By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-04-03 07:28

There is no way we can liken the singing competition on China Central Television to Fox TV's popular American Idol show.

With a panel of three judges supported by popular votes, American Idol provides opportunities for mostly amateur singers to rise to stardom as solo singers. Whatever its merits, it is a popular TV show.

In contrast, the CCTV singing contest, broadcast live every night for more than three hours, goes far beyond an open stage for the best Chinese singers under the age of 35 to show off their musical talents, whether they are amateurs or young professionals.

Starting in 2006, music fans have not only been able to listen to songs from a wide spectrum - Italian canto to rock'n'roll, but also to the tunes and melodies associated with the country's remote mountainous regions and farmlands.

There was a soprano from the Pumi ethnic group, Yunnan, an ethnic Yi quartet from Sichuan, a Dong group from Guangxi, and an Armai-Tibetan trio from Sichuan.

Although many of the viewers may find their voices new or even a little rough - too high-pitched or too coarse - to the ear, they have won high praise from the panel of judges, most of whom are professionals in the fields of music and the arts.

As they are from different ethnic groups, the singers share with the viewers their unique ethnic culture, from their instruments to costumes. A young woman of the Li ethnic group from the island province of Hainan surprised viewers by playing her bamboo flute with her nose.

We not only listen to the songs but also learn about their life stories. Banchu, an Armai-Tibetan young woman from the picturesque Jiuzhaigou area in southwestern China's Sichuan, told how her mother stopped singing when her father died, but began to sing again after seeing her and her group perform on TV.

Their songs along with their instruments and costumes remind every one of us viewers that China is a multi-ethnic country with rich and diversified cultures of different ethnicities.

I remember receiving an e-mail from a woman of Mongolian ethnicity who grew up in Taiwan and emigrated to the United States a few decades ago.

In the e-mail, she told me of her pride in being a Chinese coming from a multi-ethnic culture, be it Han, Mongolian or Tibetan.

The history of our multi-ethnicity goes back thousands of years. Over centuries, we have learned to learn from each other, rely on each other, help each other, and overcome all kinds of adversities and even animosities together for national unity, harmony and territorial integrity.

This is not something new that we have only recently advocated, it is a centuries-old cultural heritage that all of us multi-ethnic Chinese have inherited from our ancestors.

No wonder children grow up learning about the heroes and heroines who have helped win peace, harmony and unity for our country and who have enabled the multi-ethnic Chinese culture to continue without interruption for thousands of years, whether the rulers were ethnic Hans, Mongolians, Manchus or of other ethnicities.

It is futile for some people in the West to try to break the close bonds between the multi-ethnic groups in China.

E-mail: lixing@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 04/03/2008 page8)