Symphonies & Scorpions: The View from Floor 64
WELCOME TO THE 20th DAILY INSTALLMENT OF SYMPHONIES & SCORPIONS: AN INTERNATIONAL CONCERT TOUR AS AN INSTRUMENT OF CITIZEN DIPLOMACY.
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Shanghai
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A Notable Transformation
If Beijing is totally different from the way it was thirty-five years ago, Shanghai is different from anything, period. If Beijing is enormous, Shanghai is mind-boggling. The lobby of our Shanghai hotel, the Grand Hyatt, is on the fifty-fifth floor of the Jin Mao Tower office building, which when it was completed in 1998 was the tallest edifice in China at 1,380 feet. My room is on the sixty-fourth floor, and the building ascends another twenty-nine stories. Looking out my hotel room I have a panoramic view of a vast sea of skyscrapers far below me, and dozens of others puncture the heavens above.
When I was last in Shanghai in 1979 it felt like a well-preserved blend of traditional China with a European twist. Toward the end of the nineteenth century the US, Germany, France, England, and other European countries plunked themselves down along the banks of the Huangpu River in an area called the Bund, where they established financial and trade centers, and had a glorious time divvying up China into zones of influence.
I had been unable to sleep at the customary hours because of the time change that first morning in Shanghai in 1979. I woke before dawn and decided to take a walk. With the recent end of the Cultural Revolution still a palpable reality we had anticipated our freedom of movement to be short leashed, but to our surprise we were left to our own devices and given unrestricted leeway to wander wherever we chose.
I started my solo expedition along the waterfront and was most impressed with dozens of elderly folks engaged in group tai chi, which, like dim sum, was at that time almost unheard of in the US. Like a corps de ballet in super slow-mo, its amateur practitioners exhibited amazing grace and balance.
By the time the sun rose, I found myself in a maze of winding streets in an old neighborhood, amidst a scene straight out of The Good Earth: the spider web of alleys, endless rows of tiny shops, highly-pitched chatter, old men wearing long beards, long robes, and round caps sitting at sidewalk tables playing mahjong and drinking tea. The only things missing from the scene, and rightly so, were opium and Wang Lung pulling his rickshaw.
As I meandered, a young lad, clad in a military-like school uniform sporting short pants even on that blustery March day, summoned up his courage and silently traipsed alongside me. I might have been the first westerner he had ever seen in person and I had a sneaking suspicion I would be the subject of animated conversation at school and the dinner table. “Yes, I’m sure he was American, and he didn’t know anything!”
Though we didn’t speak a word of each other’s language, we quickly established an easy camaraderie as we ambled along side by side. When he finally decided it was time to part company, I pulled a pen out of my pocket. We had been encouraged to carry little gifts with us to demonstrate that the capitalist Americans are truly friendly folks. Our official briefing packet, provided by the National Committee on United States-China Relations, suggested:
“Americans visiting China should consider taking along mementos of the United States, to present to hosts and guide/interpreters. An instant-print camera of the Polaroid or new Kodak variety is a very popular and successful ‘ice-breaker:’ the photos are welcome souvenir gifts for hotel staff, drivers, escorts, school children, and others with whom the traveler has come in contact.”
This seemed to be an ideal time to put my best foot forward. What little kid wouldn’t want to show off a souvenir from America?
His reaction surprised me. He stopped in his tracks and, puffing out his chest, struck a proud pose curiously reminiscent of Chinese propaganda posters from that era of the proud socialist worker, and thrust an outstretched hand in front of him. No translation necessary: “Stop right there!” the gesture said, refusing my offer outright. Yet there was no anger in his response. All I could read was pride and self-respect, which in such a young kid I thought remarkable. So I smiled and waved, and his prior hand gesture morphed into a friendly mirror of mine. He then turned and marched away. I wouldn’t be surprised if that kid, now in his late forties, is premier one day. Maybe he is already.
At a cursory glance, the intermingled swirl of Europe and traditional China I observed from my previous trip to Shanghai now seem to have become charming sidelights, having given way to an ultra-modern, fantastic (in the literal sense), vertical city. Mega-skyscrapers up to and over a hundred stories have sprouted everywhere, with two notable features: They’re all given breathing room so that each building is clearly visible from any distance and angle; and they’re all architecturally imaginative and unique. Not necessarily beautiful, as everyone’s definition of beauty is different; but at least intensely interesting and impressive, and far more engaging than their squatter and more massive cousins in Beijing. The Shanghai Tower going up across the street, directly in front of my hotel room window will, when completed in 2015, be the world’s second tallest building, weighing in at 2,073 feet high and 121 stories. Yet when you see the finished image of it on the billboard at the construction site, it looks like an amazingly delicate, gently unwinding scroll. I’ve never been in a city with such a futuristic vision, and that it has all been built in the last couple of decades is almost incomprehensible.
