A Kiwi Cellist in China

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

Monday, June 26, 2006

Puddles in the street

China’s not a country renowned for its honesty: “SARS? Not here. Bird Flu?! Nay ‘tis but a chest cold…” In fact it’s such a problem here that university students must sign a waiver allowing the college to video-tape them when they sit exams. The tapes of those that do well are scrutinized for suspicious behavior. So coming here to work on a tourist visa without a contract was possibly not my smartest moment. In fact I’d rank it about as intelligent as giving the Central Bank of Nigeria signed copies of my ATM card with the PIN written in vivid red marker on the front.

It’s hardly surprising that, since I’ve arrived, certain things have not been exactly as promised. Firstly the pay, it’s not what I was offered in Australia. The difference isn’t too much but it wasn’t such a great salary to begin with. I finally have permanent accommodation, however there are certain creature comforts that are conspicuously absent, like the front door (well there is a front door, it just doesn’t shut…). The air-conditioning only cools one room, I had to steal the TV from my last apartment, and there are live electrical wires running under the shower. I also had to spend the last two days cleaning the 3 feet of dirt off the floor and a large pile of nails from the bedroom. What’s really sad is I know this is far nicer than the majority of my neighbors, and not just the Chinese ones. There’s a horn player here who has a four room flat courtesy of the orchestra. Three of the rooms leak when it rains. It’s also on the 8^th floor and of course there’s no lift.

One refuge I have from the crummy apartment is shopping, which, frankly, is amazing. There’s a giant shopping centre here that’s five stories high and sells nothing but fake designer goods. In fact some of the tourist guides advise people to skip Shenzhen altogether with the exception of this one building. I have Dolce & Gabanna Shirts (AU$10), a Diesel watch ($10), Prada shoes ($15), a bespoke four piece tux with tails (AU$200), and an 8 gig “ipod nano” (AU$100). I’ve been back to this center a number of times (purely on account of the extra fittings for my tux of course…) and the scale of it always blows me away. But during my last visit my Australian co-workers and I saw a sight that was unique to china (well… maybe not unique to china but certainly foreign to Australia).

Seeking a reprieve from the hawkers, who will actually try to physically drag you into their shops, we decided to head upstairs for lunch. Whilst standing on the escalator I casually glanced upwards to be presented with a mother and friend and a young baby. They were holding the child over the bin at the top of the escalators while he pood into it, and holding him in such a way that every poor soul on the interminably long trip up had to shut their eyes (not a good idea thanks to the pickpockets) or stare right into the heart of the action. We decided to delay our lunch for a couple of hours.

I’ve since discovered that it’s not at all uncommon here for people to defecate in the street – and not just young children. I’ll be keeping a watchful eye for fear of puddles on sunny days...

Posted By charlesbrooks at 5:00 PM 1 comments

Sunday, June 11, 2006

Amazon Women

One working week down and I'm starting to get a taste of what life in the Shenzhen Symphony is all about. This week we played two concerts. The first was Brahms 4th symphony paired with the Bruch Violin Concerto, the second was a sort of proms concert full of the inspired music you get at proms concerts: Sleigh Ride (In the true spirit of China all Christmas music has been completely disassociated with any form of religious holiday and can be heard everywhere all year round... please kill me), the bugle thing (you know the one where all the trumpets try to out-do each other), and about four million remarkably similar Strauss waltzes.

The first concert was fairly standard, went quite well, was poorly attended, and poorly applauded (which is apparently the norm here). As for the proms concert there were a couple of things that set it apart for your regular Aussie outdoor gig. For a start it was indoors (understandable as the rain apparently killed a dozen people in landslides yesterday... or did it? In China you never know...). Then there were the 30 odd ushers, each one an amazon woman at least 6 foot tall wearing 12 inch heels (this really does stand out in China where my girlfriend Colleen, at 4 foot 8, is remarkably average height-wise). And finally there was that fact that the whole concert was sponsored by, and for the employees of, one of China's largest cigarette companies. The 1500 strong audience consisted entirely of wives and children of the companie's employees. You could see the wide eyes of the kids stuck firm upon the gargantuan ushers, no doubt believing that if they just keep smoking those smooth smooth cigarettes they too can be 6 foot tall and look forward to a career in basketball or jelly wrestling.

The orchestra itself is not as bad as some people had led me to believe. As far as standards go they lie somewhere in-between a good Australian youth orchestra and a professional orchestra, keeping in mind that both the youth and professional orchestras in Australia are occasionally excellent. It's almost as if you formed an orchestra out of all the players on Australian Orchestra's casual lists, there are some stunners, and some who are decidedly average. One of the main problems holding this orchestra back is the instruments, and this has opened my eyes to the plight of Eastern and Asian musicians. With my well-setup circa-1850 German cello, I have at least 4 times the volume of any of the other cellists in my section. The cellos that many of the others are playing can be compared at best with school instruments. Some of the musicians have slightly better instruments back in their home towns which they wont bring here due to the humidity, but even these are barely adequate.

