by Ping Chong
Portions of the spoken text are drawn from Who Killed Vincent Chin?, a documentary film by Renee Tajima and Christine Choy, available through Filmmakers Library, 124 East 40th Street, New York, NY 10016. Also included is an excerpt from The Chinese Must Go, a play by Henry Grimm, published in San Francisco in 1879. Music credits: “The Celebrated Chop Waltz (Chopsticks),” anonymous, 1877; “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” music by Albert von Tilzer, words by Jack Norworth, 1908; “Willie the Weeper,” lyrics anonymous, 1890s.
Introduction
Chinoiserie is organized along a historic arc beginning with the first encounter in 1793 between Qianlong, the Celestial Emperor of China, and Lord George Macartney, the trade emissary from King George III of England. Chinoiserie is a collage from the detritus of East-West relations, including the events leading up to the Opium War, the European obsession with tea, the fascinating (but little known) history of Chinese settlers in America, the murder of Vincent Chin in Detroit in 1982, and the continuing trade disputes between China and America. Chinoiserie also includes material based on the author’s childhood in New York’s Chinatown and his experiences in the mysterious East and the mysterious West.
The title of the work is meant to be ironic. The term “chinoiserie” in the eighteenth century referred to an elaborate and very popular style of decorative art that reflected (or was felt to reflect) the Chinese aesthetic. Thus, the European aristocracy, hungry for new diversions, transformed Eastern culture into Western fashion with the willing assistance of Chinese merchants. Eventually, the word came to mean “Chinese export goods”: things neither truly Eastern nor Western but the curious by-product of the two.
The West’s fascination with China, however, masks an equally powerful countertrend—turning the Chinese into the exotic, the mysterious “other.” This particular view reached its zenith in nineteenth century America with the exploitation of, and the racism directed toward, Chinese immigrants who were relegated to “Chinatowns” in urban centers which persist to this day.
For its part, China resisted Western consumer goods and cultural influences throughout most of its history, remaining relatively isolated until the British Opium Wars in the nineteenth century. With the opening of the East, China gradually developed a moneyed international aristocracy that imitated the fashions and values of Western society. It had little concern for the common people. The Communist Revolution in China can be seen partially as an attempt to end colonial European influence and create a new society with the welfare of the common people at the forefront.
Chinoiserie mines the ironies and metaphorical possibilities inherent in the word “chinoiserie” in the larger contexts of China and the West. The work also explores aspects of the Chinese spirit as seen in the Chinese diaspora. Of particular interest are the ironic reversals of power and tradition that reveal underlying ethnic and racial prejudices which continue to affect interpersonal and international relations today.
An open dance stage with a black floor and black wings. The back wall is framed by four panels, each painted with a different lattice-work pattern. Between the lattice-work, the back wall serves as a large projection screen on which an array of images and texts are projected. Above the projection screen, is another screen painted with Chinese characters. Downstage right is a large, bright red podium where Ping remains throughout. A large, rectangular, white carpet covers the floor center stage, and serves as the performance area for much of the play. Lighting patterns are projected onto it as well. Two bright red rods, each five and a half feet long, sit to the left and right of the carpet. A long, low piece of wood stretches upstage along the width of the carpet and serves as a threshold over which the cast must always step to get to the playing area.
Four sets of music stands and stools stand upstage right, arranged in a curve around the carpet. The Cast (the four actors other than Ping) sits at the music stands whenever they are not performing on the carpet. Except for one costume change near the end of the play, none of the actors ever leaves the stage.
At stage left are musical instruments, including a percussion setup: vibes, gongs, marimbas, drums, etc.; a baby grand piano; an accordion and wind instruments. The musicians remain in this area throughout.
PROJECTION: C
HIN
OIS
ERI
E
(The musicians enter and begin to play a percussive musical sequence.
Ping enters and walks to the podium. He wears black pants, a black turtleneck and a black jacket tied in front. The clothing is contemporary and stylish.)
PING:Pittsburgh. 1987.
I am having dinner with a curator and his lady friend.
They suggest a Chinese restaurant.
I think the place was called Peking Garden or Peking Palace?
Something like that . . . I don’t remember.
The restaurant we ended up in was one of those chinoiserie jobs . . .
Paper lanterns, beaded curtains, Chinese dinner mats . . .
You know, the kind that tell you whether you were born in the year of the dog or ox . . .
As we are waiting for our dinner, the lady friend undresses her chopsticks from their paper clothes, pouts and frowns. I ask her, “What ’s the matter?” and she says, “Why don’t they use knives and forks? This is America. Why don’t they stop using chopsticks?”
I wonder who she thinks “they” are.
