Tian Ya Ge Nu

For today's Chinese New Year celebration in camp, they brought in a "contortionist" who was spinning plates. Admittedly, I was expecting her to stand on her head and spin plates. However, obviously she was not so gymnastically inclined so she was just doing token moves. However, to keep her plates spinning must have taken a large amount of wrist strength. Admittedly though, they were plastic plates (what's the name for it? melanine? melanite?) and i do believe they tampered with the props. When one of the plates stopped spinning it just hung lamely off the pole.

A very gypsy craft... made me think about wandering show people. People who set up circuses, Romani gypsies in their tent (and much is made in this week's issue of the Economist how to get Romani more succesfully integrated into society), wandering wonders such as acrobatic troupes of 5 year old girls from a remote province in China, and even freak shows (remember Phantom?) or even a bear chained to a cage. Reminds me of a song, "Tian Ya Ge Nu" I think it's off a really old PRC film, which I guess would be almost impossible to find in Singapore, or I just don't know where to look. I think it was sung by Zhou Xuan at first, in an insanely happy chinese opera sort of voice, together with accompaniment from cymbals and trumpets. I first heard the Cai Qin version though, and it was rather touching. The wandering songstress and her man who'd play the qin. It's so evocative, reminds me of a certain love between this man and her sister figure who'd roam the streets for money for whom love was just the habit or getting used to each other's art.

In the song, they are separated by mountains and geography. By what? I'm not sure. Civil war, Japanese soldiers or maybe the unfortunate need to travel vast distances for money. Like needle and thread though they are inseparable (what a nice image), of course the guy is the needle and the lady is the thread.

A certain moderately famous artiste came to camp too (I do not like naming names). She was being a media whore and it looked as though she really needed the money. Of course, perhaps she was just trying to be gregarious and chirpy but the stuff that she did was rather crass. Although both performances were failures, the plate-spinner gets it for me because her failure had more dignity. Unfortunately, plate spinners remain nameless but media whores are famous. But I guess it's better that way.