Rocket to China

And giant robots

2011-03-02T11:21:00.004+08:00

And to continue with my visit to the 798 Arts Zone...

I visited some of the same galleries as I did years ago, but of course the art works were different now.

This artist had a whole series of blurry grey works that didn't do much for me.

Here's one that I did like. A massive warplane is surrounded by a mass of celebrating people. Not too hard to decipher the social message there.

Some of the old buildings have been modernized more than I remember.

Here's a courtyard that had a lot going on.

There are some reminders of the area's industrial heritage.

When I visited before, I saw groups of photographers posing a model in various places. Some of that was going on, but it seems the area is very popular for wedding photos.

Notice the photographer's assistant and how she's holding him in place. Nice.

A little further along was something really interesting.

A giant robot made of parts of cars. It had a Transformer logo on its chest.

This photographer had a whole series of staged scenes.

And I'll finish off with a look ahead into the future. Are you the leader or the follower?

For the wolf is hollow and I have touched the tiger

2011-03-02T07:50:00.009+08:00

Not long after I moved to Beijing, back in 2006, I visited the 798 arts district, which I wrote about in the post you can get to by clicking on these words. I always figured an "arts district" would be something that would change constantly, so I've wanted to return for a long time. I finally got that chance on 10 October, 2010, when one of my local friends suggested it as a good Sunday alternative to visiting a park, since it was raining.

Rather than taking a taxi, I managed on public transport, taking the subway to Dongzhimen and transferring to a bus. It was still a fairly long journey, and I arrived there some time after my friend.

I'd say the Zone has greatly expanded since my first visit. I saw many of the same galleries, and many of the large outdoor sculptures I saw before were still around, though not necessarily in the same places.

Nice looking but terrible MPG.

One recurring theme is modern adaptations or interpretations of traditional Chinese techniques, subjects, and styles.

A lot of works are clearly symbolic, but it's not always clear what the artist intended as the meaning.

I'm particularly fond of art with a sense of humor, like this double portrait with Cones of Shame.

A whole gallery was devoted to the work of a painter who deals in incredibly realistic, details oil paintings.

The girl just right of center was in every painting - I believe it's the artist's daughter.

Some sculptures have signs that say to keep off; some don't.

This is a massive display that was just going in. There were workers assembling wolves and placing them all around the square.

Some of the galleries had artists present, and this Korean artist was actually working.

His work is dedicated to peace and unity on the Korean Peninsula, so we all signed a petition to show our support. He posed for a few pictures, then got back to the large painting on the floor.

Well, this post is getting kind of long, so I'll pick up the story in the next entry.

When the going gets tough, the tough go shopping

2011-03-02T04:54:00.005+08:00

This post covers 5-8 October, 2010.

One of the things on my to-do list for the trip was some shopping. Books, CDs, some musical accessories (like strings for my Chinese instruments), and clothing were on the list. The Xidan area west of Tiananmen Square features one of the city's biggest bookstores as well as several buildings filled with clothing shops. Plus it was two stops away on the subway.

It being a national holiday, lots of people were off work and had the same idea I did.

The big sign there says 民族大世界 (Great Ethnic World, I suppose), so you might expect to find a bunch of craft shops and ethnic food stalls inside. You would be wrong. It's a huge area filled with vendors hawking clothes, shoes, bags, and so on, all for prices low enough that you have to suspect counterfeits. I wandered around in there, but didn't buy anything. Across the street is a newer, more reputable shopping center.

That's a giant video screen across the front of the building. It shows nothing but advertisements. I took this picture standing on the pedestrian bridge over the street, so we're at the second floor level. That's the place where I bought all my Astro Boy gear. There are about six levels of shopping in the building, then a level that has a gaming arcade, and then a few floors of offices above that. I have a friend who works upstairs there. Note the interesting design of the next building on the left.

Also notice that the air doesn't look nearly as clear as it did in the previous pictures. Those were taken on Tuesday, and by Thursday the air was getting a little thick.

Standing in the spot where I took that last picture, I turned to face south and snapped this one.

Yeah, it was a pretty hazy day. At the right side of the frame you can see the edge of the Bank of China headquarters, where I attended a few meetings when I was working in Beijing. Further south are more banks and office buildings - the shopping district is all to the north.

One of my favorite restaurants is near here, a short walk into the old residential area north of the bookstore. One evening I met a couple of friends for dinner there, and I swear the head waiter remembered me from the many times I've been there before, even though it had been over a year since my last visit.

We had 香锅 (Fragrant Pot), which is kind of like hotpot except that they do the cooking for you and serve it dry. You choose your ingredients from a big list. We had chicken (the other choice is fish) along with a couple different kinds of mushroom, noodles, tofu, carrot, and 山药 (shanyao, literally mountain medicine, a kind of root vegetable). Plus a pile of hot peppers and a few other things that make up the "fragrant" part. It's pretty spicy, and my stomach always punishes me the next day for eating it, but it's soooo tasty.

A temple in my back yard

2011-03-01T07:55:00.007+08:00

This post covers things I saw on 5 October, 2010.

Several times each day, I would walk between my hotel and Line 4's Xisi Station. Eventually I noticed that over the construction fence there were some golden-tiled roofs, which usually indicate something interesting.

So I walked around the corner and found the entrance to 广济寺 (Guangjisi), which is a Buddhist monastery and temple. Entrance is free.

As with the other temples I've visited in Beijing, it is somehow insulated from the hustle and noise of the busy street just outside its walls, creating a little island of peace and tranquility.

One difference between this and most of the other temples in Beijing is that this is an active religious facility, not just a historical relic. It is the home of 中国佛教协会 (the Buddhist Association of China).

It's not a very big temple compared to something like the 天坛 (The Temple of Heaven), but it's very nice in a humble way. One odd thing I saw there was a Buddhist nun wearing her robes wandering around in the parking lot, yelling loudly to no one in particular. I couldn't understand a lot of what she said, but she seemed to be complaining about things "they" were doing. If I saw a woman doing this in Seattle, I would assume a mental illness and hope she's getting treatment. On my way out, I saw a couple of civilians (not wearing robes at least) talking with her, apparently trying to calm her down.

It seems to be traditional that temples have cats, and my personal tradition is to take pictures of them.

I circle the Square

2011-03-01T06:53:00.009+08:00

This post covers things I saw on 5 October, 2010.

On the first day after the music festival, I figured that with it being the national holiday and all, Tiananmen Square (天安门广场) might be interesting. It was certainly crowded.

That's what I saw after coming out of the Tiananmen West subway station. The empty gap just on the other side of the fence is Chang'an Avenue (长安街), and beyond that is the Square filled with people. It was a warm, sunny day, and there were vendors everywhere hawking ice cream bars and little Chinese flags.

Turning around from that spot, you see this:

I wanted to get a closer picture of the big Mao painting, so I crossed the little bridge that takes you toward the Forbidden City (known to the Chinese as 故宫 - Gugong, or Palace Museum), and found that crowd control didn't allow me to return. I was swept along with the masses.

I've already seen the Forbidden City, and it was really crowded, so I looked for a way out that didn't involve buying a ticket. I found it with the entrance to Zhongshan (中山) Park, which for some reason I had never before visited.

Just inside this entrance (it's the East gate of the park) is the Southwest section of the Forbidden City's moat.

And it seems I wasn't the only one who ducked into the park to get a little break from the crowds outside.

I wandered around the park, my only plan that I wanted to exit to the south, where I could get back to Tiananmen Square and the subway, but I took my time. The park is named after 孙逸仙 (Dr Sun Yat-sen), who is generally known to Mainlanders as Zhongshan, and is regarded as the father of modern China.

Given the history of the founding of the People's Republic of China, their reverence of Zhongshan seems a little odd, what with him being a Nationalist rather than Communist, but he's been branded a "proto-socialist" Forerunner of the Revolution and escapes the negative image of his successor 蒋介石 (Chiang Kai-shek).

As I wandered around, I came across these:

It's a long rack of 特鐘 (teqing) stone gongs. They can be struck with a mallet and produce a ringing tone.

Another common sight in any of China's historical places is parents or grandparents taking pictures of the kids dressed in royal costumes, or at least headwear.

And no Chinese park is complete without some Strange Stones.

I thought this old couple was really adorable. They looked like country folk come to the big city to visit their families and see the festivities.

And of course there's another thing needed to complete an old Imperial park:

Gotta love the theme of the decoration on those things! Looks more like the Fourth of July than Chinese National Day.

I finally worked my way around to the South Gate and took the pedestrian tunnel to Tiananmen Square.

People mountain, people sea, as they say. (It's a Chinese expression meaning a lot of people: 人山人海. My teacher told me there are several stories about how the expression came about.)

Normally the entire square is flat paving, but a big fountain surrounded by flowers has been constructed, and there were quite a few other big floral displays here and there. They've also installed two massive video screens.

They show inspirational scenes of beautiful landscapes, historic places, and (of course) the Olympics. In between the two video screens there's a giant portrait...

...of Sun Yat-sen. In the background is 人民英雄纪念碑 (The Monument to the People's Heroes), and behind that is Mao's Mausoleum.

Beijing Town (Slight Return)

2011-02-28T09:02:00.008+08:00

Choosing to visit China during the first part of October has both advantages and disadvantages. It's a national holiday, so lots of people will be out and about, and everything possible is going to be open for business. However, the crowds can be large, so you have to be very patient.

After being away from China for more than a year, I returned to Beijing in October of 2010 for a two week visit. Mostly I planned to visit friends, with only vague plans to check out a few of the sights I missed during the time I lived there. There was also the MIDI Music Festival, which I've already written about on my Sina blog in four parts.

During most of my stay, I was at a little guest house in a Xicheng District hutong.

Strange as it may seem, I'm actually a little unclear what the name of the place was. When I found it on the internet and booked my room, it was called Hutong Courtyard Hotel, which is a ridiculously generic name. The sign over the door says 四和居招待所 (Siheju Zhaodaisuo, or Siheju Guest House), the yellow sign says G.D. Hotel in English and Siheju in Chinese, and the business card I picked up at the desk says Good Stone Hotel on it.

In any case, it's a cute, if a bit dilapidated, courtyard hotel with a half dozen or so rooms surrounding an open area where they dry laundry and grow gourds. All of the rooms are hand painted with flowers on the walls.

The beds are old-fashioned style with minimal padding (not soft at all, but I got used to it). There was a flat screen TV mounted on the wall above the desk. They advertised free wi-fi, but the signal was so weak in my room I could never connect; I had to take my laptop to reception to get online.

I had a room with a private bathroom, though some of the other rooms had to share a separate bath.

Those are butterfly stickers on the walls. You can see that the shower is not enclosed, but open to the bathroom at large, and it all drains in one corner. In theory, at least. As with much Chinese construction, the slope is not really sufficient for quick drainage, so the bathroom floor was often wet. You have to be careful where you hang your towel if you want it to be drier than you are when you finish showering.

The shared bathroom did not have a Western style toilet.

The staff consisted of a lady and her boyfriend (if I understood correctly, she is divorced and has been with this guy for many years, but they never bothered getting married) plus a young woman who came around a few times to clean up. None of them really spoke any English, but they were very friendly and quite willing to deal with my bad Chinese pronunciation, limited vocabulary, and frequent pauses to look up a word on my phone's Chinese dictionary app. It was a little awkward and frustrating at times, but in the long run I feel that it helped my language skills a lot being forced to rely on my Chinese. Several times, they shared breakfast with me and never charged me for the food, I even had a beer out of the cooler one night that they didn't bill me for; they also did some of my laundry for free.

The hotel was also fairly cheap. I won't go into the hassles I had getting them to take my American Express card for payment - that's a story for another day.

The neighborhood around this stretch of Xisi Avenue seems to consist mainly of little hardware stores, so if you're in Beijing and need a light fixture, a ceiling fan, or plumbing supplies, this is where you go.

It's a very ordinary part of Old Beijing with nothing touristy to attract foreigners, though it's not too far from Beihai. Luckily, the new subway Line 4 has a stop very close by, which makes it pretty convenient to get just about anywhere. There were several restaurants within a few minute's walk, and one stop north on Line 4 is one of my favorite parts of town: the street full of music shops. Two stops south is the Xidan shopping area, which is a good place to buy clothes and books.

During my first week there, it was the national holiday, so the other rooms were full. A large family from Nanjing was there, and they brought their little dog.

We chatted one evening in the courtyard. One of them was a college student who knew a bit of English, but the chatty old man didn't, and his accent was difficult for me to understand. I showed them some of the pictures on my camera, and they insisted on posing the dog for me. They claimed that Nanjing dogs are better than Beijing dogs, but I'm not sure in what way. When I told them I was from 西雅图 (Xiyatu, Seattle), they of course mentioned Sleepless in Seattle, which seems to be a movie everyone in China has seen.

In Beijing, October's weather is generally pretty pleasant. It rained a couple of times while I was there, but was nice most days, following the usual pattern of clear skies after a rainfall, gradually diminishing air quality over the course of a week or so, then another rain. By the end of my stay, it was starting to get a little chilly in the evenings, but not so much that I needed to see if the heater in my room worked.

The Dianying Diaries, part 5

2011-02-21T10:30:00.010+08:00

Part of a series dealing with Chinese cinema. 电影 (diànyǐng) is the Chinese word for movie, the two characters literally meaning “electric” and “shadow.”

图雅的婚事 (Tuya's Marriage)

This 2006 Chinese production is set in Inner Mongolia. It was directed by 王全安 (Wang Quan'an) and stars 余男 (Yu Nan). It provides and interesting mix of drama and humor that feels very true-to-life.

Yu Nan is actually from Dalian, not Inner Mongolia, but to me at least she seems completely convincing riding a horse or camel. All of the dialogue in in Mandarin, though there is some Mongolian singing.

She plays a poor woman with a herd of sheep, a camel, a horse, two children, and a disabled husband named Batoer.

They live in a compound of buildings with no running water; they have a little electricity from a windmill on the roof. They have a neighbor named Shenge who provides a lot of comic relief.

We first meet him lying in the road. He got drunk and wrecked his motorcycle, and luckily he's not seriously injured. He was drinking because his wife left him for another man, something which apparently happens quite often.

Along with their other problems, these people are faced with a constant shortage of water. Batoer's injury was sustained while he was trying to dig a well near the house. Without the well, Tuya has to travel to a spring 15km away once or twice a day...

...in addition to tending the sheep, cooking the meals, and acquiring supplies. Shenge helps out sometimes.

When Tuya hurts her back, it becomes apparent that their lives can't continue as they have. Batoer's sister offers to take care of her brother.

So a plan develops: Tuya and Batoer will get divorced, and Tuya will only marry a man who promises to allow Batoer to live with them and be cared for.

I'm not sure whether it's because of Tuya's reputation as a hard worker, or just that there is a shortage of women in the area, but as soon as word of the divorce gets out, suitors start arriving at their house.

After a couple of less than appealing candidates, a man named Baolier shows up in a Mercedes. He went to middle school with Tuya and always liked her. Since leaving the area, he's become a rich man in the oil business.

The whole family gets into the car and Baolier drives to a nursing home in the city. The plan is that Batoer can live there, and Tuya and the kids will move into Baolier's mansion in another city.

It's a long drive to the city where Baolier lives, so they stop at a hotel, and we get to see Tuya dressed in more contemporary clothing.

But, like so much in Tuya's life, things start to go wrong. There is eventually a wedding, but I won't tell you who she decides to marry.

One of the things I really loved about the movie was the music. It was all very Mongolian sounding, with prominent use of the morin khuur (horsehead fiddle) and traditional singing (though not throat singing).

