Shinji Tanimura and Jacky Xue Zhiqian
I have to say, even though any sort of Asian collaboration makes me a little bit hopeful for the future of Asia, I love seeing Japanese-Chinese collabs a little bit more, because usually they are not motivated by money as much as say Korean-Chinese collabs. Never is this more apparent than at the Osaka Asia music Festival, under the direction of “Japanese music godfather” Shinji Tanimura, who also wanted to use it to collect for the 512 Sichuan Earthquake.
However the reason that idol singer Xue Zhiqian was invited was a very simple one: Shinji recently heard the melancholy ‘Zhong Guo Feng’ song, “Chuan Shuo”, or “Legend” which he liked very much, saying it was a hard to come across, excellent song. Xue was very moved at this, and said he hope to keep correspondence with Shinji.
Xue Zhiqian trying to look cool in front of his dressing room at Osaka
Chuan Shuo/Legend
This festival will be broadcasted on Dragon TV. Xue Zhiqian also has a new album coming out called Deeply in Love With You, which has two versions, a classical and modern version, which climbed the charts (note: what charts these are is anyone’s guess). The MV will be shown soon.
I had no idea who Shinji Tanimura is, but Wikipedia tells you quickly that apparently is is a famous Japanese artist with 63 albums under his belt and has been working to improve Sino-Japanese relations ever since a visit to China in the 80s. While Sino-Japanese relations definitely has its rough patches, I know everyone in China was very moved by the sincere Japanese response to the Sichuan earthquake, and Shinji Tanimura definitely gives a human face to that, along with many other Japanese that were featured during this time of crisis for China.
December 20, 2008 at 6:41 pm
[...] for both “Legend” and “Deeply in love with you,” which you can read about here and [...]
May 31, 2009 at 6:11 am
[...] Xue Zhiqian opened up the show with a performance of Let Go, one of the two tracks from his last album that he didn’t write. He also later on did a great rendition of a song he did write, his first hit, Ren Zhen De Xue. But the show was not about Xue Zhiqian, but two other artists. As suspected, Cotton Candy was great, but surprisingly, HIT-5 wasn’t bad either. A lot better than I thought their performance would be. [...]