Most Commented Posts

• Links and resources (29)
• READERS’ CLUB (27)
• Ancient Tales (in 11 parts) (12)
• Promotional song from “Detective Dee” (12)
• Confucius (in 11 parts) (10)
• About See China (10)
• Playing the pipa (9)
• The River of Change: A Photographic Journey, and Challenges (8)
• Li Shangyin, poet of late Tang Dynasty (in 5 parts) (5)
• Post 80s New China Literature (5)

—
Harmony from the Heart of Humanity
-The Spirit of Chinese Music

Yang Yugong

The concept of Chinese “national” music is a pool of muddled melodies into which all tunes flow. When we present our music to the western world, we simply cannot resist the temptation of mixing everything together, leaving the western audience an impression of novel and noisy disharmony. In fact, a much simpler vision immediately emerges if we put the “Chinese Music” roughly into three categories, viz., folk music, applied music (including court music and Buddhist music), and intellectual music. “Folk” music or the so-called “organic” music which sprung from the life of different ethnic groups (原生态音乐) is the general background of the Chinese musical scene, the source of all music creations; within the category of applied music, the court music aims to entertain primarily the imperial household, help them keep a sense of sacred order in society, it then later serves the elite, and then the ordinary commoners; the Buddhist music is mostly used in religious services. In my opinion, the school of intellectual music, an expression of spiritual cultivation, is the most universal part of Chinese musical heritage that has its unique place in world musical history.

For men of literary intellectuality in the Chinese history, music has always been one of their four major arts-琴棋书画, or Music, Chess, Calligraphy and Painting.

What does music have to do with intellectuality? Well, music is inspired by the Muse that is the inside Intellectuality characterizing all men of spiritual cultivation. Supposedly music is the songs of the Muse-a metaphoric figure for the universal spirituality. At the beginning of his Paradise Lost, Milton was thus conjuring up:

Sing Heav’nly Muse,that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav’ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa’s Brook that flow’d
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song…

(Milton playing music to his daughters, source from http://www.christs.cam.ac.uk/darknessvisible/music.html )

Milton was truly amazing, for his “Heavenly Muse” is at once the source of arts and the source of Truth, which corresponds to the fundamental concepts of the Chinese musical tradition.

In terms of Greek mythology the muses are more an expert kind of gods that specialize in arts such as music. The equivalent of muses in the East is more general and universal, a “mythical” entity beyond ordinary recognition.

There are many theoretical assumptions about the origin of music. One of them holds that music originated from the ritual of communicating with the Spirit in the primitive religion. Guqin-the most representative Chinese musical instrument-is believed to have been made to serve as the physical medium facilitating this communication. Guqin is not just any instrument, it is, has always been, and will be the very instrument that may best reconcile us with the universe. In fact the the Chinese character for music 乐 on the Oracle Bones is obviously a Qin-strings over a piece of wood.

（Source from http://www.fantizi5.com/jiaguwen/ a website to convert modern Chinese into ancient scripts）

Qin is primarily a piece of wood that produces sounds. But that piece of wood can’t be any piece of wood, it is that rare piece of wood that embodies the essence of our Mother Nature, the gold of the sunlight, the crystal of the morning dew, the serenity of the heavenly blue, and the subtlety of the twilight hue. That piece of wood must reach its mellow state of maturity through the weathering of time. Sometimes it might even acquire its mission as the instrument of Music by the test of a fire or even the strike of a thunderbolt. It sounds like a legend, but there did exist a sunset-styled (落霞式) Guqin called “The Echo of Thunder” (残雷), which was made from a piece of thunderbolt-struck wood (霹雳木), and which belongs to the divine category of Guqin. Let me tell a story about one of the Greatest Four in the world of Qin—the Burnt Tail (焦尾琴).

