Chinese Opera for All

Kids from all walks of life sing from the same page. And it's in Mandarin.
Carolyne Zinko, Chronicle Staff Writer

(Article from the San Francisco Chronicle 3/1/2005)


At home, he sings along with songs on the movie "Space Jam," an intergalactic cartoon caper featuring Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan; Elton John's "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" from Disney's "The Lion King;" and Disney's "Tarzan," rewinding the videotape until he learns the songs.
But onstage, Tyler Thompson, an African American fourth-grader from Oakland sings Chinese opera better than almost any other kid in the Bay Area. Yet sometimes he gets nervous when performing for a crowd, but not because he doesn't speak Mandarin. No, that's not the problem. He has an uncanny ear for diction and pitch, say native speakers, as well as melody. By his account, memorizing songs in a foreign language, even a difficult tonal one, is a breeze.

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The expression on Tyler's classmates resonates all too familiar with those of us that felt punished to attend Saturday morning Chinese School or Chinese dance recitals. They resemble that look of reluctant compliance when we'd rather be sitting at home watching cartoons.

For most of us, our culture and history are aspects of our identities that we don't realize are a part of us until our older years that we "search" for ourselves. Of course being forced into doing things we may not seem to enjoy at the time perhaps represents more of a battle with our parents at the time.

David Lei's comments that, "if I want to pass this on to my descendants, my culture has to be acceptable to mainstream America, or it will be an exotic novelty," really touch upon this idea of how we are to try to stake out our identities in a multicultural America. How much of the old world will be passed on? How much will be hyphenated into a hybridized identity that looks towards the future?