Letters from China No 16

21st November 2008

Well, here we are settled back on campus. We left our apartment amidst a flurry of packers and movers loading our worldly goods into two (??? where did we get all this stuff) trucks and headed back to the countryside and some peace and quiet. Living in another Chinese city had been fun, the proximity of western delicatessens and the Concert Hall had been wonderful, but the noises of city life began too become tedious, especially after we walked around our married teacher’s compound and heard the deafening silence! Quite won over convenience and here we are unpacking yet again, looking occasionally at the lake which is now at full capacity, lapping our doorstep, so to speak. Now we can watch pied wagtails sparring and wren-like mini birds twittering about whilst the frogs have yet to come into force and the snakes are nowhere to be seen (yet). The cat is baying at the door every morning yearning to go hunting in the banana plantation and the nearby thickets. After she has had her anti flea treatment and some more cat shots she will be free to wander and sun lounge at will.

Last weekend I braved the buses and trains and made the one-day trip to Hong Kong to get our choice of seats for the Hong Kong Ballet’s performance of Giselle at the end of this month, Barbara’s Christmas treat. She has waited 50 years for it to be performed within her locale and here it is suddenly there and available. Hong Kong will hold it’s 37^th Arts Festival in the February and March 2009. No doubt we’ll be regular visitors as the opening concert is by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the closing with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin – can’t miss those icons of classical music. So next year is looking very good from that point of view.

The comparison between mainland China and it’s neighbour, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a bit along the lines of Black and White with no shades of grey in between. Friends back in the UK had thought that after the hand-over in 1997, Hong Kong would be absorbed by the greater China, but Hong Kong is still a vibrant international city with it’s own laws and government, albeit with some direction from Beijing. It suits Beijing very much to still have HK as their window to the outside world. China is catching up very quickly, but it will take many years before the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra plays with the skill and panache of the Berlin. They play wonderful, note-perfect music, but there’s something lacking – no freedom of expression in any way shape or form When a foreign orchestra plays locally, they have standing ovations lasting, embarrassingly, thirty minutes or so. It’s obvious to the audience what the difference is.

Enough of music, tonight we’re having a Thanksgiving dinner for our American colleagues, so, I’m off to make my contribution – mashed potatoes for twelve…….