The vast open space of the Mongolian plane provides stark settings of great loneliness. Everything is far away, and there are no easy means of communication.

Life is very hard in this place, and the strange decisions they make (like the divorce and finding a new husband) are the only way the people can get by. They're doing the best they can in the circumstances.

I believe many of the actors in this film were not professionals, though Yu Nan is well known and has been in many other movies, including a couple of non-Chinese movies (Diamond Dogs and Speed Racer). She was wonderful in this part, which is obviously far from her own personal experience. And in this role, she certainly didn't look anything like she does on a red carpet:

IMDB entry
It is available from Netflix.

The Dianying Diaries, part 4

2011-01-31T07:08:00.016+08:00

Part of a series dealing with Chinese cinema. 电影 (diànyǐng) is the Chinese word for movie, the two characters literally meaning “electric” and “shadow.”

北京乐与路 (Beijing Rocks)

This 2001 movie was a Hong Kong production filmed in Beijing and other parts of Mainland China. It was directed by Mabel Cheung (张婉婷), who is one of Hong Kong's most prominent directors. The story concerns a struggling singer-songwriter named Michael Wu (played by 吴彦祖 Daniel Wu) from Hong Kong who goes to Beijing to find inspiration and learn Mandarin, which is increasingly necessary in the Asian music market.

Back in Hong Kong, Michael's father is a wealthy businessman who is paying for his son's expenses during his creative dry spell. The senior Mr Wu owns a large beautiful courtyard home in an old hutong neighborhood, where Michael, along with his father's mistress, stays in Beijing. In addition to his songwriting, Michael plays in a rock band called the Mexican Jumping Beans, though he says playing rock in HK is a money-losing proposition. So in addition to brushing up on his Mandarin, Michael hopes to dip into Beijing's rock scene.

The other important part of the back story is that Michael is in trouble with the law. There are vague references to some kind of altercation in a Beijing pool hall and the fact that Michael's father has bailed him out of jail and is trying to pull strings on his son's behalf. So it's probably not a smart idea for him to be hanging out in a gritty rock club on the night the plot gets rolling.

Beans are frying in a beanstalk fire
Out from the pan, the beans sadly cry:
"We sprang from the same root, brother
Why do you give me such a hard time?"

The band on stage is called Moonwatchers, and things start going wrong when the club manager cuts off the lead singer's mic for some reason. The singer gets angry, stops the band, and starts yelling at the manager. A fight ensues, and it ends with the musicians and a couple of girlfriends grabbing as much of their gear as they can and climbing out the windows as the police arrive.

Michael picks up a pair of dropped drumsticks and follows them, finally catching up with them at the kind of cheap hotpot joint that can be found all over Beijing. Much drinking follows as Michael meets this bunch of social misfits who love to make noise and use nicknames. The lead singer is called 平路 (Road, played by 耿乐 Geng Le), and he takes a liking to Michael, though they all mostly refer to him as "Hong Kong Peasant" and make fun of his terrible Mandarin. Road's girlfriend is 杨颖 (Yang Ying, played by 舒淇 Shu Qi, who I think is one of the most beautiful actresses from China, Taiwan, or anywhere else).

The rockers teach Michael how to drink 二锅头 (erguotou, a potent alcohol) in a way I haven't seen done: mix it with Sprite and slam the glass on the table to make it fizz, then pour it down your throat as fast as you can. After a few of those, they pass around a couple joints Michael brought and get very happy.

Michael really likes these people, especially Yang Ying (who wouldn't?), and when his father shows up in Beijing, he packs a duffel bag, grabs his bass, and sets off to find them. They live and practice in a squallid, run-down neighborhood somewhere on the outskirts of Beijing. Ying makes a little bit of money working as a dancer in a cabaret of questionable legality.

As far as I can tell, the girls don't actually strip, just tease, which leads to trouble with the rough crowd one evening when Michael happens to stop by to watch. A nasty looking group of men comes up on stage demanding that the girls strip; Ying hits one of them, causing a big gash on the side of his head, and before long the police are carting the whole gang off. The sideshow manager manages to negotiate Ying's fine down to 5000RMB, but she's locked up in a crowded cell full of women for assault.

As we know, Michael has a rebellious streak, and is currently avoiding his father, so when the sideshow and the rock band decide to go "hole-hopping" (hitting the road without permits), he talks them into letting him come along. They all pile into a rickety old bus and head for the provinces, dancers, jugglers, rock band and all.

One of the unusual things about the movie is the occasional soliloquies by the characters, a bit like the candid interview bits we see on "reality" shows.

As the character talks about their dreams or whatever, there is goofy animation behind them illustrating the words.

At various times during their journeys, Ying and Road get into fights, and they usually end with her stomping out of their tent and spending the night under a tree or wherever. Michael tries to comfort her, and discovers that in spite of the friction, she sees Road as her soul-mate.

The band plays in a variety of poor villages to a mixture of baffled workers and dancing kids, though usually their music doesn't go over especially well. Road's lyrics seem to be pretty heady stuff, mixing Buddhist mysticism with social rebellion.

At one show, Road's father steps into the tent, causing him to stop singing and disappear. Michael saves the performers from an unhappy mob by starting to play 月亮代表我的心 (The Moon Represents My Heart), a famous old Chinese pop song. The rest of the band comes in to provide a rock background as Ying sings the familiar words.

Somehow, during the midst of all this, Road rides his motorcycle back to Beijing to meet with some record label people about signing the band. They don't care for his music or his attitude, and tell him that the rebelliousness of their other rock bands is mere marketing; in truth they are good corporate employees who do what management tells them.

While he's gone, Michael takes the opportunity to spend some time with Ying.

But Road's return puts an end to that. And Road is especially surly after his meeting in Beijing, though he doesn't tell anyone what's going on. He just keeps saying, "I signed it. It's all over."

That's as far as I'll go with the plot. Let's just say the story does not get a happy ending. We find out what really happened in the pool hall before Michael got arrested; and what the consequences will be.

Obviously, there's a lot of music in the film, but only some of it is rock. In fact, it's a little jarring sometimes when the soundtrack swells up with a typical orchestral cue; I wish they'd stuck with the rock theme. When the band is playing live, the mix is often very strange, with the vocals unusually prominent and the guitars rather quiet. I suppose this helps to heighten the focus of Road's creativity and thoughts. In addition to the Moonwatchers' music and the soundtrack, I recognized 唐朝 Tang Dynasty's version of "The Internationale" on the soundtrack, and I believe there are other bands represented as well.

While much of the film seems pretty down-to-earth, I wonder about the portrayal of country folk, which might be considered stereotypical: dirty, unsophisticated, crude, and money-hungry. Local officials like policemen are shown as easily bribed and manipulated.

Other examples of stereotypical characters include Michael's father, who is a slimy lizard more concerned about private pleasure and public image, and throwing his money around, than in his son's happiness. (On the other hand, this seems completely realistic.) And then there are the record company guys, who were totally fake in their fashionable clothes and sneering attitude. (Which again seems totally realistic!)

The editing is a little strange, though completely consistent with the rock idiom. Michael often carries around a little camcorder, and his footage is mixed in with the movie's normal film. The inclusion of the eyes-to-the-camera interview bits with animation takes us a bit outside the story, which serves to emphasize the fact that these characters do not entirely live in the same world as the "normal" people around them.

The jail where Ying spends a little time is really nasty, with a big, dirty cement room filled with women wrapped up in blankets on the floor. The women are made to recite the jail rules in unison in the morning.

There's a lot of swearing, and the language in general is very slangy, with lots of thick accents I found difficult to understand, so I had to rely on the subtitles.

All in all, I enjoyed this movie a lot. It's a fascinating picture of a part of Chinese life we don't see much of, in spite of the rash of documentaries you can find about the Beijing rock scene, all of which are more current, whereas this covers a bit older time period.

This body is a bodhi tree
And the mind a mirror bright,
Carefully we wipe them hour by hour
And let no dust ever alight.
So Buddha says:
If I don't go into hell, who will?

There is no bodhi tree
Nor stand of a mirror bright,
Since all is void
Where can the dust alight?
So I say:
So you say:
So he says:
So Buddha says:
If I don't go into hell, who will?

Wikipedia entry
IMDB entry

It is available from Netflix.

The Yaogun Diaries, part 7

2010-06-02T10:02:00.014+08:00

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Buyi (布衣)

Touching on another facet of rock music in China, I’m going to focus on another of my favorites, Buyi (布衣). Their name means “cloth” and the term is used to distinguish ordinary fabric like cotton from fancy stuff like silk. In keeping with this deliberately humble name, their music is perhaps unassuming, but full of passion and an appreciation for the plight of ordinary people. The band originally hails from Ningxia (宁夏) , formally known as the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, a relatively small province in north central China (generally referred to as “northwest” given the coastal bias of the Chinese). It is the home of the Hui ethnic group, typically Islamic Chinese speakers. (In standard PRC fashion, the Hui only comprise about a third of their own Region’s population, with Han Chinese being the majority.)

A promo shot with a previous drummer.

Buyi’s niche is combining Chinese folk music with rock (plus a bit of the Western singer/songwriter tradition), and they’ve been around since 1995; they relocated to Beijing in 1999, and have remained a staple of the capital’s scene ever since. The constants in the band thus far have been lead singer and guitarist Wu Ningyue (吴宁越) and Zhang Wei (张巍), who plays guitar and guzheng. There has been some turnover at the bass and drum positions (purportedly a total of more than ten players). Wu claims to have been influenced by Cui Jian (崔健) along with such Western artists as the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, and Nirvana.

Buyi live at 2 Kolegas, 2008-06-27.

I first encountered this band from articles about them in Beijing’s English language press, and when I first saw them live, I knew the acclaim was well-earned. Wu is a friendly presence on stage, chatting and joking (though of course I can’t understand a lot of what he says); the band plays very naturally, completely comfortable regardless of the situation – no doubt due to their long history and appearances at major festivals. I caught them first at 2 Kolegas in June of 2008 and posted a few pictures here. While there I picked up all the CDs they had available at the time, which included a self-titled collection that might best be characterized as demos, their then current studio album, and a live album.

Wu Ningyue doing the folk-rock thing at 2 Kolegas, 2008-06-27.

The oldest recordings are apparently not considered an official release, but they’re certainly worth hearing. There's no title listed, so I call it jut Buyi. It's a CD-R with no date on it, but I believe it dates from 2004.
It's a mixture of studio/demo recordings and live tracks. Here is one of the highlights, 为你唱首歌 ("Sing a Song for You").

"Wei ni chang shou ge"

The band’s first proper release was 那么久 (That Long), recorded in 2007.
In an interview with The Beijiner, Wu said that the recording was plagued by budgetary constraints and disagreements with the record label, resulting in a sound that “wasn’t unified” but I’ve always found it a great set of tunes, surprisingly polished sounding considering the band’s reputation. It opens with the superb title track, with anthemic electric guitars and a soaring melody on the guzheng.

“Name jiu”

It's kind of a sad song, in case you can't tell from the sound. There are only a few lines of lyrics repeated a number of times: "Time has been so long, the skies have been grey so long, and pain is on every side, and my dreams are behind me, so long after so long."

"Yang rou mian"

And this one is 羊肉面 ("Mutton Noodles"), an ode to a childhood comfort food.

On their 2008 live album 喝不完的酒 (Endless Wine), they revisit a few tunes from previous recordings as well as a few unfamiliar (to me) songs. With well over ten years of material to draw from, there’s no shortage of songs.

Apparently, it was released in a limited edition of only 1000 or so copies, so I guess I’m lucky to have one. It features four songs from That Long, two from the self-titled debut, and six others. 不累 ("Not Tired") is a perennial favorite from their live shows.

“Bu lei”

And here's a video of the same tune. I did say it's a perennial favorite.

The second time I saw Buyi live was in a very different situation from the cozy brick room at 2 Kolegas. They were part of a festival called the Thirteenth Month Festival, playing on a Sunday evening. Due to a mixup in the show’s start time, I missed most of their set (you can read about it here). They were on the huge stage at the Beijing National Convention Center, complete with full light rigging, video screens, and room to move around without bumping into one another.

Buyi on the big stage at the 13th Month Festival, 2008-06-29.

They had the opening spot for 苏阳 (Su Yang) and 郑钧 (Zheng Jun), two well-known Chinese rock artists. The little I heard sounded pretty much exactly like the live album. I think they finished with “Bu lei (Not Tired).”

Later in 2008 they released a live DVD, but I haven't seen it. It has the songs from the live CD plus a few more. Next time I have the chance, I'll have to get myself a copy.

The next Buyi show was my first time at 将进酒吧 (Jiangjinjiu Bar). It’s a tiny little place located between the Drum and Bell Towers, and it was so packed my friend and I ended up hearing most of the show from upstairs, where we couldn’t see the band at all. I think we were sitting directly above them with a couple layers of wood in between.

Buyi and way too many people at Jiangjinjiu, 2009-02-14.

I ventured downstairs to take a look and some pictures, and found a crowd that surely violated some kind of fire code crowded around a tiny performance area (not a raised platform at all). Buyi plays here often.

Barely room for Buyi at Jiangjinjiu Bar, 2009-02-14.

It was a cold night outside, but inside Jingjinjiu it was steamy and stifling, full of sweat and cigarette smoke. The band seemed to be in their element, and the crowd seemed to know every song inside out. They finished with one I had never heard before, which had my companion laughing and looking a little embarrassed. Most of the audience sang along with the whole song, especially the choruses and “la-la” sections.

Buyi doing "Roman Watch" at Jiangjinjiu Bar (though not on the same night I saw them there).

After we left the bar, my friend explained to me a little about the song. She said the lyrics were very dirty (which maybe explained why it wasn’t on any of the CDs I had), and involved the story of a couple with money problems. The boy decides to buy the girl a nice watch as a gift, but can’t afford it, so he steals it. He gets caught, and instead of being supportive, she abandons him. As he’s carted off to jail, he shouts a string of insults at her. These make up the chorus of the song. Years later, he’s out of jail, and somehow the situation arises that she needs his help, but he tells her where to stuff that idea, and she yells the same set of insults back at him. At least that’s what I got out of an explanation from a non-native English speaker who had only heard the song once very late at night after who knows how many drinks. I could have it completely wrong, and she could have been wrong as well – though I’m almost certain there’s a watch involved.

When I saw them again, it was back at 2 Kolegas, this time outdoors under a canopy. Although there was a drum kit present, Buyi’s performance ended up being just the duo of Wu and Zhang.

Casual acoustic Buyi at 2 Kolegas, 2009-06-14.

They played stripped-down versions of some Buyi standards, and were joined from time to time by others in a very loose atmosphere.

Zhang Wei on the guzheng at 2 Kolegas, 2009-06-14.

Finally, in 2009, the band released what is usually called (by way of some creative math) their second album; to add to the confusion, it is self-titled, but I suppose the small number of people who have the previous self-titled CD know the band well enough to not be confused.
Barring one track, it’s a studio recording, and features some songs that first appeared in live form on Endless Wine. And while Wu has described it as “more hard rock,” I’d say it’s actually got some mellower moments on it than That Long, though the rock tunes do perhaps rock harder, like the studio version of "Not Tired" - but I'll give you something different as a sample for the album.

The CD opens with a lovely mostly-acoustic track called 三疯 ("Three Crazy").

"San feng"

And as a representative of the band's other side, here is 光荣的愤怒 ("Glorious Anger").

