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Appalachian banjoists and Chinese dulcimer player create the coolest musical mashup ever

As one person said, "This is literally what America is all about."

Courtesy of Cathy Fink/TikTok

"From China to Appalachia" blends musical instruments and styles in perfect harmony.

One of the best things to come out of social media is the proliferation of musical mashup videos. We've seen Irish step dancers tapping to Beyonce's country music, Scottish bagpipes played with Indian drums, the Star Wars "Imperial March" with a hip-hop twist, and other blends of music and culture coming together in beautiful harmony.

Just when we think we've seen and heard it all, we get something entirely new: two banjo players from Appalachia and a yangqin (Chinese hammered dulcimer) player jamming out together. The three women—Cathy, Marcy, and Chao Bob—sit with their instruments on a screened-in porch, and once they introduce themselves and start to play, something magical happens.

@cathybanjo

Appalachian Tunes with Chinese Accent- FROM CHINA TO APPALACHIA #chinatoappalachia #fromchinatoappalachia #banjo #yangqin #CELLO-BANJO #cathyfink #MarcyMarxer #chaotian #improvisation #worldmusic #GLOBALMUSIC #CULTURALDIPLOMACY #FYP @broskireport #TAKEACHANCE #MAKEMUSIC @chaotianmusic #collaboration @_world.music #grammy

The sound of the banjos and the yangqin are surprisingly similar and blend well together, and as the musicians play, the style alternates between traditional American folk and traditional Chinese music. Back and forth in perfect balance, the musicians showcase one another and then unite as one, creating a moving effect that's difficult to put into words.

People in the comments summed it up, though:

"This is literally what America is all about to me."

"Cultural exchange is so beautiful idk why anyone would discourage it."

"This is what America should be, a true melting pot! Fantastic music, ladies!"

  - YouTube  youtu.be  

"I love how you can hear the Appalachian music and the Chinese influences, it doesn't overshadow or overwhelm each other and it goes really well together."

"It feels like a conversation or a dance."

"It sounds like a river flowing into a waterfall."

"Music is the universal language."

With nearly 3.5 million views on Cathy Fink's TikTok page, the mashup clearly—and literally—struck a chord with people. But how did this "From China to Appalachia" collaboration happen in the first place?

Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer were already a Grammy award-winning duo focused on American Roots music. For the past 20 years, Fink has served as a mentor and advisor to Artists in Residence at the Music Center at Strathmore in North Bethesda, Maryland.

"It is the only PAC of its kind, nurturing the art and career of six young musicians (16 to 32) per year with business, professional and artistic workshops," Fink shares with Upworthy. Chao Bob, a classically trained virtuoso on the yangqin, was one of the Artists in Residence in 2017, and Fink invited her to a jam session with her, Marcy, and a few other musicians.

"Chao came to the jam session with her limited English, thinking it was about food!" Fink shares. "She didn’t understand why we told her to bring her instrument. In a short period of time, she realized there was no written music and everyone was truly improvising with each other. She said she fell in love with that and never looked back. She also fell in love with the sound of southern American old-time music with fiddle tunes, songs, modal sounds and harmonies."

 American folk music, banjo, fiddle, chinese hammered dulcimer, yangqin The banjo, fiddle, and yangqin are traditional instruments in America and China.Photo credit: Canva

The women know their musical collaborate has the potential to bring people together. "We, all three of us, believe in people-to-people diplomacy," Fink says, "in cultural diplomacy, in the fact that we're all humans and individuals who want the same love and peace and happiness together."

Fink shares that the trio played a few shows together, including a big show in Ashe County, North Carolina, to see if the idea of interweaving their music would work for a Southern audience. "It was amazing," she says. "With that stamp of approval, we continued building repertoire, skills to play music from each other’s cultures, and performing more widely."

 chinese music, appalachian music, folk music, from china to appalachia Cathy Fink & Marcy Marxer with Chao Tian take their "From China to Appalachia" music on tour.Courtesy of Cathy Fink

The trio has toured and made a CD which led to an NPR piece on Morning Edition, BillBoard top bluegrass charts, and folk charts. Their album, From China to Appalachia, is available on streaming services and from their website here. The group will be touring again this summer.

