the China Lightroom blog

For the last two centuries, the Chinese psyche has been defined in large part by the humiliations and sufferings brought about by foreigners (see the Opium War, the Second Opium War, and the Nanjing Massacre). After the founding of the current Peoples Republic of China, it was the disastrous policies of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward which furthered that wound. The latter were the Chinese inflicting pain onto themselves.

In a T.V. series released in 1991, called 渴望 (“Yearning”), 毛阿敏 (Mao AMin) touched the hearts of every Chinese with her rendition of the theme song under the same name. The T.V. series itself was an epic, depicting the social upheaval that characterized the Cultural Revolution. The impact of the Cultural Revolution was pervasive. It gripped the whole nation.

Through 渴望, 毛阿敏 brought out the sadness and the strong yearning inside every Chinese to want to shed the past and to seek a future free of those sufferings. Every Chinese have lamented how things have gone so wrong for the bulk of the last two centuries. If anyone who wishes to understand why the Chinese want peace and stability nowadays, he or she should start by understanding this song and what it conveys.

The following are lyrics to the song:

渴望 —- 都曾经有过 这样执著 究竟為什么 漫漫人生路 上下求索 心中渴望 真诚的生活 谁能告诉我 是对还是错 问询南来 北往的客 悠悠岁月 欲说当年好困惑 亦真亦幻难取舍 悲欢离合 都曾经有过 这样执著 究竟為什么 漫漫人生路 上下求索 心中渴望 真诚的生活 谁能告诉我 是对还是错 问询南来 北往的客 恩怨忘却 留下真情从头说 相伴人间 万家灯火 故事不多 宛如平常一段歌 过去未来共斟酌 过去未来共斟酌

(A 10-minute cursory translation by berlinf – so you can get a rough gist of the lyric. berlinf is a professional Chinese literary works translator. We are not giving justice to the Chinese lyrics. Just imagine the result from translating a poem by a Western poet like Thoreau into Chinese in 10 minutes!) We’ve all been through Such persistence Really, why Ah this long journey of life Of endless inquiry Deep inside I yearn For a truthful life Who can tell me Is this right or wrong Thus I ask Passengers heading south Heading north Those days of a life Those confusions of the past What is a reality What is an illusion These are hard to tell Those joys and sorrows Those farewells and reunions I have them all Such persistence Really, why Ah this long journey of life Of endless inquiry Deep inside I yearn For a truthful life Who can tell me Is this right or wrong Thus I asked Passengers heading south Heading north Those graces I was given Those wrongs I suffered from I shall forget or forgive Till there is none left Except the barest of feelings Which I shall tell From the very start To let these stories pass In the lamp light of thousands of homes Yet these are ordinary stories That they are like a song Mused over in the past Mused over in the days to come

Everyone knows China is going through an industrial revolution right now. In developed countries such as the U.S., this took place in the late 19th century. The ratio between the number of rural and urban residents basically swapped because industrialization freed the bulk of the population from having to work in the fields to produce food for all. This phenomenon is occurring in China right now with her massive GDP growth in the last three decades. Despite the hundreds of millions of people having moved to urban areas, the number of Chinese citizens residing in the rural areas is still staggering – 750 million. If the final ratio is similar to other developed countries (which is likely), the scale of this population movement in the coming decades is mind-numbing. Imagine one billion people on the move in only a few decades!

A lot of Chinese people are going to be missing their prairies, farms, and villages. This song, titled, “父亲的草原母亲的河” (“Father’s Prairie, Mother’s River”), performed by 布仁巴雅尔 (Buren Bayaer), a Mongolian Chinese singer, readily resonates with the hundreds of millions of Chinese who have moved in the last three decades. It will continue to resonate for decades to come.

Equally, many “mother tongues” are going to be lost too, as the song laments. This phenomenon is easy to explain. In the U.S., many Americans who are descendants of immigrants usually loose the ability to speak their ancestors languages within one or two generations in favor of the official language, English. China has hundreds of dialects and thousands of accents. As they all converge in urban areas, they will predominantly speak the official dialect.