"Guangrong de fennu"

To my surprise, the final track on the album is a live recording of 罗马表 (“Roman Watch”), the very song they finished with at Jiangjinjiu. It was fun working my way through the lyrics to see just how right or wrong I was about them. The first part is pretty close, with a boy whose girlfriend has high expectations; he steals money to buy her a “Roman Watch,” and gets caught. She just laughs at him; he says something rude to her, finishing “I did everything for you.”

The second verse actually seems to be about a completely different situation (or maybe it’s the same girl with a different guy). It's from a girl's viewpoint: she says her boyfriend has high expectations, and likes a girl who is well endowed, but she is flat-chested. So she goes to have surgery, but the surgery fails; the boyfriend just laughs at her; she says something rude to him, finishing, “I did everything for you.”

As to why it can appear on CD in China even though the lyrics are dirty… well, I think that deals with a quirk of the Chinese language. It is a language full of words that sound alike. Many people have heard about why eight is considered a lucky number: it’s because ba (eight) sounds like fa (wealth or prosperity). I’ve mentioned elsewhere in my posts that bats (fu) are considered auspicious because “good fortune” is also pronounced fu. Anyway, one consequence of this is that any dirty word can be replaced by another word that sounds the same but that isn’t dirty. Technically, no swearing is involved and no laws are violated, but most listeners know exactly what the real meaning is. You find a lot of this on the internet, since it's filtered in China and you can't post dirty words. That's what the whole "Grass Mud Horse" thing is about. So when they sing, "I laugh at your mother's force" (which doesn't really make sense), it's really something different about the mother that is being referenced.

As Iwas doing research for this post, I noticed a page on the band's official site labeled "Download" which has a three-song EP from 2009, including one song sung by bassist Lin Na (still written by Wu Ningyue). But I haven't figured out how to download it yet - if I do, I'll post an update.

Rock in China Wiki entry
Official website

The Dianying Diaries, part 3

2010-02-27T10:38:00.008+08:00

Part of a series dealing with Chinese cinema. 电影 (diànyǐng) is the Chinese word for movie, the two characters literally meaning “electric” and “shadow.”

颐和园 (yíhéyuán, Summer Palace)

Once again I’m visiting a Chinese film not widely known in China. Multiple theories exist as to why it’s been effectively banned (I believe it’s just been refused distribution, but the filmmakers were officially chastised, receiving five-year work bans), and I’ll avoid speculation. It was screened at Cannes in 2006 without the approval of Chinese authorities, a definite no-no, but there are several other “problems” with it, as you’ll see.

This was the fourth feature film for director Lou Ye (娄烨), and he had encountered problems with the authorities on two of his earlier works (Weekend Lover 周末情人 and Suzhou River 苏州河 ).
Summer Palace is the story of a young woman named Yu Hong (余红), played by Hao Lei (郝蕾). She comes from a provincial city to a university in Beijing in the fall of 1988, leaving behind a boyfriend and her father. After an initial period of remaining solitary (even in her four-person dorm room), she meets Li Ti (李缇, played by Hu Lingling 胡伶伶), whose boyfriend is studying in Berlin and whose roommate is often not around. The two girls develop a strong bond, and after Yu Hong meets Zhou Wei (周伟 ), played by Guo Xiaodong (郭晓东), and starts dating him, Li Ti volunteers her room for them to share, and it becomes the scene of relatively explicit sex scenes.
This inclusion of full frontal nudity (both male and female) and the appearance of sexual activity is quite unusual in a film from Mainland China, but it is integral to the plot. Yu Hong provides narration from time to time, explaining her feelings, which are confused and a little odd at times. Several of the couple’s dates take them to the Summer Palace, where we see them sitting on a bench and looking at the lake.
Yu Hong makes it clear that she believes Zhou Wei is the love of her life, but nevertheless comes to the conclusion that she must break up with him – I won’t go into her twisted logic for this decision. She does so by convincing him that she has slept with her psychology tutor, which she may or may not have actually done. After the breakup, she drifts through some other boyfriends, but nothing serious.

In the meantime, the spring of 1989 has arrived, and with it massive student protests. None of the main characters are involved directly, but the chaos of marches, canceled classes, and the uncertainty of the government’s response to the situation forms a poignant backdrop to the emotional turmoil within Yu Hong.
Of course, the filmmakers weren’t able to re-enact these huge public scenes, so actual documentary footage from the time is used, and given the somewhat grainy appearance of the normal film, the combination is seamless.
At some point during all the confusion, Li Ti and Zhou Wei start having an affair.
Shortly after these events, Yu Hong decides to drop out of school and return to her home town. The friends scatter, with both Li Ti and Zhou Wei relocating to Berlin. We get a series of brief scenes during which Yu Hong has several affairs, including a married man. From her narration, it is clear that whenever she feels lonely (still pining for Zhou Wei), she finds a man to have sex with, and during the act is the only time she feels content. Various world events play out on the sidelines, including the handover of Hong Kong. We also get some scenes set in Berlin, where we see that Zhou Wei and Li Ti occasionally have sex but don’t really feel anything for each other.
The static situation ends when Li Ti suddenly jumps from the roof of a building, prompting Zhou Wei to return to China. Once there, he tracks down Yu Hong and arranges to meet her.

But when they finally meet, they hardly speak to each other, just drive around and walk on a chilly beach. In the end, they part without goodbyes.
This story of am emotionally unstable woman has some immensely appealing aspects. The first part of the film, up to when Yu Yong leaves Beijing, is really quite good. The scenes set during the Tienanmen student protests were quite moving given the knowledge of what was going on offscreen. But from there on, it just becomes fragmentary and disjointed. The inclusion of the scenes in Berlin further confuses the focus. In a film so centered on Yu Hong, even to the point of including her inner thoughts, it is jarring to suddenly be watching scenes that are completely outside her experience. The scattered second half of the film actually becomes a bit tedious as we wonder how many times this girl is going to screw up her life and those of others.
The portrait of student life in the late 80s was fascinating, showing China’s early encounters with Western music and more individual freedom. But just as those trends came to a crashing halt after June 4, 1989, so did the sense of enjoyment in the movie. At first I really enjoyed Yu Hong’s rebellious nature and sense of fun, but as the story proceeded her problems became more and more apparent, and eventually ended up being kind of tedious. Maybe this was intended as a subtle commentary on the changes in Chinese society, but if so, it’s too subtle to be sure of. And that doesn’t alter the fact that it became so uninteresting towards the end.
All in all, I would say that this is one half of a really good film edited together with one half of a not very good film. As you can tell from my description, there are several aspects of the film which might cause displeasure to the Chinese authorities, including the nudity, the inclusion of film of the student protests, and the lack of an uplifting ending. My problems with the film don’t involve any of these issues, but the lack of coherence and focus. The running time of 140 minutes would not seem excessive if the story justified it. As it is, I can’t really recommend it, though I commend Lou Ye for having the courage to make it.

Wikipedia entry
IMDB entry

It is available from Netflix.

The Yaogun Diaries, part 6

2010-02-14T04:19:00.013+08:00

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Cold Fairyland (冷酷仙境 lěngkù xiānjìng)

When I moved to China, I had in mind the goal of trying to find good, interesting music that didn’t just imitate foreign styles. Quite soon, this band’s name started cropping up. Their live album was released in 2006, so the English language magazines were talking about it. I went to their website, which offered a number of tracks for free download from their various albums. I liked everything I heard, so I went out and found a copy of the live CD pretty easily. I loved it and set about trying to find their other releases, which turned out to be not so easy to find. I found a couple in a tent at the MIDI Festival, and bought them even though they were priced considerably higher than the average Chinese CD. Imported from Taiwan, not domestic releases.
This Shanghai band’s core is Lin Di (林笛), who has played the pipa since age 4. She met bass player Su Yong (苏勇 ), and they started working together recording. Their demos attracted the attention of an independent label and were released as Flying over the City (在城市上空飞翔 zài chéngshì shàngkōng fēixiáng). It’s long out of print (I’ve never seen a copy in a store), but it is available for download from CDBaby.
The name Cold Fairyland was invented for this album, though at the time it really wasn’t a band. The name comes from the Chinese title of a novel by Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, which is known in English as Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (I heartily recommend it, by the way).

Here’s a track to get an idea of what the “band” was about at their beginning. I don’t own it, so I’ll try embedding the player from the Chinese media site NeoCha.

(OK, it seems the embedding does not work, so I will just link to "Sea Rose".)

With this song, Lin takes a poem by American Hilda Doolittle (H.D.) and sets it to simple music, as befits the directness of the words. There is a definite demo quality to the recording, and Lin’s awkward pronunciation is only partly covered up by the echo and reverb heaped upon her voice.

After this, the story starts getting a little confusing. Didn’t take long, did it? The next recording Lin Di was involved with was 2002’s Ten Days in Magic Land (魔境十日 mójìng shírì, literally Devil Land Ten Days). This collection of music was the result of a commission Lin Di received as a composer from producer Liu Xing (刘星). It was originally released on the Wind label from Taiwan, credited to “Lin Di – Cool Zone” (where “Cool Zone” is written in Chinese exactly the same as Cold Fairyland). So technically this is a Lin Di solo album which has Cold Fairyland as her backing band, but since she’s the main composer for the band anyway, there’s really little to distinguish this album from proper Cold Fairyland recordings. This album is often listed as being from later years, since it has been reissued more than once. My copy says 2003; I believe it was recorded in 2002.
Wind marketed this CD to the New Age audience, playing off some stylistic elements similar to European artists such as Enigma. As you can tell from this tune, the New Age label is a bit of a stretch.

“The Flood”

That’s 洪水 (hóngshuǐ – The Flood), one of the more energetic tunes in the set, though it’s certainly not out of place.

There is a great leap forward in production values here – the whole album is beautifully recorded, with the mixture of electronic and acoustic instruments handled very nicely. Su Yong plays bass, and there are contributions by others on flutes and other traditional instruments. There’s a lot of percussion by Li Jia (李佳), but no drum kit aside from what is sequenced by Lin. The album’s ten tracks correspond to the ten days of the title.

The following year saw the release of another band-credited album, the first one to be recorded since Lin and Su’s project turned into a real band. Kingdom of Benevolent Strangers (陌生仙子国 mòshēng xiānzǐ guó, literally Strange Fairyland) features Lin and Su along with Li Jia (the percussionist from Ten Days) on drums, Song Jianfeng (宋建丰) on guitar, and Zhou Shen’an (周圣安) on cello. It was created as a band effort in the studio, though all the tracks feature Lin as composer, either on her own or collaborating with others. She is credited under the name Miyadudu (米亚嘟嘟), which she would later use for a true solo album. Oddly enough, the band’s name is translated on the cover as Cool Fairyland.
In 2009, I finally found a copy of this in a store in Beijing. I paid an exorbitant price for a CDR in a cracked jewel case. But I was so happy to have a real copy of it that I forked over the cash, though not without a little grumbling.

Here’s a track to sample. It’s been a staple of their live shows.

“Dead Children in the Newspapers”

That’s 死在报纸上的孩子 (sǐ zài bàozhǐ shàng de háizi); I picked it because it features the cello prominently. This pairing of pipa and cello would become one of Cold Fairyland’s defining features. As you can hear, the production is more straightforward and less atmospheric than Ten Days, but certainly better than the 2001 demos. Other tracks feature Song’s guitar very prominently, for some very powerful rock moments, especially on 里绝望的花 (shǒuxīnli juéwàng de huā – Desperate Flower in Your Hand). On this album you get to see the band’s real direction, which aims to combine traditional Chinese sounds with what might be called progressive rock.

The next recording is another Lin Di solo album, 2004’s Bride in Legend; the Chinese title is 迷路新娘 (mílù xīnniáng), which means Lost Bride.
Like Ten Days, it was produced by Liu Xing, and it is again a lush concept piece. This time Lin tells the story of Yilang Yilang, a young girl sent out from her home village to be the bride of a man in a distant city. The events she experiences along the way change her and her understanding of the world. The backing band is not credited as Cold Fairyland, though the liner notes mention “Cool Zone” again; Su Yong, Li Jia and Song Jianfeng are present along with an even greater number of traditional instruments. Oddly enough, the pipa is not credited to Lin Di; there is cello on the album, but not played by Zhou Shen’an.

Once again, it was released on Taiwan’s Wind label and marketed to the New Age crowd, with elaborate packaging including liner notes in English and Chinese (unfortunately my copy almost immediately came unglued so I have to be really careful with it). There is less prominence given to the electronic MIDI programming, and much more emphasis on the Chinese instruments. From start to finish it’s a beautiful experience, with enough energy to keep it from inducing sleep.

“Mula Shabei War”

The track I’ve picked (慕拉沙贝大战 mùlāshābèi dàzhàn) is actually atypical. It’s track eight, and the first time electric guitar appears – kind of stands out when you hear it in the album’s sequence, but in a good way. This album is a good match with Ten Days, another beautifully realized studio creation that seamlessly mixes East and West, ancient and modern.

The next album brings us back to where I started with this band: their live album 2005现场 (2005 xiànchǎng, literally 2005 On Location – 现场 is the phrase used for a reporter at the scene of an incident – though it’s usually called 2005 Live in English). It was recorded at ARK in Shanghai, and revisits music from all of the previous releases, including the Lin Di solo albums, as well as a couple of new pieces.
The band consists of the recurring musicians I’ve already mentioned, all together and working as a unit. The cello is especially prominent, and the rhythm section really gets the chance to cut loose, completely dispelling any New Age stigma.

Here’s the live version of a song that previously appeared on Kingdom.

“Desperate Flower in Your Hand”

On this CD’s cover, the Chinese title 手心里绝望的花 (shǒuxīnli juéwàng de huā) is translated as “Holding the Flower of Despair,” but I’m sticking with the way it was written earlier – both seem accurate translations, and I guess the difference in meaning is pretty slight.

If I had been able to read Chinese when I got this CD, I would have noticed that the original release years and album titles for all the tracks are listed, and include something for 2006 called 地上的种子 (dìshang de zhǒngzi Seeds on the Ground); there is also one track with no other appearance listed. The only flaw to this recording is the occasional shaky quality of the vocals (more so the men’s backing parts than Lin’s lead), which is of course understandable given the live setting.

Also in 2005, Ten Days was reissued on a domestic Chinese label with a different cover:
In 2007 (not 2006 as promised on the live album), the next band album appeared. Seeds on the Ground continues the progression towards a less pop-oriented sound, with more attention given to the band’s unique qualities, especially the instrumentation with pipa and cello. Two of the new songs that appeared on the live album are given a studio treatment.
The personnel remains the same as on the live album, and the mood is a bit more serene in the studio setting, though far from sleepy. They start off with the title track, which features acoustic guitar, pipa, hand percussion, and a lovely vocal arrangement.

Here is a sample to give you an idea what they’re up to on this album:

“The Moon at the Fortified Pass”

That’s 关山月 (guānshān yuè – yes, only three characters for the six words of the English title). It’s one of only three tracks with lyrics, and those lyrics are by the famous Tang Dynasty poet Li Bai. On the whole, Song plays a lot more acoustic guitar than electric. Several tracks feature odd meters and complex rhythms. In some ways, it seems that on this album, the band has come into their own, finally integrating all the diverse elements into a unified whole.
In the fall of 2008, I finally had a chance to see Cold Fairyland live. They played at the Modern Sky Festival in Beijing’s Haidian Park. I wrote about the performance originally here. Check it out for more photos and video.
It was here that I discovered founding bassist Su Yong was no longer with the band. I don’t know the story, but he’s been replaced by Seppo Lehto, who is Finnish. Su is now working with Wu Zhuoling (吴桌玲) in A-Z.
I also discovered that the lineup has been augmented with a full-time keyboard player, Xi Jin’e (奚近萼); previously, Lin had covered keyboards in the studio and alternated between pipa and keys when playing live.
As far as I know, Li Jia is still the band’s drummer, and just couldn’t make it to Beijing when I saw them.
It will be very interesting to see how these changes will play out in the band’s next recording, whenever that may be. Lin Di tells me the current lineup makes the band a “3 couples band.”

