Chinese pianist Lang Lang sings "Hey Jude" with US President Barack Obama at the White House on June 2, 2010. Photo: IC

By Fu Wen and Huang Jingjing

Chinese pianist Lang Lang's trip to the US appears to have struck a bad chord, as critics are slamming his performance at a White House state dinner as being offensive to the host.

Lang played a Chinese household song called "My Motherland" at the function to welcome President Hu Jintao. It was the theme music of a 1956 movie named Shangganling Battle, which depicted the fighting of Chinese troops against US troops during the Korean War (1950-53).

A lyric in the song goes, "If the jackals come, we will greet them with guns."

Lang denied any hidden intentions behind the choice, saying on his Facebook account Tuesday that "it has been a favorite of mine since I was a child. It was selected for no other reason but for the beauty of its melody. I am, first and foremost, an artist. As such, I play music to bring people together."

"America and China are my two homes. … I couldn't be who I am today without those two countries," he added. "My mission is to bridge cultures through the beauty and inspiration of music."

Lang, born in China in 1982, went to the US to study at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He has also gained prestige and honors around the world. This was the fifth time Lang was invited to perform at the White House since 2005.

In an interview Tuesday with National Public Radio, Lang said he felt "sad" and "disappointed" that the song was described as "anti-US," saying, "The last thing I want to do" is drop a note of nationalism.

Many Chinese Web users had various interpretations of the performance.

The Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po newspaper quoted a mainland Internet user as writing, "Lang Lang speaks our hearts. That is, we are not afraid of any war or hegemony; we never mean to engage in any warfare."

One of those who felt it was an inappropriate song for a state visit was Gu Su, a philosophy professor at Nanjing University.

"What if a similar scenario were to take place here, with the Americans playing anti-Chinese music in a similar occasion?" Gu wrote on his blog at tianya.cn, a popular portal.

However, Zhan Jiang, a professor specializing in communication studies at the Beijing Foreign Studies University, told the Global Times Tuesday that "Some Chinese Internet users overreacted by focusing only on the song's anti-US meaning."

The host should also be responsible if it is an unwise choice of a playlist, Zhan said, since details of the dinner arrangement are reviewed beforehand by the host.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Yu Jianhong, director of the Movie Management Department of the Beijing Film Academy, as saying that the song's main theme is not about fighting imperialism, but rather, "about the love of the motherland and the longing for peace and happiness."

According to an online poll by news portal ifeng.com, about 85 percent of nearly 10,000 respondents agreed that the performance was displaying Chinese art and should not be overly interpreted.

A total of 12 percent deemed it an accident and that said it mirrored Lang's inexperience diplomatically. Over 45 percent of participants believed that the performance would cause no diplomatic misunderstandings.

Lang's agent, Li Ning, told the Hubei-based Changjiang Daily on Monday that the pianist said he "hopes Internet users do not politicize his artistic choice."

"In Lang Lang's opinion, the song mainly reflects Chinese people's love for their motherland, although the song has a special background when it came into being," Li said.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesperson, also responded by saying, "Lang Lang played the song without lyrics or reference to any political theme. ... Any suggestion that this was an insult to the US is just flat wrong."

Song Shengxia contributed to this story