A Tale of Two Ma's

Last night, I attended a performance by Yo-Yo Ma, the famous musician and internationally acclaimed cellist. While of course Ma produced the same warm, chocolaty tone and phrasing, especially in the lower register or his instrument, that one expects from a world-class cellist, Yo-Yo Ma's overall performance last night lacked any spark, individuality, creativity, pizzazz, or sex appeal.  

I kept thinking last night how lucky those people were standing outside of the National Concert Hall in the cold to watch Ma's performance on a giant projection screen. At least they had the cold and rain to keep them awake. Pity the poor audience members inside the warm performance hall with nothing but an empty stage and Ma's bland visage to look at while listening to two hours of passionless, forgettable goo.

His selections were as monotonous as his performance; while any one of his four pieces he chose last night might have made a passable warm-up selection if played individually, taken as a whole and forced upon his hapless audience for a two-hour test of endurance and alertness, his bland selections melted into an endless pap of featureless scales and arpeggios. Not a single moment of Ma's performance last night was memorable or exciting, his sugary playing melting into nothingness, each piece evaporating into the performance hall and into the audience's memory without trace, like candy floss in the mouth.

If you look at his discography, he's mastered and released many styles of music. From his Wikipedia page:

Ma has been referred to as "omnivorous" by critics, and possesses a more eclectic repertoire than is typical for classical musicians.^[9] A sampling of his versatility in addition to numerous recordings of the standard classical repertoire would include his recordings of Baroquepieces using period instruments; American bluegrass music; traditional Chinese melodies including the soundtrack to the film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon; the tangos of Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla; an eclectic and unusual collaboration with Bobby McFerrin (where Ma admits to being terrified of the improvisation McFerrin pushes him toward); as well as the music of modern minimalist Philip Glass in such works as the 2002 piece, Naqoyqatsi. In 2006, a soundtrack album was released of the music from the 2005 film, Memoirs of a Geisha. He is known for his smooth, rich tone as well as his considerable virtuosity, including a cello recording of Niccolò Paganini's 24th Caprice for solo violin, Zoltán Kodály's cello sonata, and other demanding works.

So I don't know why he chose to play it safe and boring last night. For Christ's sake, you have one thousand years of written music to choose from, including 20th century jazz and pop music. Play something sexy or fun, at least! And what makes a musician truly great is not playing skillfully or elegantly. Those kind of musicians are a dime a dozen. What makes a musician truly great is someone who takes a chance. Who will shock the audience and expose us to something new and different. Make the hair on our necks rise. Take us to places we've never dreamt of before. The only reason I dreamt last night was because his music was putting me to sleep.

So then finally, after a very apathetic encore and a feeble standing ovation made by a tiny band of hard-core Yo-Yo Ma fans at the very front of the audience, I saw him standing there and giving two flaccid, crooked thumbs up: Ma Ying-Jeou, Taiwan's officially elected "Mr." and self-anointed regional administrator. Suddenly, the annoyance of having to empty my pockets and walk through a metal detector when entering the performance hall earlier that evening and the presence of burly goons wearing ear pieces in the entrance hall made perfect sense.

Afterwards, while walking home in the late winter chill, I started to think about the confluence of these two Chinese horses in the same stable (both of these two upstanding members of the Chinese community have the same family name: 馬, Ma, which means "horse").  I can see now why these too bland and characterless people, these two "mere wisps of a man" would get along so well.

For Yo-Yo Ma, being a musician means playing to the audience's expectations. Don't rock the boat. Don't step out of bounds. Don't improvise. Just play pretty.

For Ma Ying-jeou, being a politician means always striving to please his daddy's dying wish to return Taiwan to the warm folds of his Mommyland China. Don't tell people what they need to hear (in fact, don't say anything that would resemble the factual truth at all). Don't rock the boat by trying to reform the KMT. Don't step out of bounds by stepping up for Taiwan. Don't improvise, just keep repeating the same deluded KMT Greater China fantasies from 20 years ago. And by all means, just look pretty.

This morning, I read in The Taipei Times how the two Ma's had a little love-in and tete-a-tete yesterday afternoon before the show.  

Take a bite of these words, and enjoy the pure, undigested after-taste:

Ma Ying-jeou yesterday said Yo-Yo Ma’s music gives people strength that transcended race and politics, and said he expected culture and arts to help end conflicts in many areas including cross-strait relations.  “The power of culture and arts is stronger than guns and bombs, and can bring reconciliation to a lot of conflicts, including conflicts across the Taiwan Strait,” the president said. 

First of all, Yo-Yo Ma's music didn't give me any strength, but rather SUCKED OUT OF MY SOUL all the strength I had to stay awake during his performance last night. 

Second, I find it amazing that Ma Ying-Jeou would bring up transcending race, since it was he himself who referred to the people of Taiwan as belonging to the "Chinese Race Nation" (zhong hua ming zu). This amazing pronouncement will come as a surprise to the thousands of aborigine descendants and millions more Taiwanese of mixed descent and various identities who certainly don't see themselves as belonging to a Chinese "race." It certainly came as a surprise to many of the victims of the last presidential election, who never heard the words "Chinese Race Nation" ever cross the lips of their new president once until AFTER the he had won the last election.

Third, plenty of people have loved music and culture throughout the centuries, but it certainly never stopped them from being murderers and despots. Take Hitler as a perfect example. Boy, did he love his Wagner! This old idea of "the civilizing influence of 'culture'" is a classic worn-out philosophy of every colonial power in history. In fact, "culture" to Ma and the KMT is merely a smokescreen to justify the privilege and hegemony the KMT has enjoyed both in China and Taiwan for the last 90 years. To them, "culture" is just a buzzword to justify the Chinese cultural racism and imperialism they've been imposing on all the Taiwanese, including the aborigines, the Hokla, and the Hakka, and all the mixed people in between since the end of WWII.