The first panel discussion at the ongoing two-day US-China Forum on the Arts and Culture featured two of the world's most famous American-Chinese - master cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Joy Luck Club author Amy Tan. The subject of their discussion was "Growing up in Two Worlds". Director for the Asia Society Melissa Chiu put it all into perspective with her introduction, when she referenced the Chinese Diaspora, from the earliest emigrants to the most recent. Chiu described her childhood as "eating lamb and peas with rice on the side" in her native Australia. Since Chiu's move to the United States 10 years ago, her work has focused on Chinese art, artists and their diaspora and international influence. Her most recent book sums it up, Breakout: Chinese Art Outside China, published in 2007. Former journalism dean Orville Schell was the moderator for the discussion. He is also the main brain behind the forum, which he mooted and started preparing for two years ago. Schell, Tan and Ma are all in bicultural marriages. Both the cellist and the author married Western spouses, while Schell's wife is Chinese. This common denominator raised both laughs and curiosity from the floor and added depth to the discussion of how the couples lead culturally diverse but harmonious lives. Tan and Ma turned the tables on their moderator and started interrogating him on how he met and pursued his wife the first time he came to China. But it was the narratives from Tan and Ma that captivated as they talked about the Chinese upbringings they had - although Ma spent his early childhood in Paris, where he was born; and Tan survived an itinerant lifestyle in her early years with a mother who believed in moving from place to place. Tan said her mother was typically Chinese and described how her mother wanted her children to grow up in "American circumstances" with "Chinese characteristics", a set of conditions that often set up conflicts for the teenage girl. For Yo-Yo Ma, it was the dilemma of demands, when his father wanted him to be a good musician as well as an obedient son. It took him a long time to reconcile that you needed to "exercise individual will to become a good musician". He finally acknowledged he was indeed a musician. Ma says the breakthrough came when he was 49. He is now 56. The snapshots from Tan and Ma may provide clues to better understanding - as the world grows smaller and there is more cross-cultural integration - artists and their audiences. For now at least, they have set the stage for two days during which American and Chinese talent will seek common ground in music, film, dance, art, photography and food. It is a heady mix.
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