The Secret Piano: From Mao's Labor Camps to Bach's Goldberg Variations

by Zhu Xiao-Mei

Marx distinguishes between three types of slaves: those who obey, those who wish to become masters, and revolutionaries who want to change the lot of the slave.

When existence is reduced to a series of deadening tasks, when no higher consciousness, either cultural or religious, is there to guide one’s instincts, the only way to defend oneself is to attack.

It is an incredible thing to relearn technique: to forget everything, to study it anew with an open mind, to seek out and find solutions.

Montesquieu wrote: “I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve.”

This is the essence of Chinese philosophy: something that can be experienced without always needing to be explained. The Chinese path to understanding is quite different from that taken by Westerners. It is more intuitive, less strictly rational. The Chinese believe that many things do not need explanation because they are natural phenomena. Unlike their Western counterparts, who see understanding as a prerequisite to practice, Chinese people see practice as one way to achieve understanding. They are skeptical about any single-minded search for an ideal or a truth.

To see down to the bottom of a lake, the water must be calm and still. The calmer the water, the farther down one can see. The exact same thing is true for the mind—the more tranquil and detached one is, the greater the depths one can plumb.

Thirty spokes join together at one hub, But it is the hole in the center That makes it operable. Clay is molded into a pot, But it is the emptiness inside That makes it useful. Doors and windows are cut To make a room, It is the empty spaces that we use. Therefore, existence is what we have, But non-existence is what we use.

Hauteville House, November 25, 1861 You ask my opinion, Sir, about the China expedition. You consider this expedition to be honourable and glorious, and you have the kindness to attach some consideration to my feelings; according to you, the China expedition, carried out jointly under the flags of Queen Victoria and the Emperor Napoleon, is a glory to be shared between France and England, and you wish to know how much approval I feel I can give to this English and French victory. Since you wish to know my opinion, here it is: There was, in a corner of the world, a wonder of the world; this wonder was called the Summer Palace. Art has two principles, the Idea, which produces European art, and the Chimera, which produces oriental art. The Summer Palace was to chimerical art what the Parthenon is to ideal art. All that can be begotten of the imagination of an almost extra-human people was there. It was not a single, unique work like the Parthenon. It was a kind of enormous model of the chimera, if the chimera can have a model. Imagine some inexpressible construction, something like a lunar structure, and you will have the Summer Palace. Build a dream with marble, jade, bronze, and porcelain, frame it with cedar wood, cover it with precious stones, drape it with silk, make it here a sanctuary, there a harem, elsewhere a citadel, put gods there, and monsters, varnish it, enamel it, gild it, paint it, have architects who are poets build the thousand and one dreams of the thousan...

Life is a continual process of transformation, and it is this process of change that we should honor, rather than a return to the past.

Music brings people together, in ways that politics or religion cannot. It instills a powerful love of humanity that allows you to overcome every hardship. When you play music, you give of yourself unconditionally—and this is my definition of love.

Water is useful, it serves. It descends and does not rise. It nestles in the unloved hollows, not in the heights where everyone dreams of world domination. It competes with no one, and yet it overcomes rock—the hardest substance in the world. Without water, life would not exist.

To demonstrate the difference between Confucianists, Buddhists, and Taoists—who are disciples of Laozi—the Chinese like to invoke the allegory of the glass of water. The Confucianist says: “This glass of water must be shared. Give your parents the first sip.” For the followers of Confucius, the greatest virtue is the social order, how society is organized. The Buddhist says: “Must I drink?” because, for him, the most important thing is mastering emotion and desire. Finally, the Taoist looks at the glass and says: “Water does not exist.”

What good is an existence without the hope of growth—an existence that can only imagine before it the darkness of ignorance—and submission, which is ignorance’s hand-maiden?

to ensure peace and the future of the world, the absolute first priority is education.