A Ladin Saint in Imperial China

Father (later Saint) Joseph Freinademetz, seated, with fellow missionaries

From Abtei (now Badia) one of the five Ladin speaking communes in the Gardetal (now Val Badia), in South Tirol, to villages in China, Joseph Freinademetz, (1852-1908), canonized as a Saint in 2003. In 1879, he left Europe for Sai Kung, a fishing and farming community that was then part of Imperial China.  Many in the region never really took kindly to being handed over as part of a scramble for control by European countries after China was weakened in the first Sino-Japanese war. Another connection between the Südtirol and South China!  St. Joseph Freinademetz is still an example for the modern world, now rapidly disintegrating into racism and hysteria. But a true Christian should believe that all men are equal in the eyes of God. “The only language that everyone understands is the language of love” he wrote. "I love China and the Chinese. I want to die among them and be laid to rest among them.....In heaven I will be a Chinese.” In 1880, Father Freinademetz was sent to a much larger mission in Shandong (where this photo may have been taken), where he died, twenty eight years later, of typhus, in January 1908.

Tien Chu Tong, photo by Isaac Wong

Sai Kung was no backwater, even in the 19th century. The fishing community had links with other villages around Mirs Bay, further to the north, where Catholic missions were active from fairly early on.  To quote Catholic Heritage in Hong Kong "In 1864, the PIME priests, particularly Fr. S Volonteri and Fr. G Origo came along and started their evangelization and pasturing services amongst the locals. In 1866, 7 villagers were baptized in autumn by Fr. G Origo, while 33 members of the Chan family were baptized in Christmas by Fr. S Volonteri . Local Catholics donated a vacant site for construction of a chapel and school, dedicated to St. Joseph as their patron. In 1875, the villagers on the entire island were baptized".... "There were also three other active religious communities in Sai Kung during the same period, namely in Tai Long Wan, Che Kang and Shum Chung. Priests used to visit farmers and fishermen staying in remote village clusters to promote catholic faith and pastoral work." Father Freiandemetz regularly said Mass in Yim Tim Tsai, travelling by sampan or small junk.  He is commemorated in a statue in the parish church of St. Joseph's, (named after his patron saint) completed in 1890.  Though most of the villagers moved to the city or emigrated abroad (mostly to Ireland), its heritage is being preserved by the former villagers and the government. The Church is now a place of pilgrimage for Chinese Catholics. There are strict controls over building and restoration, to preserve as much of its former character. The saltpans, which gave the village its name still produce salt, sold as souvenirs.

Yim Tim Tsai played a role in my own life.  My father used to hike in the area, and built his own boat in our backyard in the 1950's so he could explore the area by sea. It's now a UNESCO designated Geopark, with unique geological formations, basalt cliffs and strangely shaped rocks, many of which you can't reach by walking and are too enclosed for larger vessels to approach.  when we were kids, we took it all for granted. We assumed all families snorkelled in coral reefs and kept live coral at home. Streng verboten today ! We used to visit Yim Tsim Tsai all the time. While my dad and uncle talked to the village elders, we'd play with the kids and dogs.  My uncle, who spoke Hakka,  told me that there was some connection too between the village and his father, who owned a boat (seized from the German Navy in 1914) and knew the area well.  By that time, a permanent priest lived in the village. In this photo, taken early 1970, my Dad is rowing to the island with his eldest brother. Photo by fifth brother on a bigger boat.  My Dad used to go shooting pigeons in the woods that cover the hills on the island. He used to make the traditional Macau dish, game pie.  He's taking his brother, to go look. Notice the kids who know who they are, esp. the kid grinning !  Where is he now ? And notice what might be nappies on the small junk, which looks lived in. The pier is still there, modernized but recognizably the same. 

For the Chinese New Year, but subdued

Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year, the Spring Festival. To many that means food, decorations, and symbols of good fortune, like pots of kumquat and plum blossom.  All of which mean hope and renewal : a start and also a looking back on fundamental values, like family. Family means continuity, community, heritage. People will travel thousands of miles to see their family . In modern times, and not just in China, the New Year exodus from the cities where people work back to their parents and hometowns represents something infinitely deeper than a holiday.  There's a video (from Singapore) which shows a mother,  making preparation all on her own. Son is a big city big shot, he doesn't do folksy stuff. Then suddenly, he appears at the door, and the old woman bursts into tears of joy, and so do most of us who watch it. That says more about New Year than all the fancy trappings ! This year for obvious reasons the mood is subdued. This past year has seen so much trauma and maybe worst the corrosion of heritage and basic values. All the more we should remember what New Year can really mean.

There are lots of Spring and New Year songs, but I've chosen this one, 雨夜花 the Torment of the flower by Deng Yuxian (鄧雨賢) (1906-1944). It's relevant on many different levels this year, because Deng's ancestors were scholar gentry in China, settling in Taiwan late in the Qing period, generations before Taiwan was annexed by Japan after the first Sino-Japanese war in 1895.  When the Japanese took over they enforced the "Japanization" of Taiwan, suppressing traditional customs and promoting a Japanese version of modernization. After 1945, millions of mainland Chinese followed Chiang Kaishek to Taiwan, further obliterating Taiwanese identity, and installing an oppressive regime of their own. Thus Deng occupies a fairly unique place in Chinese and Taiwanese history.  His story helps us understand. (Link to his bio here) Deng was classically trained and worked for music studios, but eventually quit public life and became a humble schoolteacher. Torment of the flower is based on a traditional Taiwan folk song, which, during the the Japanese period, was adapted to fit in with Japanese occupation values.  Deng can't have been pleased. He died in 1944 of a heart condition.  There's nothing militaristic about this song : it’s  beautiful and nostalgic, it transcends place and time.

Chou Wen-chung : the passing of a true Man of Culture

Chou Wen-chung

Chou Wen-Chung (周文中) has died aged 96.  He was a man of great integrity and mental strength.  Now, perhaps, he'll meet up again with Edgard Varèse : the two of them both pioneers, totally original and courageous. No wonder they got on so well, even though they were so very different. A man of great integrity and mental strength. Now, perhaps, he'll meet up with Varèse : the two of them both pioneers. Varèse was not the kind of person who tolerated mediocrity, in himself or in anyone else.  He was also the kind of teacher who expected those he worked with to find their own way, like he had to do himself.  Like Varèse, Chou left his homeland for a new world, and Chou, even more so than Varèse was a man with deeply rooted cultural foundations, who bridged boundaries all through his life.  He was a great composer in his own right, but also more than a composer in the sense that everything he did expressed the wholeness of human creativity and experience. Please watch the video below, made earlier this year, which explains things better than I possibly can.  Chou exemplified the Confucian idea of 文人, a person who understands the concept that culture and learning have a role to play in the betterment of society. (look at the characters in his name - Learning + Central). Culture in its widest sense makes for a healthy society : no-one can suddenly disclaim their heritage without paying a price. (Please see my piece The World Belongs to Society)  So below, the video by Spiralis Music Trust - essential listening on so many levels !

