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Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Asian Music, Accompanied by the A Train
Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2004 00:04:30 -0400 (EDT)

The article below from NYTimes.com
has been sent to you by normans@....

Asian Music, Accompanied by the A Train

July 6, 2004
By YILU ZHAO

Zhisheng Zhang, the 10th-generation descendant of a Chinese
court musician, descended into the Times Square subway
station and unfolded his stool on a platform. He took out a
Chinese mouth organ, called a sheng, wiped it carefully
with a piece of clean cloth and closed his eyes.

As notes from the prelude of "Carmen" pierced the humid
air, Mr. Zhang - whose great-great-grandfathers played for
Manchu emperors, whose father performed for Communist army
generals and who was himself a member of China's best
traditional music orchestra - began another workday,
playing for the subway riders of New York.

There are many like Mr. Zhang, established musicians from
China who perform daily in the city's bowels. Convinced
that the best music, Western or Asian, is truly borderless
and that their own talents are sufficient to make ends meet
anywhere, these artists have converged on New York like the
philosophers and poets who swarmed to Athens in classical
times. They feel not just lured, but pushed; China, in
their view, has turned its back on traditional music in
favor of the pop dazzle of Britney Spears.

"I want to try my luck in New York," Mr. Zhang, 42, said,
speaking in Mandarin. "In China serious artists like us
aren't as respected as pop singers. That's not right. Maybe
Americans can see the true appeal of Chinese music, and I
can make my way to the grand concert halls in New York."

Though many of the underground musicians dream of fortune
and homes in the suburbs, or at the least of bringing their
children to the United States after gaining footholds
themselves, for now most of them live in simple apartments
in Chinatown or Flushing, Queens, and barely eke out a
living. Before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, many of the
musicians said, an eight-hour day of performing at a subway
station fetched an average of $70. Since then their income
has dropped by roughly a third because of the economic
doldrums and, they speculate, increased suspicion of
foreigners.

Besides the subway, they often perform concerts at
universities, community centers, parks and at the Asia
Society in Manhattan.

"We have some very high-caliber Chinese artists here," said
Rachel Cooper, director of performing arts and public
programs at the society. "We have a very discriminating
audience here in New York, and there is a real hunger,
openness and appreciation for fine music, including Chinese
music. There is a real hunger to understand it."

Cultural organizations in Chinatown and Flushing also know
many of the musicians and invite them to play. Occasionally
New Yorkers who have met them at subway stations ask them
to perform at weddings or birthday parties. Some of the
musicians have tried to supplement their incomes by working
in restaurants but have found the work too tedious for the
small wages.

Mr. Zhang lived in Beijing until January, when he was
invited by the Wossing Center for Chinese Arts, Language
and Culture in Chinatown to play in a concert tour at
universities and public libraries in the northeastern
United States. Soon after the tour he decided to stay in
New York and apply for permanent residency. Many other
Chinese musicians of similar rank have become legal
residents and American citizens by proving their
exceptional talents to the federal immigration agency.

Unlike most professional musicians in China who studied in
formal conservatories, Mr. Zhang learned as a child from
his father how to play the sheng, a multipiped instrument
invented at least two millennia ago. Mr. Zhang's family,
originally from a village outside Beijing, has passed the
secret knowledge, possessed only by top performers, from
fathers to sons for 10 generations, he said.

"I love this stuff, playing the sheng," Mr. Zhang said.
"It's in my blood. I don't want to give it up. If
traditional Chinese music gets fashionable in America,
maybe it will become more popular in China, too."

Often, though, the musicians have a dim view of their art
form's future in China, and they blame the flood of Western
and Hong Kong pop music for its dwindling popularity.

"When a young child expresses some interest in studying
music, the parents would say: `You learn to do the pop
stuff. That brings you money and fame,' " said Hao Qian, a
well-known performer on a two-string instrument, the erhu,
who used to travel in the same musicians' circles in
Beijing as Mr. Zhang.

"It's the music from our 5,000-year civilization that's now
worthless," added Mr. Qian, who now also makes his living
at Manhattan subway stations.

The relentless destruction across China of temples,
monasteries and nunneries under Mao Zedong's rule between
1949 and 1976 added to the musicians' woes.

