Part One: Cultural Aspirations Of China's Elite
In the world of western elitism, classical music is a bourgeois measure of expressing the pinnacle of western aspiration/sophistication – a practice nouveau riche Chinese FOBS are all too willing to embrace.
And thanks to an anonymous commentator below, part one of this article is made from a PLETHORA of delectable tasty tid-bits for your ever so sensitive taste buds as to the relevance of the social movement of Classical music in China.
For the main course, we have from Lady Davies. who as the Guardian tells us,
" runs the British-based Kt Wong Foundation whose efforts have resulted in a Beijing production of Handel's Semele and will see a young Chinese-cast version of Britten's Noye's Fludde in Belfast as part of next year's Olympic celebrations. At the elite level of international music-making, Chinese players, conductors and composers have become part of the furniture, or in the case of pianist Lang Lang, a global phenomenon."
Well firstly r.e: Lady Linda Wong Davies,
As a high achieving female British Chinese, with a surname like that, you could be right to assume that she married a white male partner, and that the absolutely delightful music that welcomes you on Lady Davies' website will make you want to claw your brain out...no wait don't open it ! no ! dont ! too late!!!!!www.ktwong.org,
'Ni Hao'
Then, the main article , courtesy of the Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/dec/02/mahler-festival-beijing-nicholas-wroe
Goes on to explain a quote from Long Yu of the guardian on the importance of classical music for China:
"Of course economics, business and money are important. But we also need spiritual nourishment. For the past 30 years we have paid a lot of attention to the development of the economy. All over Asia, people are very good at business, but how we balance life and society is increasingly questioned. For me the music is like water and people are vases of all different shapes. The music is the same, but people's individual responses release their own imagination and creativity. And surely more imaginative and creative people are more useful within society and happier within themselves. So my job is to provide them with the very clearest water. What shape they then make of it is entirely up to them."
And who is Long Yu? Why, he is, as the Guardian tells us:
"...music director of three of China's most prestigious orchestras and was a co-founder of both the Beijing Music festival and the China Philharmonic Orchestra. Since it was founded in 2000 the CPO has toured extensively throughout China and played the first official concert in a church since the revolution – a performance of Mozart's Requiem to mark the composer's 250th anniversary – as well as playing in New York's Central Park and for the Pope at the Vatican: "He was very surprised when I spoke to him in German," chuckles the Berlin-educated Yu."
So there you have it. Chinese elitism in a bid to gain acceptance from western elites on the basis of their study thus embracing western classical music.
What does this say to you about the state of Chinese high culture ?
Part Two: Hapas and Classical Music
We also know how learning to master musical instruments from a young age has been a typical part of Chinese upbringing in its effort to show achievement. But what is unique about this video is not only the Hapa’s trained musical ability but an almost esoteric portrayal of the scientific mind of the west mixed with the machine-like industriousness of Chinese playing ability promoted and brought to new levels of exotic hype in the music industry.
With all the right connections in the media industry, these young classically trained musicians: Arianna Warsaw-Fan, presumably half-Jewish/ half Chinese heritage, and Meta Weiss who may or may not be Eurasian are both well-groomed wearing Far Eastern clothing, ready for the bourgeois limelight to help promote the idea of Eurasianism as 'clever and unique?'
We are already aware of the self important pompous attitude that Hapas have when it comes to using the facade of British Chinese 'representation' as self promotion, but what if British Chinese Hapa representation is a testing ground for part of a wider goal to depopulate Chinese by promoting bourgoeis mixed race idealism?
Does this really seem so unlikely in the East with so many Chinese women now finding their saviours in their White knight, and with what we know about Chinese males in the poorer areas of China forced to find wives on the border with Russian women or remain single, and the White advertising that still is promoted by foreign companies in China?
As a British Born Chinese and ethnic Chinese, whose media presence has already been made invisible by the overwhelming presence of Eurasians/Hapas, maybe this should be an issue that concerns you?
