She shall have music wherever she goes

11/02/2000
China Daily

The courtyard door opened and I immediately jumped back several feet into the mud as a giant wolfhound jumped out at me.

Barring the hound's way with a spade, An Na, my hostess, ordered me to run into the guestroom and be quick about it.

I was only too happy to obey.

Wearing a black Chinese-style cotton jacket and red trousers, An Na, 43, looked like a typical farmer's wife.

Yet this ordinary farmer's wife had just used her life savings to hold a recital against the will of her whole family.

"I sing for my dignity," she said.

An sang several songs for me on the spot - she has a golden voice and a pretty face.

It was her dream to be a professional singer.

"In my teens I learnt every song I heard on the radio," she recalled.

That was in the early 1970s, when radios and cassette recorders were still uncommon in China.

Walking on the street, the girl would stop whenever she heard a song from a radio and would pretend to tie her shoe laces until the song was over.

She visited dozens of teachers from every music school in Beijing and did the housework for them in return for singing lessons.

At the age of 19, she mustered all her courage and took part in the entrance exam for the Art School of the People's Liberation Army, but her inconsistent training doomed her to failure.

"I hadn't realized then that to be a singer was my only chance to change my fate," she said, with a smile.

An called it "my only chance" because she was not born in Beijing and therefore did not have a residence permit, which meant she could not find a job in the capital then.

To earn money, she did embroidery work and made Chinese-style cloth buttons in the shape of butterflies, gourds and roses. She sang as she worked.

As it became harder and harder to support herself, the only option left open to this young woman was - to become a wife.

An was married to a farmer in Mentougou District in the outskirts of Beijing, a man she had only met twice before the marriage.

She entered a family that consisted of a dumb mother-in-law, an eight-year-old brother-in-law and a seven-year-old sister-in-law.

The whole family lived in a 14-square-metre room.

Yet her happy songs continued to brigthen up this life of poverty.

"An has served as the alarm clock of the neighbourhood ever since her marriage," said her neighbour Peng Baoying. "Every morning the air was filled with her singing as soon as she got up."

Some of her neighbours were not as tolerant as Peng. She was well-known in the district as "the mad woman who sings all the day."

"I don't care what people say," An Na told me. "I am addicted to singing."

But An had to care when her only son's schoolmates started to call their house a "cuckoo's nest."

"Why does your crazy mother scream like that all day?" they would ask the boy.

She began only to sing on rainy and windy days, when, she naively believed, her voice could not be heard.

Songs can comfort the soul, but not the stomach. To win the daily bread for her family, An became a tailor.

"I charged one yuan (US$0.12) for a pair of trousers, and 1.4 yuan (US$0.17) for a shirt," An recalled, "And I had to kneel down to measure the customer's leg even in pregnancy."

In the third year of her marriage, An Na was invited to watch a local performance.

"I cried the moment I felt the wooden floor vibrate with the music," she said.

Seven years after her marriage, An's husband Liu Xuecai was contracted to run a local quarry.

From that point on, everything changed for the family.

The wolf was no longer at the door and they were able to move into a siheyuan in italics, a traditional compound with rooms around a square courtyard.

When I visited, I could look out of the guestroom's window and see red persimmons and golden corn lying on the roofs in the lazy autumn sun.

Looking around, I also found photos of the family's holidays in Hong Kong, Macao and Malaysia, not to mention a computer that was linked to the Internet.

She gave up her tailor's job in 1992 to look after her son.

When the boy entered the middle school attached to Tsinghua University, the teenage dreams began to stir again in this middle-aged woman's heart.

For the past three years, she has travelled five hours every Tuesday and Thursday to attend vocal music training courses in Beijing's Central Ensemble of Chinese Music.

She spent 20,000 yuan (US$2,400) on a set of Yamaha drums, a bass and an electronic guitar and organized a local band, which gave free concerts in the neighbourhood.

Unfortunately, the band soon fell apart as some of its members took the instruments away to earn money in karaoke bars.

"An Na is always eager to be invited to sing on almost any occasion," said Du Xiao, director of the local cultural centre.

"I know I am too old to become a star," said An Na, "But singing stimulates every one of my nerves and senses."

Returning home after performing with her band, An would not stop singing for an additional one or two hours.

But the amateur singer found her voice was becoming harsher and harsher as she grew older.

"I didn't want to waste any time in realizing my most fanciful dream - to hold a recital," she said.

Everyone thought it was a terrible idea.

"The old chicken is too rich," whispered some neighbours, "She would better throw money into the fire."

"What if there are only a few people in the audience and most of them leave before your recital ends?" said Liu Xuecai, her husband.

"It's not so easy to earn money," he said, stressing that the recital would be a waste.

The couple quarrelled and fought for days about it.

"I was not going to use his money," An Na told me, "I've saved about 50,000 yuan (US$6,000)."

She spent four-fifths of her savings arranging the recital.

"I was mad," said An Na, "And I told everyone I know to regard my recital as a 'mental patient's performance'."

Fortunately, Du Xiao and his colleagues at the local culture centre lent her a hand and helped organize her recital.

Despite all the difficulties she went through to get there, her recital was a huge success and attracted an audience of over 1,000.

Most of her songs were for the late Chairman Mao Zedong, who is her idol.

An hesitated when I asked her to lend me the photos of her recital.

"It has been my greatest wish and the most extraordinary event of my life," she said, "I will spend the rest of my years thinking about it."

I looked at the woman before me, sitting there with such an air of self-fulfillment.

It seemed that her 40 long years of ups and downs had been compensated for.