Children of Troubled Times : not just history

Yuan Muzhi

Children of  Troubled Times (風雲兒女, 风云儿女) or more "children of the thunderstorm". It was a seminal film of its time,  galvanizing support for the war of resistance to the Japanese invasion.  The theme song, The March of the Volunteers, became so popular that it was heard everywhere, and eventually became the national anthem.  The composer Nie Er (聶耳) was a composer and musician, who died aged only 23 in a swimming accident while he was visiting his brother in Japan (war didn't stop Chinese intellectuals from learning about Japan).  When the film was released, in May 1935, Nie Er was still alive. He drowned in July that year. The film describes the awakening of social and political consciousness. It's not an entirely "historic" document, whatever your politics.  Nuts to the notion that Chinese people didn't need politics, which was an argument used to suppress democracy. 

It's also interesting because the star was Yuan Muzhi(袁牧之), matinee idol,actor, writer, director an intellectual. and director. He made Street Angel (馬路天使, 1937), perhaps the best known Chinese movie of the period in the west, which launched the career of singer Zhou Xuan. It's much more than a love story ! Please read my analysis of it here).  In Children of Troubled Times the opening credits roll with the March of the Volunteers playing, then a sudden discordant flashback to Shanghai, in darkness. Upper middle class domesticity : a rich man's daughter, Shi Yanshi, is playing the piano. Bored, she moves to the window where she looks into the next door apartment, where two men live : Xin Baihua (Yuan Muzhi) and Liang Zhifu (Gu Menghe). Both are refugees (though rich) from the North West, which the Japanese invaded in 1931. A folk song is heardfrom afar. The singer is Ah Fung, a poor girl, who lives with her elderly mother. They're refugees too.  Xin notates her song, but is attracted to Shi, whose portrait he sketches.Still, he looks after the welfare of Ah Feng, out of kindness. Xin goes to a glitzy nightclub, where he meets Shi, in evening dress, smoking. Her makeup's wild : drawn on eyebrows, high fashion then but on her like a caricature from Beijing operas. His friend Liang, however, is involved with the political underground, as is Ah Fung who gets an education and gets involved with student politics.  When she doesn't turn up at school, Xin goes out looking for her, but she's gone. Ah Fung sneaks back into Liang's apartment, which has been ransacked. He's gone - arrested by the police. As she leaves she steps on a painting of a phoenix which had been on the wall.
Meanwhile, Xin and Shi have married, enjoying a honeymoon on the coast in a fancy hotel.  Xin, though, is restless, following news of the civil unrest around them. They go to the theatre. In the first act dancers enact a strange tale where a man beats a woman down, but she rises back up and stabs him. Then a woman dressed in Lederhosen sings in front of an alpine landscape. Xin recognizes her - it's Ah Fung!  She visits his home in Shangahi, to learn that he's chosen a very different life. Xin gets a message that his friend Liang has fled abroad. At the port, the ship has already left.  Shi finds Xin, sitting on the shore, looking out to sea, looking desolate. A primitive goatcart wends its way up a steep hill. Ah Fung has returned to the North East, and sees her grandfather once more.  Images of the Great Wall and marching armies : self explanatory.  Back in Shanghai, Xin's increasingly restless. A letter arrives, a last farewell from Liang, now so far away. More images of war, bombardments, fleeing refugees. But where is Liang ? In the North East, partisans are building a fire.  Liang spots the picture of the phoenix and knows that Ah Fung must be near. Sure enough, there she is, with her grandad.  The Japanese mount an attack, but the partisans fight back, and the film ends as it began with The March of the Volunteers.  "Rise up! Rise up! Rise up!...march on! march on!" I'm sorry I don't get all of the levels, eg word plays, because I don't speak Mandarin and none of the prints I've seen have any kind of subtitles.

The World belongs to Society

天下為公 (Tien ha wei kung) Under the skies, the people, or the world belongs to society.  In kindergarten we were taught about the First Emperor whose big acheivement was to unite the country.  But we were also taught, even then, that he burned the books of learning including The Book of Rites, from which this quotation comes. So as kids aged 5 we learned that morality and culture are greater than individual power : you can win the battle but lose the war. Confucian values are not a bad thing.  Two thousand years later Dr Sun Yatsen quoted the phrase : it's the background to his San Mun Ju I, the Three People's Principles :  民族主義, that the people even in a  nation with hundreds of different minorities, have values in common.  民權主義 the rights of the people to be part of governance, and 民生主義 the concept that government should serve the community.  Basically the message is : deny culture and history, you're in trouble.  In the short term denial might be expedient, but long term, self hate is self harm, and corrosive. Fifty years ago, the Red Guards attacked learning (and Confucius). Like the First Emperor, they didn't last. 

The May Fourth Movement 100 years on

May Fourth 1919 - a key date in modern Chinese history.   Though a Republic was declared in 1911 on relatively modern and progressive lines, any change in the largest nation in the world takes time, and China was emerging from very difficult conditions indeed.  The May Fourth Movement was an umbrella for several different forces for social change - political, intellectual, cultural, and so on.  It also marked a change in perspective. Earlier reformers assumed that help would come from the West and Japan. Accordingly, China supported the Allies in the 1914-1918 war. Instead, German colonies in China were handed over to Japan.  The Unequal Treaties from the years of the Opium wars were retained, giving foreign nations extraterritorial rights on Chinese soil.  The May Fourth Movement  shows the change has to come from within, through education and ideals.  To mark the centenary of the May Fourth Movement I have been re reading the classic  Chow Tse Tung's The May Fourth Movement : Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Harvard 1960)   At the time the book transformed Chinese historiography.  Fifty years ago I studied it as an undergraduate. Since then so many more cataclysmic changes : the transition from past to future in a country this big and diverse cannot happen overnight.
Please also see my analysis of The Romance of a Fruit Pedlar, 掷果缘, 1922, one of the earliest Chinese movies, cinema being one of the tools modernizers favoured for reaching mass audiences (many of whom might be barely literate)  It's a lot more than comedy !   One of the many fruits of the May Fourth Movement !  Please read my piece HERE

  Romance of the Fruit Pedlar : stairs that go up can  be reversed and slide down

Norwegian tragedy in wartime Shanghai

Evolving mysteries - a Norwegian, Fritz Eugen Thoresen, a Captain in the merchant marine, whose ship at sea was captured by the Japanese Navy.  In prison he suffered greatly and died in tragic circumstances.  Fritz Eugen Toresen Fød 1884-06-15 var ombord på den allierte Britiske SS, Shinhwa da han ble tatt til fange og sendt til den japanske fangeleieren på Amay . Han ble syk i slutten av juni og døde i Shanghai 15 august 1944. A colourful life, but such a sad end.

