by Yung-Ying
2ND MONTH, YEAR OF THE DOG.
From the shopping list of puzzling questions that we, at
the end of this confusing century must ask ourselves, perhaps the most
enthralling
is - how did Johannes Rosenberg (well known violinist and owner of Australia's
largest Chinese take-away restaurant chain) achieve such market success
while at the same time retaining his humility and spiritual after dinner
mateship? We do not have to look very far in recent history to see that
this kind of personality can very easily become an uncontrollable monster
of hideous proportions (one thinks immediately of the current rash of trumpet
and (sad to say) violin players strutting their stuff on the world stages
of mediocrity.)
When Rosenberg was sent home in disgrace from the 1936 Berlin Olympics (
cf.
The Pink Violin
p.150) he was still a petulant teenager in search
of excitement and adventure. As luck would have it, the C.T.A.C.A (Chinese
Take-Away confederation of Australia) had just started offering travel/music
scholarships to up and coming
Fine Music
prodigies with a view
to excelling their excellence in the increasingly dodgy looking China of
the late 1930s. From our contemporary position of enlightenment, it seems
an odd way to further education. But at that time, ducking the odd Japanese
Zero attack while getting to grips with Zen and the violin was considered
de rigeur
. Indeed, it turned out that the young Rosenberg saw
no contradictions in his education as, two years later he joined up with
the Imperial Japanese Air Force to become a
failed
(luckily
for us and the story of contemporary music) Kamikaze Ace.
The up and coming
fine
Australian violinist spent his time
in the Sichuan district of China studying with the eminent master
Mao
Zedung
- known to his followers as
THE GREAT IMPROVISER
.
(Although only an amateur performer on the violin himself, Mao was instrumental
in setting up the whole Chinese violin manufacturing industry after the
1949 revolution. It is estimated that
Skylark
and
Parrot
have produced more violins in the last 25 years than all the violins produced
in the world since 1585. A remarkable achievement I think you will agree!)
Mao gave Rosenberg a Chinese name -
Bu Mai Le
. It means, roughly
translated -
No Longer Want to Buy Something
. A few moments
later, Mao had realised his mistake and thinking of future television sales,
gave Rosenberg another name -
Grasshopper
.
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Last year I had the good fortune to visit the town of Xichang,
close to the Yangtze river in the south of Sichuan province. Here, like
my old comrade Rosenberg, I too had been a devotee on the eternal search
of enlightenment while hoping for the ever elusive top paying gigs. Even
though Mao has been dead since 1975, there is a substantial school there
which keeps the pure tradition of
THE GREAT IMPROVISER
flourishing
through a vast output of devotees and tourist souvenirs. Imagine my delight
when a doggery old violin player came up to me with something under his
arm. "My name is Po Face Nixon," he said. "I was with Mao
on
The Long Tango
". I looked into his drooping ears and
saw for myself that he had indeed suffered much on his long march through
violin playing life. "It's the original manuscript of Rosenberg's
Little
Pink Book
. I heard you were from Australia, that's why I brought it
out to show you. Thought you'd give me a few bucks for it or at least something
to smoke." I could not conceal my excitement. Could this be the manuscript
for the book that was copied in its millions? Could this be the book that
foretold and articulated the pillars of reality that became
The Age of
Shopping
? Could this be the book whose title was ripped off by
Jon Rose and Rainer Linz in their compendium
The Pink Violin
? I studied
the calligraphy - there was no doubt about it. The signature of
No Longer
Want to Buy Something
was an authentic copy (Rosenberg would never
have used his real signature!)
I wondered what I could do in gratitude for Po Face Nixon,
$19.95 seemed a bit steep for an original Rosenberg manuscript. I told him
I would find some jerky minimalist composer to write a full length opera
about him. That seemed to satisfy the old timer although he kept on trying
to bludge some smoke off me. I wandered up the street to a tea house for
some of that green stuff and to quench the rising anticipation of browsing
through
The Little Pink Book
.