In the declining years of the Han Dynasty, Cai Yong, an excellent musician and a man of letters, retreated to the southeast of China in a self exile for fear of persecutions from the eunuchs in power. Once at dinner time, he saw a local man cooking by burning a piece of wood from a phoenix tree. As soon as he heard the cracking sound of the wood, he snatched it out from its fiery purgatory; for he was certain that piece of wood had been meant by Providence to be the substance for a great instrument. When a Qin was made of that piece of phoenix wood, the musical instrument produced a sound like never before, as if that legendary bird of Phoenix had risen from the ashes of its flaming nirvana and begun to sing songs only belonging to the Heavenly Spheres. The burnt traces still remained in the tail part of the instrument, so the Qin was named “Burnt Tail” and became a legend in the Chinese musical history.

南朝宋范晔《后汉书•蔡邕传》：“吴人有烧桐以爨者，邕闻火烈之声，知其良木，因请而裁为琴，果有美音，而其尾犹焦，故时人名曰焦尾琴焉。”

And that sound of Guqin is really extraordinarily unique, it is the sound that unequivocally stands out from among all musical or unmusical sounds, and yet that we seem to have known ever since we were born. It is the sound that disarms the tyranny of time and brings the silence of eternity visible. It is the very sound of OM forever vibrating at the core of Existence.

Make no mistake, my readers, I was not merely being poetical just now, I was trying to describe an established fact no longer obvious to the contemporary Chinese or the general public of the world.

Most of us may not be clearly aware that Confucius himself was also a great musical artist of the highest professional level. He learned his art of Qin from Shi Xiang–the master musician of the State of Lu-Shi. The art of Qin was one of the Six Arts taught by Confucius. To this day we still have a special format of Guqin called the Confucian style (仲尼式).

In fact, Confucius himself was that rare piece of wood in the development of human civilization. The Sound of Harmony he produced has inspired and will continue to inspire numerous men of the world. In the Analects there was a prophetic hermit who observed after he met with Confucius: “The Providence meant for the master to be a wooden bell (to awaken the world).”

For Confucius music is a most important means to cultivate virtues of Humanity. The pure and true sound of a musical instrument is the basis of its function. The inward Humanity is the essence of outward musical harmony.

Confucius said explicitly: “Without Humanity, what does a man have to do with Propriety? Without Humanity, what does a man have to do with musical harmony?” （人而不仁如礼何？人而不仁如乐何？）

Therefore the level of Qin playing depends more on the player’s comprehension of Humanity than his instrumental techniques. In other words, the music is the natural expression of the musician’s understanding of Universal Spirituality, which is the very heart of Humanity.

“Harmony” (和)in the Chinese language originally means “natural ease”, which is only possible when our action is motivated from the Heart of our Being. All great music is essentially harmony from the heart of Humanity.

Finally, I’d like to recommend strongly to you a great piece of Chinese music–The Flowing Water played by the greatest Guqin artist Guan Pinghu in the musical history of modern China.

The Flowing Water is probably the oldest tune by one of the oldest musical instrument in human history. Confucius himself might very likely have played that tune on that very instrument. Now the tune is still vibrating somewhere deep in the outer space of our universe, for The Flowing Water by Guan was selected as one of the musical pieces going outer space with the 1977 spacecraft “Voyager I” in search of other intelligent beings. It is literally the sound of both antiquity and universality. Listen to it, my readers, and feel the spirit of Chinese music.

Most Commented Posts

• Links and resources (29)
• READERS’ CLUB (27)
• Ancient Tales (in 11 parts) (12)
• Promotional song from “Detective Dee” (12)
• Confucius (in 11 parts) (10)
• About See China (10)
• Playing the pipa (9)
• The River of Change: A Photographic Journey, and Challenges (8)
• Li Shangyin, poet of late Tang Dynasty (in 5 parts) (5)
• Post 80s New China Literature (5)

For the past decade until recently the festival had been run by a small elite team from Radio Shanghai in an agreement with its patron Shanghai Musicians’ Association. The two fell off in 2006 when Radio Shanghai engaged France based Chinese composer Chen Qigang to be the head of a newly created awarding programme “Shanghai Impresses Foreign Composers”. In each year the programme invites several composers from a specific country to Shanghai twice, first for field research and second to present their work. It has to be an overture size orchestral piece incorporating both Shanghainese melody and Chinese tunes. Composers from France, Canada and Scandinavian countries have been engaged, submitting their work and got performed once for all, collecting the prize money totalling 500,000 RMB (approx. 90,000 pounds ) and happily returning home. In its fifth year, the Shanghai Musicians’ Association thought that would be enough and called for a standoff. A pack of Shanghai composers launched a ferocious criticism against Chen Qigang (who was absent) and Radio Shanghai (pathetically present), citing negligence of local composers, waste of money and resources, blind-faith in foreign stuff etc. Then the two split up in 2010 when Shanghai Musicians’ Association took back the festival and claimed total control.

