Sa Dingding - Chinese Diva

26 year-old Sa Dingding is big. She's the newest musical phenom to come out of China. A real Diva. Half Mongol and half Chinese, the young beauty sings in Mandarin, Tibetan, Sanskrit (that's right) and the almost extinct Lagu language. She's also a multi-instrumentalist, trained by Chinese musical masters.

A recent recipient of the prestigious BBC World Music Award, Sa Dingding combines Chinese folk music and Tibetan chants with Western electronica over a strong rhythmic beat. Her clear and pure voice is innocent AND intense. Asian vocalists can sound a little nasal to the Western ear, but the purity and tonal qualities of Sa Dingding's well-trained voice are very pleasing.

I first heard Sa Dingding on IPR's radio program, The World. Here is the story that caught my attention. Check her out in the video below.

SA Dingding
Music
CHINA

Boycott China

It has been hard during this working holiday to avoid the news of continuing turmoil around the upcoming Bejing Olympics. Now, we read, the Chinese people have had their feelings hurt and are responding with a boycott of French companies and CNN. Yea, uh-huh. So let me get this straight. China floods the worlds with cheap goods, many of them toxic from news reports, and subjects its Tibetan and Muslim masses to repression and imprisonment and *they* have their feelings hurt?

How about the poison toys that Chinese companies have been providing our children? Or the Heparin and other tainted drugs Chinese companies have been providing our sick and infirm? Or the contaminated seafood? Then, to top matters off, the Chinese government labels the Dalai Lama a terrorist and proceeds with its ruthless clamp-down on the freedom of speech, religion and assembly. Not a pretty picture. Can you say Tienamin Square? So The Author believes that what is good for the Goose is also good for the Gander. Try turning down Chinese goods for a month or two to let the authorities in Beijing know that OUR feelings are hurt, and our sensibilities offended. It is the least we can do.

China's Reprehensible Repression in Tibet

It's not bad enough that China has Disneyfied Lhasa and turned an ancient people and religion into a tourist attraction. No the Chinese government has been Hanifying Tibet as well. The Han, China's powerful ethnic elite, have a long history of heavy-handed regional adventurism. In Tibet's case, that has meant the exile of tens of thousands (govt. in exile) and importing thousands of ethnic Han to cleanse the country of its indigenous influences and authority. It is, therefore, an insidious form of government-sponsored ethnic cleansing. Now, they're shooting citizens, and gassing monks and nuns. No wonder there's local resentment and unrest. The Chinese government's answer? Mobilize hundreds of thousands of troops, fill Tibet and surrounding provinces where ethnic Tibetans reside with troops and police, clamp down on Monasteries, and imprison monks, nuns and average Tibetans suspected of speaking out. Read Mark's comprehensive post on Boing Boing about the riots.

The foreign press has been rounded up and moved away from the action. The Internet has been comprehensively filtered, and the Chinese government is denying any culpability - instead falling-back on their long-time practice of blaming and demonizing the Dalai Lama. Yea, uh huh. Like I'm buying that. Like anybody's buying that. This is brutal repression, pure and simple. The massive denial of basic rights and respect to an entire people and their religion. Though I've been known to condemn the antics of wingnuts and fundamentalists of all strips, the actions of the Chinese authorities in the case of Tibet are over-the-top. There are several petitions making their way around the progressive blogosphere, and The Author has signed all he's seen. I hope my readers will consider doing the same, and taking whatever other actions that may be available to let the Chinese government know that this is not acceptable behavior.

It would not be proper for me to offer such advice and direction without acknowledging the human rights violations of the US in Iraq and Guantanamo. I have posted about my revulsion regarding our current president and foreign policy on many occasions. That is just the point. I can voice my opinion in any forum without fear of sanctioned, state retribution. Unlike the Tibetans, who are being summarily shot and imprisoned for being frustrated and protesting. Now that's dictatorship. It will be a very unfortunate endorsement of this kind of repression if the leaders of the FREE world attend the Beijing Summer Olympics 2008 "Opening Ceremony." Free Tibet Now!

Technorati Tags: Tibet,China,Olympics,Han,Dictatorship

Authorities Beat Blogger to Death in China

In what is being called the first death of a citizen journalist in China, news sources are reporting the fatal beating of a Chinese blogger who had stopped his vehicle to take pictures of a protest demonstration with his cell camera. City inspection authorities, alarmed at the prospect of blog post documenting their treatment of protestors, swarmed the blogger and beat him to death. Read CNN International's story here. Journalism has never been a "safe" profession, and the same can be said for citizen journalists in tightly controlled societies. Host of the next Summer Olympics, China has acted to punish the local authorities invovled by firing the senior official involved. Investigations continue as I write. One can only hope that this is the last such unfortunate episode. It is gratifying to note that the Chinese blogosphere helped to drive the government's quick intervention.