Music in the City

I don’t know what I’d do without my iPod in the city. During my daily routine I have a few opportunities to plug in my headphones and zone into music land. Mostly I stick to tunes that transport me to the States so I can ignore street stares and bus elbows.

If I’ve had a long day at school I’ll listen to Rusted Root. All of a sudden I’m at the ‘96 New Year’s concert in the front row with my sisters and dancing long after the music stops. And then I bust out Bob Marley and I’m grooving with my best friends at Evergreen while we cook dinner on an open fire. Bob Dylan always takes me road tripping from Washington to Pennsylvania. Above any other artist I know, Bob Dylan never fails to make me feel appropriately placed in rural or urban China.

The artist that most connects me to the Chinese people is good old Bob Marley. My favorite for seven years now (after a 3 year run with Led Zeppelin), Bob is the voice of many nations…

some goin east
some goin west
some step aside to do their best
some livin big
but the most livin small
they can't even find no food at all

Every morning I pass an old woman rummaging through the garbage heap. In the mid afternoon I’ll see a woman and child sleeping in a cart on the sidewalk. I’ll think of this song when a man with no hands approaches me for a handout.

And the song continues:

stop that train 
I'm leavin

The older Chinese generations know all too well the effects of poverty and hunger. The rising generations have learned from their parents that being a fisherman or a farmer is much harder than factory work. Rural life doesn’t always pay the bills either. Within the last ten years, the great migration from rural life to an urban one has been progressively speeding up.

stop that train 
I'm leavin

And interestingly enough the rising generation are products of the one child policy. Imagine a whole population growing up without having to share toys or learn how to argue with a sister or brother. But, unlike previous generations, this generation has much more influence from the outside world. The government may have a tight grip on China’s media influence, but I agree with Bob when he sings:

You teach the youths to learn in school
That the cow jumped over the moon.
You teach the youths to learn in school
That the dish ran away with the spoon.
But you can't blame the youths
of today.
You can't fool the youths.

Yes, you can’t fool the youths. But children do have a surprising way of modeling their parents. It seems that Chinese of all ages share a general passivity. If someone cuts in line, the rest of the line fails to speak up. It shows in their “face”. The Chinese are leagues ahead of Americans when it comes to holding back emotion. Let me use the line cutting example. I bet every person in a Chinese line is ticked off at the line cutter, but it won’t show. It’s rude to get angry at someone. And if something or someone makes them feel uncomfortable, they just laugh in a low tone like a chuckle. Chinese rarely show their discomfort. It makes other people feel uncomfortable, and who would want to disturb the peace? The only instance that I appreciate the “saving face” phenomenon is on the road. There is no road rage here, just very loud horns. I wish that this practice would carry into the States. I can’t remember how many times I got a mad fist in the air or some other appendage directed at me followed by some cursing. Americans could lighten up in this area. Speaking of lightening up, Bob Marley has the perfect song for this:

Be what you want to be
Lively up yourself
Don't be no drag

On most days, I feel like singing this song at the top of my lungs. But in the end I am only a wei-guo-ren. I am a stranger in a strange land and all I really have are my skewed observations without the means to communicate or actualize them. All that’s left is my iPod and my friend Bob.

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