Chapter 368: I really want to meet Mr. Why; that Gong Ying is my dream

French electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre was born into a musical family. His father, Maurice Jarre, won the Oscar for Best Original Score twice for *Lawrence of Arabia* and *Doctor Zhivago*.

And this wasn't his limit; scores for films like *The Tin Drum*, *Ghost*, and *Dead Poets Society* were also done by him. He could be said to be the most well-known French film score master in Hollywood.

With such a father, and being tall, handsome, and highly capable himself, his album *Oxygène* five years ago was a massive hit, becoming the most successful album in French music history with sales exceeding ten million copies. Jean-Michel Jarre was simply a darling of the heavens.

So, at 33, when many musicians were still struggling on the poverty line, he began this global tour, which even included mainland China, where European and American musicians had never set foot. He wanted to bring electronic music to China.

This process was all communicated between the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Chinese side. It took a long time to negotiate, and there would be five performances in China in total: two in Yanjing and three in Modu.

They started setting up the stage in front of the Forbidden City early on. His concerts were basically large-scale outdoor performances, utilizing various light and shadow effects.

So, many Guinness World Records for concert attendance belonged to him.

For this performance, he specifically chartered a plane to transport all the equipment needed for the concert to China.

Even many of the staff building the stage were French, because many electronic music devices had never been seen by the Chinese.

This China trip, in Jean-Michel Jarre's view, was both a missionary journey and a trip. He had long heard that China was a culturally great nation with deep history.

Since it was a trip, he also brought his wife, British actress Charlotte Rampling.

However, the two of them might have to wait until tomorrow to travel, because Jarre was invited to teach at the Central Conservatory of Music in the morning.

Electronic music was an emerging product, and the young Jarre was a master in this field, so the classroom was overcrowded.

The '77 and '78 graduating students of the composition department, such as Tan Dun, Qu Xiaosong, Chen Qigang, Liu Liu Suola, Guo Wenjing, and Ye Xiaogang, who would have significant weight in China's future music or literary circles, all came.

Liu Liu Suola started with a sentence: "Hey, this master is really young, and handsome too!"

Her boyfriend Qu Xiaosong didn't like hearing that: "He's just average, a bit worse than me."

Liu Liu Suola rolled her eyes, but still touched her boyfriend's big beard. Don't look at how much beard he had; he was actually not even thirty years old.

She just liked hairy men, though she heard that white men were also hairy.

Because Jarre's course had too many technical terms, he tried his best to lecture in English. He estimated that people studying music should have some level of English, and there was a translator anyway.

The conservatory's curriculum was still relatively backward. These first batch of music university students after the "buzz" had almost never heard of electronic music, and even if there were individuals who had heard of it through overseas channels, none had ever come into contact with it.

So, Jarre used the British-made EMS Synthi AKS synthesizer he brought to give the students at the Central Conservatory of Music a lesson on electronic music.

This was also China's first electronic music class.

When the sound of music rang out, language was no longer an obstacle.

After the initial flat reaction from everyone, Jarre finally got the enthusiastic response he wanted, which made him full of confidence for tonight's performance. In a great mood, he even invited students to come up and operate it.

30-year-old Chen Qigang raised his hand actively and was finally selected to go on stage to operate the machine.

This was truly too novel for university students who had previously only made sound through traditional Eastern and Western instruments like clarinets, pianos, and erhus. Through this machine, music seemed to have more possibilities.

Watching Chen Qigang fiddle with the machine, students like Tan Dun below the stage regretted it endlessly; they should have been more active just now.

When the course was about to end, Jarre invited all the students present to listen to his concert and distributed tickets on the spot. Although it was an outdoor concert, it would be fenced off, and only those with tickets could enter.

Finally, he asked a question: "What is the hottest music in China today?"

Tan Dun seized the opportunity, handed the original soundtrack cassette of *Mom, Love Me Once Again* he carried with him to Jarre, and told him in English: "This, all Chinese people are listening to it now!"

The cassette was all in Chinese, and there was also a Chinese woman. Jarre exclaimed, "Beautiful!"

His wife Charlotte Rampling stretched her neck and took a look. It was indeed a very typical Oriental beauty, petite and delicate.

Jean-Michel Jarre asked: "Are these songs sung by this woman?"

"No, no, no, she is China's most famous actress, Gong Ying. These pieces of music are all from a movie she starred in recently. Both the movie and the songs are very moving," Tan Dun explained.

*Mom* had been released for a month, and its influence was still continuing. Besides the eponymous cassette selling over two million copies with total sales exceeding ten million, even the dangers of gentamicin had been cycled through major newspapers over and over again.

Jarre looked like a "know-it-all": "Oh, China's Isabelle Adjani!"

At this time, he was already a bit infatuated with Adjani, this French Rose. Hearing this French praise, his British wife felt a little jealous.

Liu Liu Suola behind added in fairly proficient English: "Most of the works in this are created by Wei Ming, but he is actually a writer, a very famous one."

When mentioning "Wei Ming," she used Wei Ming's widely known English pen name, "".

Charlotte Rampling, who had just seen the article in *The Times* recently, immediately took the cassette from her husband's hand and looked at it. Unfortunately, she didn't understand Chinese and didn't know the corresponding Chinese characters.

Although she hadn't seen works like *The Lion King* before, she had heard the three songs created by him. John Lennon and Princess Diana were British celebrities, and also people she liked very much. Loving the house and its crow, she had a natural good impression of him.

