China

Britney Spears on Religion and Patriotism

Recently Cheryl and I went to a New Years celebration put on by the Jinhua High School presented in their massive gym.  I think the venue is large enough to seat about 3000 students.  The Chinese have a propensity to build in monolithic proportions.  It was a cold night and the thing about buildings in China is that they lack heat.  Think of a hockey arena in Canada.  They are heated, so bad comparison, maybe think root cellar.  

We took our seats and two third year students appeared as our translators to guide us through the performance.  The gym was darkened, except for the neon like plastic lights that all students were holding and throwing around the gym.  We didn’t really need a translator for many of the numbers because many were English songs.  This is a wet climate (monsoon) and everyone owns several umbrellas, even when it snows, so to have the song, “Singing in the Rain” preformed in English was no big surprise.  There was a song originally done by an obscure American singer, Britney Spears.  Other classes did themes relating to traditional Chinese opera meeting modern dance.  There was a range of talent  and although we sat in the cold, dark gym we were enjoying ourselves.

What we enjoyed most was the presentation by the Chinese teachers.  The students went wild.  The teachers teamed as couples, each dressed in formal wear and couple by couple male to female in turn sang romantic songs and in a scandalous show of affection held hands.  Our student translators told us this would be great cause for gossip.  What I appreciated about this was the fact that the student response was overwhelming and innocent.  They were thrilled at the sight of their teachers showing affection.  Our translators added that Chinese love romance.   I thought how this same act in Canada would not resonant well with the masses in the same way.  Our teen agers might expect a pole-dance.  I’m thankful that these Chinese kids are still back in the fifties.  I guess I am of a regressive nature.

One theme that the school likes to beat into the kids here is patriotism.  I can remember a day when I sang, with hand over heart, “God Save the Queen” and in later years “Oh Canada”.  We would even do a rendition of something we liked to call the “Lord’s Prayer”. Political correctness had not yet been coined. Here, in China, there is no God, but love of country is important, like Marx said, “Religion is the opiate of the people.”  Many slogans are written on bright red banners around the school concerning themes of love of country, “Love is in the heart and that is where you find country...loose translation.

Many of the songs presented that night spoke to patriotism and so Cheryl and I asked our youthful translators how they felt about that.  With some thought and hesitation they said that they get too much of it.  They hear it ever day and while they believe it to be true they don’t have to hear it all the time.  I said, “You should come to Canada”.

I only see the tip of a very large iceberg here.  We live in a small city, Jinhua, of only a million in an insignificant region of merely 6 million...a Toronto.  This tiny sample doesn’t really reflect the greater China I am sure, considering students here are the elite.  They may just be “Singing in the Rain.”