Background part II of my music history paper (about chinese elements in western music ) Louis XIV and French surpass However, the Portugal domination didn’t last long. From 1580 to 1640, Portugal suffered from regime changes and several times of wars. The Dutch-Portuguese War happened in far east colonies led this nation in peril and eventually loss its dominion in India sea. In contrast, the age of absolutism slowly established in French, Louis XIV’s nation was increasingly powerful and that brought even more diplomatic ambitions. Shortly after the coronation of Le Roi Soleil, the first published Chinese-European dictionary (Chinese-Latin) shown up in 1667. It is 8 years after the death of its editor, French Jesuit Michael Boym. Only 3 years later, the first Chinese-French dictionary under the name of the same editor also had its publication. Compare to that unpublished work done in china by Ruggieri and Ricci, these two voluminous dictionaries which published in Europe are even more meaningful. It means Jesuits priests could now receive plenty of education in Chinese before boarding a transoceanic navigation. Soon, in 1685, to break the Portuguese dominance in China, Louis XIV sent 5 well-educated missionaries to china. Not only that, thanks to the evangelisms done by Ricci and other pioneers. Chinese localized Jesuits started to get involved in this transcontinental communication. Chinese missionaries such as Arcadio Huang and Michael Shen Fu-Tsung finally came to Europe at the turn of 17th and 18th century. Since then, the image of China and Chinese become more and more crystal, and French finally surpass Portuguese and took over the baton of Sino-European communication.

Background part I of my music history paper (about chinese elements in western music ) As the quote from E.T.A. Hoffmann, “Wo die Sprache aufhört, fängt die Musik an.” if you are a present-day European composer and want to craft a piece about china or at least with some Chinese elements, you must first accumulate certain degrees of knowledge about Chinese cultural. The language, Chinese characters, translated Chinese poem and Chinese folk melodies maybe the best place to start. However, if you are a musician who come from a time frame in which internet and cell-phone is not available, for instance 17th century, the only resource that is accessible for you could only be the encyclopedia and dictionary in library. The first recorded Chinese dictionary for a western language should be attributed to Jesuits who sailed from Portugal. Jesuits are members of the Society of Jesus (SJ). Since the first Jesuit St. Francis Xavier arrived Shangchuan island of China in 1552 and died in the same year, generations of Jesuits strived to expand their evangelisms and missions from the off coast commercial spot Shangchuan island to the mainland of china but bring little effect. Why? The negative attitude of the government of Ming dynasty is only part of the reason, the Chinese language is the major obstacle for European missionaries. Before the age of discoveries, the Sino-European relationship is merely commercial, it relies on a safety and unmolested silk road and translations from the middle east merchant, which indicate this three sides orally communication is friable and lack of continuity. This phenomenon remained the same not until two Italian Jesuits finally came to China. These two pioneers are Michele Ruggieri and Matteo Ricci. They sailed from Portugal and came to China separately in 1579 and 1582, after several years of learning Chinese, to convenient themselves and their successors, they started to edit the first Chinese-Portugal dictionary during their missions in Zhaoqing county, Guangdong province. Confusingly, both Ruggieri and Ricci are Italian, so why do they choose Portuguese to translate? According to the research of David E. Mungello, from 1552 to 1800, about 920 Jesuits had come to china and 34% of them are Portuguese, the second largest component of the sum is French Jesuits but with only 14%. Portuguese, as the vanguard in the age of discoveries naturally had superiority at the right time and in the right place. There is no doubt, in terms of missionary works in China, Portuguese missionaries took the dominant position.

An opening part of my music history paper (about utilization of chinese elements in western music ) In recent Hollywood movies, Chinese elements are like embedded advertising, you could find them everywhere. From Chinese celebrities who sign the contract just for Hollywood experience and shown up on screen for no more than a minute then disappeared like a fragile china vase; to Kung Fu actors who fight all the way to the end but with scarcely lines, and still grin and bear it; to pandas, countless pandas, no matter they are making traditional Chinese cuisines or training to become a Kung Fu master. It seems to me that all these Chinese elements mentioned above are overly superficial. Even you replaced them with elements from other exotic civilizations, there would be no influence on the integrity of the plot. However, why the frequency of Chinese elements in western film industry increased drastically during the past decade? The reason is obvious, with great success of China’s economy, no one could stop the acquisition initiated through Chinese companies. In May 2012, the Wanda Group acquired the second largest U.S.-based cinema operator of that time, the AMC theater for $2.6 billion. After 4 years of operation, the AMC theater become not only the largest movie theater chain in U.S. but also the largest on earth . In contrast to this satisfactory achievement, this phenomenon reminds me of Japan before the Plaza accord, when Sony acquired Columbia Pictures , hopefully the history will not repeat itself, hopefully the trade war between China and U.S. wouldn’t upgrade any further. Anyhow, once again, Asians become some of the largest patrons for Hollywood. It is understandable to use Chinese elements to cater and appreciate the patronship, but just like the surprising fortissimo G-major chord in Haydn’s Symphony No.94, the appreciation and adulation between “tasteless” patrons, “pedantic” audience and “ambitious” artists are always insincere. If the artists have no interest on their patrons, especially on the civilization behind the investment then all those adulatory embedded cultural elements are bound to be superficial and perfunctory. Based on this conclusion, here arose my thesis: is there a certain period, in which western civilization spontaneously and sincerely curious about oriental cultural and especially about Chinese music? Is there a certain period, in which musicians from the west could mentally cross the continent and feel the breeze from the east?