It started so differently. Fritz's father's family came from Norderhov and his mother, Anna Larsson (born 31st May 1860) from Andebu or Tønsberg.  Fritz was born 15th June 1884, second of seven children, three of them ending up in China.  In 1905, he joined the Imperial Chinese Maritime Customs, an organization which belonged to the Chinese governemnt but which was run mainly by foreigners. He was stationed in Lappa near Macau,  but very soon after quit to go back to sea, based in Amoy (Xiamen), a very large port on the east coast of China. In the Norwegian national census of 1910. he's still on the way up the naval hierarchy, listed as"styrmann" (First Mate), visiting his widowed mother and siblings, after five years abroad.  Two years later his younger brother Thorbjørn would also go to sea, on a wooden ship with sails, which got shipwrecked off the coast of Australia, where he was rescued by aboriginals, and lived among them for a while.  Fritz Eugen was also a Freemason, initiated Corinthian Lodge, Amoy 9 Sept 1911, then Northern Star Lodge of China 10th June 1913 and later at Newchwang, Manchuria.  By 1919 he is Grand Master of the Lodge at Amoy, usually dominated by Englishmen. By 1939, he was a Captain employed by Wallem & Co, a very big shipping company, which still exists today, and presumably captained large vessels.  He made his will at this time, aged around 55, which was the age Europeans usually retired in China.


Fast forward to December 1941. Fritz Eugen is captain of the SS Shinhwa  which sails out of Shanghai on 6th December.  This was a much smaller ship,  owned by a man who was nowhere in the same league as Wallem & Co.  The Captain who should have sailed this voyage died of a sudden heart attack, so Fritz Eugen took over at short notice. Two days later Japan declared war on Britain and the US, attacking Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong. On 9th December, the Shinhwa is captured by the Japanese navy and Thoresen is forced to take it to Amoy. Ironic timing - leaving port in peacetime, sailing into war.  The Shinhwa was owned by a man called George Lewis Shaw, half Japanese, half Scottish, from Fuzhou. Though Shaw and his son also married Japanese women, Shaw supported Korean Independence from Japan. (Please read more here).  So the Japanese Navy had reasons for seizing the ship and throwing its crew into a naval prison.  Fritz Eugen probably wasn't involved in Korean independence. China and Japan had been at war since 1931, and there was a bad effect on trade, and shipping. The Shinhwa was on a long-term wartime charter to the British government though in what capacity, I can't find.  It probably flew a British Red Ensign - another reason for the Japanese seizure. Certainly Thoresen is listed on the memorial to merchant seamen lost in the service of the British at Tower Hill, London.  In theory, this would have meant that compensation would have been due to Thoresen's dependants but Shaw objected : there's correspondence on file where he denies all responsibility.  That's how I found letters from Fritz Eugen's brothers and sister to the Norwegian consulate in China,  all in Norwegian except for the brother who went to New York and writes in English, American style. Thoresen is also listed on a memorial in Oslo to Norwegians who died abroad in wartime, but I don't know if there's anyone left there who knew him.

Even though as a Norwegian, Thoresen was neutral, he was treated badly : at this stage he may have contracted the tuberculosis that was to kill him later. On 1st July 1942, he was released to return to his home at apartment 7A, 25 Rue du Consulat in the French concession in Shanghai where he'd been living for 5 years. The registration document above is the certificate issued by the Shanghai municipal authorties in 1944, the "33rd year of the Republic of China" and gives the same address, in Chinese, and also a transliteration of his name in Chinese "Tung Lei Sun". He has a dependent, Tito Livio Rozario, a student, born 1924, parents deceased, though his will dated 1937 mentions only his siblings.

In the 1920's and 30's Shanghai had been one of the world's largest cities with a population greater than New York. It was a manufacturing and financial centre, with international trade.  In 1937, the Japanese captured it, causing an exodus of refugees and prosperity. It didn't recover until quite recently. Living in Japanese-occupied Shanghai was extremely difficult, for everyone, Chinese or foreign.  Jobs were hard to come by, and without an income it would have beeen difficult to make ends meet, especially in a wartime situation. Though Fritz Eugen had quite considerable savings, they ran out or could not be assessed, since British banks were sealed off when Japan and Britain went to war.  He survived on loans from the Swedish consulate pledged against his stocks and shares.  Basically, he was close to destitute.  Fritz Eugen's sister, Ruth, married to Shelton (English? and, it seems, another sometime Maritime Customs employee) was also in Shanghai (106 Ferry Road) but she wasn't well either and died in 1946.  Their brother Thorbjørn was interned in a camp in Hong Kong where at least he had regular food, but not much. He, too, died in 1948. He rests in a Hong Kong cemetery, the only Norwegian surrounded by thousands of graves with inscriptions in Chinese.

By February 1943, Fritz Eugen was so unwell that he had to see a doctor, but by this stage both his lungs were affected. Health care was not free - if you were poor, you had no choice. "He refused to go hospital and insisted on being treated ambulatorily", wrote his physician, (Dr B. Meyerowitz) and deteriorated quickly.  "In March, he consented to go to the Shanghai General Hospital, here I treated him until April when a bed in the first class  of the Tuberculosis Ward of the Victoria Nurses Home became available.” He remained there until the summer of 1943, when, in an improved condition he discharged himself contrary to the physician's advice".  In September 1943, he contracted a fungus infection of the right hand. "On this and on several other occasions, the gravity of his position was pointed out to him and attempts were made to induce him to return to the hospital.  He did not agree before March 1944, when his general health and the general findings of his lungs showed a sudden deterioration. he was admitted to the Shanghai Municipal Hospital, re-transferred to the first class ward of the Victoria Nurses Home,  where the lung specialist of the City of Shanghai took charge of his treatment again. An improvement of his condition could not be effected. The patient succumbed to his disease on the 15th August 1944".  ("First class" in this context doesn't mean luxury. It just meant that it was westernized standard better than available to ordinary Chinese.)

Clearly, Fritz Eugen could not afford medical treatment, and was realistic enough to know that he would not survive.  But what choice did he have ?  The photo at the top shows him in February 1944, looking gaunt and unwell : in the last picture, taken only a few years earlier, he doesn't look too great. With a brother and sister in China in difficult situations and relatives in wartime Norway, Fritz Eugen must have faced his fate alone. There is no way we can mitigate the bleakness of his position.  Until this time last year I didn't even know his name.  But purely by chance a friend came across a mention of him in a merchant navy archive, and from there, things started to emerge.  So Fritz Eugen isn't forgotten after all.

15 BILLION views in 6 weeks - The Story of Yanxi Palace

Fifteen BILLION view between 19th July and 1 September,  and half a billion on one day alone (August 12th). Phenomenal viewing figures by any standard for The Story of Yanxi Palace (延禧攻略).  Viewing figures like that should be major news, since they reflect a mass market untapped by current media marketing models.  Yet in the west, barely a mention. Which says plenty about the global market for the arts, and about current west-centric business and political assumptions.  It's compulsive viewing.  I've watched all 70 episodes (45 minutes each) and want to start all over again to catch more detail.  And I don't usually like these kind of sagas and rarely watch TV at all. 
The Story of Yanxi Palace is an extravagant historical saga set in the Forbidden City in Beijing during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, a period that out-baroques the baroque and makes even Louis XIV look modest in comparison.  It tells the story of a girl who enters imperial service as a maid and works her way up to becoming de facto Empress. A rags to riches story without precedent,  particularly cogent since it's based more or less on a true story.   Moreover, the heroine, Wei Yinglou (Jinyan Wu), is a ferociously strong personality despite her demure appearance. So much for the idea that Asian women are meek.  There always were lots of strong women in Chinese history, despite patriarchal values.  Although the Emperor is kingpin in the Forbidden City where no other men can remain at night, the drama predicates around the women in the palace, most of them feisty characters in their own ways, competing to survive.  Like the women in the palace, you have to keep alert at all times : the plot moves so fast, with so many sub plots that you're mesmerized. Every episode ends on a cliff hanger.

