Creative Nonfiction
HC Hsu

Photo Credit: Mary/goldsardine

A few days ago I saw a video online; it was Mai Yamane singing “Amazing Grace.” The place was probably somewhere in Tokyo, Japan, in what looked like a bar or pub. The ‘stage’ was a black piano, a mic, and in the background pieces of semi-transparent, khaki-colored curtains were put up over a large glass window. There were drawings on the curtains, big, cactus-shaped symbols dyed in black. Some odd decorations hung on the walls, in addition to two black floor speakers that stood on either side of the piano, like two people looming ominously over in the shadows, resembling okami parade puppets, or stage guards. The curtains didn’t cover the window completely, plus they were sheer: flitting slits and hazy patches of the street outside could be seen. There were lights outside, but it was unclear whether it’s day or night. The interior was lit in a soft, sandalwood yellow glow.

I think most people know Mai Yamane from Cowboy Bebop. She sang the theme song to the show. There she was very ‘rock,’ the low, sticky, somewhat hoary voice, belting against waves of electric guitar, like a swimmer struggling against the currents of the ocean, sinking into and breaking out of the undulating surface of the water, spitting salt water back out. She was singing in English. Here, though it was the famous English folk song “Amazing Grace,” she was singing it in Japanese.

I don’t know who recorded, and thought to upload, the performance online, or why. This is the paradox of the internet: anyone can post anything for any reason, without anyone else’s approval, and have it be seen by anyone else, anywhere. Whatever it is, if it has enough significance for you, you can ‘publish’ it, put it out in the world, without depending on someone else’s judgment, but at the same time, you put it out there, because you want someone else to see it. Most of the time it’s ‘supply’ without ‘demand.’ Thus the internet is chock-full of ‘significance,’ ‘open secrets,’ seemingly trite, trivial, meaningless things, that contain a significance, hidden from everyone, except for the one person, in the one place and time, for a reason. And just sometimes, someone else, may be able to see it too.

Mai Yamane was playing the piano, singing “Amazing Grace,” her voice low, tranquil, gentle, the piano trudging along next to her, aged and calm, simply and repetitively, chord after chord. Compared to her usual rock style, this was more jazz-like. Bright, clear, a little lackadaisical. In the background, just on the other side of the glass pane, there were peeks of cars passing by, people walking by. Very close, just a few inches from the stage, right outside. The people outside were completely oblivious to the performer inside, and the performer inside was completely oblivious to the people outside. People kept walking past, and the musician kept singing. But because they didn’t have anything to do with each other, because they weren’t aware of each other, a curious relationship was formed, and one became the perfect backdrop for the other.

It reminded me of bars, when people would talk, drink, laugh, smoke, and amidst all this dingy brawl, a musician would just quietly walk onto the stage, and begin playing. People wouldn’t stop talking, but the musician keeps playing, the music at times floating over, at times mixing into the clinking of glasses, the shuffling of footsteps, murmurs, peals of laughter, the chairs dragging across hard concrete floors, the strands of light, the glimmers of smoke. Chaotic, yet at peace. Maybe some musicians don’t like it, but I like that kind of atmosphere. It’s not a concert, with a performer and an audience; neither one is serving the other. You can’t say the musician is simply marching to the beat of his own drum, tuning out and without regard for anyone but himself; if that were the case, he would be playing just inside his own apartment or bathroom. By putting himself in public, he reveals in himself some desire to perform. To be seen. To be acknowledged. And sometimes, someone would turn his head, as if caught by a hook, by a fragment of a melody, and stop talking, or doing something else—and look up, and listen. Perhaps something deep in the recesses of his memory, in the things buried, left on their own, or that otherwise no longer register beneath the sediments of time—perhaps something in there has been momentarily, somehow, stirred up, just slightly, by the tiniest inflection in an estranged voice—and he looks up. For only a moment. At the blurry, yet unusually brilliant, dreamlike sun rippling above the green, silk-lined abyss. Then the din floods back in, and he sinks, and looks back down again.

A couple of years ago the violinist Joshua Bell took part in an experiment devised by The Washington Post columnist Gene Weingarten, disguised himself, and played the violin in a subway station in Washington, DC, where he had performed a concert the night before, to see whether anyone would stop to listen to, or even recognize, him. A secret camera was installed. Of course, over a thousand people in the subway passed by him, and only one recognized him—and she had attended his concert the night before. Afterward Weingarten wrote a piece about it called “Pearls Before Breakfast,” for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Then the hidden video was posted on YouTube.

I personally think the video is very beautiful. In time-lapse, hundreds, thousands of people, passing through, brushing past one another, coming and going, each in their own separate world, following their own story, carrying on in their daily lives. Yet somehow there is a unity. Only Joshua Bell, in a black baseball cap, stands in place, like a mendicant monk, the lone crag in an ‘ocean of people.’ To me, the image has a feeling of vastness, of ‘cosmic-ness,’ of almost ‘karmic-ness.’ I wonder whether this was something like what the bodhisattva Avalokitesvara saw when she looked down from Mount Potalaka. Can she hear it, too?

People lament that no one stopped to listen. Rather, I think it’s more poignant this way, and speaks more to humanity, than if a crowd had gathered around to watch the performance. Perhaps some people did listen, but they didn’t want to make a gesture, and disturb the flow, or, disturb the performer. In any case, I don’t think Joshua Bell was playing for everyone. He was playing for the one who recognized him.

Perhaps, that should be enough.

HC Hsu was born in Taipei. He is the author of the short story collection Love Is Sweeter (Lethe, May 2013). Finalist for the 2013 Wendell Mayo Award and The Austin Chronicle 21st Short Story Prize, First Place Winner of A Midsummer Tale 2013, Third Prize Winner of the 2013 Memoir essay competition, and The Best American Essays 2014 Nominee, he has written for Words Without Borders, Two Lines, PRISM International, Renditions, Far Enough East, Cha, Pif Magazine, Big Bridge, nthposition, 100 Word Story, Louffa Press, China Daily News, Liberty Times, Epoch Times, and many others. He has served as translator for the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China and is currently a research fellow at the Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien, Switzerland, where he is completing a commissioned translation of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo’s biography. Email: khsuhc[at]gmail.com