The China in David

Latest news is David's concert in Taiwan will have to be postponed till Jan 06 cos of the clash with Jacky Cheung's Snow Wolf Lake which put on a few more shows cos of overwhelming demand. Considering that it takes at least 6 days to prepare the stage, it was decided to delay the concert. Of cos its field day for the paparazzi to take potshots at David saying he was mad @ Jacky, his ambition to be the first singer to hold a concert at the new venue was thwarted, etc, etc *roll eyes* whatever, write what you want, believe what you want. All I care abt such articles is a great source of nice pixs like the one above heehee
Latest pix of David singing @ Tianjin. Seemed to have lost sum weight & hair is longer *yeah yeah* but yummy as always. Really like his classic look of dress shirt, dark jacket & worn jeans. Vry tanned too, must be all that California sun heehee He sang Rain, Susan Said, Smalltown Girl & I Love You. Everytime I see a new DT pix, I feel so happy he is still around, he hasn't decided to abandon us & escape to his LA life. For sure he can get along vry nicely just by writing & producing for others. At least he promised 2 more studio albums.
David is not the only victim of the media. Both Jackie Chan & Andy Lau also targets for their valiant efforts to save chinese entertainment esp chinese movies. I am always surprised by the venom unleashed on these 2 stars cos they dared to speak their views, they dared to criticise, they dared to try new projects. If ppl have calmed down & read Jackie's views properly, they find he is not being anti-Korean or badmouthing chinese directors or being mean to chinese audience.
Japan & Korea always have the tradition of local support which certainly boost their filmmaking so they are able to have excellent, sophisticated movies with good box office. Certainly the audience in Japan can accept local arthouse movies that dun aimed for an international market. No surprise that Korea's April Snow did better there than HK's Initial D despite the latter being based on a Japanese anime.
To date Hollywood has remade or plans to remake more Japanese & Korean movies like Ring, Dark Waters, Grunge, Shall We Dance, Ill Mare, The sisters. Despite chinese movies being the acknowledged kungfu exponents in Hollywood, it was a Thai martial movie, Ong Bak, that got ppl all over the world excited.
Not to say there hadn't been good chinese movies but they had limited release like last yr Golden Horse winner - Kekexili: Mountain Patrol. Chinese audience has to make an effort to support good chinese movies because if they dun, nobody else would certainly not the Japanese, Korean or American. And if they dun, then there will be less & less chinese ppl willing to invest time & money to make a good movie as it will definitely not make any money. So more & more chinese movies will be made purely for entertainment & profit, not that they are no good but there has to be a balance or chinese entertainment will suffer. This is more or less what Jackie Chan was trying to say.
The same with chinese music, one has to make an effort to support the artist whom you feel is doing the best for chinese music. So before David goes & makes his mark in Chinese movies, I hope ppl will still support him & make sure his music is still heard. With David, I find that more & more I can find the reasons why I support him & his music so important to me. Sometimes I find its strange that he always mentioned western artists as his influence like U2, Sting & Beatles. Perhaps he is being honest as he grew up with that kind of music altho I feel he must also acknowledged the black American influence in his music. Some of his fast tempo songs owned more to Stevie Wonder than U2 ^__^
But in his music you can hear not just western influences but his tribute to chinese music. From the very first album - Spring Wind, Seventeen, second album - I'm Ok, Tuberose, third album - Moon over my heart, 22 to the fourth album - Susan Said, The Art of War, Song for Anita. Its vry subtle, not hitting you over the head with overplay of chinese instruments. In every one of his album, I can feel his chineseness & its not that he is proud to be chinese or trying to show the world what it is to be chinese or making a chinese statement or anything like that.
It's just being himself, complete honesty of who he is & hence his outlook on the world. So when ppl complained his music too westernised, just feel they dun use their heart to listen to his music. Not only that but he is the only chinese singer to introduce important chinese things to me like the song Tuberose, the chinese singers Ciu Jian, the chinese writer Eileen Chang, Beijing opera Yu Tang Chun, some Shanghainese words heehee & he does it all so naturally. He dun go all out to proclaim his chineseness cos what's there to proclaim, its a fact that he IS chinese.
Not that I am saying you have to be chinese to appreciate his music because he is not making music for chinese people but a chinese musician making music. That's why he has nvr been credited with 'blowing the chinese wind' till The Great Leap. Unless you are his fan, probably nvr noticed that he was using chinese instruments long before it became the trend & he nvr wanted to make a 'chinese statement'. He just used it in his music as appropriate. He has always been the innovator in his music whether its r&b, rock, soul, country, traditional chinese, folk Japanese, but cos he does it so well, his music nvr scream for attention. Just another one of the thousand reasons why I love & admire him so much.