You're also riveted by the sheer visual richness of the set - elaborate reconstructions of the imperial palace, every inch covered with antiques (or rather very good replicas). Even the slop buckets are cloisonné, and the porcelain in the cha wan (tea cups) is so fine that light shines through them. Best of all the embroidery, created in the workshops that supply the ongoing maintenance needs of the imperial palaces.  Please watch part of the making of documentary here   Since the plot predicates on embroiderers, this is no minor detail, but a metaphor for dedication, patience and attention to detail.   Politics, like embroidery, involves skill. The Qianlong Emperor's father had numerous sons, but  chose him to succeed in recognition of his mental discipline and courage.  A country the size of China isn't easy to rule.  The Emperor's younger brother fools around, "entitled" by privilege”: his weaknesses get him in the end. Yinglou falls in love with Fuca Fuheng,  kid brother of the Fuca Empress, the Emperor's first wife, and he with her, but they can't marry.  He's aristocratic, she's low level Bannerman family.  In any case,  duty comes before love.   He leads the Emperor's armies in the south and eventually dies in service of the country (while also sacrificing himself to save Yinglou, by then an Imperial Concubine and untouchable).  Yinglou's rise to power stems from much the same reason ; not deviousness so much as being more  altruistic than the other concubines. She thinks oif oithers than herself, saving the Fuca Empress's portrait from a fire, and sacricing her own health trying to save the Step Empress's son.  Always a moral, even in made for TV entertainment. Mental exercise for viewers, too.  TV need not be mindless.

The  dialogue is in Mandarin, though it's not impossible to follow if you understand Cantonese. Considering that 19% of the world's population lives in China,  and that many millions around the world can follow it too, the issue of translation is moot.  With an internal market that size, the series doesn't depend on English language audiences.  It has been dubbed in Cantonese, Malay, and Indian sub continent languages, but Mandarin speakers say that it's quite literary, so some translations might not convey the full effect.  In any case some knowledge of Chinese culture and history does make a difference.  Tiny details, for example, like the toddler running round the palace, whose carers can't keep up with him "Fifteenth son !" they call. Just any wilful kid?  The Emperor's fifteenth son was Yinglou's child, who would one day become the Jiajing Emperor though they don't tell you that in the story.  English subtitles do exist but they're not very helpful.  But The Story of Yangzi Palace is such an event in itself that it's sure to be rebroadcast and issued on DVD, presumably with translations and context explained.  Hopefully,  media marketers, economists and politicians will wake up and smell the coffee. Or rather, the scent of tea.

Baroque in the Forbidden City

Imagine a TV show first screened on 19th July this year, yet already viewed tens of millions of times, sweeping across Chinese communities all over the world.  A historical saga, so dramatic that you get addicted, and can't stop watching even though it runs to 70 episodes each 45 minutes long. The Story of Yanxi Palace 延禧攻略 (2018) is sweeping Chinese communities all over the world.   Since the population of China itself is close to 1.4 billion, that's a mass market on its own.
A Manchu girl, Eng Wei, enters the Forbidden City in Beijing during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799). The basic story is familiar : the girl did exist, as did her amazing rise from servant to Empress (albeit posthumously), though the exact details vary with each re-telling.   This gives viewers context and gives artistic licence to creators.  Historical sagas are nothing new,  whether in Chinese literature or Chinese film, but this production is a sensation because it is done exceptionally well.   Full of incident and variety, the drama is fast paced, and emotionally involving since the characters are well defined. What's more, production values are sumptuous, way above ordinary costume drama -  real silks and hand embroidery, not the usual polyester machine-made stuff..  The sets don't look studio, and some scenes are in fact shot in the Forbidden City, whose sheer size and extravagance cannot be matched.  Even Shaw Brothers, in their glory days, could do nothing like this!

In the Qian Long period, the Chinese Empire reached an apogee . In one episode, the Emperor is having a party, and recives gifts from his concubines (chosen normally from aristocratic Manchu clans). One gift is an entertainment by a band of eunuchs playing western music on western instruments, which did, in fact, happen, though not exactly like this.  They are playing Bach, and the band includes saxophone, guitar and accordion !  The research the production team put into everything else went wrong here, but compared with the rest of the show it's no big deal.  One of the Imperial Concubines is a Beijing opera fan, with her own little theatre with good scenes of singing and music.  The main thing is that the Emperor and his ladies marvel at the novelty.  Though I chuckled at the idea of Bach being played with strange instruments, the concept itself isn't so far fetched.  There was a significant Jesuit community in Beijing, who served the Imperial Court, learning the culture and sharing western science and arts. Respecting the Chinese as equals : a far cry from the cannons and coercion policy that would later prevail.  Theree are plenty of books on the Jesuits in China, but much of the music they brought to and from, and made themselves, is not well documented.  Some manuscripts were hidden after the suppression of the order, not only in China but in Europe.

The best known recording is the Messe des Jesuites de Pekin, which recreates scores published in France between 1636 and 1661, recorded by Auvidis Astrée, with music by Joseph-Marie Amiot, Charles d'Ambleville, Simon Boyleau, and Téodorico Pédrini, some of the Jesuit musicians active in Beijing before that time.  The performers are Ensemble Meihua Fleur de Prunus and the choir of the Centre Catholique Chinois de Paris, directed by Francois Pichard, and XVIII-21 Musique des Lumieres directed by Jean-Christoph Frisch.  Western baroque meets Chinese orchestration.  These are liturgical works adapted for Chinese circumstances and Chinese musicians, presumably parishioners rather than professionals.  Some sound like Chinese chant, with accompaniment, some like western choral music of the time, with organ, period strings and Serpent, which gives an exotic feel.  In one piece, the choir chants in simple Latin, with Chinese wooden percussion and gongs, while the celebrant (presumably a Jesuit, trained to do so) sings.

Glière The Red Poppy and Soviet non-realism

The Harbour Scene in Glière's The Red Poppy

As part of the Voices of Revolution series at the South Bank, Vladimir Ashkenazy conducted the Philharmonia Orchestra in Mosolov's The Iron Foundry,  Prokofiev's Piano Concerto no 3 (Behzod Abduraimov), Glière's Concerto for coloratura soprano and orchestra and the Suite from Glière's The Red Poppy. The Iron Foundry and The Red Poppy were written  around 1927, when the Revolution was safely established, and culture in the Soviet Union was briefly progressive, even avant garde. It represented the hope that a new world order could be achieved through progress and Russian leadership. Later, Stalinism, and "the will of the people" would dictate the conservatism that comes with mass populist values.  The Iron Foundry marks one aspect of Futurism: faith in industrial processes.  It's a blast ! It also connects to other artistic works of the period, not only in Russia, from Fritz Lang's Metropolis (read more here) to Machinist Hopkins (more here). I've written about The Iron Foundry and Soviet Futurism before, (see labels like Futurism and Eisenstein) so I decided to watch the full ballet version of The Red Poppy in a full-colour production from Bratislava in 1954. 