Lin Di’s most recent project is a solo CD called 秘密花园的邂逅 (mìmì huāyuán de xièhòu Meet in Secret Garden), credited to 米亚嘟嘟 (Miyadudu). It is perhaps her first true solo album, with very little participation by other musicians.
Here’s my favorite track:

“Waterbird’s Secret Language”

水鸟密语 (shuǐniǎo mìyǔ) is the track that features pipa most prominently, which is a large part of the appeal for me.

And finally, in 2009, Seeds on the Ground was re-released with a different cover.
Not sure why they changed it. It’s pretty, but I prefer the original one.

There you go, a short (yeah, right) introduction to my favorite Chinese band. I’m tired now.

Rock in China entry: http://wiki.rockinchina.com/index.php?title=Cold_Fairyland
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/coldfairyland
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#!/pages/Cold-Fairyland/40842708567?ref=sgm
Official site: http://www.coldfairyland.com/
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/cold-fairyland/id264914696?ign-mpt=uo%3D6

Note: All images and audio files presented here are in the interest of increasing awareness of Chinese rock in the English-speaking world. If you are the owner of the copyright in any of them and object to this free promotion, let me know and I'll remove the offending media.

The Yaogun Diaries, part 5

2010-02-05T08:14:00.008+08:00

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Milk@Coffee

Moving even farther astray from the punkish side of Chinese rock, we find this band, known sometimes by the Chinese version of their name, 牛奶@咖啡 (niúnǎi kāfēi) with the @ often not pronounced. I suppose you could say they’re not a rock band at all (see below for their own take on the question), but I have a pretty broad definition of rock. To pick a Western genre for them, I would probably choose “indie pop” but I don’t regard anything including the word “indie” as an actual genre. They are basically the duo of Fu Yan (富妍), known as Kiki, singing and 格非 (Ge Fei) on keyboards, guitar, programming, and so on. In a live setting other players are added to fill out the sound.

Their first album was called 燃烧吧！小宇宙 (ránshāo ba! xiǎo yǔzhòu), officially translated as Burn! My Cosmos, and came out in 2005.
I really enjoy this happy music, which reminds me of some of the Japanese bands I like. Here’s a track for you to get the idea.

“Lasia”

This song, called “Lasia” actually garnered them some success in China, apparently hitting #3 on some kind of chart (I can’t find documentation of this, just a reference on Baidu).

There’s also a fun video for the title track of the album:

The first time I saw them live was at the Beijing Pop Festival in September of 2007. You can read my original post here.
By the end of the set, they had a whole bunch of extra people on the stage dancing and singing the chorus of a song that wasn’t on the CD; even then I knew enough Chinese to make out the title “Wo bushi rock ‘n’ roll” which means “I’m Not Rock ‘n’ Roll” – ironic since it was the most rock oriented tune they played.
The next time I saw them live was in a much more controlled setting, MAO Livehouse, in July of 2008 as part of a “girls’ night” featuring all female-led performances. While I didn’t write a review of the show, I did post some pictures. Here’s another one:
I found myself grinning like an idiot pretty much throughout their set. Kiki is so charismatic, cheerful, and cute you would have to be a real grouch to dislike her. There was a charming bit where she brought out a sequined top hat and a sparkly cane to do a little dance. The hat later ended up on the guitarist.

I even took some video of their final number.

Later in 2008 they released their second album, which has the happy title of 越长大越孤单, More Grown up, More Lonely.
When I got it, I was very happy to see it had the song I remembered from their festival performance. 我不是 Rock ‘n’ Roll (I’m Not Rock ‘n’ Roll).

“I’m Not Rock ‘n’ Roll”

About the same time as the CD came out I saw them again, this time at the Modern Sky Festival. Again, they got only a few photos instead of a full review.
It was a really fun performance, what with the pirate hat and bubble machines and all, and the crowd was so big I couldn’t get anywhere near the stage. This was by far the biggest stage I’ve seen them on, and they had a great time. The backing band was a little different, featuring a female keyboard player to fill in while Ge Fei concentrated on guitar.

In addition to their own CD releases, Milk@Coffee was involved in an interesting little project put together by Modern Sky Records: a CD for children called 星猫 (xīng māo Star Cat).
I hope this project is successful – it will be great to have a generation of kids exposed to music other than sappy pop.

Rock in China entry: http://wiki.rockinchina.com/index.php?title=Milk@Coffee

Note: All images and audio files presented here are in the interest of increasing awareness of Chinese rock in the English-speaking world. If you are the owner of the copyright in any of them and object to this free promotion, let me know and I'll remove the offending media.

The Dianying Diaries, part 2

2010-02-05T07:27:00.003+08:00

Part of a series dealing with Chinese cinema. 电影 (diànyǐng) is the Chinese word for movie, the two characters literally meaning “electric” and “shadow.”

小城之春 (xiǎochéng zhī chūn) – Springtime in a Small Town (2002)

As I mentioned last time around, the 1948 Chinese classic film with this title was remade in 2002. Though the official English titles are different, in Chinese they are identical. This time around, the director was Tian Zhuangzhuang (田壮壮 ) of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, along with Zhang Yimou (张艺谋) and Chen Kaige (陈凯歌 ). Tian’s career has been very erratic, with a smaller number of films to his credits than others of his generation. This is due in great part to the aftermath of his 1993 film 蓝风筝 (The Blue Kite), which was banned in his homeland and earned him a forced hiatus for a few years. Even after his blacklisting was over, he did not make another film until this one nearly ten years later.
On the surface, this film is a marked departure from Tian’s tendency to push the boundaries of what his government would accept – it’s a simple story of a love triangle with no significant political or historical content. The plot remains unchanged from the original, so you can read my previous entry to see what it’s about. There is perhaps a slight bit of subversion in the choice to remake a neglected classic, first since that film was somewhat out of favor (though not banned). And by retreating into the past, to a movie that was made before the Revolution, maybe he was making a statement about how the authorities’ restrictions served to render Chinese artists impotent. But we should not read too much into these possibilities.

If I had seen this film on its own, and not shortly after watching the original, I might very well have felt differently about it. To be honest, this modern film suffers from the comparison in most respects. Although it garnered positive reviews both in China and abroad, I find it pales next to Fei Mu’s achievement.

To illustrate why I feel this way, let me go through some of the things I noted about the original, comparing the differences.

(The original Yuwen meets the new Yuwen)

First of all Yuwen’s narration is gone. In the DVD extras, Tian explains that her narration reduced the other characters’ importance, and he wanted to tell the story in a more balanced way, giving equal weight to Liyan and Zhicheng. I would call this change neutral.

Second, the character of Little Sister is significantly altered. Far from being the perceptive young woman she was in the original, she is giggly and immature. I’ve considered that maybe it’s just the choice of the young actress for the part, but it’s more than that. Frankly, the character of Little Sister in the original was a real joy; even when she wasn’t speaking you could see from her attitude that she understood what was going on maybe better than anyone else in the story. Her reduction to a shallow teenager is quite a loss for the film.
Third, the dialog is much more naturalistic, lacking the stagy quality I noted in the original. I’d have to call this one in Tian’s favor. While the acting style of the original didn’t really bother me, by comparison this seems more true-to-life. In addition, there’s a lot more talking in this version – some scenes that were nearly silent before now have dialog.

Fourth, Yuwen mostly lacks the forthright flirtatious manner she sometimes exhibited in the original. I found it decidedly odd that a 21st Century film would actually be less daring than its 1948 source. Yuwen is on the whole less energetic, independent and engaging in this go-round.

(I couldn't find this part with subtitles. The rowboat scene is about five minutes in.)

Fifth, while there are still scenes with singing, it is no longer Chinese folk songs that are sung. In the wonderful rowing scene of the original, they sing an ode to springtime, that, while it’s sung in Chinese, is set to the tune of “The Blue Danube.” And when Zhicheng gets drunk at Little Sister’s birthday party, he sings a piece from an Italian opera.

And finally, this film is in color. The cinematography is really lovely, but does lack the sense of desolation that the black and white gave us. As before, the lighting is often dim, though the candlelight now provides a warm glow rather than feeble flickering.

Another difference that was quite jarring was this: in the original, we never so much as saw another human being aside from the five principles. Now, for no reason I can make out, there is a single scene that breaks out of that confinement. Zhicheng goes to Little Sister’s school and teaches her classmates how to dance a waltz (again, note the favoring of a foreign influence over Chinese tradition).

To some extent, the rowing scene sums up the changes Tian made to Fei’s movie. The camera angle is much wider, giving us a detached, less engaged feeling; the characters do not exchange any meaningful glances, giving little hint what they’re feeling; and a Chinese folk song is replaced with a bastardized version of a European classical tune.

So while I would not say Tian’s film is a classic of Chinese cinema, it is far from a bad film, and shows lots of craft in the making. Tian obviously knows what he is doing, and what I see as shortcomings here are for the most part deliberate choices, not failures in movie-making skill. I wouldn’t want to discourage anyone from watching this picture, but would definitely urge everyone to seek out the original.

Wikipedia entry
IMDB entry
Netflix entry

The Dianying Diaries, part 1

2010-02-01T12:26:00.014+08:00

Part of a series dealing with Chinese cinema. 电影 (diànyǐng) is the Chinese word for movie, the two characters literally meaning “electric” and “shadow.”

小城之春 (xiǎochéng zhī chūn) – Spring in a Small Town (1948)

This film was made by director Fei Mu (费穆 ) just before the Revolution, so you can’t expect any propagandistic content. As you might recall, Japan occupied much of China starting in 1937 (the Second Sino-Japanese War), and weren’t finally expelled until 1945. This story is set in about 1946 in the aftermath of the war, and though it gets only fleeting mention, it is silently present in the ruined setting.
In a small town that is never named (it was filmed in Wuzhen (乌镇) in Zhejiang (浙江) province) but is somewhere not too far from Shanghai , the Dai family has its home. Their large compound, with multiple courtyards and many rooms in adjoining buildings, was heavily damaged by Japanese mortar fire, and in any case only four people now live there.
Dai Liyan (戴礼言, played by 石羽 Shi Yu), though only about 30, is the family patriarch. He has been in ill health for six years – it is suspected that his respiratory problem may be tuberculosis.
The second resident is his wife of eight years, Zhou Yuwen (周玉纹, played by 韦伟 Wei Wei). (Remember, in Chinese culture, women do not take their husband’s family name.) She is pretty but withdrawn, having lived in separate rooms from her husband since early in his illness. She takes care of him dutifully, but there is no affection apparent.
Liyan’s younger sister Dai Xiu (戴秀, played by 张鸿眉 Zhang Hongmei) is the third resident. She is 15, a very bright and perceptive girl, usually referred to as Little Sister (妹妹).
Finally there is Lao Huang (老黄 literally “Old Huang” – a typical way to refer to an older man, and not at all disrespectful, played by 崔超明 Cui Chaoming), the family’s loyal servant, who has been there longer than any of the others.
Over the years they’ve developed a routine. Every morning Yuwen rises and takes a basket into town to get groceries and her husband’s medicine and walks along the old city wall on the way home; Liyan gets up and sits in the garden, sometimes attempting repairs or tending plants; Little Sister gets up and walks to school, sometimes coming home for lunch, sometimes not until after school; Lao Huang takes care of things around the house. Presumably they have dinner together, though we don’t see that directly.
Shortly after the movie starts, their routine is interrupted by the arrival of Zhang Zhichen (章志忱, played by 李纬 Li Wei), a childhood friend of Liyan. Liyan hasn’t seen him since Zhichen left town to attend medical school in Shanghai. Through circumstances that aren’t explained, Liyan is unaware that Zhichen was Yuwen’s boyfriend when she was 16, before she met Liyan, and Zhichen is unaware that his former girlfriend married his old friend. These five characters are the only people seen in the entire film.
Zhichen’s arrival (he stays for several weeks) serves to highlight the emptiness of Yuwen’s marriage, and though this side of the love triangle is never consummated (this shouldn’t be a spoiler when you consider where and when it was made), tensions rise, and we wonder if Yuwen will leave her husband to be with her true love, or perhaps even do something more serious.

That’s enough of the plot. There are a few things to note about how the story is told.
Yuwen provides voice-over narration, mostly giving us background, sometimes revealing her thoughts, and occasionally providing information she really shouldn’t know according to the events seen on screen. Sometimes this is a little jarring, especially when the voice-over is interspersed with conversation.
Second is that Little Sister is quick to pick up on what’s going on. She can tell there is something between Yuwen and Zhichen, feels sorry for Yuwen’s unhappy situation, and is not blindly supportive of her brother; she’s slightly flirtatious toward Zhicheng.
Third, the dialog is a little stiff and stagy, rather like a play translated to the screen, though to my knowledge the screenplay was based on a short story, and there never was a play. I attribute this mainly to the era in which it was made. I understood enough of the dialog to pick this up, and I know others who don’t understand Chinese at all who have come to the same conclusion.
Fourth, in her scenes with Zhicheng, Yuwen is often quite playful, even a little flirtatious. There’s one scene where she circles her old boyfriend playing with a scarf, covering the lower part of her face like a veil while her eyes sparkle mischievously.

Fifth, there are several scenes with singing, usually Little Sister singing a Chinese folk song, but very little in the way of incidental music. There is a really interesting scene where the three principles take a boat out onto the river with Little Sister and they sing 在那遥远的地方 (zài nà yáoyuǎn de dìfang "In That Distant Place") together.
And finally, it is in black and white, with the ruined house seeming all the more desolate for the lack of color. Many scenes are lit by the dim overhead lightbulbs that make up the majority of the old house’s lighting, and at the times when the electricity goes out, there are only candles and lamps.

I mention some of these things for future comparison with the 2002 remaking of this story, which I’ll talk about in a forthcoming post.

The lack of political content led to the disfavor of the Communist government, which had the policy that art should further Party ideals. Since it didn’t contain any uplifting messages of the people overcoming oppression, it had no place in the country’s cultural mixture, seen as “Rightist” maybe more by default than by anything actually in it. So while it was never outright banned, it was basically ignored for decades, in mainland China at least. It also didn’t help that director Fei Mu fled to Hong Kong after the Revolution. Luckily copies have survived, though the DVD transfer I watched had some flaws, places where the picture or sound had problems. Others of Fei Mu’s early work have not been so lucky.
As I mentioned, the acting is maybe a little stiff by modern standards, and reminded me somewhat of American movies of the thirties. But I would not say that this film was in any way behind the the times for its era. The camera work, framing, and lighting are all quite good.

All in all, it is a fine film, and worthy of a place among the world’s classics of cinema. In 2005, the Hong Kong Film Critics Association voted it the greatest Chinese film of all time, topping a list of 100 movies weighted heavily towards the HK industry.

Wikipedia entry
IMDb entry
Netflix entry

The Yaogun Diaries, part 3.5

2009-11-22T04:46:00.004+08:00

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Hedgehog (Revisited)

When I wrote about this band a few weeks ago, I mentioned that I had never heard, let alone seen, their first album, Happy Idle Kid. Well, due to the help of some readers who commented on that post, I managed to track it down. At one point the band had made it available for a free download, and as we all know, once something is out on the internet, it’s there forever. This one took a lot of searching to find, but it paid off.
I was expecting this to be rather primitive sounding, but aside from the minimal production (which actually works in the music’s favor), this is a good solid effort, and shows the band knew what they were doing even less than a year into their existence.

