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Wu Man has been a member of the Silk Road Ensemble since 1999. In this video of her April 27, 2011, Tiny Desk Concert for NPR Music, she plays three solo pipa pieces: "Ambush From Ten Sides," "Night Thoughts," and "White Snow in the Spring." For her son's school, Wu Man wrote about her experience as a child music prodigy in China during the Cultural Revolution and what motivated her to later move to the United States. She graciously shared this essay with us. We will publish the second half in the next Silk Road Project newsletter.
I grew up in a very different culture, under a very different education system than most of you—including my son—do here in the United States. I thought it would be interesting to share my story with you. I was born into an artistic family in Hangzhou, China, a city that the explorer Marco Polo described in the late 13th century as being a place that was “beyond dispute the finest and the noblest in the world.” Since the early days of Chinese civilization, the area has been and remains a rich and fertile ground for traditional Chinese culture dating back more than 2,000 years. When I was in elementary school, it was during what is called China’s “Cultural Revolution,” when all forms of traditional arts were abolished or banned by Chairman Mao. This lasted from 1966 to 1976. In today’s world of iPods and satellite radio, when you can choose what you listen to, when and where, it must seem amazing that we then had no choice in what we heard. The only music that I grew up with was what I could hear on the radio (TV was a very rare commodity at that time in China), which was only revolutionary songs and the Eight Model Operas that were produced by Madame Mao, Chairman Mao’s wife. At the time, the only future for young people after high school was to be sent to the country to be “re-educated” by peasants and made to do hard labor on farms. There were no other options as colleges had stopped taking students since the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. One of the only ways to avoid this hard labor was to learn a skill in music, arts, or sports and become a “special talent” so that you could serve the “Great Socialism Motherland,” a fate that was considered to be better than working in the fields but limited to a select few. When I was nine years old, my parents decided that I should play a musical instrument and they chose the pipa. The pipa is a teardrop-shaped, four-stringed, lute-like plucking instrument. It was introduced to China from Central Asia 2,000 years ago. Since then, the pipa has become one of the most popular musical instruments in China, often seen in traditional Chinese paintings and written about in classical poems. My father was a professor who taught art at the Art Institute, but he chose a music instrument for me because he, and many other adults, had noticed that I was very “in tune” when I sang the Eight Model Operas. Also, my parents thought that girls playing the pipa looked very refined and elegant! We lived in a compound located by the famous and beautiful West Lake that housed all of the professors and staff from the Art Institute, so it was not hard to find a teacher for me. I liked the pipa but never dreamed of getting one for myself because I was not used to asking my parents for toys and gifts. I did not have many toys while growing up—no TV, no computer, no iPod, no Play Station, etc. The only toy I had as a little girl was a doll. Instead of playing with toys, we created many games using stuff available to us, like the rubber band. Looking back, that played to my advantage because I did not have many distractions when I was practicing. Once I began to learn the pipa, I soon fell in love with the instrument, but I never thought I would become a professional musician for the rest of my life until what happened next. After just a few months of learning the instrument under the watchful eyes of my very strict parents (talk about “tiger parents”!), the province’s art school began a door-to-door search at each elementary school for children with special talents in arts, music, and dance. This is the first step in a national talent search. The “chosen ones” would enjoy many State resources that other kids would never have access to. For example, you were provided not only a designated music teacher, but also another teacher who took care of your daily life in the boarding school (like a dorm supervisor.) In addition, all tuition, including food, room and board, was paid for by the State. Given such an outstanding offer, kids selected were truly like lottery winners at their schools and in their neighborhoods. They made their parents very proud. For many kids, especially those who came from economically disadvantaged families, going to an art or athletic school was the best thing that could ever happen to them. I still remember the day that the recruiters came to my school. We were having our regular class when, all of a sudden, the school principal came into the classroom along with a group of strangers. Without saying a single word, they walked around the classroom and looked at every student and occasionally looked at somebody’s hand. Finally, they pointed their fingers to a few of us and said, “You, you and you, come out.” I was one of them. Nobody knew what would happen to us and everybody was very nervous. We came out the classroom like a string of fish and gathered around in the principal’s office. Then the principal told us that these were teachers from the provincial art school and that they had come to our school to select “successors of the proletariat.” This was done on a much larger scale around the country. The recruiters came to every classroom and picked students who were either good looking, had nice figures, had long fingers, or were of a straight foot to the leg, etc. Because I was pretty and especially because I had learned the pipa so well in a few months, I was selected to go to the provincial art school. While I was so excited about the opportunity, I did not realize that it was the beginning of my young life away from home forever. It must be hard for someone to understand that I attended boarding school all the way until college, starting at age of nine. Looking back now, I am pleased that I could at least still see my parents on the weekends during the four years of study at the art school. It was such a luxury because after that, when I moved to the Central Conservatory in Beijing at age of 13, I only saw my parents once a year. And even those weekend journeys were not easy. The art school was a four-hour bus ride from my home. From the moment I entered the art school, music became not only the main thing in my life, but also my family and my future. The classes at the art school were the same as those at the regular elementary school, except I spent all of my spare time practicing the pipa and preparing for concerts. I had no play time at all. I would spend six to seven hours practicing every day. Practice was literally my “playing” time. It was hard work, but I was determined because I knew that I wanted to be a musician for the rest of my life. As much as it may seem that this decision was one made for me by my parents and by the State, as soon as I began to play the pipa, I loved it. I feel very lucky that the skill that placed me on this path was also something that I enjoyed. Although the hours I spent practicing were very long, they would have seemed longer if I had been hating every minute of it. Compared to many other Chinese artists of my generation, I was extremely lucky because in 1977, right after I came out of the art school, China reopened college admissions. The Cultural Revolution was over. But artists still enjoyed special status. Music Conservatories and Art Colleges got to select their students first before the ordinary colleges and universities. Not only did they get to pick college students from an immense talent pool that had been accumulating for ten years due to the disruption of the Cultural Revolution, but middle schoolers who were especially gifted in music and art were chosen to attend the middle schools closely affiliated with the Conservatories. The Conservatory-affiliated middle schools shared the same campus, and the students were taught by professors from the conservatory. They were the best in the nation. Like to the art schools, admission to the conservatory-affiliated middle school was by invitation only and only for those with musical talents. Again, all expenses were covered by the Central Government. Out of all of the conservatories throughout China, the Central Conservatory in Beijing was given the first choice in picking the top students because it is considered the most important and prestigious. In 1977, for the first time since the end of the Cultural Revolution, auditions were open to everyone regardless his or her political background. By contrast, near the end of the Cultural Revolution, Madame Mao insisted that only people whose past three generations were proletariat (poor workers and peasants) could be admitted to the Conservatories. Many gifted students were kept out of the conservatory just because their parents were determined to be “not trustworthy” by the political censor. This essay continues in the July/August 2011 issue.
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