Casual Thoughts from a brief visit to Bonn
I The first day I arrived at Bonn, though late, I went to see the Rhine, immediately. However, to my disappointment: Its banks, straight, laid with stones, finished by a flat concrete surface, fenced by iron rails. So artificial, reminding me the Niagara Falls I have seen. And the water looks gray and dirty.
But how could I have expected it differently? Walking by its side on the second day, I saw more clearly, in the rain, a river, heavily exploited by humanity: Julius Caesar first explored the Rhine as early as 55 BC. Viewing it as the outermost boundary of civilization, the Romans had built fortresses, bridges, dams and canals, over its eight hundred mile reach. Since then, the Rhine has often been a frontier of human confrontation. The fires and smokes in A Bridge too Far, and the popularity of the song, Die Wacht am Rhein, (popularized further, perhaps, by Casablanca & Grand Illusion) all readily serve as testimonies. And today, the Rhine is still an important corridor, economically. So I decided to forget about the unnaturalness of the Rhine.
II Bonn is more interesting, I think, for two music talents. It is where one's life began, and another's ended. Both went mad, one outwardly, the other inwardly. But, which genius, of an extreme sensitive nature, with penetrating intelligence, will not, in such a world, facing such a human race?
On the northwest corner of the city edge, I looked for Schumann. In a quiet place, shaded by thick green, lilacs sweet, the restless soul of Schumann finally finds peace, with his beloved. Leaving a bouquet of purple stocks, I thought of his Florestan & Eusebius, and his sublime literary & musical ideas. Who else can be more sensitive than a musician & poet? I would happily give up my sanity for his fantastic madness.
In the house where Beethoven first announced his existence, I paused before three of his portraits. I had, once, tried to trace his footprints on Vienna streets, but they were so extensive and excursive that I got lost. Now, with these portraits, I am able to connect all his steps. Once again, I loaded my Onkyo with his music CDs, from the early piano concertos and sonatas to nine symphonies and late string quartets. It's true there is more sweetness in Pathétique, but I don't hear rage or fury in the Ninth Symphony or Große Fuge. They are only more grand and more profound, which, I doubt, can be matched by any other classics, or ever reached again by the contemporaries. His music is simply the greatest, and will always be, to me.			1806
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III Also in Beethoven's birth house, unexpectedly, I got to see a piece of document about Chinese history. It's a painting in a Japanese paper, depicting an attack by Japan and the United Kingdom in 1914, on Qingdao (in Shandong, my home province), described as a small fishing village then, controlled by Germans. The exhibition, of course, is not to show Chinese history, but tell music (including Beethoven's), as an important part of the lives of German prisoners in the war camps in Japan, after being defeated. Today, Qingdao has become a prosperous charming modern city, famous for its beer production (started by Germans) and European-styled Oceanside houses. How should we evaluate a historical event objectively then, given history is a web of entangled events, so complex and always path-dependent?
IV I spent my last day in Bonn sauntering on its streets. It's the first day of May, warm and sunny. But no store was open even after eleven. I wondered why, not knowing Germans celebrate International Workers' Day, the same as Chinese. I window-shopped - the furniture on display looked very modern. I listened to a man play violin, and a few ''super models'' posing behind a window, backdropt his performance. I visited the stands at a market next to an old church, Münster Cathedral. I watched people come and go, while having a red berry pudding besides Beethoven. Strolling/bicycling, stopping at a booth for an ice-cream, drinking&dining in the open air, having sun, picnicking or playing on the university lawn, carrying babies, chatting, laughing or doing nothing... They were no different from families on holidays in any other places. And a family of three asked, very politely, if they could sit on the bench where I was sitting. Then, I thought of: The young man at Frankfurt airport who explained me train schedules nicely and patiently with a shy smile so obvious. The young girl, I met on the tram to Bonn, who paid my fare with her badge. We walked over a bridge together to find my lodge. She didn't talk much, but was very gentle and pretty. The middle-aged man in a gift store who told me, the souvenir I was eyeing, an ornate beer kettle, though has the name of Bonn on it, really featuring a southern region. His voice was very soft, eyes looking elsewhere. All these seemed ''un-German'' to me - I was very ignorant, and had only known: Nietzsche's Will to Power, Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, Beethoven's Eroica, and of course, Adolf Hitler... So, what, indeed, define a nation? how much is it defined by the few, and how much by its people?
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