"This summer/fall we’ll be performing at the Old Songs Festival (New York), NPR’s Mountain Stage (West Virginia), Winnipeg Folk Festival, Torrance Cultural Arts (California), Lotus World Music Festival and a home-town show at the The Music Center at Strathmore on November 9 (Maryland)," Finks shares. "We’re working on a new album and there are more new adventures coming!"

Definitely looking forward to that. You can find the tour schedule and join their mailing list at cathymarcy.com.

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Turning coal country into tech country shows the power of Kentuckians working together.

Coding might become the new mining.

True
Microsoft

When you think of places where technology rules, does rural eastern Kentucky come to mind?

When I think tech, I think Silicon Valley — an area that's such a tech bubble (and occasionally a parody of itself), there's even a TV show about it. And then you have other obvious hubs: the New Yorks, L.A.s and Tokyos of the world. The tech world loves cities.

GIF via "Silicon Valley"/HBO.

But a push to create a high-tech ecosystem is happening in an area you'd least expect: the heart of coal country.

In a new initiative called TechHire Eastern Kentucky (TEKY), students are getting paid to learn to code, with the hope of launching the area onto the tech map.

Yep, getting paid to learn to code. How unheard of is that?

The program is equipping local residents with the skills they need to turn their deeply struggling economy around with technology jobs. And with the support of local governments, Congressional leaders, tech businesses, schools, and community leaders, it just might work.

All images via Interapt, used with permission.

TEKY works like this: Eastern Kentucky residents apply to the program. If selected, they are paid to learn to code at a local community college in a rigorous 16-week program. Upon successful completion of class and a 16-week paid internship that follows, students are offered full-time employment at the technology company Interapt, which is expanding from Louisville into eastern Kentucky.

The program hopes to answer the question: Can you train a tech workforce and build a tech ecosystem where one doesn't exist?

It's hard enough to build a tech business in a major city, let alone in the remote region of eastern Kentucky, a part of the country that's known for getting left behind.

What was once an area booming with the coal industry, eastern Kentucky and other parts of Appalachia continue to deeply struggle as that industry fades out. Poverty rates and percentages of working poor are higher there than the rest of the country. And wages, employment rates, and education continue to lag behind.

But Ankur Gopal, a fellow Kentuckian and the CEO of Interapt, thinks coding might be the way to bring jobs back into the area — and keep them there.

When Gopal first entertained the idea of expanding his tech businesses into eastern Kentucky, he knew it was the opposite direction a tech company would normally take. But he was impressed by the hardworking, loyal, and passionate people who loved their communities there, and he wanted to give it a shot.

"That’s the beauty of technology and the opportunity it brings," Gopal said after the program launch. "If you have connectivity and the skillset, you can work wherever you want and make a very good living. We intend to make that a reality."

Removing barriers is critical to making that reality a success — and one of the most obvious barriers is the cost of education. The fact that students get paid to learn through TEKY, instead of the other way around, shows an incredibly thoughtful approach.

"You can’t learn something hard if you’re worrying about where your family’s next meal is coming from," Gopal says.

When the program's first class started in August 2016, almost 1,000 candidates applied for the 50 open spots. The second round of the program is expected to start in 2017, and they aim to continue the program until at least 400 jobs have been filled.

Coding skills aren't only helpful for tech jobs. They help lay a foundation for the ability to learn quickly and constantly — and that can be applied anywhere.

But just like any profession, coding isn't for everyone. For those students that decide it isn't right for them, TEKY has resources to guide them down other career paths through local partnerships they've developed.

That may be the biggest accomplishment of all of this: everyone working together. A community that's willing to address the problem of an economically deteriorating region — and coming together to find solutions for it. That's how you get things done.

Gopal hopes this initiative will spark interest with other tech companies and industries, helping local economies to grow and prosper. It's an endeavor that's rewarding from all angles. As he puts it:

"If you give people an opportunity, you’d be surprised at how well they shine."

Heroes

18 spellbinding pictures that tell the story of coal country's past and present.

Coal has been part of America's past for just about as long as there's been an America.