With direct comparison to the all mighty Beijing Music Festival founded by Long Yu in 1998, Shanghai Spring lacks both powerful iron-wrist like Long Yu and a clear identity. With the expulsion of foreign presence, the festival has become the bath tube of local composers and Shanghai Conservatory of Music. It did give pockets of interesting display of traditional music and new commissions, but has gained none in audience outreach or fund raising. In 20 days from April 28 till May 18, the festival will present an astonishingly 65 events in five categories: 29 guest-hosting concerts, 11 celebratory performances, 4 music competitions, 11 brass showcases and 10 community events, including an inaugural vocal competition and a concert featuring a choir singing ballads in Shanghai dialect.

Highlights of the festival include Swan Lake by Cuba National Ballet, a concert featuring winners of the XIV Tchaikovsky Music Competition and Yang Yang (protege of Long Yu) conducting Shanghai Symphony Orchestra in Shostakovich, for serious spectators.
 
29th Shanghai Spring Int’l Music Festival
http://www.shmusic.org/SHZC/Index.aspx (Chinese only)

Most Commented Posts

• Links and resources (29)
• READERS’ CLUB (27)
• Ancient Tales (in 11 parts) (12)
• Promotional song from “Detective Dee” (12)
• Confucius (in 11 parts) (10)
• About See China (10)
• Playing the pipa (9)
• The River of Change: A Photographic Journey, and Challenges (8)
• Li Shangyin, poet of late Tang Dynasty (in 5 parts) (5)
• Post 80s New China Literature (5)

(picture from online sources)

Directed by Yang Shupeng (杨树鹏) and starring Huang Xiaoming (黄晓明), Zhang Yi (张译) and Zhang Xinyi (张歆艺), the film An Inaccurate Memoir will hit the cinema on April 28. An Inaccurate Memoir is about a legend of bandits. The head of the hang Huang Xiaoming abducted Zhang Yi and got to know his sister Zhang Xinyun. Thus the complicated identity of the hostage begun to unravel.

The Chinese name of the film is Pifu (匹夫, ordinary people) and the bandits in the film claim themselves to be the gang of ordinary people.  An Inaccurate Memoir is a film with strong masculinity. When asked about the real meaning of the film’s title, Yang Shupeng the director said, “The two characters have very complicated connotations. They can be complimentary, neutral as well as derogatory. The characters in the film is complicated, too. Although they are from the bottom of society, they have courage and they take responsibilities. Ancient people once said that if an ordinary man got angry, blood could splash five steps away.”

The leading actor Huang Xiaoming has made great efforts in body-building for this character and he attributed all his efforts to “the spirit of Pifu“. He said, “What is Pifu? They are hot-blooded people with guts. My character Fang is a man who values relationships much. His relationships are the most important thins he has. He can be very reckless but what he does is done with guts. I may have a weak physical look, but I am actually an ordinary man deep in my heart.”

references:
http://news.mtime.com/pix/2012/03/22/200573.html
http://movie.mtime.com/161575/

Related Posts

• New film: White Deer Plain (Bai lu yuan) (0)
• 2011 Chinese film figure report (0)
• Chinese movies in 2011 (0)
• Chinese filmmakers win in Berlin (0)

(picture from online sources)

On February 25, the China Culture Painting & Calligraphy Academy held its 2012 New Year Reception and Beijing the Elegant Party in the afternoon in Prime Hotel in Beijing. The China Culture Painting & Calligraphy Academy is directly supervised by the Center of International Cultural Exchangeof the Ministry of Culture, PRC. It is a celebration as well as a good display of traditional Chinese art.

Important senior officials from art institutions in China attended the event, so did famous artists. More than 70 foreign ambassadors were also invited to the party. The event was hosted by the famous emcee from CCTV—Dong Hao (董浩), who happens to be a big fan of Chinese painting himself. Zhao Youping (赵友萍), chairwoman of the Art Committee of China Culture Painting & Calligraphy Academy who is also an artist delivered a welcome speech talking about how art could connect people from different countries and make an artist’s work eternal. An ambassador from Ukraine also delivered a speech on exchange activities in art between the Academy and foreign embassies.

In retrospect, 2011 has been a fruitful year for the Academy. It has held the “Four-screen Chinese Paintings by Famous Painters Exhibition” in the National Art Museum of China under the direction of the National Art Museum of China and the Chinese National Painting Academy, the “Special Exhibition of Couplets by Famous Painters” in the Chinese National Painting Academy Museum under the direction of the Calligraphy and Seal-cutting Academy of the Chinese National Painting Academy and the Art Institute of the Chinese National Academy of Arts.

Besides that all the guests received a gift of a small Chinese painting, there was a lucky draw part. While several lucky Chinese guests each won a bottle of good wine, only one of the foreigners could take home the painting by the famous Chinese painter Zhou Zunsheng (周尊圣) after several unclaimed calls. It was the Minister Counselor from the Republic of Togo who became the lucky one.

(picture from online sources)

During the party, the China Culture Painting & Calligraphy Academy presented the Evergreen Art Award to twelve senior artists who are over 70 years old for their concern and support for the Academy. These artists also took part in the 2011 Chinese Color Painting Exhibition. They were Li Qimao (李奇茂), Zhao Meisheng (赵梅生), Zhang Jixin (张继馨), Guo Gongda (郭公达), Zhang Xiaoyou (张孝友), Du Gaojie (杜高杰), Zhu Linen (祝林恩), Yang Changhuai (杨长槐), Lu Xingtang (卢星堂), Deng Huibo (邓惠伯), Xiao Ping (萧平) and Wang Tao (王涛).

(picture from online sources)

After the speeches and lucky draw part, artists invited to the event began to paint live on the tables in the hall. It was a totally exciting experience to actually see these artists paint in front of one’s eyes. With several brushes, some ink and color, vivid images immediately appeared on the white rice paper. It was like that these painters used their brushes with magic to create lifelike images. There were two adorable cats on this table while there were two ferocious tigers on the other. One artist might use rich and intense colors to depict blossoming flowers, while the other might only apply black and white to show a precipitous mountain cliff. It was absolutely an unforgettable experience to watch how these painters worked magic with their brushes. Foreign guests were the most intrigued of all. They showed great interests and enthusiastically communicated with the artist from time to time.

According to Yu Genhui (余根晖), the secretary general of China Culture Painting & Calligraphy Academy, Beijing the Elegant Party will continue to be held every spring as a brand activity after this year’s debut. There will be publicity campaign on various art media and officials and theorist in the field will be invited. Talented artists and painters will also be encouraged to come to Beijing for the event.

The China Culture Painting & Calligraphy Academy was established in May 2010. In 2012, it will continue to “promote traditional culture and encourage foreign exchanges” and do various art exchange activities on the theme of Chinese painting and calligraphy. There will be memorial activities for the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Ukraine and the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the diplomatic relations between China and Netherlands. At the same time, the “Zhongtang Exhibition of Famous Chinese Painters” will be held in late 2012 inthe National Art Museum of China. There will be a combination of poetry, calligraphy and painting to show the classic Chinese culture and its history.

references:
http://artist.blog.artron.net/space.php?uid=51111&do=blog&id=893372
http://tianjin.chinadaily.com.cn/hqpl/zggc/2012-02-26/content_5255686.html 

Most Commented Posts

• Links and resources (29)
• READERS’ CLUB (27)
• Ancient Tales (in 11 parts) (12)
• Promotional song from “Detective Dee” (12)
• Confucius (in 11 parts) (10)
• About See China (10)
• Playing the pipa (9)
• The River of Change: A Photographic Journey, and Challenges (8)
• Li Shangyin, poet of late Tang Dynasty (in 5 parts) (5)
• Post 80s New China Literature (5)

From March 3rd to April 22nd of this year, art lovers in Beijing could enjoy the poetic rhyme of Marcestel’s oil paintings in Manet Club Beijing which is located in the Western District. Once regarded as the pioneer of cultural business, this artistic and finely decorated club was named as per the painting of The Luncheon on the Grass by French painter Edouard Manet (1832-1883) and designed by the French designer Anthony Emmanuel Bechu. Now it embraces another great artist from France.

Life experience:

Marcestel, whose full name is Marc Antoine Squarciafichi, was born in Paris on February 26, 1943. When only two, he followed his parents to live in Côte d’Azur where atmosphere was unique, combining the proximity of a majestic park with the deep blue Mediterranean Sea and was without a doubt the secret source of his inspiration and artistic vocation. In his youth, he had the opportunity to meet some of the most famous celebrities of the time. Greta Garbo, Anthony Quinn, Charlie Chaplin, the Beatles, as well as Kennedy and Pompidou families were all among those he came to know.

Before his national service attached to the French Embassy in Laos, Marcestel got a degree in Economic Sciences and degrees in both Russian and Chinese in Paris which showed his talent in language. But soon to follow was the young former diplomat’s resolute decision to change to be an artist. In 1970, he continued his Eastern voyage to countries like India, Cambodia, and Japan where he taught himself Japanese using a book about mythology written in Chinese characters and where he got inspiration from paintings made with Chinese ink on Japanese paper. Probably it is the osmosis of colors of this technique that truly convinced him to stop his diplomatic career and to become an artist, trying for the same effect on canvas with oil paint.

In the following four decades after a jump from diplomat career to a fullfledged artistic life, he opened 7 individual studios worldwide and visited dozens of cities to hold exhibitions in Asia, Africa, Europe and Americas. Only between 1978 and 1997, he successfully held no less than one hundred exhibitions in total. For his wide traveling, studying worldwide, embracing world and creating for the world, he was named as “man of the world”. Maybe “Art without Boundaries” can be best seen in Marcestel and his dream-like creation.

Although he studied for a short time in the architecture workshop and studied interior decoration, Marcestel is a self-taught painter. In his traveling days, he knew many famous artists and learned from Dufy who was marked by a colorful, decorative style and Chagall who created a mixture and style of modern art based on the Eastern European Jewish folk culture. Drawing from his rich experience and keen observation, he gradually formed his untied but unique painting style after his deep probing into traditional and modern artistic works of many countries. His skillful and creative combination of various traditions and modern skills of west and east forms a transparent and flowing painting style. With romantic poetic rhyme of colors on different materials such as lacquer ware, porcelain, marble, silk fabrics, glass, tapestries and linoleums, he managed to delineate his understanding of nature, music, love, creatures and high spiritual realm etc., and gained the fame of “Color Poet”.

Spirit or technique, the artistic feature of Marcestel’s paintings

Among those masterpieces on display, it would be to the viewer’s surprise that many figures from Chinese myths are vividly yet uniquely depicted. There are mythological figures like Xing Tian in Xing Tian Failing To Find His Head. He Takes His Two Nipples As Eyes and Navel As Mouth which comes from The Classic of Mountains and Seas, Chang E in the Concert for Chang E Before Flying to the Moon, and two snake spirits in while and green respectively in the Legend of White Snakes etc..

When asked about the source of inspiration for this exhibition, Marcestel traced his love of Chinese culture back to his first reading of Hong Lou Meng (Dream of the Red Chamber) when he was an 18-year old boy full of romantic thoughts and decided to like this “romantic country” instantly. “You can only compare Egypt and China in the past”, he said, “(China) is a very important country for all of the world, because many things have been found (and) invented in China.” And “it’s quite different from Europe.”