Here follows the faithful documentation of Learnings held
between Mao
THE GREAT IMPROVISER
and myself
No Longer Want
to Buy Something
also known as
Grasshopper
. July
1938. Xichang.
As I made my way from the railway station dust tore into
my eyes, such was the force of the howling wind raging down from the Siberian
plains to the north. The street was deserted except for one or two members
of the ever watchful People's Army on patrol. They eyed me suspiciously
as I passed. Most of the population were boarded up in their tiny wooden
houses waiting for a break in the weather. I peered over the shoulder-high
mud walls at the tiny, derelict weed covered yards. Life looked like a bitch
here. After some minutes I reached the end of the main street over which
was erected a huge sign. It said
Duifang
! which roughly translated
means
Welcome to
Violin World
!
Beneath the sign was a checkpost. A guard stopped my progress
and informed me that I needed a card to insert into the machine standing
by the gate. Here I was fresh from Australia and I had been already been
dismissed leg before wicket. (a way of `being out' in the traditional game
of Cricket).
Oh Grasshopper, have you not yet noticed how hard it
is to smile and be angry at same time? In selling, a smile is very important
part of salesman's tool kit. Remember old Confucian saying "Man without
smiling face should not open sweet shop". And if he eat many sweets,
he should smile with mouth shut so he no show that he no teeth has.
I quickly unpacked my violin and (with a smile) played
the old standard
Pennies from Heaven
. The guard immediately changed
his tune and presented me with a handful of cards made of a material I had
not encountered before (plastic). I looked through the range - Visa, American
Express, Mastercard, Diners card, etc. Which one, I wondered, would satisfy
the machine? The toothless and now smiling guard was at my mercy and had
meanwhile read my thoughts "
Violin World
accept all cards"
he said.
Very important.
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Once through the gate, the weather instantly changed into
brilliant sunlight and a temperature of a constant 24 degrees Centigrade.
Everywhere around the
Practice Garden of the People
young novices
were lovingly going through their pentatonics. It reminded me of my favourite
take-away in Dixon Street, Sydney. A kind of chou-mein meets Vivaldi violin
music and I had thought it would all be mah-jongg parties, ping pong and
opium - well, the latter turned out to be true thank God!
I pulled up a stone stool and surveyed the luxuriant plants
in the compound. There were hibiscus, camellias, magnolias, oleanders, sisal
hemps, palm trees and roses - a blaze of colour that even included rare
coconut and ginkgo trees (distinguished by their superb fan-shaped leaves).
As my thoughts drifted off in the haze of scented jasmine, I did not notice
a man with a smiling face (his smile never left him, that's how I knew he
must have been smiling even though I never saw him exactly in that particular
instance do it) striding towards me. He raised his arm and struck me on
the head with his violin. For it was he -
THE GREAT IMPROVISER
.
"Do you find anything different anywhere than what
you find here?" Thinking of all the times that I had been hit on the
head with a violin I replied that I found nothing very different.
"If there is nothing different why don't you go back
there then?" And he gave me another smack on the head with his violin.
I told him that if his violin had eyes to see, he would
not do that.
"Violin has no eyes stupid" he said and gave
me another three thumps with his fiddle. With that I knew I had found a
profound master. He hit me again and told me my name would now be
No
Longer Want to Buy Something
. Then he hit me twice more and with
a revolutionary tone in his voice said "On second thoughts, the name
Grasshopper
has more commercial possibilities."
The next days I spent familiarising myself with the routines
and customs of my new environment. Every morning after three hours violin
practice, the novices were allowed to walk around the compound pushing shopping
trolleys, each one loaded to the maximum with violins from the local factory.
It was a stirring sight to see the concentration on their faces as they
went about practising the scales and sales techniques of
THE GREAT IMPROVISER
.
The packaging also looked resplendent with its imitation golden ribbons
glittering in the morning sun.
