Drumbeats with inspiringly fast and clear rhythm on Wednesday evening rocked the Royal Hotel of Jordan where the performers, a dozen slender Chinese girls, stunned their Arab audience.

This is a percussion concert performed by "Red Poppy", a top Chinese female percussion band which is now on a debut in the Arab world.

"I like the second part the most, bull fighting tiger. It's so vivid and interesting, and I can imagine the fierce battle between them," said a Jordanian student, still savoring the show.

Named "Bull Fighting Tiger", the second program is a drum duet based on a Chinese folk tale about a bull fights a tiger to protect a cowboy, in which two girl drummers in Chinese red recounted the build-up and rising intensity of a bull-tiger fight with drumbeats sometimes soft and gentle like murmurs of a stream and sometimes forceful and poignant like angry billowy waves.

The duet reached a climax in a string of tense beats, which, moments later, met with thunderous applauses which resonated in the huge hall for minutes.

"I really enjoy it," Canadian Ambassador to Jordan Margaret Huber said, "It's full of energy and fighting spirit. Besides, it combines force and softness very well. It can be at once soft and forceful."

Founded in 1999, the Beijing-based band claims to be the first Chinese female percussion band. Since its birth, "Red Poppy" has toured over ten countries and staged nearly a thousand concerts in places including the Sydney Theatre and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

The current performance in Jordan is the second leg of the band's Middle East trip which has already taken it to Syria and will take it to Egypt in days.

"This is the first time our band set foot on the land of the Middle East. We hope our performance could bring Chinese culture closer to the Arab people and show the new face of modern Chinese female," said Zhou Li, head of the band.

"I think the concert features today's China, an ancient but energetic country beating out strong steps forward," hailed a diplomat in Amman.

According to Zhou, the girls have been invited to give a 12-minute performance on the closing ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games.

(Xinhua News Agency June 13, 2008)