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Aussie writer 'Singing Love Songs in China'
By Linda Neil |
December 13, 2011, Tuesday
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I grew up in St Lucia in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, Australia.
My father taught Latin, history, math and English at a local grammar school and my mother, who was from the country and who had left school when she was 15, taught singing and piano.
I grew up a few streets away from the University of Queensland, renowned for its beautiful grounds, its wide lawns and green trees, the river along which it lies and especially for the lake that occupies its center.
Growing up near the university meant that long before my four brothers and sisters and I attended to study for degrees, we played in the grounds of the university. I especially loved to walk up there on a Sunday afternoon and sit beside the lake.
As I passed through my childhood, the lake became a metaphor for the gentle movement of time, the rituals of the days and years, and the contemplation of seasons and landscape, just as it did, I would discover later, for many ancient Chinese poets.
A few years after I grew too big for my childish ritual, I attended the University officially - to study law and music. The music department was situated right near the lake and students could sometimes be seen and heard practicing their cellos, violins and flutes under the willow trees by the water. In between classes, lessons and rehearsals, I often sat beside the lake with my boyfriend, Sean, who also studied music. As we sat and sipped cool drinks, we read the words of the poet and philosopher, Lao Tzu.
His non-Western, non-materialistic contemplations seemed to resonate perfectly with our eclectic reading of European writers, such as Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann and Aldous Huxley, who had also turned towards Eastern philosophy for inspiration.
Sean was studying classical Chinese poetry at the time and once read me this verse written in the 11th century by the poet, Su Shih:
Shimmering water at its fill - sunny day is best;
Blurred mountain in a haze - marvelous even in rain
Compare wet lake to a beautiful girl, she will look
Just as becoming - lightly made up or richly adorned.
I look back on this simple scene of two first-year university students sitting and reading by the lake and I understand how sweetly Sean was romancing me with this ancient Chinese poem. And how, at the lake, which resonated with words inscribed centuries ago, he was also relating this old Chinese text to our lives as young contemporary Australians. The poetry became a kind of motif of our relationship.
Hollywood is often referred to as "the dream factory" and its cultural output as "product." This American-based factory has manufactured and exported its dreams all over the world for nearly a century.
In a way these poems from ancient China wove dreams for me too. And even though I never had the chance to read or hear these poems in their original language, they also stimulated my imagination and fed my thoughts and emotions, in as magical a way as did the movies I loved.
Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Hangzhou as part of a Shanghai Daily-sponsored symposium on "Travel and Writing." I am not exaggerating to write here that when I first saw the West Lake and gazed at the landscape of this magnificent natural wonder through the mist I felt deeply that I was seeing a long-held dream of mine come true and that the lakes of ancient China I had dreamed of as a girl had materialized in front of my eyes in contemporary Hangzhou.
It was no coincidence that this feeling was so strong. Later, after delivering a talk to students at Nanjing University, a member of the audience informed me that the poet, Su Shih, had actually lived near the West Lake during part of his writing life and that the lake had indeed inspired the poems that I had first heard near the much smaller lake on the university grounds near my home.
Around the time I was first absorbing images and dreams from ancient China, my mother's singing teaching practice expanded and some of the overseas Chinese students studying at the University of Queensland came to learn singing from her.
They were interested in learning Western vocal techniques, but my mother was also interested in these vocal students teaching her some Chinese songs as well. I recall many of the best-loved Chinese folk songs were about flowers - jasmine and lotus, in particular - and I can still hum their melodies today.
A few years later, inspired by the songs and music-making that I had first heard in my own home, I began to write and sing my own songs. From the first few simple songs I wrote and sang, my project grew to the stage where in 2009, I embarked on a year-long odyssey through peoples' homes and private spaces in which I presented my songs and stories much like a traveling minstrel did in medieval times. This story became a radio documentary and next year it will be made into a film.
What began in homes and lounge rooms in the Australian city where I was born is now a global journey about which I am also writing a book called "Singing Love Songs Around the World." The Chinese chapters of this global research, "Singing Love Songs in China," are being written now in contemporary Shanghai.
And although the project was conceived in my home in Brisbane today, the philosophy behind it is not that much different from that of Lao Tzu, whose words I first read by the lake up the road from where I grew up.
(to be continued.)
Dr Linda Neil is a writer, musician and documentary producer whose work frequently integrates writing and music in both print and audio texts. Her family memoir, "Learning How to Breathe," was published in 2009 and in 2011 she was a writer-in-residence with the Shanghai Writers' Association's International Writers' program sponsored by Asialink, Australia.
