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I was once asked by a young friend to translate for him the Chinese
idiom "qu gao he gua" （曲高和寡）into English.
"Too highbrow to have many company", or "too highbrow to be popular"
were answers I came up with.
"What's highbrow?" he inquired.
That was when the conversation began to turn more
interesting, for attempting to put Chinese expressions into English is
often a thankless exercise."Highbrow is something you and I are seldom
associated with," I quipped. "For instance, qin, qi, shu, hua (琴棋書畫，the
Chinese fine arts of guqin (or zither), go chess (or weiqi), calligraphy,
and traditional brush painting, pastimes that have come to symbolize
intellectual culture and good taste.)"
"Meaning old and stale stuff that young people are not
bothered with?" said he. Young people are quick to reach conclusions.
"It might be interpreted that way," said I.
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's all relative. To my way of
thinking, however, highbrow works involve years of training and
cultivation, such as it is with Peking Opera, martial arts, western
classical music, again, using a few age-old examples."
"Any up-to-date examples?" he asked.
"When it comes to highbrow works, ancient arts
seem naturally becoming. Our contemporaries are more about show business
than long-term dedication, which is essential to any highbrow pursuit.
"Even in the show business, tastes differ. The Three Tenors of Luciano
Pavarotti, Jose Carreras and Placido Domingo are highbrows. They sang in
the Forbidden City in 2001 and that was a highbrow event."
"Gotcha," he said, adding "the whole thing was considered highbrow. The
Opera itself is highbrow, the venue is highbrow, the ticket price is
highbrow, fetching 1,000 yuan apiece."
"And even people
in the audience were 'highbrow', quote unquote," added I.
"Did you go?" he queried.
"I didn't," I said. "I have the tenors on CD.
Besides, I don't think I'd mix with those "highbrow" people in a show like
that. Did you go?"
"No," he replied. "I don't like Opera. But I went to watch Man United
play when they were in town."
Man United is short for Manchester United, one of the biggest soccer
clubs in England and the world over. They toured Beijing last summer.
"But that was not a highbrow event," I said.
"There's nothing highbrow about soccer to people outside soccer circles.
Adults mucking in on an open field scrambling to kick a ball, that's
rather lowbrow to people with any taste for cerebral sophistication, which
is an essential quality of being highbrow."
"Cerebral sophistication, and lowbrow?" he asked.
"Opposite the highbrow is the lowbrow. The
expressions derive from, again, ancient superstitious notions that a
person of superior intellect has a high forehead whereas an illiterate
person has a low one. Lowbrow, hence, refers to people wanting in
education, taste and culture."
"That's
interesting," he said.
"The expressions of highbrow and lowbrow in the
English language are said to have been invented by Americans," I continued
without further invitation. "I read from somewhere that Americans, without
the noble classes of the old Europe, were more inclined to use education
and intellectual sophistication to differentiate themselves.
"Much ado, if you ask those Europeans with a prejudice that cultural
American is lowbrow as a whole. If you ask Americans, on the other hand,
some of them think everything American is better.
"In America, for example, John Updike (who
wrote Rabbit, Run) is considered a highbrow writer.
"The New Yorker magazine is regarded as highbrow.
The Playboy magazine is lowbrow. Woody Allen is a highbrow for a comedian.
Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger is a highbrow for a former
bodybuilder. And judged by Bush-speak, the man in the White House at
present is a lowbrow even for a president."
"Ha," my colleague laughed, before pleading
for "Chinese examples."
"Judging from their put-all-to-sleep speeches,
Chinese politicians, to be fair, are middlebrow even by our own low
standards. They are otherwise excused from further discussion here for
their collective lack of humor.
"As for others, Chinese artists in general, and writers in
particular, are lowbrows."
"Without exception?" my friend asked, sounding incredulous.
"There is always an exception to the rule. Flesh
Literature with Muzi Mei as an example is an exception. (The Flesh
Literature or Youth Literature represents works written by young women who
describe in their writing their personal experiences, sexual rather than
intellectual).
"Mei would not have appeared in this conversation had the subject of
lowbrows not been broached. She's not even lowbrow. She's all-flesh and
no-brow."
"But she's popular," my friend countered, laughing. "There are
reports that her articles on the web draw tens of thousands of hits a
day."
"Yes, she is popular, and that's her problem.
"She's too popular to be a highbrow." | 