Later, through that article, she learned about his thoughts and vision, and she became even more curious about this Oriental literary figure, even feeling a bit of admiration.

After leaving the conservatory, the two listened to this cassette in the car. It indeed had its merits and had strong emotional infectiousness, but the composition and arrangement style were relatively traditional, while electronic music was too avant-garde. Everyone wasn't on the same path.

During the rehearsal in the afternoon, when the Chinese staff said that many people from the music industry would attend the concert, Jarre's wife Charlotte Rampling had a flash of inspiration and asked: "Then will come? I really want to meet him!"

This was the person she knew best in the Chinese music industry, and perhaps also the Chinese literary and artistic figure most familiar to foreigners.

Hearing his wife thinking about a Chinese man, Jarre said deliberately: "If you say that, then I want to ask, will Gong Ying come?"

He also took out that cassette and pointed to Gong Ying on the cover: "It's her."

This couple looked at each other, and there seemed to be electricity in the air.

The staff smiled awkwardly: "Then we will go and contact them now. Please wait a moment, you two."

Finally, the call was made to the Overseas Chinese Apartment. Lao Lao Lao Wei answered; Xu Shufen was busy making dumplings and her hands were occupied.

"Hello, looking for Teacher Wei... Oh, my son has gone out... A concert? And a foreigner's! Inviting him as a VIP? But I can't find him either. Then you tell me, can I go on behalf of my son? If I'm not enough, add his mother..."

Wei Ming went to the concert site with Zhang Yimou, while Gong Ying set off from Tuanjiehu with Biaozi and Yanzi. They were also the earliest to arrive.

Today's audience was mostly military personnel because Jarre was neither a well-known musician in China, nor were the pieces he played famous. In order not to let the master lose face, the tickets were distributed to the military as a benefit, creating a feeling that there were many people.

Wei Ming and Zhang Yimou walked through the sea of green. When he saw Comrade Gong Ying, Old Zhang knew he was redundant at this moment and quickly gave up the seat next to Wei Ming.

Biaozi pulled Old Zhang to chat. He was quite satisfied with the wedding photos from back then and would use him again next time.

Also, Liu Zhenyun and his wife came from Peking University. They set off the earliest but arrived the latest.

The two proudly passed through the crowd outside the venue with their tickets and walked to the inner venue, sitting together with Wei Ming and Biaozi.

It wasn't Guo Jianmei's first time seeing Gong Ying in person, but when they met last time, Gong Ying wasn't this popular. Now she was so popular that she needed to wear a mask to hide, but because they were sitting relatively close, she recognized her at a glance.

Gong Ying knew she was Wei Ming's friend, the person she met on the first day she arrived in Yanjing. She even pulled down her mask to greet her before putting it back on to chat.

Guo Jianmei looked at these friends today. Gong Ying and Wei Ming sat together; the phrase "talented man and beautiful woman" was materialized at this moment.

While Biaozi and Yanzi were a bit like "jackals, wolves, tigers, and leopards." In Guo Jianmei's heart, Huang Jiaoyan was the image of the "mother tiger" in *Heroes Born Since Ancient Times*.

As for Zhang Yimou, he was a movable Terracotta Warrior.

However, after chatting for a few sentences, Guo Jianmei found that Yanzi just had a straightforward personality and high combat power; she wasn't fierce at all, and she would even radiate maternal brilliance.

Actually, among the three women, Guo Jianmei was the one Gong Ying and Huang Jiaoyan envied the most. A top student from the Peking University Law Department! After graduation, she would be a lawyer or a judge. This was the pillar of the country!

And watching the six of them in pairs, Zhang Yimou couldn't help but miss his wife in Xi'an.

But comparing himself with these three, he felt his own wife was too ordinary and plain, a bit embarrassing to show, and couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed.

This unwilling psychology made him a bit alert, and then he looked up and saw his Uncle Jiefang.

Old Zhang was just about to tell Wei Ming, when he saw Lao Lao Lao Wei shake his head at him, and then he took his wife and disappeared into another corner of the auditorium. They were both very sensible parents.

Before the concert officially started, facing Liu Zhenyun and Biaozi's questions about electronic music, Wei Ming explained it to them.

"In short, it's a form of music that uses plugged-in instruments or mechanical equipment, or even computers to make sound. It sounds a bit different from a concert played with musical instruments."

It was precisely this Jarre China trip that made mainland musicians realize the charm of electronic music, which led to Xu Jingqing's bold attempt in *Journey to the West*.

"Then which kind do you like?" Zhang Yimou asked.

"I definitely prefer music played with conventional instruments," Wei Ming said, "but if you ask me which kind of concert I like to watch, I might prefer an electronic music concert."

Soon Zhang Yimou knew why, and understood why Wei Ming invited him to watch it, because this thing wasn't just for listening; the key was that it could really be watched!

Similar to other concert procedures, the female host from CCTV went on stage to introduce the achievements of French electronic music master Jean-Michel Jarre.

This time there was no speech from leaders. Soon, Jarre, wearing a handsome suit, appeared brilliantly amidst light and smoke effects, having a dreamlike feeling.

This scene deeply shocked Zhang Yimou, who liked to play with light and shadow. He knew for the first time that outdoor performances could be played like this! ===== CHAPTER 369 =====