One tea break the young violinists would educate each other
in
the common faults of violin sellers when meeting the customer for
the first time
. A list of faults soon became evident: weak handshakes,
bone-crushers or condescending and ironic bows, making smart remarks, not
looking the intended victim in the eyes, making no effort to keep the
conversation
going, talking too loudly or mumbling, ignoring the other person or pretending
they don't really exist, looking the customer up and down, pointing out
the sperm stains on their trousers.
I noticed that the student/novices who weren't really cutting
it wore a badge on their breast which said
Kong-zhi shi-yong
which roughly translated means
violin worthy but still under control
and surveillance
.
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Those who had already passed the
check-out
(first year exams for sales representatives) proudly wore a small violin
tattoo under the upper half of their bowing arms. They joined the sessions
to show their solidarity with the beginners and to keep their hand in. (
Editor's
note:
it is hard to imagine from this idyllic picture that Mao,
20 years later, would turn into such a manic and irrational leader. Readers
will be aware that between 1957 and 1958 he declared
The Great Leap Forward
and forced violin production to be doubled in this period from 5.35 million
to 10.7 million tons. A staggering increase in a vain attempt to keep up
with the West. But instead of reforming the violin industry proper, he decided
to force the whole Chinese population to take part. There was a quota for
every unit and every village - which had to be met. After the land had been
stripped almost of all trees, nearly 100 million peasants were pulled out
of agriculture and placed in the steel industry to manufacture the new metal
violins (almost immediately copied and produced successfully by the Suzuki
Factory in Japan). Mao had a metaphysical approach to violin problems. Some
economists pointed out to him, in the most diplomatic way, that perhaps
this level of output was unsustainable and besides which there was no paper,
furniture, floorboards, toilet rolls, chop sticks, ritual swords, cooking
utensils, sign posts, baths or plumbing left in the country - everything
had been used up in
The Great Leap Forward
. Mao
THE GREAT
IMPROVISER
dismissed their one dimensional thinking. Had these
economists never heard of re-cycling? Violins of either wood or metal would
be a reservoir of raw material to make anything the people needed. He ordered
2.7 million violins to be turned into wood-pulp for a poster campaign announcing
Violins become Paper - for the People
.) At one side of the
compound a small tutorial was taking place underneath a banner which read
Zi-qi-qi-ren
which roughly translated means
self-deception
while deceiving others
. The students were wearing badges which
said
Yes, we want to play for you
. Important to this positive
approach to deception seemed to be a system of memory training: figure out
what the client needs, then keep on extending those needs. For example -
try to remember this shopping list of seemingly unrelated items. Melon /
condom / bottle of beer / beach umbrella / camera / hair removal cream /
balloon / washing machine / violin / soap powder. Forgotten already? Now
try this method.
First of all visualise the
melon
, the biggest
you have ever seen, give it as much detail as you can and have it like a
Magritte painting right in front of you pushing up the ceiling. Next take
an axe and split it down the middle. Inside you find a
condom
with flashing lights and lubricating jokes. See yourself walking inside
the condom where you find a bar selling
bottles of beer
. Hear
the music; see the football fans getting horribly drunk. You rush outside
to find someone being sick in a
beach umbrella
, the biggest
you have ever seen. It fills up with vomit and there are thousands of people
standing around applauding and taking photos with their
cameras
.
Look at all these cameras flashing away, then you look closely and realise
that they are not cameras at all but photographs of that creepy customer
who wouldn't buy your latest line of
hair removal creams
yesterday
because you had forgotten his lousy name which in this business is fatal.
Suddenly the whole scene explodes and mushrooms into a massive
balloon
with the customer's name printed on it. When the balloon hits the fan it
bursts with a loud bang and out pour thousands of little
washing machines
.
You look inside one of the washing machines and you find a
violin
ready to be washed. You realise that first of all its going to need some
soap powder
-
At this point I realised that I should cut down on my opium
intake but it was too late, my violin jumped out of its case and hit me
on the head.