Glière's The Red Poppy is set in China. Nothing unusual about that given western taste for exotic locales.  Significantly, Turandot premiered in 1927, around the same time as The Red Poppy. Since a huge part of Asia was in fact part of the Russian Empire, it was perfectly natural for Russian composers and artists to incorporate "eastern" themes. Hence Borodin's Prince Igor, and much else.   Yet there's more to The Red Poppy.  It's poltical, and connects to a wider context of Soviet expansionism.  The film, Storm over Asia (Vsevolod Pudokin, 1928) depicts a Mongolian herdsman mistreated by the British (generic capitalist) who eventually drives them from his land.  The timing of The Red Poppy is worth noting.  It's no accident either that the title is "red" poppy, since the "white" poppy produces the opium which caused the Opium Wars and the Unequal Treaties.   China was in the throes of modernizing after thousands of years of feudalism, and the young Republic forced to call on help from outside. The Chinese couldn't really rely on western powers who had an interest in keeping China subservient, so they called in the Soviets.  The Chinese Communist Party was minute, founded only in 1921, so it didn't seem a threat. But by 1924, Comintern had such influence that it could organize massive strikes in the main Treaty Ports, threatening the control of western powers.  The leader of the Comintern in China was codenamed Borodin, a name familiar to many Chinese since his music was well known in China.  Hanns Eisler's elder brother was also involved, lower down the scale. The Chinese soon got rid of the Comintern, but eventually the CCP took hold. 

Glière's The Red Poppy depicts the harbour in a Treaty Port (as sen in the photo above, taken from the original production). Coolies, working on a pittance, are unloading goods for foreigners and the rich. In the Bratislava production the cargo is marked "From the USA" and contains guns.  The workers are mistreated, not only by western capitalism but by Chinese collaborators, depicted - alas - like Fu Man Chu stereotypes. Glière incorporates many different musical styles to emphasize the contrast between cultures - foxtrots and jazz for the capitalists,  bizarre pastiche Chinoiserie for the Chinese, and The Internationale for the Soviets and "good" Chines partisans.   The original, being a ballet, contains numerous set pieces for dance, including passages where notes flutter breathlessly, so the dancers do a lot of en pointe, their feet arched as if they had bound feet (another western stereotype of Chinese culture).  In ballet, dance tells the story, so plots don't need much depth.  A Chinese nightclub dancer called Tai-Choa notices how nice the Soviet sailors are (they have a famous dance number).  There are "Malay" dancers too, who have no function but to add another element of exotic soft porn  - "Malays" no real Malay would recognize.  In a protracted dream sequence, induced by smoking dope (as stereotype Chinese were expected to do), Tai-Choa finds herself in a temple with a giant Buddha. Demons dressed like generals in Beijing opera threaten her, but she's saved by good guy warriors in white (!) commanded by a Chinese partisan. The Chinese villian tries to get Tai-Choa to poison the Soviet Captain (whom she loves)  but she won't do it. The temple/courtyard is raided and the Captain and his men enter.  The Chinese villain raises his gun and shoots, but Taï-Choa sees what's happening and takes the shot, and dies.

Russian music was ubiquitous in China long before the Communists came to power. After 1917, hundreds of thousands of "White" Russians flooded into China to escape, swelling the number of western musicians in China,  forming dance bands and orchestras, even supporting Russian language opera houses. Glière's earlier music would have been quite well known, though The Red Poppy with its overtly political character would probably have been banned before 1949.  After the Sino-Soviet split in 1957, it would have been banned again.  But by then, decades of militant entertainment of all persuasions had become part of the Chinese scene, giving rise to a distinctly Chinese form of political ballet, which blends agit prop with the stylization of Chinese opera.

Muhai Tang Shanghai Chinese Orchestra, Philharmonie de Paris

Muhai Tang and the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra have been touring Europe in a series coinciding with the Chinese Lunar New Year. Their concert at the Philharmonie de Paris is now online on the Philhamonie site.  This is serious Chinese classical music, extremely well done, light years ahead of the sort of kitsch you get on TV and in some movies. Chinese opera dates back some 700 years, pre-dating western opera. Traditionally Chinese music was chamber music for private self-cultivation or folk/popular music for entertainment.  Even opera orchestras were relatively modest, the emphasis on poetry, acting and singing.  Large-scale Chinese instrument orchestras are relatively new, going back around 100 years. But consider that western orchestral tradition didn't come into its own until the late 18th century, and the extreme cultural differences that had to be overcome, it's quite some achievement how distinctive Chinese classical orchestras can be.  All the pieces on this programme are modern works, adapting traditional themes and instruments, effectively creating an original new genre. Muhai Tang, like many of his players, is well versed in western music as well as in Chinese, which adds extra richness to performance.  So listen to this concert, and watch it, too, because the filming is musically well informed, with close up focus on playing techniques you'd never see so clearly in concert hall conditions.   You can focus on tiny, delicate sounds, like a single string reverbrating in near silence, and see instruments like the Chinese piccolo, triangle and snakeskin drums.

Appropriately, the programme began with Harmony, by Wang Yun Fei, featuring three Sheng players, followed by Wang's even more impressive Black Bamboo for long bamboo flute, pipa and erhu. The large flute has depth and volume, suggesting the gravity of bamboo trunks,  whose wood is so strong that it can be used to build ships and houses. The lightness of the pipa and erhu suggeest movement and flexibility, even a sense of gentle swaying movement, familiar to anyone who's ever seen bamboos bending in the breeze.  More imagery in Spirit of Chinese Calligraphy  (Luo Xiaoci, orchestrated by Xie Peng), with zheng soloist Lu Shasha. A small bamboo flute calls, introducing the zheng, this one with magnificent depth and vigour.   In the west, the term "calligraphy" means ornamental writing, but in Chinese culture calligraphy is an artistic form of expression. Brush strokes "speak": swift, sure figures moving rapidly across paper after a period of contemplation. Lu's playing is graceful and forceful, contrasted with the call of a small banboo flute.  My friend's mother's calligraphy was firm and independent, resembling kapok trees, whose strong lines and angles are majestic, and whose fleshy red flowers spring from bare branches. Spirit of Chinese Calligraphy is abstract, but you can hear the individuality and decisiveness in the flow.

During the Qin dynastic period (221-206 BC), a concubine sacrificed herself to give courage to her Emperor in wartime. This story of love and duty is so powerful that it's inspired literature and opera. Here we heard an adaptation for modern Chinese orchestra which captures the drama.  Its ferocity suggests the saga of non-stop warfare from which the first dynasty in recorded Chinese history emerged, and its majesty suggests the splendour of the imperial court and the love affair that led to tragedy.  Three main figures form the core : pipa, jinghu and large Chinese drum.  Around them the tumult of full orchestra, complemented by westen woodwinds, celli and basses.  The pipa often resembles the sound of a human voice, so its cry is plaintive against the turbulence.   More esoteric, Caterpillar Fungus (Fang Dongqing) arranged for an ensemble of mixed plucked strings including pipas, different types of zheng and qin (large moon shape bodied lutes). Percussive effects are made by beating hands on wood.  The fungus grows on caterpillars and kills its host, though it has curative powers for humans.  Part worm, insect and plant, it is mysterious. Thus the music is hybrid, with a character that could be adapted for western strings.