“Buffer”

Here’s a track to check out. It starts somewhat quietly with an odd bass riff, only later adding in louder rhythm guitar. It is representative of the album as a whole, though of course there is some variety, with a slow song (柏油公路 – “Asphalt Road”) for a change of pace. I have no trouble recommending this set of tunes to anyone who likes the band’s later, more well-known, material.

Note: All images and audio files presented here are in the interest of increasing awareness of Chinese rock in the English-speaking world. If you are the owner of the copyright in any of them and object to this free promotion, let me know and I'll remove the offending media.

The Yaogun Diaries, part 4

2009-10-17T23:21:00.007+08:00

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Supermarket (超级市场, chāojíshìchǎng)

In the interests of variety, this time I’ll talk about Supermarket. Unlike the previous bands I’ve talked about, this one has very little relation with punk music – probably the closest comparison I can make would be Depeche Mode. I came to this band rather late – in fact, it was only as I was planning my departure from China and making a list of CDs to buy before leaving that I discovered them. The band was founded in 1996, and the following year signed up with Modern Sky Records.

Their first album came out in 1998, called in Chinese 模样 (múyàng), and in English usually The Look (that’s “look” as in “appearance” or “style”).
Their sound is high-tech and heavy on keyboards, with dreamy vocals and atmospheric guitar; drums are both real and electronic, programmed and played by human hands. In general, they aim more towards middle tempos and simple tunes lushly produced rather than energy and aggression.

“Sad Hallucination”

That’s a tune called 悲伤的幻觉 (bēishāng de huànjué) which should give you a good idea of what they’re about. They also tend to take their time about things, with most of the tracks in the six to seven minute range, which can be a good or bad thing depending on your mood. At times, the music gets quite abstract, leaning towards experimental electronic music.

On their second album, the slight experimental tendencies of the debut are brought to the forefront. It’s called 七种武器 (qī zhǒng wǔqì – Seven Kinds of Weapon), and the ten tracks are named simply “S1” through “S10.”
I really commend Modern Sky for sticking with them with such a non-commercial effort.

It’s a little on the long side, but here’s the opening track, which is a good example of what they’re up to.

“S1”

It starts off with odd percussive noises and bass notes from a synthesizer, building in intensity for a minute or so before an IDM style programmed drum part comes in. Then it suddenly cuts the tempo in half with a hypnotic guitar part, which is eventually combines with the double-time drums. Then you get voices, electronic ones and seriously distorted human ones. Well, listen for yourself.

To be fair, this is not obnoxious experimentation, and is often tuneful, though even in melodic moments there are distorted sounds in the background and unusual touches that set it apart from stock electronic pop. Many tracks feature oddly treated vocals, sometimes sounding very childlike (maybe actually a child singing). Two tracks stretch to over ten minutes. In one case a five minute techno song drifts off into outer space for a couple minutes, then is reborn with a harder edged guitar part for a while, then, after a brief break filled with vocal samples, builds slowly up to a big finish.

The Rock in China entry mentions a 2002 release called Laser Age – Laser Time, but I’ve found no information about it. It’s not listed on the Modern Sky site, and my searches have turned up nothing about it.

Modern Sky lists 繁荣的 (fánróngde – Prosperous) as their third album. It came out in 2004. It does include a song called 激光时代, which translates as “Laser Age,” so maybe the mystery release is a single.
While still quite experimental in places, in general this album is catchier, and in fact I’ve chosen its poppiest track as a sample.

“Beautiful Girl”

It’s maybe not completely representative of the album, but it just makes me smile every time I hear it.

There are still some weird touches, with sound effects, spoken voice samples, manipulated sounds, and so on, often combined with dancy beats.

Their fourth album is 音乐会 (yīnyuèhuì – Concert), though honestly I can’t tell if it’s a live recording or that’s just the title – I can’t hear any crowd noise. I don’t have a physical copy of the CD to check the credits. If anyone knows for sure, let me know and I’ll update this entry.
This one continues the basic trend of the previous albums, with catchy electronic pop songs interspersed with experimental sounds. Female vocals appear on several tracks, including this one:

“TV 84”

That’s 电视八十四 (diànshì bāshísì). The female vocalist is apparently a guest performer, since the band is still a trio. All of the tracks are original, no versions of previously released music.

This band doesn’t seem to play live very often (though if Concert is an example, they do it well), and I never saw them perform, so these four CDs are all I have to go on. They’re an example of a different facet of Chinese music, a far cry from the loud guitars of The P.K 14 or Hedgehog (see my previous posts if you missed those).

Rock in China: http://wiki.rockinchina.com/index.php?title=Supermarket
MySpace (Chinese): http://www.myspace.cn/chaojishichang
Modern Sky: http://www.modernsky.com/

Note: All images and audio files presented here are in the interest of increasing awareness of Chinese rock in the English-speaking world. If you are the owner of the copyright in any of them and object to this free promotion, let me know and I'll remove the offending media.

The Yaogun Diaries, part 3

2009-10-10T00:01:00.004+08:00

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Hedgehog

This band was the subject of frequent notices in the English-language publications around Beijing from the time I started reading them, and the descriptions were enticing enough for me to buy their second CD Noise Hit World (Badhead/Modern Sky, 2007) without hearing any of it first.
It’s a really engaging pop-punk sound with some elements of both British and Japanese rock to it. Like many Beijing bands, Hedgehog is a trio, in this case guitar/bass/drums, and also like many Beijing bands, at least one member is female, in this case drummer 阿童木 (Atom, as in Astroboy, because she is small in size but very powerful just like the robot boy in the cartoon). Their modus operandi is to establish a catchy rock groove and add somewhat sing-song vocals over it, sometimes punctuated by enthusiastic shouts. Guitarist 子健 (ZO) does most of the singing, though Atom helps out with backing, occasional lead, and shouting. The lyrics are mostly in English, unabashedly sung with Chinese accents. The bassist also goes by a nickname, 博宣 (Box).

Here’s the opening track for you to get the idea.

“Toy & 61 Festival”

It wasn’t long before I got a chance to see them live (covered here originally). They were part of a four-band bill at Yugong Yishan for the two-band album release party of Carsick Cars and Snapline on November 10, 2007.
That was a great night of music, and Hedgehog were outstanding – noisy and rowdy without being out of control.
I ended up seeing them live the following weekend at 2 Kolegas as part of a different four-band bill. This time they were the final band after RandomK(e), Subs, and Re-TROS.
Most of the decent pictures I got appear in my original post over here.
2 Kolegas is a very different environment from Yugong Yishan, closer to classic “dive” status and proud of it. The smaller, more intimate show was looser and ended with a real Rock and Roll Moment, as I described in my original post.

The band has remained active since then, though I haven’t seen them again. Their third CD, Blue Daydreaming (白日梦蓝 – báirìmèng lán), came out in 2009 on Modern Sky, and, like Noise Hit World, is much more subtle and melodic than their live persona would indicate, thought it’s full of vitality and charm. This time the lyrics are split about halfway between English and Chinese, but I don’t think that’s an indication of them giving up on international recognition.
As much as I like Noise Hit World, I think this one is better. Here’s one of many great selections.

“Pseudomorph”

I said it’s more subtle, but that doesn’t mean it’s wimpy. It’s more muscular sounding in many places, though there are passages of acoustic guitar with dreamy vocals.

There’s also a 2006 CD called Happy Idle Kid which I’ve never seen in stores or at a gig.

Here’s a fun video which is from the album:

Haven’t been able to find a download anywhere either, though I’ve searched all over. For some reason when you try searching with this band’s name (or the Chinese equivalent 刺猬 – cìwèi which they don’t use very conspicuously), you find a bunch of video-game related stuff.

Rock in China: http://wiki.rockinchina.com/index.php?title=Hedgehog
MySpace (Chinese, but with audio): http://www.myspace.cn/hedgehog
AMP interview (in English): http://amp.channelv.com/seenandheard/2007/07/24/1185244713938.html

Note: All images and audio files presented here are in the interest of increasing awareness of Chinese rock in the English-speaking world. If you are the owner of the copyright in any of them and object to this free promotion, let me know and I'll remove the offending media.

The Yaogun Diaries, part 2

2009-10-05T07:25:00.013+08:00

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

The P.K.14

Like Re-TROS in my last installment, this band has its roots in Nanjing. They have continually played with their name, claiming it stands for various different things at different times. They have also been listed at times as P.K.14 (The Chinese language has no articles, so this is pretty common with band names). Their newest release uses The, so I’ll call that the preferred form.

Way back in the spring of 2007, the P.K.14 was one of the first Chinese bands I saw play live (read about it here). They opened for the Soundtrack of Our Lives at Star Live. At that time, their third album 白皮书 (Báipíshū – White Paper), while more than a year old, was still getting positive reviews in the Chinese English-language press, so I went to their MySpace page and checked out the music. For some reason it didn’t really grab me, though I didn’t dislike it.

The two most notable things about their sound were the lead vocals of Yang Haisong (杨海崧), which are not terribly melodic, mixing yelping, yelling, and overwrought semi-spoken Chinese, and the guitar of Xu Bo (许波) , which generally stays away from rhythmic playing like you expect in punkish rock, kind of like the Edge in a less anthemic setting than U2.
This leaves the bass and guitar to push the rhythms. They also have a tendency to wander off into moody grooves with atmospheric guitar (which U2 also did in their early days). Other good comparisons include Television and Joy Division.
I think it was probably the vocals that prevented me from enjoying this band right off the bat. It wasn’t until I had much more experience listening to Chinese rock that I came to appreciate them. A few months after seeing them live, I reread some of the CD reviews and decided to give it another go. I bought the album and listened to it a few times, gradually coming to the realization that it really was quite good. It’s on the Badhead division of Modern Sky, China’s premier independent rock label.

As an aside, on the CD spine, the band’s name is given as Pent Kilowatt One More Than Thirteen. On the opposite spine, they have the Chinese name 青春公共王国 (qīngchūn gōnggòng wángguó), which means Public Kingdom for Teens – get it? P.K. 14. As you can see, the front cover just says P.K. 14.
The album has worn well for me, and I still like listening to it a lot.

“They”

As you can hear on this song, 他们 (Tāmen – “They”), the band is not averse to including embellishments to their guitar-bass-drums core. Other tracks include glockenspiel and synthesizer. The credits are all in Chinese, but according to the Rock in China bio, the album was recorded in Sweden with producer Hernik Oja. The band’s long-time (though not original) drummer is of Swedish ancestry, though he’s lived most of his life in China and Hong Kong.

“Saga”

I can’t resist giving you another sample of this record. The energy and passion in this track are obvious even if you know nothing of the words. I love the way the guitar is at times pounding out the eighth notes and then breaks off to soar melodically, and the climax of the tune, which finishes off the album, is positively cathartic. It’s called 故事 (Gùshi), which means “Story” or “Saga.”

In June of 2008, just before the Olympics, the band released their fourth album, 城市天气的航行 (chéngshì tiānqì de hángxíng), which translates rather cryptically as City Weather Sailing. It’s on the Maybe Mars label, which has been putting out a lot of good stuff lately. The artwork is just as cryptic, with a blurry cityscape on the front...
and a rather strange photo of performance art or modern dance on the back:
As soon as I pressed Play on the first of its 18 tracks, I knew I was in for something special. The sparse keyboard touches of the previous album have been enhanced to the point of having their own voice, though still without overpowering the post-punk core of the band. This is music that is both sophisticated and visceral. Six of the tracks are interludes under a minute long, brief improvisations that set up the mood without seeming indulgent or unnecessary.

Here is the second cut, 穿過河堤(chuānguò hédī – “Wade the River”), which features an excellent string arrangement.

“Wade the River”

Now that I’ve covered their third and fourth albums, what about the earlier ones? Rock in China lists a 2001 CD called 上楼就往左拐 (shànglóu jiù wǎng zuǒguǎi – Upstairs on the Left), released on Subjam in China and Empty Egg, a Canadian label, but I have never seen this available for purchase or download anywhere.
There is also a demo collection called 烂掉吧 (làndiào ba – Rotting, or maybe Rotten) which is available for download (with the exception of track 5) from here along with RealMedia of some other demos. All of the tracks listed for the Upstairs CD also appear on the demo collection – I don’t know if the Subjam/Empty Egg release featured exactly the same recordings or new versions of the same songs.
Aside from the demo’s production quality, which is not so bad, the music, while it does contain the seeds of the band’s style, is less interesting. There are no credits to go on, but it sounds like they’re using a drum machine. The mood is more subdued, completely lacking the intense energy shown on later recordings. All in all, it reminds me much more of Joy Division than their later material. Incidentally, the file I downloaded for track 6 seems to consist of 5:35 of silence.

“Invested in the Break of an Embrace”

Check out 投向分裂的怀抱 (tóu xiàng fēnliè de huáibào), which might or might not translate as “Invested in the Break of an Embrace.” It’s one of a few of the demo tracks that really give the sense of what the band would later grow into.

Their second album came out in 2004, and it is where the band came into their own stylistically. The improved production and drumming really fill out the sound, and we’re starting to see touches of the sophistication. The album is called 谁谁谁和谁谁谁 (shéishéishéi hé shéishéishéi – Who Who Who and Who Who Who, which is maybe some kind of expression I’m not familiar with).
The song I’ve chosen for you to sample is 第二十八个影子 (dì'èrshíbāgè yǐngzi – “The 28th Shadow”).

“The 28th Shadow”

Just a few days before I left China, I got the chance to see The P.K.14 live again. This time the show was at Yugong Yishan. They had the middle spot on a bill with Offset: Spectacles before them and the American band These Are Powers after.
One thing’s for sure: they were a lot louder this time.
In fact, it was one of those shows where the music was so loud that any nuances were completely overwhelmed by volume.
Yugong Yishan has an excellent sound system, and most of the time even loud bands sound good, but this one was way over the top.
Still, they really had the crowd going.
The material off the newest album sounded very different than it did in the studio.
And a little crowd surfing never hurts.

Rock in China entry: http://wiki.rockinchina.com/index.php?title=P.K.14
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/pk14
Modern Sky Records: http://www.modernsky.com/
Maybe Mars Records: http://www.bingmasi.com/
Tenzenmen: http://www.tenzenmen.com/ (an Australian distributor)

Note: All images and audio files presented here are in the interest of increasing awareness of Chinese rock in the English-speaking world. If you are the owner of the copyright in any of them and object to this free promotion, let me know and I'll remove the offending media.

The Yaogun Diaries, part 1

2009-09-13T03:18:00.002+08:00

Part of a series dealing with rock music in China, mostly Beijing because that's what I know. 摇滚 (yáogǔn) is the Chinese word for rock music, the two characters literally meaning "shake" and "roll".

Introduction

When I first went to China back in 2006, one of my goals was to learn as much as I could about music there. Being the musical omnivore I am, that included everything from traditional folk music to academic Chinese Classical music to pop and rock – whatever I might find there. Somehow I never managed to see a Peking Opera show, but I saw dozens of rock bands, and the whole phenomenon of rock in China fascinated me.

While it's undeniable that rock music is a Western art form in its origins, it's also undeniable that it has had an impact all around the world. I think this is in part because rock is not a clearly defined genre, but a kind of cultural chameleon. It can absorb various outside traditions and remain rock. This is nothing new – it started back in the 60s when elements of European Classical music and the music of the Middle East and India started to filter into psychedelic rock. As I see it, rock was born out of the union of rhythm and blues (at the time mostly confined to predominantly black communities) with country music (primarily a white form of music), so it should be no surprise that rock is good at melding what may seem like opposites. Over the decades since its birth, rock has mated with just about every possible form of music on the planet, and its bastard offspring can be found just about everywhere you could point on a globe.

