Patriotism displays itself most powerfully under pressure

Berlin Fang muses on Lang Lang's motivations for playing "My Motherland" at the US state dinner for Hu Jintao:

At such a stage of his career, I wouldnt be surprised to see him look for other dimensions to venture into, even though I personally would have preferred that hed remain purely a pianist, to go down in history as the best among the best. But that does not seem to be the aspirations many Chinese artists have. Jackie Chan, for instance, is now devoting much of his time to mainland China and try hard to set up his image as a patriotic artist. His son was said to have given up his US citizenship. There might be some deeper reasons here why these people choose to do so. Were they snubbed by their western counterparts? Were they uncomfortable working in the west? I can only guess. Yet I do see an interesting pattern: Chinese artists would fight their ways to March to the US (), but once they made names for themselves, they tend to go back to China with all their accolades under their belts. The melting pot does not melt them.

Being perceived as a patriotic pianist does seem very important for Lang Lang . In 2008, when China first battled an earthquake and then dazzled the world with the Olympics, patriotism was a big deal. At this time, some in China doubted the authenticity of his proclaimed patriotism of this pianist who was seen often with foreign dignitaries. Lang Lang went so far as to scan his Chinese passport and post it online for people to check. He said he was and would remain to be a Chinese and he is proud of that.

Link picked by Danwei.org

!