The Butterfly Lovers Concerto, based on one of the most famous legends in Chinese literature, was written in 1959 by He Zanghou and Chen Gang. Here we heard an adaptation for erhu with soloist Ma Xiao hu, which I think makes it sound more natural than the better known version for western violin.  The erhu duets with the western cello, the "lovers" who cannot meet until released from mortal life. The zheng suggest airborne flight, the Chinese flute the idea of birdsong.  Dancing Phoenix (Huang Lei) features the suona a high pitched horn. Soloist Hu Chenyun calls out, from behind the orchestra, duetting with a small mouth organ : song bird and strident phoenix in a forest of strings, winds and drums, until the souna takes off with a long protracted call, the orchestra strutting in its wake. Imagine if Messiaen had heard this !

Three "Landscapes",  The Silk Road (Jian Jiping), Moonlit Lughou Bridge Before Dawn (Zhoiu Ziping)  and Wedding Celebration from Tan Dun's Northwest Suite, the first and last spiced up with regional colour, such as the evocation of Muslim music,  are eclipsed by the middlepiece  where shifting textures and tempi create a sophisticated tone poem.  Long serene lines mark the beginning, flowing string figures suggesting the movement of water and a thousand years of traders approaching Beijing.  Drums and cymbals announce a wilder, freer section whose zig zag lines could suggest the sounds of Beijing opera.  The theme then develops into a majestic swaying  crescendo broken by plaintive solo erhu, played by the Shanghai Chinese Orchestra Leader. Then suddenly it breaks off, in silence. (The attack on the Lughou Bridge marked the start of the 1931-45 invasion when tens of millions were killed and made refugees. )

Liu Changyuan's Lyrical Variation for the orchestra is even more sophisticated : a deep throated flute sings a long melody agaisnt a backdrop of quietly brushed percussion.  The western double basses play  distinctively "Chinese" sounds which merge seamlessly into the Chinese strings.  A very strong sense of structure, percussive blocks alternating with keening legato (Chinese brass and winds).   Erhus, being small, can play dizzying fast tempi. Members of the orchestra shout echoing the drums. Near-cacophony, from which another strong, swaying rhythmic line emerges   Kong Zhixuan's Flying Bees displays the virtuosity of Chinese instrument technique :  Rimsky-Korsakov's The Flight of the Bumblebee at manic speeds, changing direction and volume non-stop.  What might seem mad frenzy is in fact very carefully paced precision. Ding Long's erhu leads the orchestra : sheng, ruan, qin and a single small muffled drum join in.  Almostjam session   syncopation, played with the ease that comes from true mastery.After that dynamism, a return to more "traditional" chamber music arranged for large orchestra, in Huang Yijun's Blooming Flowers and Full Moon.  Muhai Tang gets the Paris audience to beat time : the rhythmic pulse of Chinese music is never far away. Western composers would do well to study Asian music, which offers its own aesthetic, with a structure based on rhythm and intervals, and a surprising amount of inventiveness.  Oddly enough, Tang often looks like Beethoven, if you can imagine Beethoven beaming and benevolent.   (Please see my piece on Debussy and the influence of gamelan at the Philharmonie recently, and my other pieces on Chinese music, film, culture and history, following the labels below).

Nanjing Massacre - 80 years on

On 13th December 1937 began the six weeks massacre of Nanjing (Nanking) in which as many as 300,000 Chinese were murdered. That doesn't take into account the many others injured, those who died later of wounds and other suffering, those traumatized, left orphaned, forced into exile.  And Nanjing was just one of many incidents in the 14 years of Japanese occupation. Consider and ponder.  

Bunny Girl Lin Dai

Lin Dai 林黛, forever young and cherished.

Lin Dai was loved because she was much more than an actress. She was a symbol of the hopes of her era. When she died, it was as though those dreams were shattered. Lin Dai's father was a powerful politician in Guangxi, a province with a tradition of fiercely independent reformist leaders. A very few year later, the demographic upheaval reversed, and millions fled the Communists.  Everyone was a refugee of some kind. A whole nation with subliminal psychic trauma. In the west, it's hard for people to understand.  Hong Kong boomed, thanks to the influx of people, money and expertise from the North, transforming the city from quiet bywater to metropolis.  Chinese cinema boomed, too, serving the worldwide diaspora. Lin Dai was an icon of the optimism of the time - progressive thinking, despite on-going struggle.  She was a "modern girl" but even more so, a girl whose freshness and innocence symbolized something even more eternal.  So when she died, aged only 29, it was as if the lights went out all over  the world.  Please read my piece Lin Dai Remembered here and also numerous other articles on Chinese cinema, culture, history etc. 

Datong, the Chinese Utopia, in London

Datong, the Chinese Utopia, grand finale to the Chinese Music Series in London, the biggest ever showcase of Hong Kong culture presented in the west, comes to the Richmond Theatre on 27th and 28th July. Datong, the Chinese Utopia, has been described as "a century of Chinese history distilled into three acts". The opera, composed by Chan Hing-yun to a libretto by  Evans Chan,  examines  China's recent past through the lives of 19th century reformer Kang Youwei(康有為) and his daughter Kang Tongbei ( 康同璧).  Kang Youwei (1888-1927) was a scholar from  Nanhai, near Foshan in Guangdong province, whose ideas on the modernization of China appealed to the young Guangxu, inspiring the "!00 Days Reform" in 1898, which was soon suppressed by the ultra-conservative Dowager Cixi. The Emperor was imprisoned and Kang Youwei went into exile.  The title of this opera refers to Kang's book, the Datong Shu (大同書) revealing a vision of a global utopia of human equality and solidarity, where divisions of race, class and gender would no longer apply.

The opera begins during the Cultural Revolution, when the Red Guard movement demanded a new world order based on the abolition of the past.  Kang's daughter, Kang Tongbi, lies on her deathbed, her daughter beside her.  Years before, things were so different. Kang Youwei believed that feudal family structures kept China backwards, and that women should be equal to men. Thus Tongbi travelled the world, studied abroad and held feminist values, the prototype "New Woman" of early 20th century modernization.

Kang Youwei's ideas on reform were complex, confronting capitalism, religion and social organization, and so wide ranging that  they are recognized on both sides of the modern Chinese political divide. In his lifetime, and in exile, his ideas on equality brought him up against widespread racism.  In this opera, we see Kang meeting with President Theodore Roosevelt in the wake of anti-Chinese leglislation then sweeping the United States, We also see Kang Tongbi chiding foreigners who treat Chinese as lesser beings.  Lots of food for thought. In times of tyrbulence and division, we could do well to consider Datong The Chinese Utopia as an opera and as an introduction to Kang';s ideas.

