfolk songs,traditionalpipaperformance techniques,and an EuropeanABA structure,the pipa masterpiecenow evokesdifferent responsesfrom contemporaryand globalizedaudiences.ou When Han Chineselisten to the pieceamong fellow Han people,it confirmsa cultural andhistorical image that they haveinternalized, namely the non-Hanminorities are indeed skilled in their singingand excellentwith theirdances (nengge shanwu).It also confirms that Han Chinesehave perfectedthe pipa andits musicby blendingthe importedquxiang pipa with a native Chineseplucked instrument. When "Yi People'sDance Music" is playedamong non-Han or ethnicallysensitized audiences, however, it mightprovoke political and emotional debatesof representation,ownership, and authenticity-as demonstrated by global discussionsabout Tibet, Chinese governmental treatment of non-Hanminorities is a now internationalconcern.

Illustration 16 . Yi peopledancing at the TorchFestival, August 6, 200741

Music example9. "Yizu wuqu" performedby He Shuying,

When Wang composedhis pipa piece,he lived in a world that hardly discussed ethnic uneasein China. Like his contemporaries,he probably wanted to musically project the Chineseself that is young and lovable. Who among Chinesewants to seehimself or herself as old and ugly? This projection and negotiation of the Chinese self as young and lovable, I would argue, is a driving force behind the current and international successof Kenneth Pai's production of the Peony Pavilion, the YoungLovers'Edition, an observation that the Chinese media reports.'" Classic Kun music/theatre and the Peony Pavilion, the masterpieceof Chinese literature and drama that Tang Xianzu authored in 1598 make no unknown topic in internationaldebates of Chineseculture and politics-in 27

2001,the UNESCO pr.oclaimed Kunqu as a masterpieceof theOral andIntangible Heritageof Humanity."'Between1998 and now, three of four largescale presentations of the romanticstory haveatffacted international attention; these include the international productionsby PeterSellers, Chen Shizheng, and KennethPai.

PeterSeller's international production is a theatricalmix of traditionalChinese andWestern avant- garde aesthetics, music, and performance practices. In additionto traditionalKunqu aria and acting, the production features Thn Dun's multi-cultural and fusionmusic. Chen's production for theLincoln Center was billed asa backto the "authentic"enterprise, but it causeda minorinternational crisis. Attacking the production asa seriousmisrepresentation of Chinese culture, the Chinese government blocked the actors'travelto performin Americaby impoundingtheir stage set and costumes. When it wasfinally performedat theLincoln Center in 1999,its productioncould no longerbe viewedas a Chinese-Americanartist's effort to returnto the theafficalpast of late Ming China.It hasbecome a mirror of individual andinternational snuggles over Chinese cultureand its representation.The Chinesegovernment and many Chineseand non- Chineseaudience definitely did not like the vulgar andbawdy Chineseself reflectedin Chen'smirror. To counteractsuch an offense,the governmentordered the Shanghai Kunqu companyto launcha new production,one thatproduces a more traditionaland flatteringimage of the Chinese.Beautiful as it is, it hasnot attractedinternational attention,as it wasperformed only insideChina and in Hong Kong.

Illustration 17.Apublicity photo of PeonyPavilion, the YoungLov ers' Editionaa

Music example 1. An aria from the Peony Pavillion, the YoungLovers'Edition 28

Then KennethPai's edition emergedin2004 in Thiwan.Exercising his artistic sensitivityand literary skill as an internationallyknown author,relying on his experiences of teachingChinese language and culture to collegestudents in Americaand Taiwan, Pai hascondensed the long story of fifty-five scenesinto an expressivedrama of twenty-five scenes.Identifying two young andtalented performers to play the male and female protagonistsof the romance,and having them trained by the bestKunqu teachers,Pai has the dramaperformed by a castwho areyoung and lovableas the charactersthey portray on stage.Having raiseda greatamount of public andprivate money, Pai can afford to hire thebest stage designers, technicians, and musicians to producean operathat is as artisticallysophisticated and technologicallyadvanced as any theatricalproduction in the first world. The resultis an internationalhit: whereverand wheneverPai's Peony Pavilion is performed,it createspositive feelings about Chinese people and culture. Dissonantcriticisms are not unheard,but they can hardly challengethe young and lovable Chineseself that appeals to bothChinese and non-Chinese audiences. Pai's production hasbeen embraced by theChinese public and by theChinese government.

ConcludingRemarks for the Future

How longthose positive feelings and artistic impact will lastis for thefuture to tell. For the time being,Pai's successechoes many achievementsthat many youngand lovableChinese persons have performed on the global stage.To cite but a few, onecan registerthose of AngLee, the movie director;Lang Lang, the pianist;Thn Dun, the composer;Wei Wei, the popularsinger;Yao Ming, the NBAplayer; and ZhangZiyi,the moviestar. Pai'ssuccess is alsosomething that many other Chinese artists will wantto emulateand duplicate. Singularly and collectively, these artists and their creativeworks demonstratethat the Chineseself that Chinesepeople negotiate with the globalother is multi-facetedand fluid. It is a responseto the reality that Chinesenow live in a globalizedworld wherepeoples, cultures, and commodities rapidly crisscross among diversesites and temporalities, blurring boundaries and identities, and generating critical competitionsand productive collaborations.