I don’t bat an eye. I don’t miss a beat. I don’t murder her.
No matter how insulted you may feel, if you are a guest—and a Chinese guest at that—you must never, never, never violate your host. Even if you want to take a knife and plunge it into their heart. So I smile and change the subject. The rest of the dinner goes on without a ripple all the way through to the fortune cookies.
Mine says: “You believe in the goodness of mankind.”
Can I have a blackout please.
(Blackout. The projection fades out. In the dark, the cast enters, wearing costumes like Ping’s, except for white jackets. The percussive music stops when the actors begin to speak.)
CAST (Ceremoniously announcing the emperor):Ten thousand years! (Repeated)
Mansoi, mansoi, man man soi.
Mansoi, mansoi, man man soi.
Mansoi, mansoi, man man soi.
(Lights up. Shi-Zheng and Ric cross to the carpet. Each picks up one of the red sticks. Standing on the carpet, they spin the sticks, pose with them and hit them against each other in choreography inspired by martial arts. The sound of a stream is heard underneath their movement.
At the end of the stick dance, the musicians begin the music for the next section. Ric and Shi-Zheng return the sticks to the sides of the carpet, cross back over the threshold and take their places at the music stands. The lights go out and come up on the four lattice-work panels.)
PROJECTION: 1
ALL: 1.
ALETA: One day, the Bodhidharma, a holy man, grew sleepy after meditating for seven years. He got so angry with himself that he plucked off both his eyelids and threw them on the ground. Two bushes sprang up instantly whose leaves possessed the power to ward off sleep. This is the genesis of tea.
PROJECTION: 2
ALL: 2.
MICHAEL: Tea is plucked for the emperor’s pleasure under the strictest rules. Young virgins using gold scissors cut only the bud and the youngest leaf of the plant. These are left on a golden platter to dry before being poured directly into the emperor’s bowl. (He sings:)
When the water
when the water begins to generate bubbles
bubbles as big as fisheyes
and emit a soft sound . . .
Three thousand years of friendship
between fire, water and tea.
PROJECTION: 3
ALL: 3.
ALETA: 1606. Tea is introduced to Europe.
MICHAEL: We recommend tea to the entire nation and to all peoples!
SHI-ZHENG: We urge every man, every woman, to drink it every day;
every hour.
RIC: Beginning with ten cups a day and subsequently increasing the dosage—
ALETA:—as much as the stomach can take and the kidneys can secrete!
MICHAEL: The sick should consume at least fifty cups a day.
PROJECTION: 4
ALL: 4.
RIC: Tea was so in demand in Europe that servants of the rich would save used tea leaves, dry them and sell them again.
PROJECTION: 5
ALL: 5.
ALETA: Between 1700 and 1750
MICHAEL: over forty million pounds of tea are purchased by Great Britain.
RIC: The English addiction to tea becomes a severe drain on the royal treasury.
ALETA: Those millions and millions of pounds of tea had to be paid for in millions and millions of pounds of sterling silver.
MICHAEL: Emperors of China would accept nothing less—
RIC: for a simple reason which Emperor Qianlong
ALETA: It’s Qianlung . . .
SHI-ZHENG (Correcting them with subtle Chinese emphasis): No, it’s Qianlung . . .
RIC: Ya—had explained to King George III:
SHI-ZHENG (In Chinese): Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within our borders. There is no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians.
PING (Translating): Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and lacks no product within our borders. There is no need to import the manufactures of outside barbarians.
SHI-ZHENG (Singing):When the water has reached this boil
add a pinch of salt
add a pinch of salt
then the water will bubble
like a string of pearls
that sound . . .
Three thousand years of trust
between fire, water and tea.
PROJECTION: 6
ALL: 6.
MICHAEL: In America, puritans drank bitter tea with butter and salt. New Englanders preferred their tea with saffron, iris root or gardenia petals.
SHI-ZHENG (In Chinese): Only barbarians drink tea this way.
PING (Translating): Only barbarians drink tea this way.
PROJECTION: 7
ALL: 7.
RIC: “Early Morning Cuppa”—The British sipped tea in bed, prior to washing and dressing. They drank tea with milk and sugar or tea with lemon.
SHI-ZHENG (In Chinese): Only barbarians drink tea any other way.
PING (Translating): Only barbarians drink tea any other way.
PROJECTION: 8
ALL: 8.
ALETA: On December 16, 1773, a group of men including silversmith Paul Revere, disguised themselves as Mohawk Indians, boarded English ships and threw three hundred and forty-two chests of tea into Boston Harbor.
