BEIJING - ZHUHAÏ

Guitar as a witness

Under the aegis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, I embark on my first ever Chinese tour, in 1977, shortly after the death of the Paramount Leader- in other words, right in the middle of an extremely difficult period.

When I arrive, the customs officers are friendly and cordial, and don 't bother inspecting the contents of my bags. My accompanist's flowers, given to her the night before by the audience at a performance in Tokyo, however, do not pass unnoticed. They feel the petals, smell the corollas, and examine the sepals. The reason for this is quite simple: this is the first time they've ever seen live, natural flowers, the emblems of an elitist culture, and, by extension, counterrevolutionary.

The next day, an inordinate fuss is made over the composition of my programme! Every piece is carefully noted, then subjected to the official list of "authorized" composers: Debussy but not Ravel, Granados but not Albeniz... Naturally, none of my composers are included in this Who's Who. An investigation would therefore be made with each of the concerned embassies. But what are we to make of the Russian (Panin) and the Cuban (Brouwer), who hail from countries which are presently on unfriendly terms? For the sake of art, one can always find a ruse. The French embassy would not deny artistic asylum to Leo Brouwer from Habana, who would therefore be renamed Léon Brouvère. His work is interesting: "The Eternal Spiral " is an allegory centred around the chromosome (a subject which, admitedly, is rarely touched upon in music). Three notes continue on a downward spiral, and eventually meet. As for Panin the moscovite -- it has been determined that he is an eskimo!!

Before this highly-censored concert, one of the organizers, visibly nervous and gasping for breath, comes up to me.

- Mr Jumez! This piece, by the composer Léon...

- What about it?

- You told us about three notes which represent the chromosone. However, I've just been to the Institute of Biology, where I was told that there are 23 pairs of chromosomes in a gene. Why, then, are there only three notes?

Another henchman runs up to me:

- I don't know what to do, I can't seem to locate the Eskimo embassy!

The concert is somewhat... disconcerting, seeing as the audience is essentially comprised of carefully selected delegations. The applause is uniform and synchronized, as if any sign of individuality is something dangerous, best avoided.

*******

When I come back in 1983, I no longer have to contend with censorship, and there isn't nearly as much fuss.

A limousine takes me to the room where roughly one hundred young musicians, with remarkably advanced technique, are waiting for me. It turns out to be a school, founded by a young professor, Chen Zhi. "I was at your recital, in 1977, he tells me. I was extremely moved". Music comes and goes, but the emotional reactions to it linger on. "As soon as this country began to become more liberalized and open, I contacted my Chinese expatriate friends to obtain the money to finance this school". It is therefore a private school [the first private business ever in communist China].

And there are already 800 students! I remain puzzled by these students' great leap forward, however, and I ask Chen Zhi about it.

- Oh, that's simple, they're all playing p'i-p'a! I'll ask Xing-Liang to give you a demonstration by playing something for you

A frail-looking girl places an instrument resembling a guitar on her knees. It has a well-balanced shape, has a refined profile, and is made of both wood and ivory. The keys are near the neck. Under the bun, the harshness of the vertebrae form a delicate curved line. Her hair comes undone, highlighting the thin nape of her neck. A small distance separates the curved line of the keyboard, whose keys, located between the frets, have been given a convex shape by the sculptor. By gently pressing the string towards the bottom of the fret, it emits sensual variations of tones, as if these incurvations were all centres of pleasure. This unlimited division provokes a multitude of sensations. She manages to subdivide the scale into microtones. Next to her, I feel clumsy- the stiff semitones of the guitar force me to overlay voices, since the tones cannot be divided. The fingers, as refined as a pair of ivory chopsticks, move freely between the four strings, which are spaced farther apart than those of the guitar. She can concentrate on the angle of attack, she can make broad movements which allow her to put a lot of emotion into the most subtle particle of musical expression: the timbre. She is not interested in polyphonic temptations. Instead, she searches for the equivalence of every note in the fabric which she is communicating to the listener. She does not read music. She draws her inspiration from a "gongche", a memory refresher, of sorts, which accentuates the essence of the work, which she updates by coordonating its spacing and movement. I have the impression, due to her elliptic approach, and her instrument's four strings, that she has just played a symphony..

This technique is the result of a linear evolution which is at least 1,500 years old. Xing-Liang moves strums the string with her nail, obtaining slightly different timbres according to the sense of the attack: p'i upward, p'a downward. A beautiful note is worth more than all of the world's techniques combined; conversely, all of the world's techniques are required in order to play a beautiful note. Consequently, I now understand her extraordinary guitar-playing prowess. As the session goes on, I begin to admire my admirers.

*******

A toast ("kampe") is proposed to open the feast which is held afterwards. Unfortunately, the drink being served is the disgusting "mau tai", a rice-based alcohol which one would swear contains bile. I had already tried it once, at a market in Taipei, where one orders a glass of rice alcohol, and then selects one of the snakes on display (one could call it a snake bar). The merchant then fastens the snake to a hook and guts it. The extracted fluid is then poured into the glass, thereby concocting a powerful aphrodisiacl which certain customers shall be needing when they visit the nearby red-light district. Meanwhile, the merchant finishes peeling off the unfortunate reptile's skin, which is be set aside for future use.

As I drink this bile beverage, I plot a horrible vengeance, which would consist of an extremely runny Camembert cheese- which would be an allegory for everything vile and sickening in this world, from a Chinese point of view. Even if it were an aphrodisiac, the Chinese wouldn't go near it.

Eighteen traditional dishes are served, including the famous Peking duck, which cannot be exported, since it is raised and sacrificed in a very particular way (although it is more for our benefit than for his own).

