Music leads the way part one: Qing Hai
cctv.com 09-01-2004 13:42
A Chinese songwriter named Wang Luo Bin wrote a beautiful song called A Place Faraway. That song became so popular for decades, that place is Qing Hai. In this section, we will discover the beautiful background story of the place far away.
The Qing Hai province lies on the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in west China, bordering Gansu and Sichuan provinces, near by Xinjiang Uygur and Tibet Autonomous Regions. As the origin of the Yangtze River, Yellow river and Lancang river, Qinghai has an area of 720,000 square kilometers, the fourth largest in China. Its territory includes 3.8 million hectares of grassland, 590,000 hectares of cultivated land.
The average elevation is more than 3,000 meters above sea level, while 54 percent of the area is between 4,000 and 5,000 meters. The province is divided into the Qilian Mountains, and the Qingnan Plateau.
The temple bells ringing could be considered as blessings.
You Ning Monastery is located about 30 kilometers east of downtown area. The Monastery started in the year of 1604 of Ming Dynasty. You Ning Monastery is a holy place for local believers to worship Buddha, they have faith in Karma and trust that it will keep them healthy and clear their soul.
A ceremony is going on. This is the biggest ceremony in the year for Tibetan Buddhism. People are praying while the ceremony is going on. On the night, there will be a dancing event. People (Lamas) are all dressed up with makeup and wearing all kinds of costume. While the monks are praying there are so many audience around here. You can see a lot of prayers come here; they bring in food put them on the table and pray.
A special way to pray in Tibetan Buddhism is that you have to lie down on your stomach, all the way down on the ground. And you keep on doing that in many times.
During the ceremony, people will listen to the prayer and praying at the same time.
In an early Mahayana text, the Buddhist sage Vimalakirti mused that, "All sentient beings are ill" (Birnbaum, p.13). To the Tibetan, the inevitability of suffering and illness is a reflection of the fact that we are born. The Tibetans believe that we "take birth" because we are ignorant of the true nature of reality and that it is this ignorance that is the cause of all suffering and disorder.
Tibetans believe that our false perceptions of the world and its projections actually change the world.
By the time Buddhism came to Tibet in the seventh century AD, however, the artistic expression of the Mahayana, or Universal Vehicle, had reached considerable heights of inspiration.
In July of every year, there are many traditional festivals in Tibetan community. One of them is called Flower event. It is an event of a combination of folk singing, trading fair and match making among the youth. Girls and boys are dressed up in ethnic costumes gathered around the hill in front of You Ning Temple. Many Tibetan youth use this opportunity to meet others or try to find the love ones.
Too Minority in Qing Hai is a unique group. Their way of life is in between Mongolian and Han. However they have adapted many costumes from Tibetan as well. Welcome drinking ceremony such as three cups by the gate, dance observance such as swing competition are the typical start of greeting a special guess.
In China there are totally 55 minority groups. In Qing Hai alone there are 42. Now here is the Too minority. Too translated from Chinese character into English means Earth. When guesses come in, everybody will greet them with hard liquor, its very strong. Girls will sing and dance.
Now it鈥檚 a tradition after greeting then lead the guess to a room sitting around enjoy the wonderful food. This is bread local call it Momo, and this is some kind of powder.
There are many different ethnic groups in Qing Hai that each one has its unique standard of living. For instance, Too group has its own language. There are only about 100 Too families in Huzhu village. Tibetan is the largest ethnic community here.
Composer Wang Luo Bin had spent years of his lifetime traveling in the west. He collected and recomposed many china western folk songs. During the time he was at Qinghai, Wang Luo Bin wrote: Music is my religion and love is my faith. Everyday the ethnic folk songs gave me surprise on music and love.
In the history however there were little is known of the beginnings of the Tibetan people. They originated from the nomadic, warlike tribes known as the Qiang. The Yarlung kings unified much of central Tibet and extended it into central Asia, northern India and Pakistan.
In the past Sun and Moon used to play a very important role in Chinese traditional stories. For instance, these two temples behind me represent the Sun and the Moon. It also represents the boarder between ethnic Tibetan people and the majority Han Nationality. But today there is no difference. When they have any celebration parties here, the lifestyles are all the same.
