I am trying to remember now where it was, and when it was, that it hit me. Was it during my first walk along the Bund in Shanghai in 2005? Was it amid the smog and dust of Chonqing, listening to a local Communist Party official describe a vast mound of rubble as the future financial centre of south-west China? That was last year, and somehow it impressed me more than all the synchronised razzamatazz of the Olympic opening ceremony in Beijing. Or was it at Carnegie Hall only last month, as I sat mesmerised by the music of Angel Lam, the dazzlingly gifted young Chinese composer who personifies the Orientalisation of classical music? I think maybe it was only then that I really got the point about this decade, just as it was drawing to a close: that we are living through the end of 500 years of western ascendancy.
我正在努力回想，自己是在什麼地方、什麼時間頓悟的。是2005年第一次在上海外灘漫步的時候？是在塵霧籠罩的重慶市，聽到當地一名共產黨官員將堆積如山的碎石描述爲未來中國西南金融中心的時候？那就發生在去年，但不知爲何，它比同時期北京奧運會開幕式的熱力四射給我的印象還要深刻。抑或就是上月在卡內基音樂廳(Carnegie Hall)聆聽才華橫溢的中國青年作曲家林安淇(Angel Lam)的作品時？她是古典音樂東方化的代表。我想可能就是那個時候，就在這個十年接近尾聲的時候，我才真正領悟：我們正在經歷500年西方統治的最後階段。