Chinese Pianist Plays Anti-American Song at White House State Dinner

Lang Lang at the piano at the White House State Dinner

What! Nobody in the White House or the State Department knows anything about Chinese politics, culture, music, or movies?

Or is it that no China scholars managed to get a peek at the program planned for Obama's festivities entertaining Chinese dictator Hu Jintao?

Why should they? The Obama administration didn't think it necessary to take culture or history into consideration when dealing with Great Britain, Russia, and Turkey, so why should they welcome advisors on China?

Last Wednesday, Lang Lang, a Chinese virtuoso pianist who moved to Philadelphia to study when he was 15 years old, entertained the guests of the White House state dinner honoring Chinese President Hu Jintao with a piece called "My Motherland." It's the famous theme song of a 1956 Chinese anti-American war movie celebrating the killing of Americans during the Korean War by the Chinese Army at the Battle of Triangle Hill.

As reported by Kathy Yuan of the Wall Street Journal, the Chinese back home got a big kick from this insult (and veiled threat) to Hu's American hosts, who applauded rapturously: 

“Those American folks very much enjoyed it and were totally infatuated with the melody!!! The U.S. is truly stupid!!” wrote a user named You’re In My Memory on Sina’s micro-blogging site. This particular post was re-posted many times.

[snip]

“I think Americans should also be familiar with this song, whose meaning is so notorious that you don’t even need an explanation,” wrote user Winter Frost Rain on Sina’s micro-blog. “Lang Lang is too cool.” 

Hu and his entourage no doubt enjoyed Lang Lang's choice of music as well. The money lyric of "My Motherland" that thrilled Chinese audiences is this: “When friends are here, there is fine wine/But if the jackal comes/What greets it is the hunting rifle.” The jackal in this song represents the U.S.

In this satellite view of the Korean peninsula at night,
the illuminated area at the top is China.
The illuminated area below is South Korea.
The dark area between is North Korea, which was "saved
from American imperialism" by the Chinese Army.

Apparently Lang Lang didn't get Obama's memo about "civil discourse." And neither did China. Since 1952, the year that the Battle of Triangle Hill was fought, China's "hunting rifle" military capacity has been upgraded to include an anti-aircraft carrier ballistic missile, a stealth fighter jet, and an upcoming new fleet of submarines and blue-water navy.

According to China's revisionist view of history reflected in the movie, Shang Gan Ling (The Ridge above the Gan), the U.S. started the Korean War by invading Korea. (Fact: North Korean forces invaded South Korea on June 25, 1950.)

Also according to Chinese propaganda, South Korea is a puppet government of the U.S. (Fact: America's defeat of Japan in 1945 ended Japan's cruel 35-year-long occupation of pre-division Korea. North Korea, ruled by a dictator aided by a pair of Communist Big Brothers, the Soviet Union and Red China, has an economy in free fall and offers its people a standard of living rated 99th among nations, whereas South Korea, the so-called U.S. "puppet," is a presidential republic that enjoys the world's 12th largest economy and is home to such international giants as Hundai, Kia, and Samsung.)

Don't celebrate yet, Mr. Hu. Not all Americans are as arrogantly unaware as our current administration. And, unlike China, we do replace our presidents quite often. Our next president might have quite different taste in music.

h/t Weasel Zippers

Update 1/25/11: White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, scolded Americans with his remark that “any suggestion that this was an insult to the United States is just flat wrong." Vietor's statement is a further insult to Americans, all the worse because it comes not from a foreigner but from a fellow American representing the president of the United States. That ain't rain we're feeling on our legs, Tommy, and we know it.
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