Go there now, then come back to this article.

Reading from the comments, it seems some visitors to their site can't make out context, so let me fill you in. They are Chinese (meaning they are from China), and they're probably living in a students' dormitory.

The website is actually their secondary website; their primary one is in Chinese, at http://blog.sina.com.cn/m/housheboy. They probably don't know much English, because they acknowledge help from a friend in setting up the English-language website.

Yet many of the songs they lip-sync to are from the US. This particular one, Bu de bu ai, () linked to above, is unusual in that it is in Chinese.

Besides being madly enjoyable, this video of theirs provides a lesson about culture.

Culture, of course, does not exist in a vacuum. It responds to, and in turn, affects the social, political and technological environment. But it also responds to external cultural elements. Very often, cultural change proceeds by synthesis and resynthesis, as much as by innovation.

Much of the song 'Bu de bu ai' may be in Chinese, but note the following: the musical line is based on a 12-tone scale that came out of Medieval Europe, not the pentatonic scale of traditional Chinese music. In the instrumental arrangement, you hear the acoustic guitar, which is a marriage of a Spanish instrument and modern electronics. The beat has influences that can be traced partly to secular music from Italy, France and Germany, and partly to Afro-American origins, which probably can be traced further back to the percussive music of Africa. The rap or hip-hop segment, though, is probably uniquely (Afro- and Hispanic-) American in origin dating from 1970's New York. Yet the overall singing style of this song is very typical of Chinese pop -- a much more lyrical style than usual for American pop.

Wei Wei wears a scarf in his act, and in the grainy video we can imagine it's a feathered boa. We see that as befitting the female part that he lip-syncs to. Where does the association of a feathered boa and campy female impersonation come from? I'd like to know myself. Perhaps from the gender-bending cabarets of Weimar Germany?

Huang Yixin, on the other hand, wears a wind-breaker with a hood. He adopts gangsta mannerisms, which of course, we associate with inner-urban Afro-American culture.

Then of course there is the technology that has enabled the making and the transmission of The Dormitory Boys' video. It's impossible today to pin any nationality to information technology.

[Addendum - A reader wrote in to tell me that the song 'Bu de bu ai' was originally composed by a Korean. Talk about cross-fertilisation!]

Likewise, look at everything else in our culture, and they generally have mixed origins. The concept of zero came from the Arabs, the tomato that's so prominent in Southern European cuisine came from Meso-America. Our riches today are the result of working and reworking what we have and what we can acquire, with a dash of originality, just like The Dormitory Boys.

Yet everywhere, there are defenders of cultural purity. L'Academie Francaise is forever trying to purge the French language of English words. The more conservative Indonesians are up in arms over saucy magazines with pin-up girls. And the Bhutanese government decrees that every citizen who walks out onto the streets must wear the traditional costume. But is guarding purity distinguishable from fossilisation?

If we look at the world without blinkers, we can't ignore the fact that America is a cultural dynamo. Its output of cultural products in terms of creativity and scale, is unmatched by any other country. Sure, America is economically well-off, but if one compares America's cultural output and exports with Germany's or Japan's, you'll see that wealth doesn't explain it. The vigour, inventiveness and the way they complement our technological age make many of America's cultural products attractive to other countries, such that they provide the US with unparalleled soft power.

America almost never worries about cultural purity. Its guiding star is liberty. Individuals are free to take what they like from wherever and reinvent it. We can barely keep pace, for example, with the multiple and multiplying genres of music.

In contrast, Chua Beng Huat, a noted sociologist, said of Singapore, "Why does a country that is so successful economically lack confidence to be more liberal politically and culturally?"

"What do the leaders and the led fear?" 

 
* * * * *

Yet America hardly ever produces cultural products for anywhere else but America. I suppose it is the expected conceit of the dominant power. Others have to find out about the American context to understand the cultural goods (think Brokeback Mountain); Americans tailor the products to suit foreigners much less than other cultures might do.

In contrast, look what The Dormitory Boys did. Although they don't appear to be fully conversant in English, they deliberately created another blog, in English, to reach out to the world. 

Again, you might say, it's a natural result of the fact that the US and the English-speaking world is the dominant (cultural) market and China is the lesser one.

Then again, we might wonder if conceit plants the seeds of decline.

