A Kiwi Cellist in China

The life & times, ups & downs, of a Kiwi / Australian cellist in Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra.

Friday, May 26, 2006

From Mao to Margins of Error

With only two full days left in Melbourne my preparations are nearing completion.. well sort of. I have considered pulling my suitcase out from under the bed (where I expect to find a considerable number of odd socks). I have deeply contemplated what clothes I may or may not pack, and I have stared long and hard at the large pile of papers on my desk that need urgent attention. Over the next two days I will seriously think about actioning some of those tasks.

That said I have actually organised one or two things to do with the move. I called my mobile phone carrier and changed my plan to "extort". This new exciting plan allows them to charge me obscene fees from any number of new and exciting countries. Some people would call this a "roaming" plan however the word roaming has about as much relevance to my phone as the word Virgin does to my credit card, which has been so abused it would feel more at home in one of Shenzhen's many "massage parlors" than any house of Vestals.

My wallet is also abundant with strange new currency. In one half we have the quietly contemplative face of Chairman Mao. The other is full of Hong Kong dollars emblazoned with salivating lions giving off a "seriously don't fuck with us... seriously" glare.

I’m still not exactly certain what I'm heading into. I picked up a brand new Lonely Planet guide yesterday which kindly informed me that "Shenzhen is China's richest city" with a "population of 785'000". Now that differs slightly from the official population in the Chinese guides of 5 million, which is fractionally under the wikipedia.org estimation of 16 million. Those more astute readers will note that this falls slightly outside the scientifically acceptable margin of statistical error (p<0.005), which would lead me to seriously question the counting methods of all three.

I've also been privy to some of the internal workings of the orchestra, where it seems one Australian player was promised a contract, offered a different contract, asked to re-audition, given their original contract back, then wound up playing in a different position to what was stated on either of the contracts. It sounds suspiciously like the orchestra's working off John Howard’s new Australian Workplace Agreement legislation.

Despite all this I'm extremely excited and optimistic about the whole trip. The city sounds very interesting, and regardless of any contract woes all the Australian players assure me that they're loving the experience. The only downside is the amount of time Colleen and I will have to spend apart, however we're both musicians and knew that something like this was inevitable sometime during the relationship.

Right now I'm off to buy tissues as I've recently been informed that, although this is a huge modern city of 785'000-16 million people, there is not a roll of loo paper in site... adventure awaits!

Posted By charlesbrooks at 11:19 AM 0 comments

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