February may be over, but content Marches on.
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"Welcome, young angel. Allow me to offer you this cup of... wait.
Did you just manifest in my Tether wearing shoes? This is China, and
you are in a holy place. Remove them at once. Good. Now go and give
them away. I'll be waiting."
"Found the migrant workers' barracks, did you? That's very good.
You took the time to find someone who needed them. Your file tells me
you worked among migrant workers in the American Southwest for a while.
Do you find conditions comparable? No, I imagined not. Bit of an
eye-opener, then. Consider it your first test passed, and your first
lesson."
"And now for the second. Be seated."
"If you are going to be effective in this part of the world, you
are going to need a familiarity with certain subtleties. This is a
standard cheap tea of the type casually consumed by the workers you
just met. It is here both for introduction and for comparison. *This*
is a 25-year aged Yibang pu-erh. Yibang is both the name of a ritual
musical instrument, a percussive wood block -- your Choir tends to feel
that sound -- and one of the Six Tea Mountains..."
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The Symphony doesn't run on a heptatonic scale, you know. Across
the oceans from Los Angeles and San Francisco, across the continents
from Notre Dame and La Coste, the Middle Kingdom and the nations around
it house nearly half the world's population and a War as hot and cold
as the struggles in Hollywood and Wall Street. Knowing which parts of
humanity are common to all such regions, and familiarity with the parts
unique to the locale, is a skill perhaps even more important for those
Servitors with experience elsewhere, than for those celestials who have
steeped in the waters of Asia for their entire Earthly careers. Join
us, then, as we explore a continent and its peoples as seen through the
eyes of Heaven and Hell. To begin with, we consider:
Angels and their Instruments
You've probably seen the standard classification, which is based
on Western musical forms. China has its own way of classifying musical
sounds: the Ba Yin, or Eight Sounds, based on the Eight Trigrams and
associated to Confucian ritual music. What sound would a Chinese
musician be reminded of as he got to know a typical angel of a given
Choir?
Seraphim: The sound of "silk," plucked or bowed, associated with Li,
the trigram of Fire at the top of the ba gua, personifies the Most Holy
and their refined bearing as well as their place atop the Heavenly
order.
Cherubim: The patient guardians might remind our observer of Kun, the
trigram of Earth. Its attribute of devotion well describes the
Cherubim, who would surely take good care of the fragile "clay"
instruments of that symbol, such as the ocarina.
Ofanim: From the east comes Zhen, Thunder, and the excitations and
revolutions of its trigram. The many flutes, oboes, and whistles of
this sound, "bamboo," can keep up as the Wheels dash across the Earth.
Elohim: Stiff and cautious, carefully shaped and tuned, every move of
the Elohim is designed to serve Heaven, of the trigram Qian. Its
strange sound of "stone," in thick chimes like the bianqing, suits
their care.
Malakim: Metal seems to follow these angels around, and our Chinese
observer might very likely agree that "metal" the Malakim shall wear.
Bells ring out, cymbals crash, gongs sound the alarm or the call to
war. It is, perhaps, no coincidence to him that Dui is the trigram in
the West.
Kyriotates: If the Elohim were a little strange, the Kyriotates are
downright bizarre. The internal resonances of the free reed
instruments like the sheng of the "gourd" sound seem to fit them, with
their chambers radiating entire chords at once.
Mercurians: The gentle trigram of Xun is associated with the sound of
"wood," with its clappers that frame the ritual piece at its beginning
and ending. Humility and service suits the diplomats of Heaven well.
There is one last sound. The trigram Kan, of water, lies at the bottom
of the ba gua, and is said to seek the depths. Its trigram is a yang
constrained between two yin, and it bespeaks danger, a swift river
flowing down a valley. Its sound comes from corporeal creatures:
"skin," the primitive atonal beat of drums. He might ask whether there
was a Choir that fit this personality. But doubtless he would be
rebuffed.
William