Western Movies in Chinese Theaters

Westerners going to a Chinese theater movie theater is quite the experience. Chinese theaters often play western movies but they have differences which are a change of movie experience for the westerner going. For example, the movies will have English words but Mandarin subtitles. That is kind of a normal thing as you can probably expect.  The main audiences going are Mandarin speaking.

The main point here is that the Chinese Mandarin speaking audience is becoming very large. Movie makers in Hollywood now put in special parts which have to do with visiting China or talking about something that's related to China because the market in China is so huge.  For example, in the last in the recent Godzilla movies areas in China which were put in which had nothing to do with the plot of the movie.  But they created that part to the draw in people from China.

What is curious is that sometimes there are movies that have western written parts, as was seen in the last movie that I saw, in that particular case there was texting on a cell phone.  On the cell phone, of course, they had to  communicate quite a bit of information to the viewer via the text on the cell phone. So, instead of having the communication, which was obviously texted, in English, the the movie company put in Mandarin communications instead of the English-speaking.  This left the English only person like myself not knowing what was written because there was no English sub-titling.  A curious reversal for me.

Sometimes politically sensitive things are left out as well, but if that is the case those movies don't appear in Chinese theaters.

Canton Fair in Guangzhou

As a teacher in China we are sometimes oblivious to the opportunities that western companies are finding in China.  We come as educators and have a directive to teach our pupils the best we can at whatever subject we might deal with.

But, in the city of Guangzhou it is a hard thing to NOT know about the opportunities because this city has been the gateway to China trading for centuries.  The trading started long ago with people such as Marco Polo traveling the overland silk road, the Portuguese, and English, and as time went by the French, and Americans, and of course the Russians; China's neighbor to the north.

Modern trading takes a different approach than in the distant past.  But, the effect is the same.  Manufacture and sell low and take away and sell high.


The middle of October will bring incredible buying opportunities for traders who come to Guangzhou's Canton Fair. The fair is one of the most visited fairs in the world.

Chinahelp72, an American Chinese company located in Guangzhou, is a helping hand to those interested in a straight deal.  Because the work of trading revolves around translation between traders they strive to level the field and bring about a fair deal for the buyer.

Their slogan is "honesty is our policy" for good reason.  People who are their translators and go-between are given specific instructions to work for the buyer and report back to headquarters for debriefed by their bosses.

Sadly many Chinese sellers at the new Canton Fair have their own translators who are "on their side" and present information which is skewed towards the Chinese side.  Chinahelp72 is on the buyer's side and remain that way.

As an American Chinese company they know the ins and outs of this type of work and will take the buyer to a profitable conclusion.

Chinahelp72

Creating Something From Nothing

When you are a music teacher working in China or other places, such as international schools, you often will find yourself with few, if any, materials to work with.  I found this true when I worked on Guam as well.
I would have thought that these schools would accumulate a reasonable sized music library over time, but I was sadly mistaken.
When it came to instrumental arrangements for pop bands I discovered a solution which has served me well for years now.
I create music from "nothing".  Actually the truth is that I create written music from which my bands can play from midi files which are in abundance on line.  These files are digital representations of mostly famous compositions that have been put up on the web for a number of different reasons.
In the case of pop songs, many have been created for the purpose of a backing track from which people can sing or perform with.  Styles are of many types:  classical, pop, country, ethnic, religious, almost anything you might want musically.
My process utilizes a computer software called Sibelius, although there are many commercially produced brands available.
I simply download the midi (most often free) and load it into my Sibelius.  Immediately the song pops open with all the parts that the midi transcriber had created to duplicate the song as you might hear it on a famous recording.
At this point you must examine the piece as fitting with the instrumentation of your group.  Sometimes it might be necessary to re voice parts with the existing instrumentation that you have available.  Sometimes you might have to create parts that are not on the recording.

I will give an example below and how it came about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiSpd3JV1q4

The song is called:  海阔天空 by a group called Beyond.  It was a famous Cantonese song from many years ago.  I asked my students to find a midi of a famous Chinese/Cantonese song that we could perform and they came to me with this one.
I put the midi file into my Sibelius software and it opened with the correct digital information of the main instruments including strings, drums, bass, guitars, pianos and voices.  What did the track lack?  A Guzheng
which was one of our instruments and also the chords for guitars.  I distributed all the other parts and added a track in the key of C because the Guzheng has only do, re, me, sol, la as the notes to play.
I had to write a part which might be played easily using those notes.  I took bits of the piano part and other accompaniment and cut and pasted the Guzheng from the other parts.
For the guitar chords I analysed the song's structure and wrote those chords onto the score where they had not been.
The singers learnt their parts via the original recording and presto; we had our song.

