We met Cooper Strange in Chengyang, South China. We wanted to meet musicians from the Dong minority and he was staying in that village to study Dong architecture. He has been a great help as an interpret, and a great man, as well as a friend. A week after we met, he wrote the following message to his friends and sent us a copy (song for survival).

Cooper to Isa & Xav, 09 10 2000

I often write stories for people back in the United States, and you were in my last story. The theme of the story was the strong cultural identity
of the Dong; I used the event of your recording their music to tell the story. I will tag the story onto this e-mail so you two can read it. I tried
to make it as accurate of possible.
I do hope the two of you have had a good time with family. I know what it is like to be without family. Nothing is happening here except for
school. Enjoy the story. Peace be with you, Cooper

Song of Survival
 Typical small town: I knew two French people on bicycle would arrive, what time, and from where, before we even met. Hang around in
Sanjiang County long enough, and you will have enough nationalities to convene a small United Nations. Most foreigners come to see
Chengyang Bridge and the immediate area, but Xavier and Isabelle had a slightly different agenda.
 
On bicycle, they have toured in Central America, southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, old Soviet republics, and China, sponsored
by several organizations back in France recording the music of minority people. A worn article, which Isabelle took from her bicycle for me
to read, created her dream to find the Dong people who lived in the rice-terraced mountains of southern China. Sharing a similar dream for
the Dong, I joined the effort.
 
"The music we record must be genuinely Dong," they repeated. The highly visited bridge close to where we spoke emphasized their petitions
for non-tourist affected music. They and I both knew tourists by the busload pay for musical performances here, and were anxious about my
assurances that the bridge—laden with trinkets—is a corridor into a genuine Dong world preserved by strong cultural identity. They trusted
me to set up a recording session with my friends there.
 
The shrill cacophony of the lusheng (and bamboo wind instrument) was too much for the cramped room and recording equipment. Xavier
doubted a usable recording. He was thankful for my help, but little could be done. When the musicians had left, the man of the
house—sharing a lack of inhibition to break forth in a public solo with many Chinese—decided to give a one man concert. As he began to
sing, playing the erhu (a Chinese stringed instrument), Xavier scrambled for the packed recording equipment. This was it.
 
The following hour, he played the erhu solo or accompanied the voice of his sister-in-law (my closest Dong friend).
Only after restricting walking on the wooden floors and children from turning the TV too high did the dream became
a reality. When Xavier allowed the musicians and their children to listen to what they had just made, they beamed
with joy as my friend told her daughter and son of the days when she sounded as good as the recording made her
sound. Locusts joined the dance of voice and erhu to create a song of survival; this song echoes the days I have seen
mothers show daughters proper dance steps and listened to a Dong peer proudly tell me stories he learned from the
old men. Everyday, Dong balance the appeal of city jobs and cultural tourism with the respect and love of their own
culture.

Cooper Strange
08 25 2000
chinacoop@bigfoot.com