Many Chinese citizens visiting their parents at their old homes during the Chinese New Year will have this feeling.

The uploaded video, translation, and further info are courtesy of YallMeanMVP over at Youtube.com. According to YallMeanMVP, “the lyrics are adopted from a beautiful poem “Father’s Prairie, Mother’s River”(父亲的草原母亲的河), written by the renowned contemporary Mongolian Chinese writer/poetess 席慕容(Xi Murong).” (YallMeanMVP’s channel has a nice collection of Chinese videos and I recommend heading over for a look.)

YallMeanMVP: much thanks to yuluns for providing the translation:

Song/Poem Title:
父亲的草原母亲的河
Father’s Prairie, Mother’s River

词:席慕容 曲:乌兰托嘎
Lyrics/Poem: Xi Murong
Composer: ????

父亲曾经形容草原的清香
Father used to describe the fragrance of the prairie

让他在天涯海角也从不能相忘
A scent that followed him to the edges of the world

母亲总爱描摹那大河浩荡
Mother always spoke of the turbulence of the river

奔流在蒙古高原我遥远的家乡
Raging through the Mongolian steppes, my distant home

如今终于见到这辽阔大地
Now that I finally come to see this great land

站在芬芳的草原上我泪落如雨
Tears rain down my face as I stand on these fragrant prairies

河水在传唱着祖先的祝福
The river sings of the prayers of the forefathers

保佑漂泊的孩子,找到回家的路
Blessing the prodigal son to find his way home

啊!父亲的草原
Ah, father’s prairie

啊!母亲的河
Ah, mother’s river

虽然己经不能用母语来诉说
Though I can no longer express them in my mother tongue

请接纳我的悲伤我的欢乐
Please accept my feelings of sorrow and joy

我也是高原的孩子啊
I, too, am a son of the steppes

心里有一首歌
There is a song in my heart

歌中有我父亲的草原母亲的河
It sings of my father’s prairie and my mother’s river

阿佳 Ajia is an upcoming group in China. (http://you.video.sina.com.cn/ajia) The cinematography in this video is pretty amazing given the modest locale and likely low budget video equipment used. In Tibetan, this song sounds really good.

CCTV-9′s Center Stage program carried a performance by Tibetan Chinese singer, 索朗旺姆 (Soinam Wangmo): “天路” (“Heavenly Road”). The song itself is about the 青藏铁路 (Qingzang railway) linking the high altitude Tibetan plateu with the rest of China. Soinam Wangmo was the 10th CCTV Youth Singing Contest gold medal winner in 2008. She sang the song “Father” during the contest which captivated her audience. Soinam Wangmo is from a small village 700 km away from Lhasa according to this backgrounder by Yu Jing. She lost her father when she was 14 years old.
It is nice to see someone like her succeed on such a grand scale given the presumably hard lifestyle in a remote village where manual labor means everything.

[Edit 12/30/2009: See Music Student comments for corrections.]

陈海汶 (Chen HaiWen) lead a team of 14 photographers, traveling over 100,000 km from 2008 through 2009, photographing all 56 ethnic groups making up China.  They took roughly 570,000 photos during this period.   The result was 和谐中华——中国56个民族剪影 (“Harmonious China – Silhouette of China’s 56 Ethnic Groups”).  On August 18, 2009, the book was officially released in the Shanghai Book Fair.

[Click on image to launch slideshow of the individual ethnic "family" portraits.]

For a better sense of the undertaking, Todou has a 12-minute documentary of Chen and his team visiting all corners of China to bring this rich tapestry of ethnicities to the world.

Chen is a renowned photographer from Shanghai having established himself as someone who has a unique talent to capture the authenticity of every day life. Sina.com conducted an interviewed of Chen on September 29, 2009, and here is a link.

Chen’s previous publication is simply titled, “Shanghai.” Its available on Amazon.com and is a very unique look from a tremendous photographer through the eyes of a Chinese.

Below is another take by Youtube user: zhouzhzh

Somebody said, “impossibly beautiful.” Another said, “her playing took my ears to another solar system.” One more, said, “most people can not do it even they practice for a whole life time.”