It was the energy source du jour for the Industrial Revolution. In the 1300s, some Native Americans used it for cooking fuel. And the first North American coal deposits may even predate the dinosaurs!

But if we're talking America the post-colonial country, then nowhere was it more important than in the Appalachian Mountains, in places like Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

Unfortunately, what coal mining looked like back then and what coal mining looks like now are stunningly different. According a new study, coal mining is actually changing the entire landscape of Appalachia.

So let's jump in the Wayback Machine to 1930s Appalachia and see what things were like (and how things have changed for the better and worse) in 18 pictures:

1. Everyone looked dapper as hell back in 1935.


Sunday, 1935. Image from The New York Public Library.

2. Including this ridiculously photogenic schoolteacher.

Schoolteacher in Red House, West Virginia, 1935. Image from The New York Public Library.

3. Who may have actually taught in this somewhat photogenic classroom.

School in Red House, 1935. Image from The New York Public Library.

4. Check out the awesome kid in the front. Respect.

Schoolchildren of Omar, West Virginia. Date unknown. Image from The New York Public Library.

Unfortunately, the kids in this picture and the one above it probably wouldn't have been seen in the same classroom. Segregation was still very much a thing in the '30s, which meant that many public spaces, including schools, were divided by race. Things would largely remain this way until the mid-1960s.

5. Outside of school and work, people went to the movies – which cost a dime.

Movie theater in Omar, 1935. Image from The New York Public Library.

6. They entertained themselves by playing music.

Musicians in Maynardville, Tennessee, 1935. Image from Ben Shahn/Wikimedia Commons.

Appalachia is home to some of America's richest musical traditions, including country and bluegrass.

7. They even "pirated" football games.

Men watching football in Star City, West Virginia, 1935. Image from The New York Public Library.

If by "pirated" you mean "watched through a fence while nobody was looking."

8. This is Williamson, West Virginia, in 1935.

Image from The New York Pubic Library.

It's changed a lot since then.

9. This is Williamson in 2008.

Image from Flo Night/Wikimedia Commons.

Williamson is home to the Williamson Rail Yard, which serviced the many coal mines in the region.

10. Coal miners worked long hours in dark, dangerous mines.

Coal miners in Kentucky, 1935. Image from The New York Public Library.

11. Coal mining was tough, dangerous work.

Slate pickers separating the coal from rock in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Date unknown. Image from The New York Public Library.

Coal mining required workers to do backbreaking labor in cramped conditions, often deep underground.

12. But it was honorable work and, for many people, the best way to provide for their families.

A coal miner with his family in 1938. Image from The New York Public Library.

13. As much respect as we have for coal miners of the past, it can be hard to support the industry today. Because in 1935, coal mining looked like this:

Image from The New York Public Library.

14. But now, coal mining looks like this:

GIF from Smithsonian Channel/YouTube.

See how flat that is? A lot of modern coal companies use a technique known as mountaintop removal mining to get at the remaining coal seams tucked deep into the mountains.

15. Mountaintop removal mining is exactly what it sounds like: blasting away the entire top of a mountain to get to the coal below.

Image from ilovemountains.org/Flickr.

This practice is widespread throughout coal country. In fact, a new study found that the area of study became 40% flatter after mountaintop removal mining. This has a lot of people worried about the effects on the geology and ecosystems in the area.

"Even if we stopped mountaintop mining tomorrow, what kind of landscape is going to be left behind?" said study author Emily S. Bernhardt.

16. Even more worrisome is what mountaintop removal mining may be doing to the water.

Image from ilovemountains.org/Flickr.

Excess rock and refuse often ends up dumped in gigantic piles in the valleys and streams below the mountain. Heavy metals and chemicals can leach out of the pile into the waterway, affecting any animals or people downstream.

17. The hardworking men and women who've done this job for generations deserve respect. But ... there's a better way.

Coal is an intimate part of Appalachia's history and the last thing we want to do is claim that it's not important. But Appalachia has a long history of renewables too. They've had hydroelectric power plants for over 100 years!

A wind farm in Somerset, Pennsylvania. Image from Jeff Kubina/Flickr.

