The idea of incoherence has really got on my nerves these days. This introspection is not only triggered by the recent event of the Chinese composer’s new work on Turandot’s ending, but it also makes me think of the immigrants’ agony and the essence of insanity.

The western culture in China is mixed with a little bit of modern, tradition, glitz, and publicity. The mixture is done without a right proportional plan. Therefore, it appears incoherent. China hasn’t found her coherent identity yet.

Should we really attribute any incoherence to the attempt of putting two (or at least two) different things together? For instance, to instill oriental elements in a western opera, or to embed a Hollywood-style attraction into a traditional Chinese love story?

These questions all seem foolish when this world has already functioned way out of the cultural concern. It doesn’t really matter. Who cares if it is not coherent? As long as the entertainment satisfies the audience, money comes in. It is not the story and the music that the audience catches. It is the visual effect that dazzles the audience. The more you could dazzle them, the more they would buy. But should we stop here? It is definitely sophisticated enough to create a grand setting, to make wonderful costumes, but how about the invisible elements, such as story and music, which make performances alive? If we do concern about this aspect, how do we solve this incoherent problem? Or should we really care about the incoherence? Is it possible we see it as a fact, a quality which belongs to our time? If so, would aesthetics become a term with no essence but all about “becoming”?  

We could see the cultural/commercial implementing in such skepticism, but it would be not easy to realize everyday life as such. A person moves away from his homeland and tries to fit himself in a foreign country. I live in a country formed by immigrants, who all share the same incoherent problem. Some live more comfortable than the other in term of fitting the society better. The time is not an issue. You can have a lady who came to the U.S. thirty years ago and she still cannot speak English. She lives in a community which is very similar with the homeland she came from. She can eat the same kind of food and use the same kind of shampoo. I have been here almost two years. I don’t really live amongst Chinese people. I don’t particularly eat Taiwanese food. But does it mean I live more comfortable than the lady? I would doubt it. Perhaps part of the reason that I am not easily satisfied with anything, but there is still a long way for me to know the social customs and feel comfortable to react to them. I remember Chen Tse-Fan’s The Rootless Orchid. It is too grave to mention anything about the feeling to one’s own country, let alone to people who have lost their country, who have no root. I still have my homeland where my root is. The sentiment only amplifies when I happen to have those incoherent moments.

I think it is still okay that people can handle this incoherence more or less since it is inevitable. The extremity would be that a person cannot be coherent with his surroundings at all. When we look at King Lear, the moment he seems crazy is the time he is only in himself. He cannot react to the reality. There is a shield around him to divide the world from himself. Insanity can be interpreted in such essence. It is just a term defined by people who think they are more in control of the society. In other words, they cohere the society better.

**The painting is called Rootless Orchid by Zheng Sixiao(1241-1318).