Oh Grasshopper, we have old saying. Put away holiness,
forget knowledge, and throw away your noodles; thus violin player will profit
hundredfold. Put away morality, forget duty, and throw away your noodle
recipe; thus the violin player causes desire. Put away skilfulness, forget
social function, and throw away your violin; thus the violin player starts
a religion or supermarket chain
.
"Yes master," I had replied, "excellent
idea." and I asked him when I could start. He remained silent so I
turned to leave his presence. At the door I suddenly realised I had forgotten
to take my violin. He spoke -
Grasshopper, thirty spokes join at the hub; their use
for the cart is where they are not. When the potter's wheel makes a pot,
the use of the pot is precisely where there is nothing. When you open the
window of your 10th floor apartment you accidentally send the pot flying
down to the street below where it smashes into a hundred pieces, where it
was there is now nothing. Therefore I say unto you, being is nothing and
nothing is being. Therefore you do not exist therefore you cannot leave.
Therefore you did not forget your violin
.
Mao! What a guy!
That night I had one of my many significant dreams. In
the dream I woke up the next morning and I found my purse had been magically
filled with 24 hours of the golden tissue that fills the universe of everyone's
life. No one can take this away from me I thought. No one gets more of this
stuff than me and no one receives less than me. Wow! I could spend the whole
day getting stoned out of my tree and no matter how I spent my time, I could
wake up tomorrow and - do it all over again. Mao! But I can't borrow tomorrow's
supply, I can't get into debt - I can only waste the bit that's going past
me at the moment. I could sit here and improvise on the violin for all of
those 24 hours without even touching tomorrow's supply. Mao! Just at that
moment when I was about to attain enlightenment, I was rudely awakened by
a sharp blow to the head. The violin belonged to none other than Mao himself.
He was sleepwalking (a common activity in that part of China). He could
also talk in his sleep (some say in a more profound and coherent way than
when he was awake!)
Oh Grasshopper, stop carrying on like politically correct
liberal wimp! Ganma! Hen wan le. Wo yao shuijiao le. Which roughly translated
means Why on Earth! It's getting late. I have to go to sleep. Mei banfa.
Dang laoshi bu qingsong. There is nothing I can do. It is not easy to be
a teacher. Xiang ge banfa, ti ge yijian. Think of a way, make a suggestion.
I said to him qu mai dongxi which roughly translated means why don't you
piss off, I'm trying to get some sleep - go shopping or something. Quick
as a flash Mao came back with the line Jie wo wushikuai qian which roughly
translated means lend me $50.
This enlightening episode clearly showed that
THE GREAT
IMPROVISER
knew exactly where and when to close a deal. He had
a majestic sense of timing. A supreme knowledge of detail (notice he wanted
hard Western currency) and a total response to the geography of temperament
and repressed reflex. He promised me the next day that he would send me
a postcard when he next went on holiday (a typical insincere travelling
musician's touch).
(
Editors note
: There are two ways to increase
sales: sell more to customers or sell to customers more. Surveys carried
out on China's violinists revealed that they were and still are exactly
the same as violinists world wide, with exactly the same problems of inefficient
sales techniques - astonishing when one considers economic and cultural
differences. Each violinist (improvising or otherwise) spends 30% of his
time travelling; each violinist spends 15% of his time waiting; each violinist
spends 11% of his time on the phone; each violinist spends 5% of his time
at sales meetings; and only 39% of a violinist's time is actually spent
putting the boot in on a sale. Rosenberg discovered in Xichang in 1937 that
if it was possible to increase his selling time from 39% to 52%, he would
in affect boost violin sales to the tune of 33%. This gem of information
appears not in
The Little Pink Book
. Rosenberg kept it a secret until
he started his own violin factories later, across the seas in Japan and
Australia.)
