The swine flu epidemic had swept through Hong Kong, and practicality demanded separation. The new rules forbade any joint rehearsals and only allowed the choirs to share a concert.
The KCC traveled to China in June 2009.
The American children's choir stared into the eyes of the Hong Kong children's choir and saw, not strangers, but familiar faces. Singing had crossed barriers of sea, language, and custom. They talked deliriously, shared email addresses and Facebook pages.
We weren't even supposed to have met. The swine flu epidemic had swept through Hong Kong, and practicality demanded separation. The new rules forbade any joint rehearsals and only allowed the choirs to share a concert. Our choir would sing and then the other, but we were not supposed to meet personally. The choir directors, however, knew better. They knew that children don't see the world through a doctor's eyes, and that musicians have a bond that can't be broken by an epidemic. They knew because that's what Kettering Children's Choir is all about: the love of children for the whole world and the bond which music creates between peoples.
This was the last of four successful concerts performed by the Kettering Children's Choir this June on our concert tour to the Chinese cities of Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. Performing once in each city, we came to appreciate each area's unique culture, and Chinese culture as a whole. Each moment in a world as distant as the Chinese zodiac taught us to see its people, not as strangers, but as boys and girls who love and laugh, dream and sing.
This special understanding was encouraged by the choir's contacts with unique aspects of Chinese culture. In each city of mainland China, we toured workshops that keep ancient Chinese arts alive and sites that show traditional art and architecture. In Beijing, the city of present-day China, we toured Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. Vitally important to China's ancient and modern politics, the Forbidden City displayed the gorgeous intricacy of archetypical Chinese architecture. Painted in vivid blues, yellows, and greens, the roofs of the emperor's palaces undulated like the waves of a multi-colored sea over the buildings. Exquisite artistry was a hallmark, not only of Chinese architecture, but also of the traditional art of jade carving. At a jade workshop, we watched master-craftsmen cut jade, emblematic of China, into traditional zodiac signs and symbolic sculptures. Historically a highly prized gem, the jade represented the importance of virtues such as durability and beauty to the Chinese. This delicate artwork, however, contrasted sharply with the rough-hewn monumentality of the Great Wall. The climb up the mountains on those stairs tested our endurance on this massive structure that the Chinese built to last.
The Great Wall, however, was not the only thing the ancient Chinese made to last. When we traveled to Xi'an, a city of China's past, we visited the famed Terracotta Army warriors, an army created to guard the emperor's tomb. While there, we watched modern artisans copy the ancient method of molding the clay, baking it in an oven to harden it, and, once it was dried, painting it in vibrant reds and yellows to create models of the warriors. This attentiveness to the ancient methods seeps not only into the craftsmanship, but also the architecture, of Xi'an. Modern structures are also built in traditional Chinese architectural styles in order to maintain an air of the past throughout the city.
In the city which the Chinese call 'the future of China', Shanghai, we saw the breadth of Chinese artistry. Our first stop was at a silk manufacturing workshop. We watched a machine sort out the cocoons into shimmering threads of silk. After being soaked in water, the women stretched the threads into downy, soft silk sheets or sent them on to become graceful, delicate clothes. In the same workshop, we were able to watch the painstakingly slow art of silk carpet-making which, because of its difficulties and creeping pace, is a dying art. Our next stop, however, was a very living art form: the famed Shanghai acrobatic show. Talented 15 to 24 year-olds leaped through the air, climbing up human towers of strength, and bending into impossible forms. Whirring motorcyclists whizzed by each other in a metal cage, and daring gymnasts, perched on chair stacks, lifted themselves in the air on one hand - a breathtaking show of skill and audacity.
In addition to drinking up the wealth of Chinese art and culture, we were able to share music of many world traditions with our audiences. We sang traditional African pieces such as Siyahamba and Ning Wendete. We performed medieval pieces such as Sing We and Chant It and songs written only recently, like You Raise Me Up and Goodnight, Sweetheart. We also sang from a wide variety of genres, from the spiritual Praise His Holy Name to the sacred Cantate Domino. We sang our national anthem as well as theirs. And, as with every KCC concert, the audience was reminded to live with faith and joy by John Carter's See the World Through Children's Eyes. At every concert, the Kettering Children's Choir left behind a little of world culture and of itself for its audience.
The Kettering Children's Choir's concert tour of China provided an unparalleled learning experience for singers in the Dayton area. Besides the souvenirs in our suitcases, we gained an appreciation for the culture and people of China. And from this appreciation all the singers have gained something no amount of money could buy: the knowledge that children all around the world seek to make the world a more beautiful place. Though we singers swapped email addresses with the Cantonese children, our meeting was really the exchange of two different cultures. And while the Kettering Children's Choir left the memory of its music with its audiences, the sounds of China, from the regional accents of its language to the rhythmic flow of the jade-green waters of Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, will now sing in the music of KCC.
Jillian Schroeder, Author