Datong the Chinese Utopia, premiered at the Hong Kong Arts Festival in 2015 to great acclaim. In London, the cast will include  Louise Kwong as Kang Tongbi, Carol Lin as The Empress Dowager and as Tongbi's daughter (an interesting reversal)  and Apollo Wong as Kang Youwei, with David Quah in supporting roles.  The conductor is Lio Kuokman, the director Tang Shu-wing.  A film about Kang Youwei by Evans Chan premiered in 2011.  (see clips below) . Please read more about the Hong Kong Music Series HERE  (Beyond the Senses, Chinese Chamber Muisc as Theatre) and 

HERE. (Music Interflow, St John's Smith Square) (Photo credits : Yankov Wong)

7/7/37 - a world event unmarked in the west

7th July 1937 - 80 years since the  start of the Japanese invasion of China.  The "Marco Polo Bridge Incident or 七七事變 is a hugely important anniversary, prelude to the massacre of Nanjing, the conquest of Shanghai and the war in the Pacific.  Luguo Bridge (as it's known in Chinese) was strategic because it's so close to Beijing, the symbol capital, though the seat of government had been moved to Nanjing by the Nationalists just ten years before.  Manchuria  was invaded in 1931, but 7/7/37 was an attack on the core of the nation.  Chinese from all regions took part in the resistance in the North. Eventually, the war moved South, too, precipitating one of the largest mass population upheavals in world history. No-one in China remained unaffected.  Effectively 7/7/37 marked the start of a cataclysm that's engulfed China for decades, its repercussions still being faced today. Mao and the Communist Party, for starters. To understand the present, it is absolutely essential to understand the past, and from the perspective of those who experienced it.  Nowadays it's fashionable to think in simplistic terms. There are some who'd even deny the impact of the Opium Wars. Imagine the situation reversed.  But the present doesn't exist in a vacuum. Identity is reshaped, distorted and revised, but the broader the perspective, the less likelihood of getting boxed into corners. Polarization is the enemy of truth.  Thus the more we learn, the better we can interpret.

Doming Lam - Hong Kong Music Series, St John's Smith Square

Doming Lam, from SCMP

Hong Kong music, and indeed most modern Chinese music, might be nowhere were it not for Doming Lam ( 林樂培), who features in the Hong Kong Music Series, the biggest celebration of Hong Kong classical music ever held in Britain.  Hong Kong is a dynamic, thriving and vibrant city whose cultural life reflects the cosmopolitan creativity that makes the place flourish, despite all odds. In in the west, people only know movies, and don't realize just how much more there is in Hong Kong arts. The Hong Kong Music Series presents five productions, four concerts and one opera, at various central venues in London from 7th to 28th July.  More details HERE

Doming Lam was born in Macau in August 1926. He studied in Toronto and Los Angeles (with Miklós Rózsa). Returning to Hong Kong in 1964, he soon became a leading figure, composing, conducting and promoting music in a city where performance is highly regarded.  With his engaging personality, he's a good communicator, almost a household name, which is more than can be said about many serious composers.  Maintaining an international presence, he's a Member of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) . He also has a section in Grove. Photo at left shows Doming Lam in  his  youth when he compered a popular classical music radio show. The keynote concert in the Hong Kong Music Series will be held at St John's Smith Square on 7 July (book HERE)   Titled  "Music Interflow", the programme  illustrates the dialogue between western and Chinese music.  Doming Lam's Three Night Songs of Li Bai  will be a highlight. It's a short piece for solo voice and piano, written in 1957, but marks a significant thread in Lam's development.

Li Bai, who lived in the Tang period, was a scholarly poet who lived in solitude, eschewing worldly power.   Many of his poems dwell on Nature, specifically the moon.  He often wrote about wine, but drunkenness provided cover for the expression of deep emotion.  In traditional Chinese society, the scholar gentry were a distinct class.. Although many had careers in public service, they didn't necessarily have power or wealth, but had moral and intellectual authority.  Chinese classical music reflects these cultural values: music for contemplation and private edification.   Effectively, a chamber music ethos.  In the 19th century, Chinese audiences embraced western orchestral music. Conservatories were set up in Beijing and Shanghai. Read more HERE about Xian Xing Hai and  HERE about Ma Sicong, two important composers from the same southern delta region that Doming Lam comes from.  Guangdong culture is very distinctive: even the dialect is based on nine tones, difficult for non-native born to master.  The advent of large, western style orchestras stimulated the growth of large ensembles for Chinese music, generating a whole new genre.  Doming Lam writes music for western and Chinese orchestras, as well as synthesizing both forms anew.  He also writes large scale choral works. Read HERE for a list of his works, with links to scores and recordings.

Clarence Mak

The concert at St John's Smith Square on 7/7 includes works by Clarence  Mak, Lui Man Shing,  Tsui Wai-lam, Mailina Tsui and Chan Man Tat, music based on Chinese aesthetics, cognizant of western influence. The programme also includes works by Britten, Quilter, Bridge and Delius.  See the connections?  Chamber music and song - refined music for reflective individuals   Conducted by Lo King Man, the performers play western and Chinese instruments. The singers are Colette Lam and mezzo Carol Lin, who will also be singing in the opera Datong ; the Chinese Utopia at the Richmond Theatre on 27th and 28th July. Book HERE.  I'll write more later about the opera, and about the concert with Chinese opera in the Hong Kong Music Series.  Both deserve more time and space !  Besides, it's not easy to come to Chinese music, even modern Chinese music, without understanding the background and unique values.  Because the English-speaking world is west-oriented, it helps to understand alternative perspectives.  There is so much to discover!   To find out more, please follow the labels below to Chinese music, Chinese opera, Chinese movies, Chinese culture and history. 

Imperial princes, building snowmen

Winter scene in the Imperial Palace, Beijing : click on the photo and move your cursor to enlarge to appreciate the detail. The original scroll was three metres tall, painted with meticulous detail.  It was painted by Giuseppe  Castiglione (1688-1766) aka Lian Shi Ning 郎世寧;. Castiglione came from an aristocratic Italian family but became a Jesuit missionary and was sent toi China , arriving in 1715. In line with Jesuit practice, he immersed himself in Chinese culture. Unlike other missionary groups, the Jesuits believed in winning hearts and minds, however long that might take rather than conversion by force.  Castiglione served at the courts of three emperors of the Qing dynasty,  the Kanghsi, Yongzheng and Qianlong. emperors. Using Chinese materials, Castiglione painted in a blend of Chinese and western styles. He did portraits of his emperors seated on their thrones in formal Chinese style, but also posed in more western ways. His portrait of the Emperor Qian Long for example, shows the monarch astride a horse, almost exactly as if he were Louis XV, his almost exact contemporary. Indeed of the two, Qianlong probably outshone Louis.  In the painting above, we see the imperial children, playing in the palace gardens, like kids would do anywhere. They're building a snowman. But being young princes, their snowman is a Chinese lion.