“Myth is solid as the plot of story is fixed. Yet it is not totally framed.” said by another self-taught artist Doctor Cui Zimo (崔自默) who was claimed by Marcestel as the second man who can truly understand him in the whole world. Doctor Cui’s remarks from the view of an Eastern painter could perfectly note a Western painter’s efforts to explore a boundless mythological East in spite of the deep-rooted difference between the two sides.

Speaking of Marcestel’s painting style, Cui said that the style was “closely related to his long-term life experience in Japan, to his love of Chinese culture” and that “his living in Japan” led to his acceptance of “the color of Japanese style, like that of Yamato-e.” But the uniqueness remains “in his use of color and strokes” for reason that “as he wrote in the foreword of this exhibition, he likes floating color. This flow of color, accompanied by the nothingness of pictures, with the uncertainty and vagueness at the same time, expands the aesthetic space, and leaves viewers with adequate room of imagination. ”

Cui then explained the difference between Chinese traditional painting and Western oil painting is that the former capitalizes on “the use of lines, namely, by using brushes to form graphs with lines”, while the latter makes full use of “color to fulfill the whole picture”. In his view, the spirit of painting weighs most. Marcestel’s “human figures rely on the lines made by brushes, with clouds and other background scenery on color.” In this sense, his works can be called “a combination of Chinese and Western elements.” But “the idea and spirit of his paintings are oriental, because that’s from the eastern mythology, and the spirit of mythology is beyond the myth itself.”

Man of the World —- Not only Art, but humanity flowing without boundaries

Marcestel once wrote that “Man is dominated by the sentiment of love, which may assume various forms and yet remains a constant motif in human life. This message of love, this yearning for eternity, which grows strong in the depths of man’s heart, allows him to retain hope in the improvement of the human condition. This beautiful essence of love will develop itself and spread through the world so as to reach towards Paradise, which remains still in the realm of dreams.”

On his artistic path to the love- sponsored paradise, he grasped the commonness of humanity with his experimental spirit in painting. In his answer to the question that what’s the role of his rich experience–especially those connections with celebrities–in his creation, he said in earnest that “if you look deep inside, I mean everybody is the same everywhere”. Actually, he has donated many of his works to support humanitarian aids. In his plain explanation, that he got to be called “Man of the world” by Hong Kong media was when he did an auction in Hong Kong to help disabled kids in China and Philippines.

To this world man, Asiatic mythology is not known by the other countries. So next focus for him would be finishing all the mythology exhibitions of three countries including China, Japan and Korea. The exhibition on Korean mythology has not started yet. He estimated that the remaining part would take him three or four years to accomplish.

Complaining of tight schedules and lack of proper learning places, he said he really wished to speak Chinese fluently in the future. “I don’t know if I will do it before I die, but that’s what I want to do”, said this 69-year- old color magician with a schoolboy laughter.

Related Posts

• Auspicious China —— “Man of the World” Marcestel’s Art Exhibition (0)
• Traditional Chinese and western painting: different soils, different plants (1)
• The Chinese Dragon (0)
• Ancient Tales (in 11 parts) (12)

Visitors to China are not unfamiliar with the scene of Chinese people playing Mahjong almost everywhere: under a tree shade, by (or even in) a river, in the streets, in a teahouse, and almost in every family party particularly in southern China. According to Hu Shi (胡适), the renowned Chinese historian and philosopher, Mahjong, as the “national game” of China as baseball in the US and sumo in Japan, is “an addictive, time-wasting nonsense that lured people away from a healthy, hardworking lifestyle, and that not a single motivated person or nation would find it worthwhile”. However, harsh, personal comments like his had neither pulled Mahjong down from the list of a most pupolar game in the gatherings of Chinese families and friends so far, nor stopped the people from China today and the world having fun playing and studying it like a life-long pursuit.