MICHAEL: This is commonly referred to as the Boston Tea Party in American history books. For many years British history books referred to this as a terrorist act against the Crown.
PROJECTION: 9
ALL: 9.
ALETA: Gunpowder tea. This green tea is rolled into little balls that “explode” when placed in the teapot.
RIC: Whose history is this anyway?
MICHAEL AND SHI-ZHENG (Singing):Add tea powder and stir.
Stop the boiling.
Let the smell still and rise.
Fire, water and tea
a delicate conversation
in a cup or bowl.
Here is your gunpowder tea, my friend.
Brewed with love and time.
ALETA (Spoken):Tell me things
Tell me things
Tell me things
Teach me things
Teach me things
Teach me things
Show me things
Show me things
Show me things.
SHI-ZHENG: Whose history is this anyway?
(Sound of baseball being hit. A crowd roars.)
PING: New York City. 1956.
I am ten years old. I am walking home from my aunt ’s house with my sister Norma. As we come to a street corner, I see an elderly black man panhandling the passing cars.
A huge black Cadillac pulls up beside him. The window of the Cadillac smoothly glides open and a pasty-faced man in dark glasses pokes his head out of the window. The panhandler steps forward and stretches out his hand. The man in the dark glasses puts his finger in the old man’s face and says: “Every white man should have a nigger slave. Every white man should have a nigger slave. Do you hear?” The man in the dark glasses smiles. The window glides back up. The car pulls away.
PROJECTION: 10
ALL: 10.
(Sound of cannonball.)
PING (Spoken):1792.
Tea addiction.
The American Revolution.
A depleted treasury.
The Beatles haven’t been born yet.
Great Britain is in deep shit.
(The following spoken text is accompanied by percussive music and abstract movement:)
On September 26, 1792, Great Britain, a nation of eight million, sent an envoy of seven hundred men led by Lord George Macartney to China, a nation of three hundred and thirty million.
No British sovereign had ever assembled so impressive an embassy, and no European state had ever sent anything like it to China. Or to anywhere else for that matter. Only a thirteen-year-old boy, a page, bothered to learn Chinese.
RIC:Boom boom boom
Men fighting
Friday night
Boom boom boom
Men fighting
Friday night.
ALETA: Would China open its doors to British trade?
CAST: Boom boom boom
SHI-ZHENG: Would the Emperor of China receive the British envoy? CAST: Boom boom boom
MICHAEL: Would China work out the treaty rights issue and avoid one hundred percent tariffs on its imports—
PING: But let’s not get ahead of ourselves . . .
PROJECTION: 11
ALL: 11.
PING: The Ballad of Lord Macartney.
RIC AND ALETA (Singing):I am Lord George Macartney,
former Governor General of British West Indies,
former Governor General of all India.
Knight of the Holy Order of Bath,
Baron of Lisanoure,
former Ambassador Extraordinary
Extraordinary
to the Russian Tsarina.
GUY: A what?
ALETA: Tsarina.
GUY: A what?
RIC: You know like the Tsar’s wife . . .
RIC AND ALETA (Singing):Envoy to Provence and Viscount of Dervock
with a D as in daffodil
and a V as in Victoria.
I am a citizen
I am a citizen
CAST (Singing):of the most powerful nation on earth of the most powerful nation on earth and the sovereign of all the seas.
MICHAEL: Is it my turn?
ALETA: Yes, Your Grace.
MICHAEL: I mean, historically, to understand the ballad of Lord Macartney, one must also understand the ballad of his Chinese counterpart. Don’t you think?
ALETA: Absolutely, Your Grace.
MICHAEL: Then we’ll have drama.
ALETA: That’s correct, Your Grace.
MICHAEL: After all . . .
RIC: Whose history is this anyway?
(Percussion and woodwinds play music reminiscent of Chinese opera.)
PROJECTION: 12
ALL: 12.
SHI-ZHENG (Singing):Ah . . .
I a . . .
I am . . .
Liang Kentang
Born into a world
you have never seen
in a land you will never know.
(Gong.)
MICHAEL (Chanting in a deep voice):So I won’t bother to explain it to you . . .
1756.
Became District Magistrate,
Provincial Commissioner
and Deputy Governor,
Hunan Province.
That’s Hu with an H, Nan with an N.
(Gong.)
1791.
Appointed Viceroy of Beizhili,
received peacock feather
and yellow jacket of rank . . .
You know, like in the Tour de France,
where the guy in the lead
gets to wear that yellow jersey . . .
When I turn eighty years old
I will be honored by the emperor
in a ceremony held to honor
the thousand grand, old men . . .
Imagine if you will
a lot more text being sung in this way
for a long long time . . .