Editor’s Note: In the early 1980s, some graduates of the prestigious Central Conservatory of Music began their musical careers. When one such graduate, Tan Dun, was awarded an Oscar in 1999 for his musical score to the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, well-known Chinese composer Chen Qigang, now resident in France, wrote a letter of congratulations to his former classmate. He said, "Ours was a class of student nonentities until we rocked China and then the world. We ’lit beacons’ in different parts of the world. Whether friends or rivals, our influence on each other is symbiotic. Now, when people call me ’master,’ I can’t help remembering being one of eight classmates, all sharing an hotel room in Amsterdam." At the end of his letter Chen Qigang wrote, "Our horizons are broadening."This article gives an insight into artists who were young during the "cultural revolution, " and the impressions of European and American music circles they gained from their experience abroad.