Noble Court, A Piece Of Modern China

     Wherever I've lived, I've looked around and seen my neighbors and reflected on who they are and what part of society they are from.  I suppose that's the bit of sociologist in me.  In my life I've lived in many places and that habit of observance is a part of who I am.
     In August of 2012 I moved to Clifford Estates in Panyu a part of greater Guangzhou, Guangdong, China.  Clifford Estates is a planned city, of sorts, created by Dr. Clifford L.K. Pang, a billionaire, originally from Hong Kong.

     The estates is home to more than 200,000 people living in 35 story high-rise apartments, as well as 3 story townhouses.  Within its boundaries are supermarkets, sports facilities, private schools (including an international school) a private police force, and free bus service throughout.
     What I want to examine in this blog entry is my own living area: Noble Court.  As a teacher we receive free accommodations in a particular high-rise building among five others.
     What I see day in and day out is a large percentage of this population who are retired Chinese.  But, what is peculiar from a western vantage point is a huge number of babies and young children.  The morning light brings these older people to the edge of our large garden pool where tai chi is performed by men and women alike and traditional Chinese music wafts through the air.  Always close by are baby carriages or another grandparent holding the baby or young child.
      In the evening, the same garden pool area is filled with, primarily, elderly women who dance for hours what looks like Chinese line dancing while the men sit close by often with little ones in tow.
     Where do they come from and what is the nature of this enclave of retired Chinese?
     The population of China has been moving from rural China to eastern coastal cities at phenomenal rates.  It has been estimated that in a span of only 5-10 years 250,000,000 Chinese will have left small interior cities, towns, and farm land to come to the large cities for financial opportunities.  This is usually the young adults who, married or not, take jobs and leave their families behind.
     Some of the elderly, as in the case of Noble Court residents, sell their homes and move to the cities in support of their sons or daughters careers, where they become the baby sitters and providers of a solid "home" close by their grown child's work place.
     As I'd talked about in an earlier blog the one child policy is a factor in this move.  This grandchild must be cared for because it will be the support of the elder, eventually.  So, love and attention must be showered on the youngest for the strength and growth of the family unit.  The father or mother might have an apartment at some distance from the grandparents and grandchild.  Their only concern is building a career not to deal with the day to day raising of their child.
     As I'd said about Clifford Estates, there is a private bus service which transports most residents to other points within Clifford and to the bus station and the metro station nearby.  What I hadn't mentioned is the riders of these buses are opposites: the very old and the very young............and foreigners, such as teachers.  These buses are crowded (a friend of mine once called them "sardine buses"....a nice way of saying crowded, very crowded). If you follow general rules of etiquette, you should: 1. offer a seat to the elderly 2. offer a seat to the small child.   In Clifford, you stand a lot.  
  

Living In a World Of Smog

     In 2010 I moved to Suzhou, China and immediately was confronted with what must be one of the longest running smog alerts I had ever experiences.  I had lived in LA many years in the past and saw the orange sun (so pretty) but never anything to compare with China's air.
     A few years later I live in Guangzhou and check my China smog meter every day: (This is the website for air quality in China: compliments of the Chinese government)  http://aqicn.org/map/china/ The truth is that I'd rather live oblivious to these conditions, but when you look out the window of your apartment or from work you see a grey haze over everything each day accept perhaps after a good rain.
     What is hard to deal with is when smog seeps into your life and affects you in its most insidious way, while you're sleeping.  You have no way to control this.  Late at night you feel a congestion in your chest and wake to feel your chest being squeezed like a sponge.

     Of course there is the fact that a person should receive a reasonable amount of vigorous exercise to stay in tip top shape.  But, don't hold your breathe.  The weather won't allow it, at least in the way you might expect.  So, people try their best to find ways to exercise inside where there might be a certain amount of filtration through air conditioning units.  But, some people have given up and "live with it".
   

     Chinese pride is something that I never had thought about when it comes to this pollution.  As much as you might hate the pollution, to knock China for its pollution is taken very personally by the Chinese.  You are insulting, in a form, the Chinese way of life, for their striving for a better future for their nation.  It is part of what makes their nation number two in the world as an economy.