So it should come as no surprise that there is rock music in China. I've even had reports that rock is starting to make inroads in North Korea, though in a highly constrained form that mostly resembles 60s surf music – all instrumental, thus avoiding any questionable lyrical content. The government of the People's Republic of China is also known for censorship, though it is nowhere near as restrictive as North Korea, and musicians there have their own methods of dealing with it. We'll get to that later.

I went to a lot of shows at clubs, theaters, and festivals over the last two and a half years in Beijing, and you can get some descriptions and photos on my China blog by searching on the music tag. Like any thriving music scene, Beijing has artists that cover a wide variety of styles, from raucous classic punk to acoustic singer/songwriters, from experimental noise to sweet technopop. Some of them come off as derivative of their Western prototypes, some of them are wildly original. Some of them sing in English, some in Chinese, and some in other languages. All in all, there are easily a couple dozen artists there worthy of international attention, and from my own difficulties, I know how hard it can be to learn about them. There is precious little information, even in Chinese, to guide you, and a lot of it is extremely difficult to come by outside the country. So I'd like to share what I've learned, and help bring together some of what's available elsewhere on the web.

First up, there is an online directory, Rock in China, that has a lot of information, most of it in English. It's an evolving resource with user-created content like Wikipedia. I've been contributing there myself, and will continue to do so as I have time and facts. I've also contributed and updated artist bios on Last.fm for many of the bands I know. A lot of Chinese rock is available for download at VeryCD, though I'll leave it up to others to determine the moral/legal status of what's there – it's also in Chinese, though I've found that even with limited language skills, it's possible to make my way around. I can give some lessons for those who are interested – just ask.

And now, since it seems like it would be a shame to end this post without covering something specific, I'll tell you about...

Re-TROS

This is one of very few Chinese bands which is available on CD in the US. Their first album, Cut Off!, was released by Tag Team Records, and they’ve toured in the US, including a spot at SXSW in 2007. Their first album lists their full name as Reestablishing the Rights of Statues – later items have called them Rebuilding the Rights of Statues. The Chinese version is 重塑雕像的权利 (chóngsù diāoxiàng de quánlì), which can be translated either way.

That American release (actually an EP) is a 2007 re-release of something that came out in China on Badhead Records (a division of Modern Sky) in 2005 with one added track. Both are called Cut Off! I have the Chinese version. As the story goes, Brian Eno was working in the same studio where they were recording, liked their music, and ended up doing some guest keyboards on some of the tracks.
Stylistically, they are most closely related to Gang of Four, Bauhaus, Joy Division, Pere Ubu and early Talking Heads, though they are distinctive enough to avoid any charges of being mere copycats. Their lyrics are almost entirely in English.

TV Show (Hang the Police)

There's also a video for this song, which you can watch online:

I first saw them live in November of 2007 at a little club called 2 Kolegas, which is a great place located inside the grounds of a drive-in movie theater, along with a number of other bars and restaurants. It was my first time going to the place, and it was not easy to find. The taxi driver had no clue (at that time I spoke very little Chinese), so it was lucky I’d looked at a map and knew the general location. It was a triple bill, starting with Subs, then Re-TROS, and finishing up with Hedgehog. I’ll talk about the other two later.
Re-TROS put on an amazing show, very intense with energy and commitment, probably including imperfections but much too enjoyable for me to care.
The lyrics, which deal with social issues bordering on politics, were pretty much indistinguishable. Lead singer 华东 (Hua Dong) is extremely emotive in a jerky David Byne kind of way.
Bassist Liu Min (刘敏) is less demonstrative, providing solid low end and backing vocals. Ma Hui (马晖) is mostly simple, but quite imaginative on the drums, with lots of unconventional patterns and unexpected accents.

2Kolegas is a great place to see a show, not such a great place to take pictures since the lighting is pretty minimal. You can read my original post about the show here.

After that night, I didn’t get a chance to see them again until June of 2009, at the release party for their full-length CD with the unwieldy title of Watch Out! Climate Has Changed, Fat Mum Rises... (including punctuation), which is out on Modern Sky in China. So far no outside release that I'm aware of.

My Great Location

This show was at Yugong Yishan, which is much bigger, with better lights and sound than 2Kolegas, though lacking the cozy dive ambiance.
This band was great before, but have since grown into something truly awesome. The new material is rather atmospheric on the CD, though the live show was every bit as intense as before.
Liu Min even handles lead vocals and melodica at times.
Hua Dong sometimes sets aside his guitar to concentrate on singing. When he does this, there are often taped guitar parts filling in. These “non-live” elements are mostly unobtrusive and do not detract at all from the impact of the show. I have also written about this show here.

In short, this band is one of the best bands in China, well able to hold their own with any band anywhere, both live and in the studio.

Rock in China entry: http://wiki.rockinchina.com/index.php?title=Re-TROS
Band home: http://re-tros.com/face.html
Band Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/rebuildingtherightsofstatues
Tag Team Records: http://www.tagteamrecords.com/
Modern Sky: http://www.modernsky.com/

Note: All images and audio files presented here are in the interest of increasing awareness of Chinese rock in the English-speaking world. If you are the owner of the copyright in any of them and object to this free promotion, let me know and I'll remove the offending media.

Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things

2009-08-07T02:01:00.008+08:00

I had previously visited two of the major attractions on the western outskirts of Beijing: Xiangshan and Badachu. Recently (18 July) I added another, 北京植物园 (Zhiwuyuan, the Beijing Botanical Garden) which contains 卧佛寺 (Wofosi, the Temple of the Sleeping Buddha). Once again, I used a city bus to get there.
The bus passes by some interesting looking temples that I would love to visit someday.
The place is full of lovely landscaping, including ponds and bridges.
There is also a section of the huge park devoted to 曹雪芹 (Cao Yueqin), who wrote the classic 红楼梦 (Hong Lou Meng, Dream of the Red Chamber), which I have written about before.
The location in the hills is quite lovely, and a wide variety of different kinds of trees grace the grounds.
As I mentioned, there is an old temple inside the Garden grounds.
Inside the Glazed Arch is a little pond with koi and turtles.
The Sleeping Buddha itself is in a building where you are not allowed to take pictures.
You can see a bit of the bronze Buddha inside. It’s 5.3 meters (17' 4") long and weighs about 54 tons. The words over the door (明恒月性) I believe are supposed to be read right to left in the ancient manner, and have something to do with the quality of the moon being constant brightness. Either that or some kind of wish for the Ming Dynasty to last forever, since the name of the dynasty, 明 Ming, means bright.

Up the hill behind the temple is a little stream running down a shaded valley.
As you can see, this is a popular area for families to enjoy a little bit of nature.
Further up the valley is a grove dedicated to the metasequoia, also known as dawn redwood. This tree is common in the fossil record from millions of years ago, and was believed extinct until a small stand was discovered in Sichuan in 1944. Since then they have been planted all around the world, but it is still considered a critically endangered species. These trees were planted in 1975.

And for the bird lovers out there...
...I present a blurry telephoto shot of a fairly large bird I saw eating a fruit in a tree near the trail.

Back down in the valley, I found some nifty water plants.
One of the main attractions at the Garden is the Conservatory.
This is where they keep tropical and desert plants. As it turns out, the day I went there was so hot that it was actually cooler in some parts of the greenhouse than it was outside.
And they couldn’t resist adding some water features.
On the upper level is the desert area, with lots of cacti and succulents from various parts of the world. And a little Egyptian statue because just plants are not enough.

On the subject of not being able to resist:
No jungle is complete without dinosaurs.
Or terracotta warriors.

Like I said, the Garden is really huge, and there are parts of it that are currently not used much.
I rather like this picture of a disused path off to an unpopular area.

I’ll finish off with a collection of invertebrates I saw in the Garden.
Dragonfly (蜻蜓 qingting), mantis (螳蜋 tanglang), some kind of beetle (甲虫 jiachong), and millipede (千足虫 qianzuchong).

So that is the Botanical Garden. I must say it is much, much better than the Zoological Garden, and well worth the trip out of the city. It was very hot the day I went, but there are vendors with beverages and ice cream all over the place.

What I like about you (from the other side)

2009-07-30T05:46:00.003+08:00

Only one day left until I leave Beijing, and already the apartment is getting echoey. I’ve given away a bunch of stuff, and packed other things. The movers came yesterday and took away many boxes – I’m really glad I didn’t have to do it all myself.

Before I left Seattle, I made a list of things I thought I would miss and not miss about the city, so now it’s time for the same list about Beijing.

Things I will miss about Beijing

My friends.
The food, both in quality and price. And it’s cool you can have roast duck without planning ahead.
The ancient culture that is never far away.
Ease of transportation. Between my bicycle, the subway, and buses, getting around is generally quite convenient, even with the ridiculous traffic.
The chance to practice speaking Chinese with native speakers every day.
How amazing it can look after a good rain.
The sense of freedom you have when you don’t have to worry about crime.
How cheap things are if you’re looking for cheap things.
Having someone come clean the apartment twice a week.
The challenge of trying to think of ways to explain English words and expressions.
The vibrant music scene and all the great bands here, plus the ones I haven’t discovered yet.

Things I will not miss about Beijing

The quality of the air, and I’m not just talking about the odd odors that sneak in occasionally when the breeze changes direction.
The bone-chilling winter temperatures.
The energy-sapping summer temperatures.
The Great Fire Wall.
The ridiculous traffic.
Office politics.
The hideous desk my landlord provided for my computer.
The hassle it can often be to deal with seemingly simple things like electricity, mobile phones and internet.
Having to register with the local police station so they know where I am.
The feelings I have on the occasions when I do think about politics.
Never really understanding what’s going on, even when I think I do. Not that this is necessarily different from the situation in the US...

In a very unusual bit of luck, I have never really experienced one of the famous Beijing spring sandstorms, so that didn’t make either list.

Final note

I created this blog when I found out I was coming to China, and now that I’m leaving, I’m not sure what I want to do. In the interest of keeping it to its topic (not that I’ve stuck to it strictly so far!), I don’t really want to continue writing about my life as it involves things other than China. However, I still have lots of China experiences and pictures I haven’t shared, so there’s material for many posts waiting for me to have the time to take care of it.

Short visit to the land of the departed

2009-07-11T12:03:00.004+08:00

One of the places listed in most guide books for the Beijing area is the Ming Tombs. In the Eyewitness Guide it says “best visited by taxi” – and maybe I should have believed them. But that would be really expensive (it’s quite a distance from town), and there’s the hassle of arguing with the driver about the price for basically a whole day off the meter, so I decided to go the “local” way and use public transportation. After all, there are bus routes that go there. But the simple truth is that there really isn’t a “local” way to visit this place – locals just don’t go there.
As you can see, there are no other passengers on the bus, just the driver and the girl who takes the money, since this bus isn’t equipped with a card reader. The ride all the way to the Ming Tombs cost Ұ2, less than US$1. The catch is that it took well over an hour, and in this picture you can see one of the reasons why. We’re sitting still with the engine off on a narrow road that has a fence along one side and cars parked haphazard along the other, making it impossible for traffic to go in both directions at the same time, even though it is a two lane road. This is apparently a popular picnic spot (there’s a lake at the bottom of the hill on the right side) and there is no proper parking. So the bus and everyone else has to wait for a break in the oncoming traffic in order to grab the available lane. I didn’t see anyone directing the cars, it was just a free-for-all. Previous to this, we’d sat still for a long time at a construction site where they were working on a bridge.
As I said, locals generally don’t go here, but the place was far from empty. It’s a standard stop on many tours that go to the Great Wall at Badaling, since it’s on the way. The bus will swing by here in the morning, let the tourists have an hour or two to look around, and then continue on to the Wall.
As it turns out, 2009 marks the 600th anniversary of the building of the main tomb, which is called 长陵 (Changling) and houses the remains of the Ming Emperor Zhu Di (also called Yongle), who died in 1424. You might notice that 1424 to 2009 does not make 600 years. The tomb was built in 1409 when the empress died, and when the emperor himself died, he was brought here as well.
The main mausoleum is a very large building, the largest mausoleum in China.
Inside, there is a museum of relics from Zhu Di’s time, and this statue of him.
This is an incredibly elaborate crown made mostly of tiny gold wires woven into shape.
And these are some “household” objects carved of jade.
After passing out the back of the mausoleum, you continue on to another building. If you look closely through the arched opening, you can see a group of people stepping over the threshold of a gateway. Tradition has it that when you approach the grave area, you walk around the side of this gate, and when you come back from the grave area, you step over the threshold while loudly saying “I’m back!” so the spirits will know that you belong in the land of the living.
The last building contains a large stele. Zhu Di is buried somewhere in the tree-covered mound you can see out the back. The tomb has never been excavated, and is believed to be untouched since the burial. The tomb of one of the later Ming emperors was excavated back in the 1950s, but the projct was such a disaster that China has shied away from this kind of archeology since. That was in the days when the country was closed to the outside world, and the were quite a bit behind in scientific excavation techniques, and even more behind when it came to preserving the artifacts uncovered. Thousands of precious silks and scrolls were lost because China at the time did not have the means to save them.

The Chinese name for the Ming Tombs is 明十三陵 (Ming Shisan Ling), which means Thirteen Ming Tombs. There are twelve other mausoleums scattered around the area, but the distances between them are too great to be practical on foot, so I wasn’t able to see any of the others. I also missed the famous Spirit Way with its line of statues. I’m told it should have been possible to see it from the bus if you knew exactly where to look, which I didn’t.

As it was, the round trip transportation time was more than three times what it took to actually see what was there. The museum was nice, and would certainly be worth visiting if it wasn’t so hard to get to.

What little remains

2009-06-29T20:23:00.005+08:00

Like most cities in Imperial China, Beijing at one time had a wall around it. And like the Great Wall, it was built in stages, which due to the whims of rulers and circumstances, were not exactly regular in shape. During the 1950s and 1960s almost all of Beijing’s city wall was demolished to make way for the second ring road and other development, but a kilometer and a half of its southeast section still stands.
This segment dates from 1419, during the Ming Dynasty.
The park dedicated to it is quite new, and is in fact still under construction, though most of it is open to the public. A lovely landscaped garden runs along what was the outside of the wall. On the other side, not far away, is the main Beijing train station.
It is also apparently a camping area, as long as your tent is makeshift.
Though I didn’t see any tents on this day.
In this picture you can see how the grass is kept green. That’s a water truck going along the sidewalk, while a guy walks behind it spraying water out of a big fat hose onto the grass. You can also see a couple getting pictures taken, probably for their engagement.
A little further along you can see some restoration work under way. In the background is Beijing’s tallest building, Guomao #3.
I couldn’t resist taking a picture of the warning signs on the construction fence:

NO NEARING
CAUTION, FALLING OBJECTS
NO STRIDING

This archway in the wall dates from 1915, when it was knocked out to allow the city’s first railroad to come in.
And this is the Southeast Tower. It was built from 1436-1440, a little later than the rest of the wall, and was the largest corner tower on any city wall in China. In case you’re wondering, there are 144 arrow holes for archers to shoot from in case of attack.
Like any large open area in Beijing, the park is also a place for kite enthusiasts to do their thing. These guys have some serious rigs.
For Ұ10 (about US$1.50) you can go through the railway entrance and get onto the top of the wall. This is the back side of the corner tower seen from the top of the stairs.
Inside the tower there are three levels. On the first and third, there is an art gallery, and on the second some exhibits about the history of the Ming Wall, including scale models of all nine of the original gates.
From the tower windows you can see both sides of the wall. I think that’s one of the bullet trains to Tianjin leaving the station.