A land sail monument symbolized good luck in Tibetan Buddhism culture. Lamas will adore every one of those monuments by through colorful papers around it and shouting Haa Gee Lou. It said this will bring good luck.
Tibetan Buddhism refers to Tibetan-language Buddhism, also known as Lamaism.
During the heyday of Tibetan Buddhism, each Tibetan family was required to provide at least one member to become a monk or nun. This is why Tibetan monks and nuns made up 25 percent of the Tibetan population in the 16th century and thereafter. Nowadays, there are 1,787 religious activity centers,
Qing Hai Lake with a surface area of 4,500 square kilometers is located in northeastern part of Qing Hai 鈥 Tibet Plateau. It is about 150 kilometers away from the provincial capital Xining City. The salt lake stretches endlessly into the horizon, just like a huge emerald enchased in the plateau and grassland. It is also the largest salt lake in China.
It said that one will not feel the expansion of china without going to the northwest region; one will never imagine the vigorous and firm without visit Qing Hai province. Once arrive at Qing Hai, which is called the top of the world, visitors will get the mysterious feeling of touching the sky.
There are many nationalities in Qinghai, including Tibet, Hui, Too, Salar and Mongolian. They have respectively formed their own traditions as well unique festivals and cultural activities within the times gone by. Distinctive singing and dancing of Tibetan represent the local characteristics of Qing Hai.
Tibetan traditional dance is quite wild and energetic. The music is colorful, dance format is lively and the costume is pretty in design.
Tibetan music and the way of life influenced Wang Luo Bin tremendously. He studied diverse art forms and put them together into music. Wang organized many music events and concerts to promote china western folk music to the rest of the world. In Hong Kong, Taiwan and Far East Asia, Wang Luo Bin is a great china folk song promoter.
Coinciding with local ethnic groups, Qinghai has diverse form of landscape that demonstrates the greatness and unruliness.
The Sand domes clattered alone the east bond of Qinghai Lake provides the only one of its kind colorful contrast. It seems like a golden ring wrap around a precious jade stone. Walking on the boarder line between Gobi Desert and Salt Lake touches human imagination of the universe. The path is endless and the sky is reachable in a distance.
Bird Island just lies in the northwest; meet with the Buha River of Qinghai Lake. It is the National Nature Protection resort nowadays. Every March to September there are more than 100,000 precious birds migrant from Southeast Asia come here to reproduce eggs. May is the best season for bird watchers. However, visitors should be extremely cautious for not interfering with mother birds. Once the mother birds feel the egg baby in dangerous, a tremendous number of birds will confront the intruder for self-defense. Watch from a distance is the best way to observers and you can enjoy the sound of peace as well.
On the other hand, cruise the length of Qinghai Lake or marching the sand domes is another joyful activity. Once reach the top the mountain, you will feel so close to the sky. However, the sunbeam is exceptionally and physically powerful. Sand wind is also dry and vigorous. Tourists should be prepared for such a weather condition.
Lake Qinghai is one of the world largest salt-lake. Bigger than anything in the USA, there is however, no Salt Lake City here.
About one fifth of the Earth's land once covered by grass. Any more, the land would become a forest. Any less, the land would become a desert. The landscape of Qinghai Lake offers a range of format of geographic transition of the earth.
QingHai is an insubstantial dreamland and also a fascinating place out of reach, which is as pretty as a poem, a picture or magic. The mountain breeze is intoxicated with bee's buzzing and butterfly's dancing. Swans fly over the blue sky; flowers in bloom adorn the valley; herds of deer roam the grassland; howling eagles hover in the sky and yaks graze among the mountain grass.
The harmony between man and nature is created by the galloping horses, the tents, the smoke, the milk tea, the forest and the Snow Mountains. The love songs, the folk songs and even the drinking songs are sung in a tender way.
Besides the sand domes, salt lake and grassland, there is Wang Luo Bin鈥檚 love song that is as popular as others in Qing Hai. Everyone knows about it.
Golden and Silver Beach is a mixture landscape of grassland and the salt lake, it creates a wonderful scenery where many romantic stories occurred in the past. Songwriter Wang Luo Bin composed the well-liked music in a title of A Place Far Away right on this location. And the fondness fiction lasts forever.
Editor:Chen Source:CCTV.com