Sometimes, after particular weeks of high achievement,
I was allowed to leave Xichang for a few days of relaxation. On one such
trip I headed due north to where the Great Wall of China is dissected by
the Yellow River. Before the turn of the century it had been a notorious
area of the country for
elbow binding
. This was a traditional
and very painful method of guaranteeing a good supply of violin players
- particularly in difficult times such as war or famine. The barbaric practise
had died out by the early 1920s - there were, however, still violinists
living who carried the scars of that bygone age. The process was called
Ni zoucuole fangxiang
which roughly translated means
You
travel in the wrong direction
. The name refers to what in fact
was done to the left arm of three year old children to ensure good posture
and motor skills for violin playing. The arm was bound and the elbow dragged
across to the other side of the chest where it was held fast with more binding.
If the elbow did not come far enough across for practical or aesthetic reasons,
the whole arm was yanked out of its socket and kept that way for up to four
years. The arm eventually became fixed in this position of its own accord
and the binding was removed. You could always recognise a genuine
elbow
bound
in later life because their left arm seemed to stick out
at right angles from the middle of their chests, and the forearm reared
up at a peculiar angle to the rest of the body (a little like a dog's hind
leg viewed upside down).
I had managed to procure myself (with the aid of some dollars)
a seat with embroided cushion, courtesy of the Chinese People's Railway
Service. The comfort though was not much of an improvement to the regular
seat which was wooden and after several hours became extremely painful on
the arse. Yes, this was tourism 1950s style. The train chugged its slow
but merry way along the increasingly dry plains of the northern reaches.
From the window I could see the peasants, stripped to the waist and under
wide brimmed straw hats. Bent like jo-jos under the intense sun, I could
just about hear their happy-go-lucky work songs floating across the rice
fields. I spent some hours jotting down the melody lines in my `New Age
Traveller' music notebook. This will fetch me some easy bucks when I get
back to civilisation I mused. I was struck by the timeless sales quality
of the scene stretched out before me and the old Confucian saying came again
to my mind
Life is a bitch; then you die
.
No one seems directly responsible for having invented tourism
but evidence shows that it is a comparatively recent phenomenon in the descent
of Man. Marco Polo was probably the first documented (self documented that
is) tourist. China remembers well how he ripped off the recipe for noodles
and gunpowder - what a cultural imperialist! Whatever educational benefits
there might have been for the `Grand Tour' (type of finishing school for
rich young Europeans in vogue since the mid 1800s) it is sure what the character
of tourism will be for the 20th Century. Tourism produces absolutely nothing of
substantial use to humanity and the tourists themselves are encouraged to do as
little as possible except where the resources of people who can least afford
it, buy lots of non-functional rubbish, eat a lot, drink a lot, and fuck a lot.
Exercise is only encouraged so the tourist is in better shape to do more
buying-eating-drinking-fucking. I looked forward to this depressing scenario
with relish!
These comforting thoughts were still in my head when I finally stumbled out of
the packed wagon at Xichang Central Station. On the platform I struck up a
conversation with a a man. "
Ni neng gei women chang ge Zhongguo ger ma?
" which roughly translated means
What about singing us one of those quaint traditional Chinese songs?
"
Wo jintian youdianr bu shufu, bu neng changger
," he replied, which roughly translated means
I can't today because I don't feel well
which in Chinese is a polite metaphor for telling you to fuck off. A passerby
overheard our spirited conversation and chimed in with "
Shushang xiede han qingchu Neng zai tushuguan li chi dongxi ma?
" which roughly translated means
It is written in the book, can one eat in the library?
I laughed aloud at the joke. What a charming little fellow I thought to
myself, these slit-eyed rascals are all such fun! I called out for a few of the
locals to carry my bags - might as well train them in doing something useful I
decided - besides the sooner they get hip to the tourist industry the better
for all the little bastards. I selected three of the more healthy looking
natives and we set off in the direction of the exit sign. However, I failed to
notice that one of the many layabouts hanging about the platform had tied my
shoelaces together. So with much pomp and ceremony I fell flat on my face much
to the hysterical laughter of the whole railway station. As I struggled to my
feet, by chance a violinist was walking past and his violin case hit me full in
the side of my head. Haplessly, down I went again!