[image error]Shanghai. Not your typical city.
The main misgiving for someone like me, who’s concerned about the effects of humanity’s energy consumption on the world’s climate, is considering the vast amount of energy it has taken and will take to build and maintain all this superhuman construction. Even given China’s commitment to developing wind and solar power, it’s hard to imagine keeping up with a growing and more affluent population.
On the positive side, I’m pleasantly surprised to find out from the tour guide assigned to our bus that many of these mega-skyscrapers were designed by American architectural firms. Considering the level of cooperation needed to construct such unique and huge structures, this seems to me a positive development for the future relationship between our two intensely competitive countries.
Dumplings in the Din
With no concert tonight, I’m attending another invited guests dinner with symphony patrons. When I signed up for it, I thought it would be a good way for me to sample some of the best in local Cantonese cuisine without having to search for it, but maybe on this occasion I’ve outwitted myself. I’m a little tired and would be happier with a quiet night on my own, but it would be bad form to beg out at the last minute, so here I am. The dinner is at the ritzy Whampoa Club, a traditional landmark on the Bund.
Making interesting small talk at our table is next to impossible. In addition to being tired, the ambient noise is so cacophonous I can barely hear the elderly lady sitting next to me, and what I can isn’t getting my creative schmoozing juices flowing. I would like to overhear more of what Mark Volpe, two seats away, has to say about the recently resolved situation of one of the greatest American orchestras, the Minnesota Orchestra (Mark’s home turf), in which bitter labor strife, precipitated by the management’s and board’s threats to cut the pay of the musicians by over thirty percent and reduce the size of the orchestra, resulted in a lockout of the musicians and nearly drove the hundred-ten-year-old organization to extinction. Major touring and recording projects were put on hold or cancelled. Their beloved music director, Osmo Vanska, resigned as the lockout wore on without an end in sight. The musicians could not understand why an organization with a healthy endowment and which could afford a $50-million expansion of Orchestra Hall could demand such draconian cuts. Ultimately, after fifteen months, the longest work stoppage in American orchestra history ended. A settlement was reached in which the musicians accepted a fifteen percent pay cut, a significantly higher contribution to their health plan, and a reduction in the size of the orchestra from 95 members to 84. One piece of good news was that Vanska agreed to return. Straining to read Mark’s lips, I get the sense that he believes the situation could and should have been handled much less painfully, with which I’m in full agreement.
On a more mundane level, Mark patiently explains to a patron who doesn’t know much about orchestra dynamics why the cymbal player gets paid as much as a violinist. I appreciate that this patron is willing to learn; if only the Minnesota board had been as open-minded. What would the alternative be? Mark asked. To be paid by the note? How would you calculate that? The cymbal player might not play as many notes as a violinist, but if he were to play a wrong one, you would surely hear it more! If a violinist calls in sick, the show can go on, but if the cymbalist is ill you’re in real trouble. And, after all, an orchestra is a team whose players work day-in, day-out with each other. If you replaced your cymbal player with an outsider, it could change the whole synergy, not just with the rest of the percussion section, but with the whole orchestra. Then there’s the marketplace. If you want the best cymbal player, you have to be ready to pay him for his expertise.
I manage to raise my voice high enough above the desultory din to ask Mark something I’ve been curious about. “Mark, what exactly do you do on tour?” I had imagined that as managing director he would delegate most of the grunt work to mid and lower management. Was this trip more of a paid vacation?
Mark tells me he still has to keep up with the day-to-day stuff running the shop back home, overseeing marketing, development, running the plant. (The BSO is a major property owner in the area around Symphony Hall in Boston and Tanglewood in the Berkshires.) Mark is also a lawyer and there are always legal issues involved in the BSO’s multi-faceted business enterprises. Plus, he’s done about twenty interviews since we left Boston with news media in China and Japan, keeps a close eye on logistical personnel for the current tour, and maintains ongoing conversations with local presenters and politicos with an eye to the future. Not a vacation.
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Click on the title if you’d like to purchase Symphonies & Scorpions in its entirety. It’s available in two paperback editions, one chock-full of black-and-white photos, the other with color photos, and in Kindle.
NEWS FLASH: MY FIRST POLITICAL THRILLER, THE BEETHOVEN SEQUENCE, IS SCHEDULED FOR RELEASE ON SEPTEMBER 8! A MENTALLY UNBALANCED MUSIC TEACHER BECOMES PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES! PREPOSTEROUS? STAY TUNED.