Mahjong and the Novel of Water Margin
Some scholars believe that Mahjong originally meant “getting in touch with the outlaw generals” in Chinese, the outlaws referring the108 Robin Hood type of rebels in the novel of Water Margin (水许), set in the Song Dynasty (A.D. 960-1279). The outlaws are skilled in warcraft and very much admired for their bravery, generosity, opposition against authority, and brotherly bonds with each other, by the Chinese masses through history. The inventor of the game at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty (A.D. 1368-1644) was in great admiration of the rebels and wished to popularize their legends and have the officials and the whole society improved. Thus the bulk of the game tiles are the 108 rebels, classified into three types consistent with their names or characters. As they come from every corner of the country,thus are added 20 tiles, representing the five directions: east, south, west, north and center, with four tiles for each direction. Eight more  were added, falling in two kinds: the rich (“Fa”) and the poor (“Bai”). Later another eight tiles were added referring to different patterns of flowers and seasons.
Another connotation of Mahjong is associated with the square tables around which people play Mahjong. The four sides of the table represent four directions, also the four seasons in a year. Each player has 13 tiles, for each season has 13 weeks. Thus the 52 tiles represent the whole year, with four seasons in 52 weeks and 364 days, together with one more tile of victory.

The Origin of Mahjong
A new research suggests that Mahjong originates in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, which was a royal granary where south China rice was stored for transportation to the north in ancient times. An irritation for the granary was the sparrows, but the guards took pleasure in shooting them. The officer rewards the guards shoot and catching sparrows, and thus he gave them bonuses in the form of tiles, which were a form of modern securities with financial values attached. Consequently these were used as payment in gambling. But basically, the name of the game and those of the tiles are closely connected with activities of shooting and catching sparrows.“Tong” (circles or dots) means gunbarrel,“Tong 2” meaning two gun barrels.“Suo” means string,“Suo 2” meaning two strings of feet (legs) of sparrows killed.“Wan” means bonuses awarded for the sparrows killed. The four directional tiles represent the wind directions, for the accuracy of shooting back then was heavily affected by winds.“Zhong” (red) means the targets shot;“Bai” (white) means failing to hit target;“Fa” (green) means getting bonuses and making a fortune. Other terms of the game such as“Pong (the gunshot banging sound)”,“Hu”,“Chi” and“Gang” are also connected with catching sparrows, meaning drawing a tile discarded by other players to make a meld of three identical tiles,victory for the round, drawing a tile discarded by other players to make a meld of three suited tiles in sequence, and succeeding in collecting a set of four identical tiles, respectively. The earliest accounts of Mahjong in Chinese texts were made by Yang Danian （杨大年） of the Song Dynasty in his Mahjong Bible（麻将经）.

All are equal in a game of Mahjong
Many literary and cultural figures in modern China have their stories connected with Mahjong. Some were reputed to have the best playing skills of fast playing while chatting and laughing, and others were reputed to be the worst players. It is said that in those times the winners often entertained all participating players in a restaurant with the money they won, and they even allowed spectators to join them in the eating and drinking.
Liang Qichao (梁启超), a late Qing Dynasty reformist, advocated a life philosophy that having fun is also a symbol of high taste. He valued the game of Mahjong to such an extent that he even declined a speech invitation as it clashed with his Mahjong agenda.
Mei Yiqi (梅贻琦), the president of the Tsinghua University in 1931, quiet, reticent, and serious,was reported to be a lover of Mahjong games in his everyday life.
According to some of these figures, the game reflects a positive life philosophy: it is compared to opium and sex; it is said to be a game of individualism as opposed to a teamwork game like football; and it is also reputed to be an indicator of the player’s moral character, for example, some people who were renowned for good manners could lose their temper easily and make others see their “true ego” only detectable to fellow Chinese people. And the Chinese obsession for Mahjong is typified in a Chongqing proverb: “with one Chinese, he will feel bored, with two, they will be chatting, with three, nothing could be done, with four, a good round Mahjong will be ready” .

When people think of today’s China as a fierce dragon buying off and devouring other parts of the world (with their sweat-blood meager wages in swap for insensibly expensive LV bags), they might also be thankful that most Chinese are still addicted to the Mahjong table and don’t have time to “take” the rest of the world at all. If Mahjong is complex enough to be their mini-universe, why bother working it out in the real big world?

From various sources.

