Matt's Trip to China

Dear Family:

Below is part of an e-mail Matt sent to Betsy describing some of his recent trip to China with his University choir:

We arrived Friday night after a 29-hour trip, including about 13 hours on the last flight. That was very cramped and stuffy. The highlight of the flight was flying over the North Pole - looking out the window at 30,000 feet, I could see beautiful reflective sheets of ice, and also I saw the curvature of the horizon. It was beautiful.

Beijing is a very old old city, with a history of over 2,000 years. The historical sites are mostly palaces and shrines built by the emporers and dynasties. It is a city of 15 million people, and the sky is often clouded with pollution. It is early spring, with leaves starting to come out on the trees, some cherry blossoms, but with yellow grass and dirt everywhere; and lots and lots and lots of towers and buildings. The streets have a lot of bicycle traffice everywhere, weaving in and around cars. There are lots of poor people and poor areas. The toilets are an adventure; many places we visit, the public bathrooms do not have toilets; they have stalls with holes in the ground to squat. YIKES! I am very grateful for toilets.

The first full day in thhe morning we had a choir rehearsal in one of the hotel banquet halls - with no piano, but we managed to get some work done. The afternoon we went to see the Olympic Stadium, which is very striking. Then we went to see the Temple of Heaven. This is more than a building. It is a very large complex of forests and several buildings, where the Emporer would come twice a year (for several weeks) to worship heaven to petition for rain for the crops. Very Chinese architecture.

Then, at night we went to a Kung Fu show; this was fascinating. It told the story of a young boy's journey, overcoming temptation and humna weakness, too become a Kung Fu master. It was very dramatic, lots of lights and loud orchestral music and lots of group kung fu choreography and several combat scenes that looked like they came from "The Matrix". One very dramatic scene showed the young man laying down on three sword face up, with a plank full of nails placed on his chest - another man laying on top of the nails, then a slab of concrete placed on top; then another man took a sledgehammer and shattered the concrete slab, and both of the men got up and showed no wounds from this. Kung Fu is a lot about how inner strength is more powerful than physical things. I think Sean and Cameron really would have enjoyed this.

Food - we eat a lot of Chinese! The restaurants have tables where we all sit and they bring out rice and several courses to go with it; some things are a little too strange for me to try. It looks a lot like American Chinese but the flavors are different. They do have a lot a squid and fish and things we don't see in the US. It generally is pretty good, but I really miss your cooking!!

On Sunday, I missed going to Church very much. We drove 3 hours in the morning to the city of Tianjin, which is the 4th largest city in China (11 million people). There are LOTS of people in China. We spent the afternoon rehearsing the Mozart at Nankai University, which is one of the most prestigious universities in China. I learned one chinese phrase, "We are honored to come to sing with you at Nankai University." When I said that to their choir, they all cheered for me. That was sweet. Their choir is aboout 60 people, annd they are all very short and tiny - and very sweet faces. It was fun to work with them. The rehearsal was draining - about 3 hours. Then we had MacDonald's delivered to eat before the concert - it was fun too have a big Mac, though I didn't have time to finish eating it. The concert hall is the nicest university concert hall in China - and has a beautiful acoustic. It was packed, with standing room crowd in the back. Their choir performed first - and they had some folk dancers with their first piece - it was beautiful to watch. They are a very good choir and very professional in their presentation. Though in China, it matters more that you have opera singers in the choir than that you sing with unity and in tune. Then our choir sang - they were so tired, but I think they did a very nice job. The highlight was their Chinese piece- the audience LOVED it so much. Then we did the Mozart - it was really fun to have a choir of 130 and a large orchestra doing this wonderful music.

Apparently their choir director was not impressed with our choir, because we do not sing with the solo operatic sound, and it is apparent we do not have solo-style voices in the choir. That bothered me a little bit, but what others think is out of my control. I felt grateful to have had this opportunity with our choir, and I know I will never get the praise of men, so I won't have to worry about pride!!

Got back to the hotel after midnight, then were up at 6:30 am the next morning to prepare for Great Wall. It was a 2-hour drive north of Beijing, into the mountains. The mountains look somewhat like Utah's mountains, very rocky but with less vegetation. The Wall is quite amazing. We met Mike there, so that was really fun to see him, and I felt a little closer to you because he was there. I told him to take several photos and sent them to you so you could see me. We did a little concert at the Wall, and a few people came over and watched as we sang. Then we went to the Ming Tombs, very elaborate set of buildings and shrines - and Mike came there with us. Then stopped at a jade factory.

Wuo ai ni! (I love you in Chinese!)

Love, Matt