The atmosphere is both solemn and friendly. Little time is wasted on chit-chat, seeing as the presence of interpreters would force us to elaborate.

A veritable forest of microphones has been planted onstage. This bothers me considerably, since live music is supposed to be based on a different approach than studio recordings, as I already found out the hard way. Unfortunately, there's no point in protesting, so I don't say anything. The back rows stand up to see me better. I'm asked countless questions, and beautiful young girls offer me flowers. What a change from the last time I was here!

I then embark on a long train ride across China. 85% of China's population lives in the countryside, so it's important not to overlook it. My interpreter tells me about his life, and about his family (his mother's feet are still bound). He can't get over the fact that I don't have any children. As far as he's concerned, a solitary and unattached being isn't complete. Everything that surrounds a man is a part of him. To marry a woman is to to marry both her ancestors and her descendants. Therefore, the dreaded great-grandmother becomes your wife. The handicapped brother becomes your wife. The bawling child becomes your wife.

- In the west, it's almost the opposite: many people are quite happy to be single, and like to flaunt it. You think of life as a single measure taken out of a symphony, as something which cannot be disassociated from its ancestry, which is another part of the symphony. And you feel that it becomes meaningless if it is not succeeded by another generation afterwards. Individuals are nothing more than notes in a larger melody. We westerners, on the other hand, look at it as a complete symphony, with both a beginning and an end.

- Come now, if your parents had thought the same way you do, you wouldn't be alive today!

- I never said I was grateful to them for that. In any event, maybe my genes are not passed on in a traditional way, but, rather, disseminated throughout the world, much like the pollen of certain plants, which is then carried by the wind, resulting in unknown numbers of descendants who, just once, may have vibrated in synch with my music

*******

In 1987, after being bombarded with a series of faxes and messages on my answering machine, I attend a guitar festival held in the city of Zhuhai, located across from Macau, which acts as a transition zone between China and its wealthy neighbours. The welcome I receive exceeds my wildest dreams. Both in the street and at my hotel, admirers constantly want to meet me. I am even more overwhelmed when I am told that the festival is being held in my honour, that 800 guitarists from throughout China have come to take part in it, and that some of them have even taken a 6-day train ride to get here. The city has been invaded by guitars.

- You know, things have changed considerably since the last time that you were here, Xing-Lang, the young p 'i-p 'a virtuoso who has since become a professional musician, tells me. Following the guitar boom in China, our television stations found themselves short on material. The only footage it had in its archives was a 60-minute performance that you recorded in 1983. Therefore, it has been broadcast virtually once a month since then. You're nearly as famous as our president!

After the festival, I stay for a few days in order to record a cassette tape. I have no idea how many of them have been sold, nor do I want to know, since there are no agreements making it possible for me to earn royalties from it.

This recording is made in a cassette-tape factory, located in the middle of a noisy neighbourhood, which is aggravated by the fact that the surrounding streets are currently undergoing extensive renovations. However, clear and unambiguous instructions have been given: Everyone is to stop working,driving, and making any other noise the moment I start playing.

Those ideal working conditions notwithstanding, I have to interrupt my work for two days, because I have to give a concert in the south, near the Vietnamese border. As it is raining, my return flight has unfortunately been cancelled. The only other option is by car. I'll only need a mere ten hours to drive the 350 km, because Chinese roads are are full of lorries, tractors, prams, and cattle.
My driver is ready to leave at five o'clock in the morning. We drive normally until 10 o'clock, at which point we encounter farmers who try to get our attention. The driver rolls his window down, and then keeps on driving, not wanting to pay any further attention to lowly farmers. A bit further, the road is completely covered with water. Very quickly, it reaches the rims of the car, then the bumpers, then the bonnet, and, finally, the windscreen wipers. At this moment, a lorry driving the opposite way creates an enormous wave which literally submerges our car completely. We now have water up to our knees. My shoes are floating next to the windscreen. At last, the car comes to a stop.

A group of farmers, laughing hysterically, soon joins us, and frees us by using small tractors, whose air filters have been raised. They dive to fasten a rope to the car, and then drag us to the other side. The car has had it.

Hitch-hiking in China isn't as easy as in the United States. After one hour, however, a small coach finally picks me up, although it is so overcrowded that a passenger had to generously get out and give up his seat in order for me to get in. The average speed, which was rather low even in a car, isn't much higher than zero in this old piece of junk. At 13.00, everybody has to get out: it's lunch time- an extremely important ritual in China. Alone and penniless, I reconcile myself with the idea of doing some impromptu dieting. The driver, however, tugs at my sleeve. He buys me an excellent meal, during which we desperately attempt to communicate. Delicious local apricot wine makes this ambitious project a bit easier.

When we finally reach our destination, this charming man uses his bus like a taxi to bring me back to my hotel, which I have a very hard time tracking down. Since that time, I 've sent him a postcard every year.

*******

In 1988, I return to further savour the fruits of my fame- i.e. being mobbed by crowds, sold-out concerts, and lavish feasts.

The following year, the tragic massacre in Beijing's Tien an Meng Square, which had been off-limits to the public until 1912, would take place. During the televised reports, guitars could be spotted everywhere.

That's when it hit me: what I brought to China wasn't the guitar, so much as what it represents in the eyes of Chinese youths: the western world. To brandish a guitar was to proclaim one's liberal philosophy. In Tien an Meng Square, which was invaded by a vast tide of youth militants, each guitar became an opposition vote; each chord, a bullet. It is extremely unfortunate that so many of these musical executants were executed