O Grasshopper, remember old Chinese saying ":If someone offers you simple ball,
kick it. If ball bounce back, kick it again. If ball keep bouncing back, put it
in a bag and take to market and sell."
A rickshaw arrived and I was bundled into it. We duly arrived at the market and
a sign was placed around my neck which said (roughly translated)
Today's Special: cheap foreign rubbish but good for a laugh. Can use in chow
mein or as dish water
. I was somewhat annoyed about this description as no mention was made of my
skill and abilities on the violin. This place clearly needed a cultural
revolution. I sat there chained up next to the exotic monkey stall for the best
part of four hours but nobody seemed to take any interest - even after my
sell-by date had been stamped on my forehead. Life started to look a little
tedious at the best. Then a young boy came up to me and asked if I could sing
Waltzing Matilda
.Well, I can tell you readers, observing my predicament, I gave it my best
shot. I screwed up a bit on the chorus but it didn't seem to faze the youngster
- he handed over 29.95 Yuan for me. I thought it was quite a good price
considering the current going rate for the short-heaired mountain blue monkey
whcih was a steal at Y39.95. This reminded me of one of Lao Tsze's sayings -
My new (but as it turned out temporary) master dragged me off at a brisk pace
down the tangle of side streets leading from the market. Forward motion was not
so easy as he held me by a chain around my neck. But since the slack amounted
to only a few inches and he was under half my height, I shuffled along with my
body bent almost in half - a kind of undulating stoop. Not a pretty sight!
After some two hours of painful stooping we arrived at what I can only imagine
was his local tea house. to my surprise he asked me if I would like a cup of
tea. How civilised, I thought.
Nin he nazhong cha?
Yes, the choice was wide-ranging - jasmine, Yunnan tea, Longjing tea,
Shuixian, Lapsung, Tieguanyin tea, Shoumei or Woolung tea. Being at heart
totally bourgeois, I settled for Earl Grey.
I was just about to take my first sip of refreshing tea ("the individual tea
that
everybody
drinks") when my new temporary master gave me playful kick in the shins, "sing
Waltzing Matilda
" he ordered in a benign kind of way. I realised then that my life was going to
be a permanent hell if I had to choke up this number every time we went to a
tea house. Then I saw a violin hanging on the wall and suggested to Master
Chicken Feet (for indeed
Fengzhao
was his name) that I could do a few numbers for him and the clientele. It
worked a treat and I soon had them rolling in the aisles as I did my versions
of
Madame Butterfly
,
Widow Twanky
,
Old Man Yellow River
and
The East is Red
with full sound effects. As I played the waiter passed around the tables
topping up everyone's teacup in the time honoured tradition - using a kettle
with a thin spout and pouring with pinpoint accuracy from a distance of one and
a half metres.
All was steaming along quite pleasantly when the town's air raid sirens started
up and then, moments later, all hell broke loose. Explosions lit up the street
outside and everyone in the teahouse dived under the bamboo tables. I was
informed it was an attack by a revisionist 4th Column lyal to Chiang kai-shek.
To keep the courage of the comrades up I picked up the violin again and started
to improvise in the very unpredictable rhythmic phrases of each artillery
burst. I tried to think of some calming words from THE GREAT IMPROVISER, what
would he do in a situation like this?
O Grasshopper, there are two kinds of fried rice in the world, one who think
that there are two kinds of fried rice and one who think there are not.
Or since it is Friday evening and you all in big rush to get away for the
weekend, remember old saying used by man on door of Chinese temple at closing
time -
Zhiyao ni xihuan, wo shenme dou mai gei ni!
which roughly translated means
I'll buy anything from you if you'll get the hell out of here!
Or perhaps old Confucian saying said by last guard on Great Wall when looking
at great nasty mongol hordes -
run you bloody fool, run!
The bargain lis like the bending of a bow; that which is too high is lowered,
that which is too low is raised up. Where there is excess it is lessened; where
there is too little it is increased. The providence of heaven comes up with a
bargain for all things that which is their due - even those who are not
familiar with the ways of the bow.