“The choreography and the costuming, and the way the stories were told, it was just fabulous. I noticed was how much humour and fun there was in the way that the stories were told, which is probably not the way Australians generally tend to see China, so to see that there’s quite a strong history of that.”
“It was lovely seeing the traditional Chinese instruments when they were actually playing on their own or the piano backing them.”
“I thought the music was amazingly expressive and there was this whole range of emotions. At times, it was quite powerful and strong and quite loud, and other times—beautifully soft and peaceful.”
“A lot of us have some sense that there is a bigger person above us, that does have some sort of influence over what’s happening in our lives and I think it gives us some guidelines about the way that we think about our lives and the way we live our lives.”
“I think maybe having a set of principles for us to think about, is a good way to live. Thinking about others in our lives, you know, respect for other people.”
“From a Western point of view, you would see that as like a god, like a supreme being, and that’s probably something about different generations being able to refer to the principles that are espoused by that god.”
“I think it’s terrible to lose culture, I mean, that’s such an important part of our lives, where we come from. ... I think you’ve got to respect what people have done before. And your culture will become richer by developing that tolerance and respect, rather than just banning it. I think probably communism, because it dictated to everyone how they were to behave, meant that a whole lot of creativity and people coming up with creative new ideas, that was all stamped or lost. So for generations, it wasn’t growing and building. But it’s fantastic that this is being rebuilt.”
“In Australia we’re not persecuted for those sort of things, so it’s hard for us to believe that that could still be happening in the world, I mean, we do know certain cultures, but a big country like China?”
