Observations from a Film - (Miriam Lang) (PDF ... - East Asian History

TRADITIONAL MUSICIANS IN CONTEMPORARY CHINA163Part SevenWith the money from the publication of the scores, Guanzai opens a shopto sell 'taiye chicken'. He rejects an offer from his father's old work unit ofa job as a carpenter with the prospect of progressing to a music-related jobin the future. This is quite consistent with the real-life situation; for youngambitious people, Chinese music has not been able to compete as a careeroption in the commercialized environment of China the 1980s. Guanzai'schoice of a career in the socially marginal world of private business perhapsreflects in part his disillusionment with the musical establishment of whichhis father was a peripheral and uncomfortable member, as well as his desireto make money. The adult Guanzai's attitude typifies that of dislocated urbanyouth in the 1980s-disillusioned, cynical and aggressive.Throughout the film, traditional music has gradually declined in importance,as it has in the PRC during the period in which the film is set. It isconsistent with this progression that Guanzai, despite his early talent, has nowish to take up the yangqin again. His own musical tastes reflect the musicalculture of young people in the 1980s, with his preference for pop music, bothWestern and Cantonese. Significantly, however, although during his adultlife he evinced no interest whatsoever in his father's music, he now plays OuLaoshu's compositions on his guitar. 5050 In Kong ]iesheng's story, Guanzai is seenplaying not the guitar but the yangqin in hischicken shop. Zhang Zeming included thisscene in the script; when he came to makethe film, however, he caught sight of ayoung man playing a guitar in the doorwayof a goose shop. Inspired by this image, healtered his script, feeling that to show Guanzaiplaying a guitar would more aptly demonstratewhat the young man has chosen toinherit from his father (the tune) and whathe has rejected (the traditional instrument).Zhang sees this situation as "genuine andhistOrically inevitable." Guanzai's choice ofthe guitar, the quintessential instrument ofmodem youth culture, "is in accordancewith his character and social status: andgives his commemoration of his father (byplaying his music) "a derisive flavour" (ZhangZeming, "Di yi bu de changshi: p.6).This final phase of the film reintroduces Yunzhi, the Figure 5daughter of Guanzai's opera-singer mother (and thus The young pianist reads Ou Laosbu 's scores on Guanzai sGuanzai's half-sister), now a con-servatory piano student wall, written in gongche IR notationwho is soon to graduate. She begins to frequent Guanzai's (courtesy of Ronin Films)shop. Their interactions are awkward, highlighting theclass difference between them; like her mother beforeher, the half-sister makes a patronizing offer of help,suggesting that she could ask their mother to buy him amotor-cycle. She tells him that she is looking for Cantonesesource material for her final graduating composition,but has so far been unable to find anything suitable.Although initially suspicious of her motives, Guanzaioffers to "unearth some old relics of 'He Dasha'" for herand takes her to the back room, the walls of which arepapered with Ou Laoshu's old manuscripts. He thenescorts her to Duanzhou Square, where the old amateurmusicians who are the real custodians of Ou Laoshu'smusic play for her. On her departure, she promises Guanzai that she willspread the truth about the music known as He Dasha's: ''I'll let everyoneknow that those He Dasha pieces are really your father's."The young pianist adapts Ou Laoshu's theme into a piano compositionfor use in her graduating performance. Like Ou Laoshu's Hong Kong 'friend',however, she is unable to resist the temptation to use his music for personal