{"id":137333,"date":"2012-06-01T17:17:13","date_gmt":"2012-06-02T00:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=137333"},"modified":"2012-06-01T17:23:32","modified_gmt":"2012-06-02T00:23:32","slug":"building-us-china-relations-by-banjo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/06\/building-us-china-relations-by-banjo\/","title":{"rendered":"Building US-China Relations by Banjo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/abigail_washburn_building_us_china_relations_by_banjo.html\">Back in February, TED featured a talk<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abigailwashburn.com\/website\/\">Abigail Washburn<\/a>, a sinophile and musician (in that successive order) with a unique method for fostering healthy international relations. In the TED Talk, Washburn tells the story of how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=b-kaG1NuLZM\">Doc Watson&#8217;s rendition of an American folk song<\/a>\u00a0diverted a longtime academic obsession with Chinese culture and policy towards a career as a Bluegrass musician, and how she combines her art and passion to promote cultural understanding:<\/p>\n<p>[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RDIy58g9n2k[\/youtube]<\/p>\n<p>Abigail Washburn, now the wife of banjo\u00a0virtuoso and eclectic musical fusionist\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=fFzZXvivo4c\">B\u00e9la\u00a0Fleck<\/a>, has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abigailwashburn.com\/website\/tour\/\">toured extensively<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theconnextion.com\/abigailwashburn\/abigail_cat.cfm?CatID=84\">recorded\u00a0prolifically<\/a> as a solo artist and with her two bands. In late 2011, Washburn and her band The Village <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.abigailwashburn.com\/website\/silk-road-tour-2011\/\">toured the Silk Road from Inner Mongolia to Xinjiang<\/a><\/strong>. Below is a clip from their time in Yinchuan, Ningxia province. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.abigailwashburn.com\/website\/silk-road-tour-2011\/\">Click through<\/a> for more documentation\u00a0of the tour.<\/p>\n<p>[youtube]http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=D8KKqYzeyNM[\/youtube]<\/p>\n<p>The theme of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2012\/06\/01\/153885491\/the-creative-process\">NPR&#8217;s TED Radio Hour today was inspiration and creativity<\/a>, and they invited the &#8220;Chinese-speaking, banjo-picking girl&#8221; to talk about her experiences. In the interview, she tells more of her story, sings a few songs, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/2012\/06\/01\/153701420\/what-do-china-and-the-banjo-have-in-common\">explains how Chinese culture influences her music, and breaks down some of her Chinese lyrics<\/a>. <\/strong>Transcribed from the NPR interview:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>STEWART: What was it that made you feel so connected with China and Chinese culture that you thought, you know what, I am going to incorporate this into my music?<\/p>\n<p>WASBURN: Well, for me, that&#8217;s simple. It was that China came first. China had a few years on folk music. So as soon as I started playing music, you know, as soon as that record executive walked up to me and offered me a record deal and I started becoming a professional musician, my first song I wrote was in English and my second one was literally in Chinese. It went&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>(Singing in Chinese) [\u95e8\u5916\u6709\u4e2a\u4e16\u754c\uff0c\u5fc3\u4e2d\u6709\u4e2a\u58f0\u97f3\uff0c\u56db\u65b9\u7b49\u4f60\u6765\u554a\uff0c\u6e38\u5973\uff0c\u6e38\u5973]<\/p>\n<p>And that means [\u95e8\u5916\u6709\u4e2a\u4e16\u754c], outside your door the world is waiting. [\u5fc3\u4e2d\u6709\u4e2a\u58f0\u97f3], inside your heart a voice is calling. [\u56db\u65b9\u7b49\u4f60\u6765\u554a], the four corners of the world are waiting. [\u6e38\u5973\uff0c\u6e38\u5973], so go get it, girl. Travel, daughter, travel.<\/p>\n<p>So, for me, my creative inspiration was also in Chinese.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>For a full set of Abigail Washburn&#8217;s music and a Chinese language synopsis of the artist, see <a title=\"Permanent Link to \u3010\u7535\u53f0\u3011Abigail Washburn: \u6b4c\u5531\u5728\u7eb3\u4ec0\u7ef4\u5c14\u548c\u5317\u4eac\u4e4b\u95f4\" href=\"http:\/\/ourfolk.net\/2010\/12\/08\/4019\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Abigail Washburn: \u6b4c\u5531\u5728\u7eb3\u4ec0\u7ef4\u5c14\u548c\u5317\u4eac\u4e4b\u95f4<\/a>\u00a0[Singing Between Nashville and Beijing] from Ourfolk.net.<\/p>\n<p>Also see prior CDT coverage of <a href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2009\/02\/music-series-abigail-washburns-inspiration-on-music-through-china\/\">the\u00a0bilingual bluegrass musician<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Back in February, TED featured a talk\u00a0by Abigail Washburn, a sinophile and musician (in that successive order) with a unique method for fostering healthy international relations. In the TED Talk, Washburn tells the story of how Doc Watson&#8217;s rendition of an American folk song\u00a0diverted a longtime academic obsession with Chinese culture and policy towards a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":985,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,20,14744,14745,14746,1],"tags":[7676,21,7702],"class_list":["post-137333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world","category-culture","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-uncategorized","tag-abigail-washburn","tag-music","tag-us-relations","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO v23.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Building US-China Relations by Banjo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/06\/building-us-china-relations-by-banjo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Building US-China Relations by Banjo\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Back in February, TED featured a talk\u00a0by Abigail Washburn, a sinophile and musician (in that successive order) with a unique method for fostering healthy international relations. In the TED Talk, Washburn tells the story of how Doc Watson&#8217;s rendition of an American folk song\u00a0diverted a longtime academic obsession with Chinese culture and policy towards a [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/06\/building-us-china-relations-by-banjo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"China Digital Times (CDT)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ChinaDigitalTimes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-02T00:17:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-06-02T00:23:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/CDT-logo.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"186\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"177\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Josh Rudolph\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@cdt\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Josh Rudolph\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/06\/building-us-china-relations-by-banjo\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/06\/building-us-china-relations-by-banjo\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Josh Rudolph\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#\/schema\/person\/66545362d1132ed39c00e1a8989b04d8\"},\"headline\":\"Building US-China Relations by Banjo\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-02T00:17:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-06-02T00:23:32+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2012\/06\/building-us-china-relations-by-banjo\/\"},\"wordCount\":408,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"Abigail Washburn\",\"music\",\"U.S. relations\"],\"articleSection\":[\"China &amp; 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