"Most of the old Chinese music is really meant to be played
in temples," Mr. Zhang said. "Without the temples, how can
one perform true Chinese music?"

Since the early 1980's government subsidies to music
troupes have gradually dried up with China's embrace of a
market economy, and private donations have not picked up
the slack. While most pop music groups take in extra income
by playing at clubs and parties, some traditional music
ensembles, particularly those based outside major cities
like Shanghai and Beijing, sit idle for months on end.

Huadong Liu, who played yang qin, a dulcimerlike
instrument, in a prestigious troupe in northeastern China,
said he made just over $100 a month - less than most urban
residents - before coming to the United States three years
ago. Now he races to claim a choice spot in underground New
York.

"Sometimes I spend two to three hours in the morning just
to find the right platform," said Mr. Liu, who calls his
wife and 17-year-old son in China twice a week as he saves
money to send for them. "If you get stuck at a platform
with little foot traffic or lots of hurried people, you
cannot even make $20 a day."

Julie Tay, director and founder of the Wossing Center, said
such musicians can find the adjustment to the United States
hard. "Since their language is muted, their art tends to be
muted, too," she said. "The worst thing is to see them come
here, get frustrated, start driving a limo two or three
years down the road, and the traditional Chinese music goes
down the drain."

Mr. Zhang is divorced and has a 15-year-old son back home.
In China he performed mostly in grand concert halls like
the People's Great Hall in Beijing. He was designated as a
"national first-class performer" on the sheng by the
Chinese government, the highest level available and an
honor won by only 10 other performers.

At first he had a great deal of trepidation about playing
his sheng at subway stops.

"The Chinese have always seen street musicians as beggars,"
he said. "Where would I put my face if somebody from home -
or worse, somebody from the orchestra - finds out?"

He has overcome that anxiety now, he said, after running
into other subway musicians he considers top-notch. "It
looks to me that many musicians from other countries come
here to New York, and everybody starts from the subway
station," he said. "I figured out that it's a New York
tradition." Mr. Zhang says he sends $200 home to his son
and former wife whenever he can.

For many of the transplanted musicians the day starts at
8:30 a.m. They hurry to their favorite subway platforms
lugging their instruments, stools and sometimes amplifiers.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority allows musicians
to perform at subway stations without permits so long as
they do not interfere with traffic. "It's a protection of
their First Amendment rights," said Mercedes Padilla, an
M.T.A. spokeswoman.

There is a pecking order of subway stations understood by
almost everybody in the trade. The Columbus Circle stop and
the station at Lexington Avenue and 59th Street top the
list. The Times Square station and those close to New York
University can also bring brisk business. Stops at
Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal are all
right on weekends. But whatever the location, the platforms
are humid in summers and frigid in winters.

Many musicians change locations from day to day so as not
to bore commuters, most of whom, the artists say, have
showed them proper respect.

"When I put my heart into the performance," said Xuanpei
Ge, a player of the di, a one-pipe Chinese flute, "I get
really warm, prolonged applauses. I could see the
audience's respect from their eyes, the attentiveness when
they listen and the way they bow after you finish. Some
even give me water and fruit in hot summers. It's just very
moving."

Mr. Zhang speaks little English and is taking night lessons
to catch up. Some subway riders have tried to speak with
him, he said, and he could only speculate whether they have
asked him about his instrument, invited him to perform at
parties or said something else entirely.

"If I want to seize opportunities to advance my career," he
said, "I must learn to speak English."

Like many musicians, he has discovered that Western music
adapted (often by him) for Chinese instruments draws the
warmest response. Although the Chinese scale differs from
the Western scale, lacking some half notes, the musicians
have adapted pieces as different as Mozart's nocturnes and
the soundtrack of "The Godfather."

"The subway riders seem to really like the tunes they are
familiar with, particularly the fast, happy ones," Mr.
Zhang said. "Once I played a slow, sad Chinese song, and it
made one old lady cry. She made a gesture to ask me to
stop."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/arts/music/06CHIN.html?ex=1090173070&ei=1&en=a\
e6b296019388075.


Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

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