Along the side of the tower, there is some graffiti.
This dates from 1900, when the forces of the Eight Powers invaded Beijing and took the tower. Russian and American soldiers carved names and dates into the bricks, “criminal evidence” as the explanatory sign informs us.

There was a sign for the “underground exhibit” but when I tried to enter, a guy in a uniform waved me away. I’m not sure what’s down there. As it was, I was the last one out of the park for the day, and they locked the gate behind me when I left.

It looks like they’re adding a little street for souvenir shops and food stalls, but it’s not open yet.

You better watch your steppe

2009-06-26T19:48:00.004+08:00

Several months ago one of my Chinese friends (who is not generally active in the music scene) told me she had been to see a band called Hanggai. It’s a name I’ve seen around for a long time, and their descriptions always mention Genghis Khan and the sound of the Mongolian steppes, so I’ve been curious, but somehow never caught them live. My friend even had their CD, which was given to her by someone else, but she didn’t really like it (said it didn’t sound like they did live) so she gave it to me to check out. I do like it, so I added them to the list of bands I wanted to see.

On Wednesday I finally got my chance. I met the friend who gave me the CD, and we had a pretty good dinner at a restaurant called The Park, which is in the same block as Yugong Yishan (yes, that place again). It being a weeknight, I was hoping the music would start earlier than usual, but no luck: they didn’t start playing till about 10.
For this show, there were seven guys on stage.
The drummer had one of the more interesting kits I’ve seen, and in general there were lots of beautiful folk instruments used.
And there was an electric guitar as well, though it was generally low in the mix and not featured prominently in the arrangements.
The horsehead fiddle featured in virtually every song. It’s pitched in about the same register as a cello, and can be played with one string as a drone and the other for melody, or, as was often the case, with a very percussive attack on the strings.
This guy was also really good at the throat singing, producing an amazing low droning tone at the same time as a higher melody tone from his voice.
The electric guitarist also played the fiddle at times, for a dual horsehead assault. His instrument has the traditional headstock ornament as well as a “tail.”
For one song they had a dancer come out, but with the crowd all around her, I couldn’t really see what she was doing.
When all three of the singers were singing, it was quite an impressive sound.

They finished up around midnight. It was still uncomfortably hot outside for my bike ride home, and it was certainly hard to get to work the next morning, but I’m so glad I was finally able to see this amazing band.

天下没有不散的宴席

2009-06-26T18:59:00.003+08:00

天下没有不散的宴席
tianxia meiyou busande yanxi
In this world, there is no endless banquet.

That saying is the Chinese equivalent of “All good things must come to an end.” And my time in China has been a Good Thing. Sadly, but not entirely unexpectedly, it is coming to an end soon.

One of the major topics of conversation here, as everywhere, is 全球经济危机 (quanqiu jingji weiji or Global Economic Crisis), and I suppose I can consider myself a victim of the Global Economic Crisis. Every day in Beijing we hear stories about businesses that cater to foreign residents falling on hard times. The number of foreigners living and working here seems to get smaller and smaller as companies conserve their resources by not supporting expats. Admittedly, we are expensive. Our packages generally include housing and living allowances that are quite generous.

As it stands today, my departure date has been set at July 31, but beyond that very little is clear. I’m taking things a day at a time and trying to enjoy what is left here, checking things off that list I kept in my head of things I wanted to do in China.

Like so many things in life, this is a mixture of good and bad. I love Seattle, and will be happy to return to family and friends there, as well as the clean air and all the wonderful things the city has to offer. But I will certainly miss Beijing, this crazy, crowded, incomprehensible city that I have also come to love. The experiences I’ve had here, and the friends I’ve made, have been such a benefit to my life that I can’t put it in words. Yes, me, the one who always has words, is left with no way to describe this. But one thing is certain: I cannot imagine that my life will not bring me back here sometime, somehow. Whether it is business or pleasure, I will be back.

Pigs are flying

2009-06-25T08:40:00.008+08:00

It’s been in the international news how the Chinese government has reacted to the H1N1 flu situation. Here’s a little bit of it coming close to home.
It’s a memo to Seasons Park residents.

Re: H1N1 Flu (Swine Flu) Preventive Measures

Since an increasing number of Beijing hospitals have reported cases of novel H1N1 influenza, Seasons Park management has implemented precautionary measures to ensure the safety of residents and reduce the spread of any respiratory illness.

The measures include:

Disinfection location	Number of disinfection procedures
Building lobbies, B1/B2 entry, staircase halls, elevator cars, fire escape stairs and other common areas	At least three times a day
Common area facilities (outdoor benches, fitness equipment, children’s recreational facilities, garbage cans, etc.)	At least three times a day
Property Management Office	At least three times a day
Fitness equipment, pools in the clubhouse	At least three times a day
Garbage rooms, public toilets	At least three times a day

We will continue to take prudent steps to ensure public safety is protected and keep in touch with our residents to report additional measures.

If you require any assistance or have any questions regarding the above, please contact the Management Office at...

I would like to point out that this memo, aside from the odd use of the word “novel,” has no mistakes in its English, which is definitely a first around here. So how clean is your home?

Wondering what sort of rights statues should have

2009-06-21T21:41:00.007+08:00

One of the few Chinese bands known outside of China is Rebuilding the Rights of Statues (called ReTROS for short, and occasionally known by their Chinese name, 重塑雕像的权利 ). Their first EP was on Tag Team records, which has distribution in the US, and they even played SXSW in 2007, and have a page in the All Music Guide.

I’ve seen them before, but when I found out they have a new CD, I had to go see them again.

They were playing at Yugong Yishan (愚公移山), which is pretty convenient for me. I rode my bike again.

The opening band was The Offset: Spectacles – or something like that, involving one or more gratuitous punctuation marks.
They’re originally from Hong Kong, but have relocated to Beijing because the music scene here is more suitable to their style.
I’d say they fit right in with this scene. For one thing, they’re a trio with a female member.
They use neither a drummer nor a drum machine, relying on the guitars and keyboard to keep the rhythms going. The use of violin and a very distorted combo organ gives their music some variety, but on the whole I would not rank them near the top of the capital’s bands. They are noisy and deliberately noncommercial, both of which are also Beijing standards.

ReTROS, on the other hand, are near the top.
They are intense, unique, and artistic, and in spite of a complete lack of typical stage presence, are really entertaining. Hua Dong (华东 ) rarely faces the audience when singing or playing guitar, but he is so into the performance that he gets away with it.
Liu Min (刘敏 ) also doesn’t face the crowd. They seemlessly integrated recorded guitar, bass, and rhythm parts into the show, allowing them to play melodica, or concentrate on singing.
They played pretty much everything on their first EP as well as the whole new album, and while their studio work is very good, they are so intense and energetic live that even the memory of it makes listening to the CDs a little bit of a letdown.
After they finished, I bought the new release, which is on Modern Sky, the premier “indie” label in China – I’m not sure what kind of distribution that gives them outside the country. I also picked up another recent Modern Sky CD that they had at the table – Casino Demon’s Teenager.

The fruits of someone’s labor

2009-06-21T21:37:00.003+08:00

Many readers outside China will have encountered the fruit known as 荔枝 (Mandarin lizhi, traditionally spelled lychee in English, along with several other similar variations) as a flavor in Asian desserts, or maybe in a juice or even liqueur. In Beijing you can buy them pretty readily at the right time of the year, which happens to include now. There are several varieties.

The other day I was at the nearby vegetable market, and stopped by a fruit stand to get some bananas. The woman tending the stand tried to sell me everything else she had, which was quite a selection: mangoes, papayas, dragon fruit, several kinds of pears and citrus, pineapples, and so on. She offered me a lizhi, and when she saw my hands were full, even peeled it for me. It was sweet and juicy, so I bought a few of them to take with me.
Here you see some whole on the stem, one half peeled, one completely peeled, and a peeled one opened up to show the seed. If you’ve never tasted one, it’s pretty hard to describe the flavor. Mostly sweet, though sometimes a little tart near the seed, with a flowery fragrant aftertaste.

This ends the educational portion of our program.

Get ur geek on

2009-06-21T19:26:00.006+08:00

In my continuing quest to see everything there is to see in Beijing, today I checked off another of the city’s museums. This time it was the Natural History Museum (北京自然博物馆), which is located near the Temple of Heaven. It took me around an hour to get there on my bike. When I waled up to the ticket office, I was confronted with a confusing sign about how the tickets are free, but you have to call to reserve them five days in advance, and those without reservations will not get tickets. So I rode all that way for nothing?

Well, there was a second ticket office for the Special Exhibit: Mammoth China Tour. I bought a Ұ40 ticket for that, and the kid selling tickets told me I could buy a ticket for the regular museum around the corner. Yes, a third ticket office, this one with no signs pointing you to it, and I know the characters 售票处. The regular museum ticket was Ұ10.

The mammoth show started out rather unpromising.
There were several little souvenir booths and refreshment stands along the outside of the museum building. Note the little toy elephant wandering around in front of the booth.

Inside, you are greeted with a life-size mammoth.
There are some displays about the evolution of the different kinds of elephants that have lived, illustrated with little models or paintings.
You get to see some mammoth bones and tusks, as well as saber tooth cat and other creatures of similar vintage.
The highlight of the exhibit is a display of some actual mammoth parts, with skin and hair still on them.
It’s too dark in this area to get a picture, and anyway there’s a sign that says no photographs along with a guard to enforce it. The guard didn’t look a day over 14, but whatever. I took a picture of the sign as a replacement. The remains are in a glass-walled cold room to preserve them.

And that’s what you get for Ұ40. You exit out the back of the building and go around to get to the main museum.
Outside, they’ve got a couple of small dinosaur statues.
When you walk into the entrance, there are three halls you can go into. I went to the right.
This section mainly had old taxidermy and corny displays about our animal friends.
The part about insects reminded me of a low budget version of the Bug’s Life feature at Disneyland.

The dinosaur part of the museum is much better.
There’s a big central room with a bunch of reconstructed skeletons.
These are mostly dinosaurs that lived in the area that is now China, like the Szechuanosaurus.

Then you go through a dark hall to the other big room...
...where they have some big plastic dinos.
Note that the L and A from __TE have fallen down and are resting on a little shelf of the fake rock. Maybe the missing R from T_IASSIC is there too – can’t tell.

When I saw this one:
...I realized that they’re supposed to be motorized in some way and move, but are either broken down or on a coffee break.

There was a little kiddie arcade and refreshment stand in the area below the dino world.

The steps up from there took me to the earliest life on Earth. The most interesting part here was the part about the Chengjiang Fauna.
This is the name given to a bizarre group of fossils dating from the Cambrian Period found in Chengjiang County of Yunnan. They are similar to the Burgess Shale creatures found in Canada.
They’ve even got a sculpture with giant versions of some of the creatures.

After that they’ve got some pretty nice fossil displays.
And then a room with Pleistocene megafauna, including mammoths.
That one’s a megatherium, I think, though its neck seems too long.

I guess I was spoiled by the wonderful new museums in Chengdu, but this one mostly seemed kind of old and run-down. As a dinosaur enthusiast, it was cool to see the Chinese species instead of the ones we always see in North America. I’d say the Ұ40 for the mammoth exhibit was a rip-off, but Ұ10 for the main museum was fair – especially considering it works out to US$1.77 or so. And yes, there were some items “borrowed” from the Ice Age movies.

Animals on wheels

2009-06-19T19:46:00.004+08:00

I said there was more to tell about World Park, so here goes. This part is not so silly as the rest, and actually kind of sad. One of the things I remember from the movie is the shows featuring dances from around the world. The performers (mostly Chinese) dressed up in a variety of typical costumes and did routines meant to resemble folk dances from different countries. As it turned out, the schedule for those performances didn’t work out well for us, so we ended up with the Thailand Crocodile and Elephant Show.
The show was in a somewhat rundown arena. There was an enclosure with five crocodiles dozing surrounded by a shallow moat and a glass fence.
A young guy came out and splashed water on the crocs to wake them up.
Then he grabbed one of them by the tail and pulled it into the water.
He held his hand in its mouth, and then pulled it out just as the jaws snapped shut.
With the second croc he “kissed” it on the end of the nose.

The third one had the chance to take his whole head.
But passed on it.

After the show, spectators could , for a fee, have their pictures taken sitting on a crocodile.

Then they had us all move over to the other side of the arena for the elephants.
They had three elderly looking Asian elephants, who did a variety of the standard elephant things.
Like carrying audience volunteers and posing on two legs.

In between tricks, they were rewarded with bananas from the audience.
It really is amazing how well such big animals can balance and move.
The trainers treated them well at all times, and they seemed to already know the routines without much direction. This is not the time or place for debating the humaneness of this show. I’m just presenting what happened, and you can draw your own conclusions. And no, they were never actually on wheels – I just wanted to quote Sam Phillips.

This is another of those Beijing places that is not on the must-see list for most visitors. The place is not in very good repair, so I think its time of interest is passing even for the Chinese. It is the relic of a time when very few Chinese could expect to travel abroad, and did not have the internet and a variety of TV channels to show them these things in a better way. It seemed that a large portion of the visitors there were not locals, but (to rely on a stereotype) relatively unsophisticated people from other provinces. One family asked to have their picture taken with me, which almost never happens in Beijing. I’m not sure how many years World Park has left before it’s closed entirely, but I suspect it’s not that many.

It’s a small world

2009-06-13T16:46:00.007+08:00

Please excuse the overly obvious title. But sometimes there just seems to be no choice.

There’s a Chinese movie called 世界 (Shijie – The World) which I’m rather fond of. Ironically while it has played international film festivals and got positive reviews from foreign critics, I’ve yet to find a Chinese person who had even heard of it. I saw it in a DVD shop a long time ago and bought it out of curiosity. After I watched it, I’ve loaned it out to Chinese friends at every opportunity. They mostly like it, though its ending is not exactly upbeat, and most of them seem to prefer happy endings. Maybe that’s why the movie hasn’t caught on at home.

I bring this up as an explanation of why I wanted to visit a Beijing sight that very few foreigners care to see. In the southwest part of the city is a park called 世界公园 (Shijie Gongyuan – World Park) where there are miniature reconstructions of famous buildings, monuments, and objects from around the world. The movie is about a group of poor people from Shanxi province who come to Beijing looking for work, and some of them end up working at this park. Much of the movie is set there, and I wanted to compare reality to what I saw on film.

Getting there is not exactly easy. The subway system does not cover this part of the city, so a friend and I took the subway to the closest station and took a bus from there. It was a double-decker bus. Between the subway and the bus it took over two hours to get there, but only cost a few kuai.
The entrance is all Disney-castle-like. An adult ticket costs Ұ65 (US$9.50). It was a hot, hazy day.
Just inside is 意大利台地园 (Yidali Taidi Yuan – Italian Terrace Garden) where there are copies of famous European sculptures. When we went in, there was an elephant available for photo opportunities. For a small fee you can get up on the elephant and have your picture taken.
Up at the top terrace are the two most famous statues: Venus de Milo and David. No fee for picture taking here.
The middle part of the park, and the most popular, features European icons. This one is St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna (or “St. Stephan” as it is on the sign here).

