Abigail Washburn tour diary - The Ambassador, a Famous Opera Singer, Hot Dogs and the Great Hall of the People

Ambassador Randt and his wife have welcomed me into their home four years in a row to play for them and 80 of their closest friends. This time with the Sparrow 3 was no exception. The guests filter in thru the courtyard and into the “venue,” which is the long living room overlooking the courtyard and the dining room with a big impressionist painting of W Jr. and steaming handmade hotdogs waiting for the conclusion of our show to get munched up.

Among the guests were Mingsai, the Chinese-American chef famous for his regular appearances on the Today show, longtime Beijing artist Betty Eck, and the stunning opera singer Renee Fleming... and that’s just the start. Needless to say, the post-show dinner conversations were rockin.

We even got to go to the Great Hall of the People the next night to see Renee sing with other Opera greats for an Olympic Cultural event. Despite the challenging circumstances of an ill-rehearsed orchestra and a not-so-ideal-acoustics venue, she blew everyone out of the water. Whether you like opera or not, this woman is an absolutely power house…definitely something to see.

The entrance to The Great Hall of the People is off of Tiananmen square. I’m used to seeing major political speeches on TV in this hall, like the peaceful handover of power from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao at the 16th Party Congress in October of 2002. Odd feeling to walk in through the heavy red velvet curtain-ed entry way in my finest wears to see a pile of normal Chinese folks dressed in street clothes sitting in the congress seats napping, chatting, texting while the performance was going. We sat near the front and center. The Soviette-style communist symbols on the star-studded ceiling are awe-inducing. On the other hand, the guy next to me answering the phone for one of his mistresses giving him the address of their next rendez-vous was not.

Fluffballs of Fury!

This is all the talk in Beijing.

A quick Chinese lesson for those who don’t already know is that each monosyllabic muttering could have a large array of different meanings depending on which tone it is attributed and what context or word pairing it is presented in. For example, the word "ma" has at least five different meanings based on the four primary tones and the neutral tone: horse, scold, trouble, question mark, mom. When paired with another monosyllabic word it can take on a whole nother meaning in this new context.

So, anyhoo, there are these little stuffed animals, called fuwa, recognized around here as the general mascots of the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They are named by the Beijing’s Olympic welcome, “Beijing huanying ni,” which is also the title of their Olympic song, translated: "Beijing welcomes you." Their names are Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini. Each one represents a different wondrous aspect of China. Their background is extremely elaborate, but for now I’ll try to keep it simple:

Beibei - Fish design from Neolithic artifacts, denoting prosperity, the Chinese lunar new year and water sports

Jingjing - The endangered panda from Sichuan province, representing global envoronmentalism

Huanhuan - Fire design from the Mogao Grotto, representing the Olympic flame and the push for excellence

Yingying - From China’s western provinces, the Tibetan Antelope with Xinjiang ethnic costume elements

Nini - A swallow wearing Beijing kite headgear to symbolize the arrival of spring and the emergence of old to new Beijing

My natural western leaning is definitely not to get sucked into infantile adorance of little fluffy objects. In the case of the fuwa, I have to admit that there is something irresistible about them. Despite the cute factor and their representation of the brilliance of Chinese culture, at this point the little creatures have been tainted with heavy conspiracy theory. It is believed that these little stuffed animals actually foreshadowed major disasters in China  leading up to the Olympics and perhaps even became conduits for the age old Mandate of Heaven, now known as the curse of the fuwa:

Beibei - 2008 south China floods covering 13 provinces, massive forced evacuations and hundreds of reported deaths

Jingjing - 2008 Sichuan earthquakes killing at least 70,000, at least 20,000 missing and 5-11 million homeless with continuing aftershocks

Huanhuan - Summer Olympic Torch , named the “Journey of Harmony” met intense relay protests around the world concerned about China’s human rights, also met with counter-protests by Chinese nationals

Yingying - 2008 Tibetan unrest, known as the 3-14 riots in China started on the 49th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising when 300 monks demanded the release of many monks being detained. Death toll is unkown and issue continues to be highly sensitive.

