I’ve been waking up with the sun lately. Why, I don’t know, but I’m dragging a little since I never want to go to bed. But, there is a nice bonus waking up so early though: Shenzhen is a different city between 6 :00 and 7:30 AM, at least where I am. It’s quiet, peaceful, and still. If you want a coffee or a decent breakfast, forget it. Note I said decent breakfast; you can get the hard stuff like the egg pastry thing or various bao zis for about 15 cents. But it really seems like the only ones stirring are the old folks practicing Tai Qi and musicians. When windows are open, I can usually hear the sounds of a solo violin drifting in. I sometimes hear an er hu (the “Chinese violin”, a two-stringed instrument that will conjure up images of the East when you hear it) or someone practicing piano scales. Maybe Shenzhen is so loud at all other times that I just don’t notice them. But I do appreciate the mornings that much more.

Maybe it has something to do with the amusement park, “Happy Valley”, across the street from me. As I’m writing this now, it’s nighttime and I can hear the screams from the folks on the various rides, and the DJ blaring out something in Chinese, occasionally a word or two of English for pizazz, and the music. I’ve got one distinctly Chinese pentatonic melody stuck in my head.

But just now, I heard an electric guitar playing a section from the music from the tragic tale, “The Butterfly Lovers”. That’s basically China’s “Romeo and Juliet”, by the way. That immediately got my attention because I was working on a guitar transcription of the “Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto”, a very popular piece written back in the fifties by two Chinese composition students. The piece marries traditional Chinese melodies with a traditional western orchestra. Therefore…when the Cultural Revolution gained steam, these two students landed promptly in the big house. Hearing the electric guitar version fifty years later on the 19th floor of an apartment tower across from the amusement park inspired me to write this post and to consider continuing to finish the transcription.

Looking eastward at dawn