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Post by Blue on Dec 28, 2012 13:48:47 GMT
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Post by Blue on Dec 31, 2012 14:34:07 GMT
So let me return to the discussion of the busking scene in Australia. I was walking down the road near Queen's Mall in Brisbane near Hungry Jacks (the legal name of Burger King in Australia). Heard the sound of the dizi. Turned all four corners and finally spotted a Taiwanese dizi busker playing in front of a recently shut down Borders bookstore. The person used to work in the tech field in Taiwan, but couldn't stand the pressure and decided to go on a 12-month working holiday in Australia. He spent his first couple of days busking, but later he found a job at Surfer's Paradise (we keep in contact via facebook).
People in Brisbane are generally much nicer than Sydney people because the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast region is more relaxed and less rushed. There were these middle-aged white women who complimented the dizi busker's performance and threw in a couple of dollars onto his dizi carrying case. For reference, it can cost AUD$6 (~US$6) to ride the bus!
I hurried back to my hotel room to gobble up the Red Rooster dinner that I bought (http://www.redrooster.com.au/) which included a fried battered pineapple as well as a fried battered banana (yep, Australians love to eat fried food like fish and chips although multiculturalism and increased dietary awareness have encouraged the average Australian to eat plenty of sushi). Then I brushed my teeth and grabbed my dongxiao and was relieved to see the Taiwanese busker still there.
But the busker had company: there were these drunken middle-aged white Australian males who offered to increase their tip to the busker if the busker learned how to play a song called “The Sash.” I never heard that song before. The busker couldn't find the lyrics using his smart phone, so we decided to hear the wino sing:
Sure l'm an Ulster Orangeman, from Erin's isle I came,
To see my British brethren all of honour and of fame,
And to tell them of my forefathers who fought in days of yore,
That I might have the right to wear, the sash my father wore!
Although the busker did a good job of reproducing the notes the drunken person sang, I was dumbfounded: imagine playing that in a Catholic neighborhood in Northern Ireland. I warned the busker that this was a very controversial song in such that playing it at the wrong location could get him clobbered or even in the worst case bullet ridden. Still, that drunken person was satisfied with the performance and gave the busker a little more money.
After that, I asked the busker if he knew how to play the xiao and showed him the dongxiao that I had brought to Australia. I played the Purple Bamboo Melody in front of the Australian public in a busy street intersection! A person who was distributing fliers about a neighboring Mexican restaurant stared at my performance. The busker thought that I had pretty good breath control over the dongxiao and was a little envious that I could more or less reproduce the piece by heart. The busker needed to see sheet music to perform.
I offered the busker the opportunity to try to dongxiao pitched in alto-C. He simply could not produce a tune even though he had excellent dizi playing skills! I was shocked, but not too surprised because one of the reasons that bass dizis were invented was to help dizi players who just simply have an awful time with the xiao. I gave the busker AUD$2, which might be considered to little in Australia, but definitely too much to give to a busker in Taiwan.
In the Southbanks of Brisbane, one can also encounter a cello busker on Friday and Saturday nights. The busker wears a marvelous red dress.
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