Nini - 2008 T195 train accident in the “kite city” of Weifang causing app. 80 deaths and 416 injuries

Depressing but convincing coincidences… Oh little fuzzballs… let your wrath subside!

No-Fun Olympics (I hung with Cui Jian!)

So people are calling this the no-fun Olympics. So far, I’d have to agree. Everywhere you go in Beijing, the general development, the ability to have changed the face of the city so quickly, on an absolutely gargantuan level, is profoundly eye-opening and possibly tell-tale for the future of Beijing and China as a whole on the world stage. Nonetheless, the attempt to appear, and, in fact, be a 5-star international city, has lead to an obsession with order and control. No surprise given the amount of wrangling it must have taken to pull it all together. But, unfortunately, the guards and police everywhere telling the onlookers they’re not allowed to look, the general lack of availability of tickets, the huge posters and banners all over the city guarding the Olympic-comers from the "unfinished sides of town" and blocking views of the new Olympic architectural wonders is needless to say a bummer. Of course if you have tickets to events on the Olympic Green you can pass through in an orderly manner. No photos of beer shots or full moons in front of the bird’s nest for the foreigners this time ‘round…. Maybe Vancouver 2010.

At this point, the only way to experience the mélange of athletes, watchers, corporate hangers-on and stars-gone-olympics is to roam around town dropping into bar areas. A pile of my old Beijing buddies got together at my friends’ Toby and A’Wen’s restaurant, Purple Haze, near the Gongti stadium. It’s always beer-full-endless-conversation excitement, catching up from the last time thru Beijing. My buddies from the bands Random Ke and Bad Cat Bone, and all-time pal Jon Campbell were there. About an hour into the hang, I was introduced to the demure and kind-eyed guy sitting to my left. None other than Cuijian, “the father of Chinese Rock.”

In case you don’t know Cuijian, you need to. I would encourage learning about him before listening to his recordings. Especially not understanding the Chinese lyrics, it can come off as not-all-that-original poppy rock music. But when you understand his impact and the actual challenge this music represented to the listeners and the government of his times, earlier and currently, it takes on a whole new life. He uses revolutionary, heavily metaphorical lyrics to express his displeasure with the authorities without being too overt, full of energy and very experimental, especially for Chinese music.

"Yi Wu Suo You" ("Nothing To My Name") is his most famous song. He sang it at talent contest and won, and it became the theme song of the 1989 Tiananmen student movement. Deep, deep lyrics about what the country was going through leading up to 1989, and really the very first introduction of rock and roll into Chinese music. "Yi Kuar Hong Bu” ("A Piece of Red Cloth") was probably the song that got him banned in the '90s. He would perform it live wearing a red blindfold, and the lyrics go something like, “That day you used a piece of red cloth, you covered my eyes and bound my hands. You asked me what do I see, I said I see happiness.” Red, of course, symbolizing the Chinese communist party. No surprise he had to hide in the outer provinces for years.

He drinking beer and wearing a ballcap, myself still in my gig-clothes (a black dress with purple fringe), I asked him what he’s up to now. He put out an album this year called, Gei Ni Yidian Yanse (Show You Color), heavy on the noise and samples, something he took several years off to learn about. Now he’s finishing up his home studio and thinking about the next project. Being the banjo player that I am, I asked him why he didn’t incorporate more traditional Chinese intstruments. He responded that he’s really about rock and new composition, his mission, unlike mine, isn’t to bring old sounds into new times, though he uses Chinese traditional sounds when it fits the lyrics and the composition. But his love for China and things Chinese is clear. He could have left China a thousand times, much loved by big factions of the western world for his subtle, lyrical, melodic way of challenging the status quo and his persistence in the face of adversity. 

He said he had seen me perform before. He came to see Ben and Casey and I play with friends from the band IZ at South Gate Space in the 798 district of Beijing three yrs ago. He got Song of the Traveling Daughter and said he liked it a lot and had played it for other people as they drove around Beijing. He then invited the band to come check out his home studio. We only have 36 hrs in Beijing and our schedules don’t match up…next time, pleeeez? 

PS - Thanks to my pal, Peter Fasnacht, at the U.S. Embassy, for giving me the necessary info and helping me understand.