     What is true is the fact that car is king in China now and there is no going back, only forward.  Car Crazy China  Cars will only become more common and fresh air, less and less.  That is air in China.

1957

     How does the mind work?  What jogs your memory and directs it a certain way?
     I live in the Clifford Estates, Panyu, Guangzhou, China and ride the free bus shuttle constantly as a perk to living here.  It's free transportation and I benefit from using it.
     The other evening I was sitting on the shuttle bus surrounded by the scores of Chinese residents of Clifford with no directed thoughts in my mind.  In the front of the bus, just above the front entrance is a digital read-out clock.  It reads in military time, with a full 24 hour setting.
     As I was sitting there the clock changed from 19:56 to 19:57, which of course means 7:57 PM to western eyes.  But to me 19:57 became 1957.  That number jumped out at me like God had been talking to me.
     I felt like Jim Carrey in the movie "Bruce Almighty" where God talked to his character through the digital road sign.
     My mind spun back to my time playing music with The Diamonds.  1957 was the year that "Little Darlin'" was number one in the US, selling 8 million copies.  I heard that date every night, or I should say every show that The Diamonds played.  It was part of the dialogue on stage.
Little Darlin' by The Diamonds

     For the rest of that ride on the bus, even though I was in an atmosphere far removed from American Graffitti I thought about my friends and former bandmates as that bus bumped along.  I had worked originally with John Felton, who died in 1982 in a plane crash while we were playing in Nevada.  But, that's another story for another day.
The Diamonds



     

Car Crazy China

     When I arrived in China in October of 2010 I was whisked from the Shanghai airport to Suzhou in the middle of the night.  I couldn't see much other than freeways that kept going and going, much like the US mainland system of highways.  But, what were the drivers like?  It was dark and few drivers on the road at 1 am in the morning.
     The first experience of something "different" from my past experiences occurred when I road the bus the first day or work.  The bus picked up its passengers as any form of conveyance, but then I learned the driver's abilities.
     The bus sped off at a quick rate, even faster than the automobiles around it.  As time went by, day by day, I learned the nature of the bus drivers of this route (there were more than one).
     When approaching a red light the bus would reduce its speed but not stop. The cars at the light in front of our bus would need to begin their acceleration process meanwhile our bus sped up and passed the cars from either left or right.  What was very disturbing to me was when the bus driver did this maneuver in the left turn lane, bypassing the cars from the left side.  I had only seen this type of maneuver in movies.  Here was a professional driver (with a busload of workers) overtaking the slower moving autos as a common practice.  Whew!I think this guy learned to drive in the air force, perhaps in a dogfight.

     I now live in a secure community in Guangzhou, China.  Since my arrival in Suzhou in late 2010 and today a lot has happened in this country.  When you go to the shopping centers, take an airplane, or simply turn on the TV you see car commercials.  Reading these two articles attached you will see that number have grown from 13 million units to 35 million units in three years!  China's Car Units 2010  China's Car Units 2013
     What does this mean?  Traffic, and also badly trained drivers who are dying to get out on the road.  Cars are now the true form of status symbol.  Nothing beats this.
     Back to driving;  how do they drive?  Badly and more than that, ignoring others, and what we in the west think of as "common sense".
     My living circumstance is to be surrounded by cars within Clifford Estates.  Cars are parked everywhere, even where they should not be.  Ticketing of wrong doers is beyond the thought of police.  There are just too many infractions to deal with.  So, they do not ticket anyone.  People back out directly into oncoming traffic without a thought.  It is expected that these things happen.  But, again, don't forget the numbers which are growing exponentially, more than triple the sales of three years ago.
     The future is open to more and more vehicles, more and more exhaust, more and more accidents.  China is car crazy!

     When the United States was in its automobile expansion times, in the middle of the 20th century, Detroit was booming and everyone knew every car model and we all waited for the early fall for the new car models to come out.
     That same thing is now true of China.  People, who before were ignorant of car makes, are now checking everything out for their car purchase.  Cars are truly a status item and having one represents a person's growing affluent.  Keeping up with the Jones' is the word of the day, except perhaps it's not Jones, it's Zhang.
     Chinese car craziness is only beginning.  The numbers that I mentioned above are only a matter of a small fraction of the 1.3 billion people who live in China.  This blog entry will be out of date in the near future.