Chinese Star Tunes In to U.S. Pop

What pop star would forsake incessant adulation simply to study the musical rudiments of a far-away land? Well, one who traditionally has been distanced from the effect pop culture has on music. One who has a ceaseless yearning for amassing a stockpile of varied stylistic approaches. One whose cosmopolitan tendencies were developed at an early age. One Ming Ying Zhu.

In China, where she was born, raised and spent all of her 38 years, Ming Ying Zhu is a household name. Sales of her records and tapes flourish; she is the unquestioned centerpiece of Chinese pop. But for 3 1/2 years, she’s only been at home twice, and short visits they were.

Since 1986, Ming has been attending classes at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. She is one of the first artists to receive a leave of absence sanctioned by the Chinese government. And she’s thrilled.

“I wanted to study American music styles for so long,” she bursts, sitting in a Berklee office on a spring afternoon. “When I was young, I would hear American songs on the radio of the middle of the night; they sounded very far away, faint, but I thought the music was beautiful. At that point of course, I had no idea what they were saying, but now I know it was ‘Sing, sing a song. . . .’ ”

One wouldn’t ordinarily assume that the Carpenters could inspire that kind of fervor, but to Ming’s virgin ears creamy Western pop had its own attraction.

She had been immersed in the arts all her life. At 13, she participated in the Peking Dance Academy, where rigorous training later won her a slot (handpicked by the Chinese minister of culture) in the highly heralded Oriental Song and Dance Company. She became a key member of the troupe, which emphasized her strengths in ballet and Chinese folk dance. Incessant study earned her the status of first-class artist, an enviable position designated by the government only after years of constant work.

“We were poor when I was young,” she states unabashedly. “Our school had a piano, but the lessons were too expensive. So I would look through the keyhole and watch how the others were being taught, pick up the way to do it, you know, do-re-mi.

“It was my goal to do everything well; I love music so much. I’d be the first and last one in the studio: morning/night, morning/night. It would be me, a loaf of bread and some water. I just wanted to study. I’d get up at 5 in the morning, and even before I’d wash, I’d listen to music. My purpose wasn’t to be famous, but to learn.”

Yet after constant touring of many European, Asian and African countries, her renown grew. Ming became a cultural ambassador. In 1981, she acted on the advice of friends and began a career as a pop singer (with a stage show that also utilized her extensive dance talents) and success came virtually overnight. Yet she couldn’t shake her longings to learn more about Western pop.

“I was too busy to come to America before,” she says, “but that’s what I wanted. I studied English with a teacher at home, but didn’t really understand it. You couldn’t buy Western music, except on the black market, where there would be tapes of American pop going around. I got some, and when I sang a few of the songs at my concerts, it would be with a cracked pronunciation. But the people would clap immediately, more so than for the Chinese songs. The feeling in the music made them happy; your melodies are very different from ours.

“I only knew a few songs,” Ming admits, “and didn’t know them very well. That’s when I knew I had to go. All I kept thinking was ‘Who can teach me?’

“It’s a long story,” she says about her seven-year quest, “but finally I was granted time to come to Berklee (in 1986). People told me: ‘Ming, you’re famous already, you don’t have to start from scratch!’ but I knew I needed the basics.”

Despite attempts to decipher New England-ese, her English retains its tentative moments. “When I first got here, I felt like one of the people walking on the moon,” she explains, “bobbing up and down, can’t stand up straight. The way people think over here took a long time to get used to. In China it’s very different, more square. America isn’t square.”

Ming the workaholic felt at home with Berklee’s intensive curriculum. The end of this month finds her finishing a four-year voice program in three years. “I started learning the first day,” she laughs, “there’s so much more to the music than I thought. Different kinds, styles; my favorite is the light rock and jazz. I like Motown, the black music. There are so many differences between the musics in America.”

Obviously, changes were everywhere. Ming had to leave some of her background behind to embrace the vigor of American pop. “The first semester I was here, a classmate of mine was singing,” she laughs, “he was going crazy, moving around, shaking. I felt shy to watch him. In China, it’s very formal; we just stand there and sing. I felt old. The teacher said: ‘Ming, don’t be shy.’ Now I do better. I let the feelings inside me out, and it seems natural. Especially when I sing some jazz.”

How much has the education affected her style? During her only visits home, she recorded two new records. “The producer heard what I was singing and stopped me in the middle of a song. He said ‘Ming, stop, you have changed. You got a lot from America!’ I said: ‘Really?’ My music is very different now.”

Her frustrations include the way musicians, and artists in general, have to struggle in America. “Here, if you’re not famous, then you might wind up doing something else, working in a computer company. That doesn’t seem right. People spend years practicing, but can’t find a job. In China, everybody in the arts has a job given to them from the government. We never worry about that.”

At home Ming receives a constant salary from the government, regardless of the huge revenue generated by sales of her 5 million recordings. “If I’d sold the same amount of tapes in America, I’d be rich like Madonna. But in China no one can get rich.”