The thing is good instruments cost a lot of money. Russians are paid little here and Chinese even less, but for many a Chinese and Russian musician this orchestra is the end of the line, as good as it gets. With a salary comparable to that of an underage Australian cafe worker how can they expect to ever buy the necessary thirty to fifty thousand dollar instrument that is needed in a western orchestra?

One of my new friends here is a double bass player from Georgia (the country not the state). He did manage to get himself a good Bass back in Georgia some time ago, but it was destroyed in the early 90's when a tank fired a shell into his home that came within inches of killing himself and his family. Australians, Kiwis, Americans, Westerners... we are all damned lucky.

Posted By charlesbrooks at 10:19 AM 1 comments

Friday, June 02, 2006

China's new Great Leap Forward

In The Devils Cup, by Stewart Lee Allen, a strong case is made for Coffee as the single most important driving force behind Western Civilization. Many an empire has risen and fallen in direct co-relation to the quality of their coffee. If this is true than Italian Best Coffee is a great shining beacon leading China towards a new world dominance! If, however, you believe Kroeber's theory that Civilization is governed by hem lengths, then unfortunately China has a long way to go. Although I should state that if Krober's theory is true Brazil must mark the apex of human society as a place where the hem has disappeared altogether, leaving but a flimsy g-string. I'm not so sure he's wrong... (Krober did, in-fact, find a real relationship between rising and falling hem lengths and similar trends in a countries stock market).

I am extremely pleased to say that the coffee at Italian Best rivals that of many establishments in Melbourne (although at 26 Yuan, AU$5, it had better!). The coffee shop, which is actually part of a small chain, is located at the bottom of the DiWang Commercial Center, Shenzhen's tallest building. I had the extreme pleasure of not only sipping on my first fine coffee in days (yes I'm addicted), but simultaniously experiencing the pleasant company of fellow Melbournite expat Hannah.
Having thus completed my quest to find a suitable caffeine dealer, I can now focus on more pressing issues - such as my imminent audition on Tuesday (I'll be playing Haydn's D Major concerto, which will be considerably more in tune than the way I played it in practice today...) and preparation for next week's Brahms rehearsals, where I will be formally introduced to the orchestra for the first time. Wish me luck.

Posted By charlesbrooks at 4:55 PM 0 comments

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Of Legal DVD's and Mafia Coffee

When everything is alien any small comfort is appreciated ten fold. My small comfort came yesterday in the form of a TV unceremoniously delivered to my lounge. Despite there being no English channels here there's something strangely re-assuring about this heavy lump of technology sitting in a room which previously was home to an uncomfortable couch, a locked cupboard, and a lot of dust.

This TV was to lead me to one of the not-so-hidden pleasures of expats and locals alike all over China, and especially in Shenzhen: DVD's.

So far I've bought about 50, which apparently is quite average for a western musician's first visit to this particular shop. I've also purchased a DVD player which is capable of everything but making my morning cup of coffee (more about that later). The shop assistant assured me that all of these were legally manufactured DVD's, even the ones with obvious spelling errors like "Great Vilinists of the Bell Telephone Hour". This is no-doubt the reason this particular shop was on the 5th floor of an unmarked building through an unmarked door out the back of someone’s living room... all that was missing was a secret knock.

The range of titles available is incredible. I have beautiful archival footage of Paul Toutellier, Zara Nelsova, Richter, Oistrak, Gould, documentaries by Simon Rattle and the BBC, materclasses by Greenhouse, operas by Tan Dun, concertos by Rostropovich. For the Australian readers there was even a Ten Tenors DVD although for some reason I neglected to buy that one... So for the time being the humid night air is now penetrated by the oh-so-soothing voice of Lord Clark and his BBC documentaries on Western Civilization. This almost makes up for the lack of a kitchen...

With my fine Brazilian coffee still sitting in my bag unused my search for a decent cup is gaining momentum. I took a stroll through a series of markets yesterday and stumbled upon a place called "Besta Coffee Original Making Happy Place" or something along those lines. There was a billboard outside with a photo of something calling itself a Cappuccino. It had enough frothy white peaks to pass for a Queensland surf beach and a squiggle of something reddish black on top that was as likely to be red-bean paste as chocolate. What was more interesting were the numerous Mercedes parked outside and the uniformed guard at the door. On close inspection all the cars had little hammer and sickle flags in the windows and official looking number plates. I decided not to venture in for fear of upsetting the local Russian mafia contingent. The billboard also had the price: 25 Yuan, or about AU$4. Now this is expensive coffee even for Australia. To put it in perspective here, a good meal at a well-appointed Chinese restaurant costs about 8 Yuan - That coffee could feed me for 3 days!

Tomorrow I'll meet Hannah, another Australian expat, at a place called "Italian Best Coffee" that purportedly serves Illy. Hopefully I'll have more luck there, but for now I'll have to settle for the hot sweet soymilk that everyone seems to have for breakfast.

Posted By charlesbrooks at 10:24 AM 0 comments

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