Published by: World Tibet Network News, Tuesday, February 27, 1996

Eastern Express, Hong Kong

Friday, 26 January 1996

page 16 (feature page)

Didi Kirsten Tatlow

Dadawa is Zhu Zheqin, a singer from mainland China. Her music, inspired by the spirituality of traditional Tibetan culture, is mellifluous, haunting. She has clocked up impressive sales in Britain, Canada, Taiwan and China, where her CD, Sister Drum, is touted as Warner Music's "first 1 million CD in Asia".

It is also an example of Han cultural imperialism, charge Tibetans in exile, and they have launched a campaign to publicise the fact in the run up to the January 30 release of Sister Drum in the United States.

Warner Records and Dadawa have been badly advised in releasing the material to the public in its present form", the leaders of a campaign against the music, which began in London in December, say. The protesters want to place Dadawa's music squarely in the tradition of moral conflict such as that encountered by musicians and sportsmen during the apartheid era in South Africa.

Led by Tenzin Gelek, a Tibetan who has settled in London, they argue the CD is an example of a popular art form from a democratic nation being used to help the image of a repressive government. In the case of Dadawa's Tibetan music, the political underpinning of the music is clear, they say.

The first line of the CDs introduction tells listeners that Tibetan music "celebrates the dignity of the Chinese spirit". Exiled Tibetans say that is an example of how China is appropriating even the cultural traditions of their country. They say they are fighting for the survival of their culture as China's growing market economy envelops Tibet's traditional lifestyle and the Han population rises each year in their homeland.

"There are many aspects of the CD that show little understanding of the present situation in Tibet," Gelek, in remarks he has also addressed to Warner says. It shows "little sensitivity to Tibetan people's feelings", he charges.

As an example, Gelek points to the transliteration of the Tibetan mantra, Om Mane Padme Hum. Crudely put into pinyin, the words of the mantra are being presented to the world as An Ma Ni Ba Mi Hong. This makes sense in Chinese, as all the syllables are from the system of transliteration of Chinese set up by the Communist Party shortly after the revolution. However, it makes no sense in Tibetan.

In fact all the lyrics are a cultural nightmare Gelek says, and Dadawa's distributor, Warner, is to blame.

"From the way Dadawa's lyrics have been interpreted on the CD notes, I expect anyone unfamiliar with Tibetan would think it was a dialect of Chinese", so thoroughly have they been "pinyinised" in the clumsy transliteration, he says.

Another campaigner, Tim Anasuya, says the music and its packaging "blurs the distinction between Tibetan and Chinese culture". "In its present form, Sister Drum demonstrates a worrying insensitivity towards Tibetan feelings," Anasuya says. "The CD's packaging and promotion tacitly conform to a Chinese nationalistic view of China's relationship to Tibet."

To prove the charge of cultural chauvinism, Anasuya points to the CD's sleeve blurb on which Tibet's holiest temple, the Johkang in Lhasa, is referred to as "Tazhou". "Tazhou" is a misspelt transliteration of the Chinese word for the Tibetan temple. The correct spelling, "Dazhou", means "Great Cathedral" in Putonghua. "Tazhou" was simply non sensical, Anasuya points out. "It could mean 'collapsing wrinkle' and 'pagoda of abuse'," he says. Rather than showing active disrespect, the transliteration showed a damaging lack of familiarity with Tibetan culture, he added.

Overall, the CD portrays Tibet as "unique, mystical, ancient, backward and romantic, but not necessarily a different country", Anasuya says. That point of view was to be expected from a mainland Chinese pop star, given the paucity of knowledge of Tibet's culture and the violence of China's occupation of the mountain region since the Dalai Lama fled to exile in 1959.

However, the record company was irresponsible in the extreme in going along with the charade, he says. "That the first Chinese pop star to be marketed in the West is closely associating herself with Tibet without any mention of the realities of occupation is to be expected. But it leaves Warner Music open to legitimate criticism."

Other criticisms point to the cover of the CD which shows Dadawa standing against a Himalayan landscape, garbed in the maroon robes of a Buddhist nun. As Gelek points out: "She is not a nun. I believe most Tibetans would be offended by this image, especially those in Tibet... even though they are not in a position to voice such criticism openly."

Musically, Tibetans are particularly irritated by what they allege is the pseudo-Tibetan theme of the CD. Lyrically, all seven tracks have some reference to Buddhism or Tibet with song titles like Sky Burial and The Turning Scripture. Dadawa's songs claim to "sketch out the relationship between... Tibet and modern society", according to the liner notes. Yet Tibetans familiar with regional music are unimpressed. "The CD has no actual Tibetan musical content," Anasuya says.

Warner has described it as "ethno-ambient" music. "There are occasional motifs that are probably meant to sound like overtone singing or monks chanting," Anasuya concedes. However they "bear little similarity to the sounds they are trying to evoke".

Auasuya and Gelek are not calling for a full-scale damning of the CD. "From the opinions they have canvassed, the initial reaction of Tibetans is that they are not necessarily out of sympathy with the music", which is lyrical and pleasing to the ear. "The problem definitely lies with the packaging," they say.

Dadawa's public remarks about the "spirituality" of Tibetan culture have, however, angered some Tibetans.

The Chinese government has admitted to "excesses" in Tibet, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. Independent estimates put the devastation of temples at about 80 per cent and estimate up to 1 million people may have died since the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959.

"Warner have gone about their project in a very ill-advised way," Anasuya says.

Officials contacted at Warner UK have declined to comment on the row.