There was something interesting when I scanned through the comments in The Dormitory Boys' blog. There was one that read something to the effect that, Hey dudes, you're the funniest Asians I've ever seen (I can't quote the exact words, because I am relying on memory).

Well, the "dudes" bit tells you where the writer was from. But it was also telling that he still referred to the video guys as "Asians" when in the profile, they clearly identified themselves as Chinese. This insensitivity to how others wish to be termed is a bad sign. It suggests a mind that is not fully open to other ways of seeing the world (the Chinese don't quite see themselves as "Asians"), or at least, of being respectful to others.

As if to underscore that, the same writer then asked, But I'd like to know, what are your names?

He didn't get any reply, but no reply was needed, for in many other comments, their names were mentioned. They were Wei Wei and Huang Yixin.

Did the comment writer not notice their names? Did he see them but failed to recognise them as names? Did he expect to see "Arnold" or "Steve"?

The question this raises is, does American cultural conceit handicap Americans when they encounter cultural goods from other countries? And as those products increase, from newly rising powers like India and China, will Americans be at a loss, not knowing how to engage them?

(Example: the typical Yawning Bread reader from the US doesn't know how to handle my name when he writes email to me -- that's part of what I mean by "at a loss".)

You'll tell me that one comment-writer doesn't represent America. True, true.

Then I'll tell you this: a few years ago, Tom Plate, an American journalist whose columns used to appear regularly in the Straits Times, told an incredulous me that more than half of US Congressmen did not even possess a passport. They had never ventured out of the United States.

How can the world's super-power be ruled by people who have no first-hand knowledge of the rest of the world?

I was recently reminded of this by Senator Charles (Chuck) Schumer's recent visit to China, leading a Congressional delegation. It was his first ever Congressional Delegation trip anywhere in his 26 years in the US Congress. Schumer had been in the House of Representatives 1980 – 1998, then a Senator since 1998. He represents the State of New York, which must surely be one of the most outward-looking states in America. If a legislator from New York hadn't gone anywhere in 26 years, what about representatives from Iowa, you might wonder?

More seriously, Schumer is said to be a leading China-basher in the US Senate -- and once again, you'd wonder how he had been playing that role without having seen first-hand the country he was bashing.

He wants the Yuan to rise by 40%, believing it will solve America's economic ills, failing which, he has proposed a high tariff wall to keep "cheap" Chinese goods out.

 
* * * * *

In 1793, George Macartney, a British Earl, led a 700-strong delegation to China that included diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, scientists, painters, a watchmaker, five German musicians, and a hot-air balloon pilot. Packed into three substantial ships, they brought with them the most impressive fruits of recent Western scientific progress -­ telescopes, clocks, barometers, and, naturally, a hot-air balloon -­ all intended to dazzle the Chinese emperor [1]

It was the first ever delegation from the UK to the Chinese-Manchu Empire, then still at its peak. Those were very different times. The sea voyage itself took 9 months to reach Macau, followed by many months overland to the summer capital of Jehol (now Chengde).

The delegation's hope was to persuade China to open trade relations with Britain.

Emperor Qian Long however, was unimpressed. In his reply to the formal note that Macartney brought from King George III, he said, "We have never valued ingenious articles, nor do we have the slightest need of your country’s manufactures." [2]

This reply was composed 6 weeks before Macartney even had an audience with the Emperor to present the gifts!

At that time, China was very vibrant culturally too, though again, mostly for domestic consumption. However, its exports, e.g. silk and porcelain, were very much sought after, not just for the quality of the manufacturing, but also for the artistry in them. In other words, they were cultural exports too.

200 years later, the tables are turned. China is a net cultural importer. The Dormitory Boys lip-sync either American pop, or Chinese pop in the American style.

But the world does not stand still. Think Senator Charles Schumer again. Does bashing China without having first visited it remind one of Qian Long's reply composed 6 weeks before he actually saw the European inventions?

It may be worthwhile pausing to wonder if we're standing at another similar juncture in history. Who now exudes the emperor's airs?

But don't write America off yet. It is still a remarkably open country, not just open to ideas, but also open to immigration. As a society that constantly reinvents itself, it has strengths that no other country can even dream of. 

The key question may be how long it will take, if ever, for China to match that degree of openness and be an even greater dynamo.

© Yawning Bread