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John Williams and Gerald Garcia - China Tour September 24th - October 6th 1997 PART I

REPORT by Gerald Garcia

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Introduction

Four of us went to China - John Williams, Kathy Panama, Alison Bendy and Gerald Garcia. The trip was planned one year ago in conjunction with a Chinese guitar professor, Chen Zhi and the Hong Kong Guitar Alliance.Since then I have been in close contact with Lu Hongsheng of the China International Cultural Exchange Centre who organised the concerts, sightseeing and travel within China in association with the regional Cultural Associations. We met many of the estimated ten million amateur and professional guitarists in China and taught and played in four cities:Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Beijing. The visit was an important one for Chinese guitarists, all of whom seem to base their technique and repertoire on the playing of John Williams, whom they had only heard previously on recordings. John and I played recitals consisting largely of British music and some Chinese, Spanish and Irish arrangements.

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September 22nd We arrive in Hong Kong and were royally treated by my friend Tony Malins, an Australian and airline pilot. After the visits to several nightclubs in Wanchai, we had forgotten all about jet lag! The Journey: Sept. 24th We were flown to Shanghai by Tony, all feeling slightly groggy. Presumably, Tony felt OK. At Shanghai we were met by the International Culture Association and members of the Guitar Companion Magazine in the neon lit drizzle. On the Bund in Shanghai

Sept.25th We have our first meeting with guitarists in Hangkou Entertainment City and give a class following many speeches of welcome. In the evening we played in a large theatre and met Peter Grout and other members of the British Council. The concert was sold out and we had the first of many escapes from the hungry crowd, who all wanted to be photographed with us (at the same time!). At one point earlier in the day, all I could see of John was his legs surrounded by a sea of hands waving programmes to be autographed. Even Alison and Kathy were not safe from the souvenir hunters. After the concert, we went out a back way after our hosts told the audience we had left - I wonder if the Beatles used the same tactics?

Palanquin bearers in Suzhou Park

Sept.26th Day trip to Suzhou. This was an incredibly tedious journey by car, starting at 7.00 am - none of us are good at getting up early! The journey was around 3 hours there and eventually took us 4 hours back because of traffic jams. The driver was a model of restraint and skill as he managed to find the smallest openings in the traffic in the least time! We speculated that there were and amazingly low number of accidents given the apparent chaos because Chinese drivers do not have anything to prove when overtaking, or even when travelling on the wrong side of the road. Suzhou was incidentally quite nice, and we saw acrobats and Dragon Dancers in one of the famous gardens there. We found out later that had we gone by train, the journey would have taken us just under one hour!

Sept.27th Early departure from Shanghai by train and arrival in Hangzhou in the afternoon. We are met by members of the Zhejiang International Culture Exchange Association. We take a trip around the famed West Lake in the afternoon and discuss the pros and cons of living in China with one Mr.Wang who has recently returned from Japan to live in China forever. He is quite young and very pleased to be part of the growing economy. We consider that even when things do not go right, as in the case of the all-consuming pollution, it is only a matter of education for them to be put right: Chinese feel that to hurt society is to hurt oneself. In the evening we have been organised into giving a talk at the university and playing to 600 guitar fans and students. Only one student plays for us, but we ask for volunteers! Questions we had at the end included one that was to be a favorite - "when did you write the music to Star Wars?" (to John Williams - it was difficult to explain that there was another John Williams!).

GG and JW selling their wares in Suzhou

Sept.28th More sightseeing in the morning and afternoon - we ended up at a wonderful museum of Chinese traditional medicine stuffed with samples of herbs and plants, and other more dubious objects which could be turned into elixirs e.g. dried urine, dessicated lizards, tiger penis, dried snakeskin, deer horn, a WHOLE deer, and there was even a stuffed rhinoceros. This place is not mentioned in any guidebook and is well worth seeking out as much for its architecture and sense of peace as for the exhibits (there is a central courtyard which is dark and coolly dusty leading off to various cure rooms).

Before this Alison and I went with our two friendly guides to visit the Pagoda of Harmony, a wooden edifice high above the river which proved to be as popular with the Chinese as with the tourists. We fought our way past the crowds and the loud music - some Chinese rock from a tour bus charmingly clashing with a group of traditional Chinese instruments at the base of the Pagoda - not exactly harmonious was our verdict! Incidentally, this was the best place to watch the world famous Hangzhou Bore, the highest in the world, but it was not performing for us that day.

The Chinese Medical Museum

We gave a concert in the evening, paradoxically in a smaller hall than for yesterday’s talk, so it was consequently very crowded. Pavarotti was singing continuously somewhere on the sound system.

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