My wife has told me about the lyrics to the song played by Lang Lang. The article's description, that the song does not mention war or America, is barely accurate.
It starts off very innocently, describing how beautiful the motherland (China) is, how nice the people, how much the singer loves them, etc. Very sweet and aboveboard.
But then comes the second part of the song. It states that when the vile, rabid wolf and the (_________) (my wife couldn't translate ths one, it's another unspeakably evil animal) comes to destroy our beautiful motherland of China, we will grab our guns, shoot them, kill them, utterly destroy them. Our noble Chinese soldiers will be victorious over the vile, evil, subhuman animals.
Those are the literal lyrics of the song that Lang Lang played for Obama and Hu Jintao at the White House. True, America is not explicitly mentioned, and I suppose you could say that "war" isn't either. But in the movie, the vile evil animal obviously means America. The entire movie was commissioned by the Chinese government when America entered the Korean war. Its purpose was to unite the Chinese people in absolute hatred of America.
My wife points out that, until the Korean War, China had never had a war with America, and frankly never paid much attention to America - China was "a very closed country", my wife says. But when the communists took over in the 1940s, they also began the huge propaganda projects we all know and love. And they were pretty effective - including this movie. My wife says that this movie uniteed the Chinese people in hatred against America, just as the events of Sept. 11, 2001 united the American people against militant Islamic terrorists.
Thinking that Lang Lang didn't know the significance of this piece, is ludicrous, she says. Like thinking that, if you show a picture of an airliner hitting a skyscraper, the Americans would not know the significance of that, and just would just think it's a pretty fireworks display for a celebration or something.
It's also not possible that Lang Lang simply picked this song himself. My wife is 100% sure that every Chinese person in the delegation at the White House, knew in advance that Lang Lang was going to play this piece... and knew in advance what it really meant. Approval for this song, and quite possibly the original suggestion, came from the very top, she says.