Boris Blacher, Manchuria and Flüchtlinge

Boris Blacher (1903-75), the highly influential composer, and father of Kolja Blacher the violinist, was born in Newchwang, now part of the city of Yingkou on the Gulf of Bohai, in Liaoning Province in China. He lived there until he was sixteen, remaining in Manchuria for three more years before going to Germany in 1922.  The photo at left is Blacher's passport photo taken when he left China.  Being a modernist, "degenerate" in  Nazi eyes, he couldn't teach, but continued to write. His opera Romeo und Julia dates from 1943.  After the war his career flourished. He knew Berthold Goldschmidt, his almost exact contemporary, and taught Aribert Reimann, Isang Yun, Kalevi Aho and many others. Blacher was one of the millions of Germans who lived outside Germany, some communities being established for hundreds of years throughout Eastern Europe. After 1918, and more severely after 1945, when borders were re-drawn, these communities were effectively stateless. Many were ethnic cleansed, millions became refugees. Not all that different from the upheavals that happened in the century of war that ripped China apart after the Opium Wars, when China was invaded by western military force, and Unequal Treaties were imposed which granted foreign powers exemption from Chinese law and granted exclusive rights over trade, a situation which ultimately led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese occupation, civil war and communism.  Hundreds of millions were dislocated over a long period. In the 1931-45 war alone tens of millions trekked from the coast to the Himalayas.  A century of chaos all over the world. 

Newchwang was a Treaty Port created in 1858. In Blacher's time, Newchwang was a godforsaken little town on a river that froze up all winter. Sometimes the sea froze too. In summer, it's extremely hot, not at all an easy climate.  Bear this in mind when considering the film Flüchtlinge  (Refugees) made in 1933, based on a novel by Gerhard Menzel (1894-1965). Menzel was a Nazi so the nationalism in the film is tainted, even though the film itself isn't much more jingoistic than a lot that was happening at this early stage in the Reich.  The star, Hans Albers, the biggest star of his time, was not a party follower and in any case had a Jewish partner, who had to flee to Switzerland, though they reunited after the war.  The director was  Gustav Ucicky (1899-1961) the half-Czech illegitimate son of Gustav Klimt.

In any case. the situation the movie depicts was so extreme that it would have merited similarly nationalistic sentiment had it happened elsewhere.  The photo at right shows Newchwang a year after Blacher's birth.  Click to enlarge - it's very detailed. "Abandoned Newchwang", conquered by crack Russian troops, fighting Manchu bannerman. No contest.  The Russians had already seized northern Manchuria,  and had built a railway line through the province, to extract its mineral wealth.  Soon after, Russia and Japan went to war, and the devastation spread, culminating in huge naval battles and the siege of Port Arthur, itself the site of a massacre ten years before when the Japanese wiped out the Chinese population. Thus, the background to the Japanese invasion of China 25 years later and the War in the Pacific.  Matters were compounded with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, when millions of "White" (ie not Red) Russians fled across Siberia to Manchuria, from part of which the Japanese had evicted the Russians.

The film Flüchtlinge  begins in August 1928. Everyone's fleeing the return of the Russians - Chinese, Russians, Jews and Volga Deutsch, the German population on the Volga that the Reds wanted rid of. Some of the cast are East Asian of some sort : one of them speaks proper Mandarin and rattles off his German text as if he's memorized it off paper.  Yingkou (Newchwang) is mentioned specifically, but most are trying to get to Harbin, further north, where the Russian-built railway can take them away.  That was the city from which young Blacher left for Germany six years before, when this branch of the railway was run by Whites, Japanese and Chinese.

The refugees are caught in machine-gun fire, and some of the men are dragged away screaming by Bolshevik soldiers. They're also dying of thirst, so break the pipes on the trains to get the water that runs the steam engines. Without water, though, the trains won't run.  Hans Albers plays Arneth, who at first appears as a sadistic Englishman, but turns out to be a German, who felt betrayed by the 1918 revolution in Germany and by what happened after.  As many did. Whence Hitler.  Will Arneth betray the refugees or help them ? He chooses the latter.  Eventually the train gets going, though the tracks are twisted and a grain silo gets holed by grenades.  It would be easy to dismiss Flüchtlinge as propaganda, but such events did take place and to real people all over the world in some form or other.  Please also see my piece Art Song that became an Icon : On the Songhua River, which some might sneer at because it's communist, while  Flüchtlinge is early Nazi.  Incidentally, they're  both about the same part of Manchuria.  What matters isn't nationality but human beings, whether they are on "our side" or not. Did Blacher see these movies ? Chances are he would have known about Flüchtlinge through the China-returned German community. On the Songhua River was heavily promoted in East Berlin. and the DDR. Chances are he did. Did he realize he was seeing them through different perspectives ? 

Art Song that became an icon : On the Songhua River

Billboards in North China in 1947 juxtaposing two realities: consumer fashion goods on one side, and an ad for the film On the Songhua River on the other.  Passers-by are rushing past. They don't know that Communism is just around the corner. The film On the Sungari River (the old westernized name for the Songhua) was made almost immediately after the Japanese surrender in North China, almost literally before the embers had finished burning on the battlefield, which gives the film a poignant authenticity few movies attain. It is certainly not to be dismissed as mere propaganda.  Real people lived in real times like this. We must not forget.

A young girl called Niu-er lives in a village, lovingly depicted by the camera. Suddenly strangers appear: soldiers on horses, brutalizing peasants into submission. It is September 1931, and the Japanese have invaded. Fourteen years of war will follow, tens of millions will become refugees, China will never be the same again. Niu-er's parents are murdered (the killing of the mother particularly distressing). The girl and grandfather flee, but soon grandfather dies, entrusting Niu-Er to a lad from their native area, "You're going to have to marry one day", says the old man "so make the most of it". Eventually Niu-er's husband finds work in Japanese-operated coal mines, under notorious conditions of slavery. This mineral wealth was why the Japanese invaded North China. The area is still the powerhouse of modern China's industrial economy.  There's an accident, many miners are buried underground.  Posters appear, inciting rebellion, but many of the peasant workers are illiterate. The guards break up the demonstration but the workers fight back, though they're helpless against guns.  Some of the miners, including Niu-er and her husband, escape into the snow, to be rescued by partisans. In the final scene, the partisan band walks along the Songhua River, no longer frozen but carrying floes of ice swiftly out to sea.

The film is based on an even more famous song "Along the Songhua River" (松花江上) an art song by composer Zhang Hanhui, (1902-46) Biography in film here, which immediately became a smash hit, immortalized now as a patriotic song, heard in many manifestations, and still extremely popular today. How many art songs enjoy that success? The song of course isn't political, as it expresses emotions felt by Chinese on all sides of the political divide, Nationalist and Communist. It pops up in many forms, including the movie Cold Nights starring Ng Chor Fan and Pak Yin (Read more here)

" My home is on Songhua River in the Northeast. There are forests and coal mines. There are soybeans and sorghum all over the mountain. My home is on Songhua River in the Northeast. There are my fellow countrymen and my old parents. 918, 918, since that miserable day, September 18, 9 18, since that miserable day, I've left my homeland, discarded the endless treasure. Roam, Roam, the whole day I roam inside the Great Wall. When can I go back to my homeland? When can I get back my endless treasure?"

Hence the chorus "918, 918" a date engraved on the consciousness of many generations, being the start of the 1931-45 war.  Below two contrasting versions: