Pre-Tripping in Chin

March 4, 2008

[Ed.: This post is from a little while back, and was also included in the fall 2007 Glee Club and Chorus newsletters.]

A nine-day all-expenses-paid trip to China. What better way to end the summer before starting my second year in the D.M.A. program, right? Mind you, my summer was winding down just fine, as I hung out with family on the shores of Otsego Lake in Cooperstown and took in the season at Glimmerglass Opera. But duty called …. yet another fine example and all.

So, to the skies I took. For a long, long flight. Eastern China is literally halfway round the world – twelve time zones — from our East Coast (but you probably knew that). Fifteen hours after take-off from Newark, we began our descent into Beijing. I looked for the Great Wall on the way down, to no avail. That bit about its being visible from space is a myth, it turns out, and maybe I was looking in the wrong direction (which can happen when you fly over the North Pole and what was north all of a sudden becomes south).

My travel partner, Wei-Li Woo (’08 member of the Chorus, and head of the China Tour Team), arrived an hour later from Chicago. And right on cue, Glee Club President Matt Perkins, in Beijing on a summer internship with G.E., showed up at the airport entrance and ushered us to the taxi stand. It was then that I got my first taste of Beijing’s code of the street, which as far as I could tell is, “Do anything you can get away with.” Manhattan taxi drivers would be no match for even the most cautious of Beijing motorists.

I’ll be honest: Those first four days in Beijing were trying. Lots of meetings, not all of them fruitful. Lots of harrowing cab-rides. (Note to parents: Your children will be safely ensconced on large modern buses during the tour.) Some “interesting” hotel inspections (I don’t think we’ll be staying at the place where the bathroom and the shower were exactly co-extensive, the drain being on the floor next to the toilet). And above all, the crush of 14.5 million people. There was a moment, on about the third day, when I wondered whether the tour would be worth all our efforts. But then I saw Tiananmen Square, and the stunning concert hall in the Forbidden City where we’ll perform the Brahms Requiem. And I suddenly realized what an amazing and important experience this trip will be for the Glee Club and Chorus.

From that point on, I only felt excitement about what we’re planning. Wei-Li and I took the 12-hour overnight train trip from Beijing to Shanghai, just as the choirs will next March. Shanghai is every bit as miraculous as the tour books proclaimed. And the Oriental Arts Center, where we’ll give our second performance of the Brahms, rivals Frank Gehry’s Disney Hall (in Los Angeles) in architectural and acoustical splendor.

Last stop, Hong Kong – the perfect place to wrap up the tour. Vibrant. Picturesque. And home to a very active Cornell Club that is already hard at work to support our visit.

Three performances of the Brahms. Several concerts/workshops with high schools and universities. And a trip to the Great Wall that I couldn’t see from the sky, in a country so fantastically different from our own.

I can hardly wait.