Thursday, 22 April 2010

• Ashes of Time...

  From two years ago... it's funny the connection I feel to this complete stranger. I told someone recently that I know we would have been friends if we hadn't lived on opposite sides of the worlds in totally different lives. I wish I could explain this odd sensation that happens when I see his work, this feeling that I understand him, that I know him from under his skin, and then the sadness hits again when I realize he checked out before that could happen... Cantopop star- Leslie Cheung... the friend that never was.....

  While researching a totally different topic yesterday, I ran across someone I would have known... if I had grown up in a different place- not even a different time, just a different place. It made me think about how much of who we are is affected by where we are. Your experiences and your reaction to those experiences define a part of who you are and that's not a bad thing... It's a curious thing though.

  Your musical experience is one of those things seriously affected by your environment. What was acceptable to those around you? What played on the local radio? What played at the skating rink, at your first "real" dance, at the lake during swimming lessons, on your first date? You take those sounds and they become the norm by which you judge almost all other music.

  Can you remember the first time you heard music totally different from anything else you've ever heard before? It jars a little and you listen to it critically. It doesn't make sense to your ears and you don't have a framework to hang it on. How do you decipher the sounds? Even the instruments are unfamiliar. It doesn't paint an image in your brain. The first time I heard the jangling sound of Gamelan music, it made me need to pee- badly... and it hurt my ears. Learning to appreciate its beauty and patterns took a bit of training. But if I'd grown up listening to the Indonesian sound, it would have made me feel homesick, I suspect.

  Leslie Cheung and I are the same age... or would have been the same age if he hadn't committed suicide five years ago. A Cantopop star, I would have been a real fan of his- if I'd listened to him. At 14, he was in England experiencing serious racism while I was busy trying to figure out how to cope with the death of my mother and the kids she left behind. At 20, he was starting his career and I was starting motherhood. In the 70's, he was starting a career with TV dramas and movies while I was busy teaching seriously involved students and trying to finish school and be a mother. My world was very tiny and I was tired most of the time. The 80's were better for him creatively while I was dying inside from the lack of creativity and actual illness. I think I would have loved his sound then and I wish it'd been a part of my life, but the sounds around me weren't anything like what he was singing. Boy George, Madonna, Genesis, Cinderella, The Boss, Pet Shop Boys, Areosmith, Journey, The Stones, Bon Jovi, Heart, Queen, Blondie, Ramones, Sting -- the list of bands on the top of the charts from that time period are endless. But the Cantopop sound wasn't a part of it. In the 90's, neither of us went into the 40's cheerfully, but we were both making gains in our chosen careers. Leslie tried to live with fame and found love while I finally returned to writing. I could have been a fan of his then but my exposure was still limited and my world was still quite narrow. A foreign film here and there, a bit of anime, more International friends, and yet still no Cantopop sound.

  And then...

  In 2003, Leslie quit trying... He gave up.

  It's just a big world. Why do we limit it to the tiny bit of it around us? There's so much I don't know and as I race to learn it, I find that each new lesson brings the world into sharper focus and builds on the last one. I could have been one of Leslie Cheung's biggest fans... if I'd grown up in a place where he was a part of my world. I feel a big hole where he should have been... as if I should have known him, as if I should have memories of his music, and yet... I don't. I watched the films of his funeral yesterday morning and the Music Videos of his last concerts. He had almost no American music influence in his sound and yet it sounded like home to me, oddly enough. As Leslie Cheung's longtime partner said after Leslie was gone...

  As the night DEEPENS into STILLNESS

  WHO will be there to understand

  ~ Daffy Tong

   

  Currently Listening Leslie 1997 Hong Kong Concert see related

  Currently Ashes of Time Redux By Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Jacky Cheung see related

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