Even though coal production has been falling in the last few years, many coal companies are indicating that they want to double down on mountaintop removal mining.

But now that we know how harmful coal mining can be for the environment and have the technology and wherewithal to do something different, we can and should be looking elsewhere for our electricity.

18. Then maybe, just maybe, we can leave the dangerous job of coal mining and its effects on the environment where they belong: in the past.

Coal miners in Williamson, 1935. Image from The New York Public Library.

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She never heard people bad-mouth Appalachia until she left. Now she's making a film in response.

Sometimes telling a simple story is a revolutionary act.

"Where ya from?" is a question Tijah Bumgarner got a lot after she left her home state.

"West Virginia," she'd reply, when she was waiting tables in Los Angeles and folks noticed her accent. And she knew the follow-up before it was asked. "They'd joke around like look down to see if I was wearing shoes and of course ask me if I'd married my cousin."

"They'd joke around like look down to see if I was wearing shoes and of course ask me if I'd married my cousin."

After a while, the 20-year-old started to respond with a prepackaged quip. When asked where she's from, she'd say, "West Virginia, but I have all my teeth and I'm wearing shoes, so don't bother asking about that."

It was an understandable defense mechanism — making fun of herself before anyone else could — but looking back, Tijah says she never "recognized what that really meant or that I was really just perpetuating this stereotype in a way."


Tijah moved to California in her 20s to attend film school. Image courtesy of Tijah Bumgarner.

Stereotypes of Appalachians as "helpless hillbillies" are pretty common — and they've been around for centuries.

What are the dominant stories that come out of West Virginia and other parts of central Appalachia these days?

On the one hand, you've got plenty of movies and shows about ignorant, backward, and "other" mountain people. Like the "Wrong Turn" series of six (yeah, SIX) movies about inbred, cannibalistic hillbillies in West Virginia.

Those types of stories can be traced back to the late 1800s, when travel writers from the North would come to the mountains to write what was essentially fiction about the isolated people there who were oh-so-against progress.

Poor, white sharecroppers in Appalachia, circa 1936. Image by Walker Evans.

This narrative took the fact that folks were living off the land and twisted it around against them — because surely anyone who doesn't want their land stripped away from them for resource extraction must be against progress, right? Right.

And then, of course, you've got news stories heavy with tragedy: chemical spills, poverty, drug use, mine disasters.

"Of course it's sorrowful. Of course we're losing a lot. Of course they're blowing up mountains. But there are other things happening too."

Appalachia is certainly known for its stories about coal mining. Photos by Mario Tama/Getty Images, altered.

"Of course [the stories of devastation] are important," Tijah stresses. "But they're not the only stories. Not everything has to be just about devastation, about sorrow for our land. Of course it's sorrowful. Of course we're losing a lot. Of course they're blowing up mountains. But there are other things happening too. So even that's pushing this narrative of helplessness in a way."

This summer, Tijah's working on a new kind of story: one that's simply about growing up.

Her story is a simple one, a relatable one, and maybe even a cute one, about a 14-year-old girl growing up in Tijah's hometown of Meadow Bridge, West Virginia.

A road sign coming into Meadow Bridge. Image courtesy of Tijah Bumgarner.

"People can definitely relate to it. It's a universal coming of age story," says Tijah. "You have this awkward 14-year-old girl who's made fun of at school. So what I'm adding [to the narrative] is like, hey, kids that grow up here, we go through the same things as [everywhere else]. Sure, we may think we're a little different, but really, we all kind of go through these things. Y'know, we all have a crush, we all have a first kiss. I'm hoping that people can relate to that."

Tijah as a kid growing up in Meadow Bridge. Images courtesy of Tijah Bumgarner.

Tijah knows that there's no way "Meadow Bridge" could single-handedly reverse all the stereotypes people have about central Appalachia. No one story could do that.

But she hopes that adding to the discourse may help create something different. "At least," she hopes, "it's a drop in the bucket."

"Sometimes telling a simple story is a revolutionary act."

Help make sure "Meadow Bridge" comes to life! Support the Kickstarter campaign here:

 

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