A Chinese band brings glad tidings

At Christmastime in the remote mountain valleys of Fujian, it is

possible to pick up the live sounds of a brassy approximation of

Silent Night or Onward Christian Soldiers or even Jingle Bells.

Each year at this time, the 15-member brass band of the Hutou Christian Church are on the march. Farmers, construction workers, and small business owners temporarily leave their jobs to assemble the only brass band, amateur or professional, anyone in this region has heard about.

They even have a new CD.

China is not known for participatory Christmas celebrations. But in

these terraced Fujian mountain villages, where the lines between

official and unofficial churches are blurred beyond recognition, well,

Christians will be Christians when December rolls by.

The Hutou church was officially founded in 1983, though it started with more than a thousand Chinese unofficial believers. As pastor Li Qing Ling tells it, the band is a gift. The church considered what it could give to their city of 100,000 and decided it should be something different that everyone would enjoy.

We decided to have a brass band because in the countryside, you need a sound that people can hear. This is a very open area, he says.

Music plays a large role in Hutou services; members proudly point to a drum set and electronic keyboard in their 800-seat sanctuary. But to

drum up, so to speak, a brass band - took nights of planning, months of fundraising, lining up the proper talent, and sewing uniforms.

After three years of work, the church sent a delegation in 1996 to a

music shop in Quanzhou, on the coast. They purchased 12 instruments.

Each year for the next five years, they bought another. Progress was

slow since band members first needed to learn how to play the

instruments they signed up for.

Yet now the Hutou Christian Church Brass Band tours with three

trombones, two snare drums, a bass drum, two clarinets, three trumpets, a cymbal, and three alto horns. A saxophone was purchased this year, but you can’t hear it yet. The sax player is still learning how to blow his jazzy riffs.

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