My father taught Latin, history, math and English at a local grammar school and my mother, who was from the country and who had left school when she was 15, taught singing and piano.
I grew up a few streets away from the University of Queensland, renowned for its beautiful grounds, its wide lawns and green trees, the river along which it lies and especially for the lake that occupies its center.
Growing up near the university meant that long before my four brothers and sisters and I attended to study for degrees, we played in the grounds of the university. I especially loved to walk up there on a Sunday afternoon and sit beside the lake.
As I passed through my childhood, the lake became a metaphor for the gentle movement of time, the rituals of the days and years, and the contemplation of seasons and landscape, just as it did, I would discover later, for many ancient Chinese poets.
A few years after I grew too big for my childish ritual, I attended the University officially - to study law and music. The music department was situated right near the lake and students could sometimes be seen and heard practicing their cellos, violins and flutes under the willow trees by the water. In between classes, lessons and rehearsals, I often sat beside the lake with my boyfriend, Sean, who also studied music. As we sat and sipped cool drinks, we read the words of the poet and philosopher, Lao Tzu.
His non-Western, non-materialistic contemplations seemed to resonate perfectly with our eclectic reading of European writers, such as Hermann Hesse, Thomas Mann and Aldous Huxley, who had also turned towards Eastern philosophy for inspiration.
Sean was studying classical Chinese poetry at the time and once read me this verse written in the 11th century by the poet, Su Shih:
Shimmering water at its fill - sunny day is best;
Blurred mountain in a haze - marvelous even in rain
Compare wet lake to a beautiful girl, she will look
Just as becoming - lightly made up or richly adorned.
I look back on this simple scene of two first-year university students sitting and reading by the lake and I understand how sweetly Sean was romancing me with this ancient Chinese poem. And how, at the lake, which resonated with words inscribed centuries ago, he was also relating this old Chinese text to our lives as young contemporary Australians. The poetry became a kind of motif of our relationship.
Hollywood is often referred to as "the dream factory" and its cultural output as "product." This American-based factory has manufactured and exported its dreams all over the world for nearly a century.
In a way these poems from ancient China wove dreams for me too. And even though I never had the chance to read or hear these poems in their original language, they also stimulated my imagination and fed my thoughts and emotions, in as magical a way as did the movies I loved.
Recently I had the opportunity to travel to Hangzhou as part of a Shanghai Daily-sponsored symposium on "Travel and Writing." I am not exaggerating to write here that when I first saw the West Lake and gazed at the landscape of this magnificent natural wonder through the mist I felt deeply that I was seeing a long-held dream of mine come true and that the lakes of ancient China I had dreamed of as a girl had materialized in front of my eyes in contemporary Hangzhou.
It was no coincidence that this feeling was so strong. Later, after delivering a talk to students at Nanjing University, a member of the audience informed me that the poet, Su Shih, had actually lived near the West Lake during part of his writing life and that the lake had indeed inspired the poems that I had first heard near the much smaller lake on the university grounds near my home.
Around the time I was first absorbing images and dreams from ancient China, my mother's singing teaching practice expanded and some of the overseas Chinese students studying at the University of Queensland came to learn singing from her.
They were interested in learning Western vocal techniques, but my mother was also interested in these vocal students teaching her some Chinese songs as well. I recall many of the best-loved Chinese folk songs were about flowers - jasmine and lotus, in particular - and I can still hum their melodies today.
A few years later, inspired by the songs and music-making that I had first heard in my own home, I began to write and sing my own songs. From the first few simple songs I wrote and sang, my project grew to the stage where in 2009, I embarked on a year-long odyssey through peoples' homes and private spaces in which I presented my songs and stories much like a traveling minstrel did in medieval times. This story became a radio documentary and next year it will be made into a film.
What began in homes and lounge rooms in the Australian city where I was born is now a global journey about which I am also writing a book called "Singing Love Songs Around the World." The Chinese chapters of this global research, "Singing Love Songs in China," are being written now in contemporary Shanghai.
And although the project was conceived in my home in Brisbane today, the philosophy behind it is not that much different from that of Lao Tzu, whose words I first read by the lake up the road from where I grew up.
(to be continued.)
Dr Linda Neil is a writer, musician and documentary producer whose work frequently integrates writing and music in both print and audio texts. Her family memoir, "Learning How to Breathe," was published in 2009 and in 2011 she was a writer-in-residence with the Shanghai Writers' Association's International Writers' program sponsored by Asialink, Australia.
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