Most Commented Posts

• Links and resources (29)
• READERS’ CLUB (27)
• Ancient Tales (in 11 parts) (12)
• Promotional song from “Detective Dee” (12)
• Confucius (in 11 parts) (10)
• About See China (10)
• Playing the pipa (9)
• The River of Change: A Photographic Journey, and Challenges (8)
• Li Shangyin, poet of late Tang Dynasty (in 5 parts) (5)
• Post 80s New China Literature (5)

On March 3rd, 2012, the “Man of the World” Marcestel’s Art Exhibition opened at the Manet Club in Beijing. The exhibition runs from 3 March to 20 April. More than 70 pieces of works that Marcestel has created through years are on display including series of China-themed works. Among these exhibits, there is a masterpiece work called Auspicious China created for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Famous Chinese artist Cui Zimo (崔自默), who has been a longtime friend with Marcestel, was also invited to the event.

Related Posts

• Auspicious China — “Man of the world” Marcestel’s Art Exhibition (2)

Recently, a video got extremely popular on Chinese equivalent of Tweeter, the Sino Weibo and various video websites in China. The video features a young man whose real name is Zhang Xu (张旭, or Nick in the House) from northeastern China imitating the way people speak English with an accent in different parts of the world. The video received thousands of replies and was retweeted for thousands of times once it was posted. Most of those who saw his imitation found him hilarious and talented. It is not only all the accents that impress people, but also the topic he chooses for each accent. The cultural appeal is as effective as the funny accents.

In the video, the young man imitates how people from Japan, South Korea, India, England, France, America, Russia and China speak English. While most people gave a thumbs-up for his spirit of entertainment, some other said some of his accents were not exactly accurate.

Most Commented Posts

• Links and resources (29)
• READERS’ CLUB (27)
• Ancient Tales (in 11 parts) (12)
• Promotional song from “Detective Dee” (12)
• Confucius (in 11 parts) (10)
• About See China (10)
• Playing the pipa (9)
• The River of Change: A Photographic Journey, and Challenges (8)
• Li Shangyin, poet of late Tang Dynasty (in 5 parts) (5)
• Post 80s New China Literature (5)

On February 20, prizes were awarded at the 62nd Berlin film festival. Chinese film White Deer plain (Bai lu yuan) won the Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution (camera) for its exceptional photography. The cinematographer, Lutz Reitemeier, has been working with director Wang Quan’an (王全安) for ten years. This is also the third time that Mr. Wang’s work has won an award at Berlin film festival since his Tuya’ Marriage and Apart Together.

The film is an adaptation of the novel White Deer Plain written by Chen Zhongshi (陈忠实). It tells an epic tale spanning three generations of the Bai and Lu families in Bai Lu Village. The conflicts between the two peasant families serve as a miniature of the primitive living situation of northern peasants in China. The main story line in the film is the romantic relationships the leading female role Bai Xiao’e (played by Zhang Yuqi, 张雨绮) has with men from the two families. The story is told in a time span of thirty years from the end of Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War. The evolution of society in history and its influence on common people can be seen through the ups and downs of two families.

White Deer Plain has borne strong references to both Chinese history and culture during that period. The novel is considered one of the best works in Chinese contemporary literature and the screen adaptation can be a great challenge. The film has been under preparation for 9 years and it took 3 years to finish it. Like the other works of director Wang Quan’an, White Deer Plain has won great acclaim after its preview in China. Some think the film has a serious subject matter that is lack in today’s Chinese films. Some even say that it is a rare work since 1949.

The film has aroused high expectations among Chinese movie fans as well as famous cultural figures with its unique local features–the sea of rolling wheat on the vast plain, the Shanxi dialect, and traditional Qin opera, which help re-create the original and authentic living scene of that specific historical period.

White Deer Plain was the only Chinese film to compete at this year’s Berlin film festival. The original length is more than three hours and it may face a cut before Chinese audience sees it in the cinema.

Related Posts

• Chinese filmmakers win in Berlin (0)
• New film: An Inaccurate Memoir (0)
• 2011 Chinese film figure report (0)
• Chinese movies in 2011 (0)