To navigatetheir living in sucha globalizedworld, Chinese people project and negotiatetheir Chineseself, imaginedand empirical, with all kinds of discourses,anc musicconstitutes a particularlyeffective and fundamental one. Being temporaland malleable,music can be creativelyand effectively adjusted to theChinese self thatis beingconstructed and negotiated. Realizing such a natureof music,and having constant interactionswith thenon-Chinese other from landsclose by or far away,Chinese people havedeveloped specific ideologies and practices to justify theways they musically discourse.Chinese music, they would argue,sonically expresses their Chineseself, even if thesounds include elements that are not nativeand still referencethe non-Chinese. To theirears, the foreign elements have been sincizied, a fact thatonly atteststo the creativitywith whichthey imagine and construct the Chinese self of the2lst century 29

' This essayis developedfor theMacalester International Roundtable of 2007at the MacalesterCollege, Saint Paul, Minnesota. Thanks to theinvitation to participatein the intellectualcelebration, I have taken the opportunity to organizemy thoughtson Chinese music,Chinese music history, and globalization-I am particularlyinterested in the interactionsamong Chinese music history, sinology, ethnomusicology, Western music history,and world history.The resultis a ratherlarge project, which I summarizehere. To focuson discussingthe broad issues of globalizedChinese music and the Chinese self with theroundtable audience, I will glossover many historical and cultural details, which I will describein detail in a future monographentitled "Chinese Music and Its Global Discourses."I will alsokeep footnote entries and materials to a minimumhere. 2 My thoughtsabout globalization have benefited from the writings of manyauthors, and discussionswith manyfriends and colleagues.The following works have,however, provideda theoreticalanchor: Arjun Appaduraied., Globalization (Durham and London: Duke university Press,2001); Arjun Appadurai,Modernity at Large: curtural Dimensionsof Globalization(Minneapolis and London: University of MinnesotaPress, 1996);Frederic Jameson and Masao Miyoshi ed.,The Cultures of Globalization(Durham andLondon: Duke University Press, 1998); andRob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake ed., Global/Local:Cultural Productionand the TransnationalImagary (Durhamand London: DukeUniversity Press, 1996). 3 Many ethnomusicologistshave asked similar and related questions about world music, musicidentities, and styles in theirwritings. These include, for example:Peter Manuel, PopularMusics of theNon-Western World (NewYork andOxford: Oxford University Press,1988); Jocelyne Guilbault, "Intelpreting World Music: A Challengein Theoryand Practice,"Popular Music L6/I (1997),31-44;Martin Stokes,"Voices and Places: Historv. Repetitionand the Musical Imagination,"the Journal of the RoyalAnthropological Institute3 /4 (1997),673-9r;Timothy D. ThyloaGlobal pop: world Music,world Markets(New York: Routledge,1997); Veit Erlmann,"How BeautifulIs Small:Music, Globalizationand theAesthetics of the Local," YearbookforTraditional Music 30 (1998), 12-21;Derek B. Scott," orientalism andMusical Style," TheMusical euarterly 8212 (1998),309-35; Ingrid Monson, "Riffs, Repetitions,and Theories of Globalization," Ethnomusicology43/l (1999),3r-65;Paffia Roman-Velazquez, " The Embodiment of Salsa:Musicians, Instruments, and the Performanceof a Latin Style andIdentity," PopularMusic 18/1(1999), 115-31; Helmi Javiluoma,"From Manchuria to theTradition Village:On theConstruction of Placevia PelimanniMusic," Popular Music l9/I (2000), I0l-24; TonyMichell ed.,Global Noise: Rap and Hip-hop outside the USA(Middletown, cr: wesleyanuniversity Press, 2001); and Jonathan H. shannon," sultansof Spin: SyrianSacred Music on the World Stage,"American Anthropologist 105/2 (2003),266- 77. o Thereis a substantiveliterature on Chinesepopular culture and globalization. Works thathave stimulated my thoughtsinclude, for example,the following: Joseph B. Thmney andLinda Hsueh-Ling Chiang, Modernization, Globalization and Confucianismin 30

chinesesocieties (westport, cr: Praeger,2002); Xudong zhang," on some Motifs in the chinese"cultural Fever" of the Late 1980s:social change,Ideology, and rheory" SocialText 39 (1994), 129-56;Liu Kang, "PopularCulture and the Cultureof the Masses in ContemporaryChina," Boundary,z4l3 (1997),99-122; Sean Metzger, " Ice eueens, Rice Queens,and InterculturalInvestments in ZhangYimou's Turandot,"Asian Theatre Journal2Ol2(2003),209-17; John V. Langdale," EastAsian Broadcasting Indusffies: Global,Regional, andNational Perspectives," Economic GeographyT3/3 (1997),305-2r. 5 This descriptionof Chinesecities and tourism is basedon my travelsto Chinain the last five years.A wealthof informationabout the historical and cultural vistas mentioned here canbe accessedby googlingthe proper names and Chinese tourism. 6 The pictureof the buddhais takenfrom hmp://www.celestial- china.com/blo gl 2006/ 12/ 25ltrong-kong-lantau-island-po-lin-monas rery. t For an introductionto famoushistorical figures of Hangzhou,see Sun yue ffi, W , Hangzhoudi mingren+fi /'I'l Ht A )', (Cetebritiesof historicalHangzhou) (Hangzhou: Hangzhouchubanse, 2003). t For a brief surveyon Hangzhoutourism, see http://www.asia- planet.neUchina./hangzhou.htm.For a video-clip on themusic activities in SongCheng, seehttp ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j vAGk-TXKYQ. e I will supplya comprehensivediscography of theserecordings in futurepublications. Basicinformation on the musicgenres and Chinese music personalities is availablein standardworks on Chinesemusic and music history, such as Robert c. Provine,Yoshihiko Tokumaru,and J. LawrenceWitzleben eds., GarlandEncyclopedia of WorldMusic, vol.