And how about Neuschwannstein Castle?
And here is one of the symbols of Paris.
Seen from this angle it almost looks real, huh?
But no, it’s 1/10 the size of the original. In the movie, the characters often take an elevator up to the observation deck and have a lunch break, but as you can tell, that’s not really possible here (there is no elevator). It’s a kind of “magic realist” touch to the film, I guess, emphasizing the whole fantasy nature of the characters’ situations (coming here in search of a dream).
And here we have The Little Mermaid (called “Maid of the Sea” on her sign) set across the water from Manhattan, complete with the World Trade Center Towers. They are among many buildings for which the original no longer exists.

And off to one side of Europe is North America, just like in real life.
That’s supposed to be the Golden Gate Bridge and I’d say it’s a lot smaller than 1/10, though the sign doesn’t say what its scale is. The rocks behind it are labeled “The Grand Canyon” but I have no idea what part of it they are supposed to be.
Up the path from New York we get to Washington D.C. Here you see the Lincoln and Washington Memorials as well as another feature of World Park. You can rent costumes and have your picture taken as a Korean lady in the American capital. They also have Japanese, various traditional Chinese styles, and fancy European Renaissance clothes.
More of Washington, and then south to Mexico.
Somehow we missed the rest of Europe (like the Colosseum) and ended up in Egypt.
Of course you can’t have pyramids without camels.
And speaking of buildings that no longer exist...
...here’s the legendary Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria.

They’ve also got a Trojan Horse which you can climb inside.
And the ruins of Persepolis.

Moving along from the Middle East you come to Asia, of course.
From the Taj Mahal to Angkor Wat is only a few steps.
Australia gets two entries, both from Sydney.
And as you all know, from Sydney to Easter Island is an easy stroll.
By a quirk of the park’s geography, Russia ended up last on the tour.
This is Moscow’s Red Square, with Lenin’s Tomb, the Kremlin, and St. Basil’s Cathedral.

That concludes the educational portion of the program, though I do want to back up and show one of the explanatory signs as an example of the educational value of this park.
I’m sure many people in England will be astonished to learn that Wales is “on the other side of the ocean” from them.

This is running a bit long, so I’ll wrap up The World in a separate post. What happened next was not educational, and involved crocodiles and elephants.

Don’t you move

2009-06-06T10:27:00.008+08:00

After too much time away, last night I dove back into the local live music scene for Pet Conspiracy (宠物同谋) at Yugong Yishan (愚公移山). PC is the second project from singer Helen Feng; her first is a great band called Ziyo (自由). I’ve got Ziyo’s CD and really like it, but I’ve never seen them live. While Ziyo is a rock band, PC is a kind of electronic art punk project started by Feng with Chinese electronic musician Huzi, who has a number of releases under his own name. Definitely gotta check those out.
This band is known for having a strong visual element. One of the members (Yun Yun) is credited with “backing vocals and video.”
They started out with a white curtain in front of the stage. Various graphics, lights and lasers were projected on it while a DJ played a very wide selection of music. I’m pretty sure he played some Tortoise, which makes him a winner in my book. He also included a cut by Ziyo.
Then we got Feng’s silhouette holding a large knife. She held the knife high and the plunged it down...
...and the curtain dropped to reveal the band on stage. They had it all done up in silver, which looked great in the lights. Yun Yun was up on Huzi’s shoulders, their backs to the audience. The three women in the band wore bunny masks.
After a bit, Yun Yun left the stage.
She returned with a big red ball. She bounced it around on stage for a while and then hurled it into the audience. It traveled around the place for the rest of the evening.
In addition to having a wonderful voice, Feng is a very active and charismatic performer.

A few songs into the set, Feng left the stage and returned wearing a top hat and jacket.
She and Yun Yun sang a sexy duet.
Many people in the audience were singing along with the band, so it seems they have some fans.

Later, there was another costume change.
Often music with heavy elements of programming can seem kind of dull when presented “live.”
Not a chance of that here. Between the show’s visual design and the sheer exuberance of the performers, there was no letting up from start to finish. In the last song of the regular set, which had lyrics something to do with money, a machine started spewing out fake $1000 bills.
The music reached a frenetic peak and the band left the stage to the sound of feedback from the abandoned guitar.

During the encore, the band left the music playing by itself and came out into the crowd.
In the end, there were audience members dancing on the stage as well.

When I get a chance, I’ll post some video on YouTube.

After the show, I bought Pet Conspiracy’s five-song CD and an autographed poster. Man, what a night!

Check out their MySpace page for some audio.

And I can’t resist a little language note about the bands’ names. Ziyo(自游) doesn’t really mean anything as far as I can tell, though it is pronounced the same as the word for freedom (自由), properly spelled Ziyou; on their CD the Chinese name is rather inconspicuous. In a similar fashion, while Pet Conspiracy does have a Chinese version of their name ( 宠物同谋 Chongwu Tongmou), it doesn’t appear anywhere on their CD – there’s no Chinese in the design at all. And since Chinese words are very flexible, it could also be translated as “pet conspirators.” The club’s name, 愚公移山 (Yugong Yishan), is “the old man moves mountains,” which is apparently from an old folk tale. It’s an idiom that means “nothing is impossible if you have the will.”

Interlude for geeks

2009-05-31T22:07:00.003+08:00

I’ve been watching Star Trek in its various incarnations since approximately the first day it aired on TV back in 1966. But I’m one of those fans who’s had ups and downs with the whole thing. Face it, some of the original series episodes were downright stupid, many of the movies were pretty terrible, and Voyager was way too uneven to care much about no matter what it may have had on the good side.

Anyway, I was at first pretty ambivalent when I heard there was a new movie in the works, though I was encouraged when I found out who was in charge of it.

I managed to catch it in an American theater the night before I returned to Beijing from my last trip, and enjoyed it quite a lot, even if the plot seemed to exist primarily as an excuse for the young Kirk to get beat to a pulp. I always liked Spock better anyway, and this time, Spock gets the girl. Gotta love that!

I thought it would be fun to go see it again in a Chinese theater, so one evening I walked up to the new multiplex at Sanlitun Village. They’ve got something like 12 screens, basically patterned after the big multiplexes we have in the US, with a couple of differences. First, it’s underground. The entrance is on level B1 of the shopping center, and you go down one more level to get to the auditoriums.

Second, check this out:
Sarting from the top...

The theater is called Megabox, which pretty much sums it up.

The Chinese name of the movie is 星际迷航 (Xingji Mihang), which surprised me, since I always thought Star Trek was 星际旅行 (Xingji Luxing, literally Star Travel). You can look that up in an online dictionary. The title they’re using for this new movie actually translates pretty much to Lost in the Stars. I don’t get that – what was wrong with the original title? And it’s not like they’re actually lost at any time in this movie.

Next line is the date and time, nothing noteworthy there.

The next line is my seat location. 4厅4排17号(Auditorium 4, row 4, seat 17). Yes, it’s a reserved seat. Every movie I’ve seen in China has had assigned seating. Whether people actually sit in their seats is another question entirely.

Next is the ticket type and price. 成人 70.00 (Adult 70RMB, which is about US$10). In spite of the Chinese economy and average income, it costs exactly as much to see a movie in Beijing as it does in Seattle.

And there’s a barcode for validation.

At the bottom is standard stuff about how the ticket is good only for the stated date and time for one person, and complaints or questions can call this number.

See, I can geek out over a Star Trek movie without even hardly mentioning the movie itself!

All good – no bad, no ugly

2009-05-31T21:10:00.005+08:00

One of the benefits of working in the entertainment industry is that sometimes you get entertained. Last week, my coworkers and I were offered free tickets to see the Ennio Morricone concert at the Great Hall of the People (人民大会堂 Renmin Dahuitang). Morricone is of course best known for the music he has written for movies, notably the famous score to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, plus about 500 others. He was in Beijing to conduct an orchestra performing his music. The Great Hall stands just on the west side of Tian'anmen Square, and I’ve seen it from the outside many times, but never been inside.
That’s a picture I took in January of 2007. The nearer building in the background is the Great Hall. It could be described as China’s Parliament Building.

After passing through security, we entered a large lobby.
Which was somewhat dimly lit.

The Great Auditorium is where the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Consultative Committee meet.
It seats about 10,000 in all, though for this event the second balcony was not used.
And of course there’s a big red star in the center of the ceiling.

The Maestro took the stage...
...and the orchestra played a bunch of music. I’d love to be more descriptive than that, but aside from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, I didn’t recognize anything. A lot of it sounded familiar, of course, since I have no doubt seen many of the films, but couldn’t tell you names.

Don’t get me wrong: I did enjoy it. It’s just that without a program (they had souvenir books, but ran out before intermission when I went to get one), I didn’t know what I was hearing. The full orchestra was augmented by a large and varied percussion section that included a drum kit, plus electric bass and electric and acoustic guitars.
The pianist also had a Roland RD-700SX electronic keyboard and a laptop. The synthesizer did mostly organ tones and sound effects; the laptop was used for some programmed rhythm parts on one piece. And, as you can see, there was a large chorus for the last part of the program. The orchestra was foreign, the chorus Chinese.
The featured soloist of the evening was a solo soprano vocalist who did the wordless singing so prominent in Morricone’s work. Musically, there was quite a variety, from delicate, romantic melodies to dissonant impressionistic clashing, from intricate counterpoint to jazzy flairs and rock rhythms.

All in all, it was quite a cool evening, with excellent music and a chance to see the inside of a building that not many see. Who knows, maybe I was sitting in the seat normally assigned to the representative from Kashgar.

Teach your children

2009-05-31T19:43:00.005+08:00

As I continue my journey down the list of Beijing sights, I find myself at Kong Miao (孔庙), the Confucius Temple. It’s actually pretty close to my old office in the Gehua building, just a couple blocks from the Lama Temple (which I’ve been to twice but apparently never written about), but I never got around to it until last week.

I went with a Chinese friend who was very surprised that an American knew anything about Kongzi (孔子 551 BC – 479 BC ) at all. But I told her that while we don’t really study his teachings, we know his name and the cliché “Confucius says...” And since I’m interested in China, I know that Kongzi was a very practical philosopher who concerned himself almost entirely with down-to-earth things like how to get along in society, ethics, and how a country should be governed, not with supernatural things like gods and demons.
Anyway, Kong Miao is a relatively small complex originally built in 1306. It has been renovated recently, and has many exhibits about the man’s life, teachings and legacy, though they are not anything like the impressive museum at Jinsha in Chengdu.
Each of these structure contains a carved stele commemorating some event, like an emperor expanding the temple or rebuilding part of it.

The temple grounds are home to many old trees.
I think they are more than 300 years old.
And the vines hanging from some of them work as swings.

There are many exhibits covering the Master’s life.
This one illustrates his travels from kingdom to kingdom trying to spread his ideas.

Music is very important in Kongzi’s philosophy.
The smaller instruments in the front are guqin (古琴), the larger ones are a fancy version of either se (瑟) or guzheng (古箏) (without the bridges that tune the strings), and the tuned bells hanging behind are called bianzhong (編鐘) – I think, the ancient names of the instruments are sometimes not the same as very similar looking modern ones. There is also another instrument arranged like the bells, only with tuned slabs of stone that are struck with mallets.

That covers the photographic highlights of Kong Miao. Most of the exhibits didn’t lend themselves to picture taking. Although Kongzi’s teachings fell into disfavor – violent suppression, even – during the Cultural Revolution, there’s been a resurgence lately, with modern Chinese seeking to restore some of the traditional values they find lacking in modern society. And honestly, if you look more at the actual writings rather than some of the religious trappings that were later grafted onto Confucianism, it’s pretty hard to fault the values contained in the Analects. One of the things it is widely known for is respect for authority, both within families and in government, but that is tempered by two additional teachings. First, underlings are obligated to speak up when they feel leaders are going astray, even to the point of justified rebellion in the case of tyranny. And second, authority must be earned, not inherited, so leaders have their positions due to virtue, not just lucky birth or force of arms. It is these caveats that caused the kings he spoke to to reject his teachings. And in later centuries, when his teachings did become orthodoxy, the focus was often more on submission than virtue.

One of Kongzi’s prime teachings is the same as other philosophers around the world have come up with, though it is stated differently:

己所不欲、勿施於人
jǐ suǒ bù yù, wù shī wū rén
Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.

That’s the translation of David Hinton. It should sound familiar to everyone, I think. And stating it as a negative, rather than the positive statement we’re familiar with as the Golden Rule, has the advantage of avoiding some of the problems that more modern thinkers have found with it. To divert into philosophy, the problem with “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is that it leads to silly things like, “I would love for someone to give me some bacon, so I should give my neighbor some bacon,” when the neighbor is a vegetarian. To be fair, Kongzi actually does encourage proactive reciprocity in other places as a means of enhancing the public good.

And the other thing we have to remember is that Kongzi himself never wrote down his teachings. Much as with other ancient religious and philosophical teachers, the writings we have were compiled after his death by his followers, and there’s no way to know what Kongzi himself actually said.

Anyway, back to ancient Beijing.

Next to Kong Miao is Guozijian (国子监), which was the Imperial College, and the same ticket (Ұ20) gets you into both.
In the center of the main yard is this lovely building:
If I understood correctly, it was only used when the Emperor visited the school. He would sit at the elaborate desk inside...
...and lecture the students who stood outside all around. The water was drained from the circular pool around it while one of the bridges was being repaired, but I can see it would be really pretty when it is filled.

There’s another statue of Kongzi.
And a mock-up of what an Imperial classroom looked like.
The professor is at the center desk, and the students would have been at tables on the two sides of him, outside the area of the picture.

The College’s main function was to prepare civil servants for the massive Imperial bureaucracy, which theoretically (by Confucian ideals) was open to students from all social strata, though in practice it catered to the aristocracy. Sons of poor families were needed to support their households and couldn’t afford to spend time on such things as studying.

The whole system started to decline a bit before the end of the last dynasty, and the College fell into disrepair until its recent renovation.

This is another of those Beijing locations I would not recommend unless you’re a Confucius buff or really into history. Or are small in stature and like to swing from trees.

Another brick in the Wall

2009-05-28T21:52:00.010+08:00

One of the first things I did after coming to China was visit the Great Wall. Like most tourists, we went to the section of the wall called Badaling (八达岭). As you can see if you look at my old post, it was pretty crowded there and pretty commercialized. So this year when my sister and nephew came to visit, I wanted to show them something different – as well as giving myself a new experience instead of a repeat.

In my guide book, Simatai (司马台) was described as being less visited, less restored, and less crowded, which fit the bill perfectly. Of course, being all those things, it’s a little more of a challenge to get there. Luckily, I have some good friends who are locals and willing to help out. One of my friends told me that she saw a tour bus in the neighborhood, near the Sanlitun Youth Hostel, that said Bus to Jinshanling and Simatai the Great Wall on its side. She even wrote down the phone number on the bus. It turned out I had to arrange the trip through the youth hostel – the tour company won’t take bookings directly. So I went into the hostel and handed over a bunch of cash, signing up for the next morning (April 10).

We had to be there at 6:30, and the tour included breakfast on the road and a buffet lunch. All for Ұ260 (about US$38) per person, and actual entry tickets to the Great Wall were not included.

The “breakfast” was a pretty unappealing sandwich with some sweetened fruit juice. Really wish I’d taken the time to eat something beforehand. The bus ride was a total of about two and a half hours, with a stop at Miyun (密云) for gas, beverages and snacks – though the gas station had a pretty pitiful selection. I got a bottled coffee drink to wake myself up.

Miyun is a town in the Beijing Municipality and sees itself as the gateway to the Great Wall, so they use its image to decorate the town.
That’s a roundabout in the middle of town, not the real Wall.

After Miyun we headed into higher country.
We passed a little way into Hebei (河北) Province to a place called Jinshanling (金山岭), which basically means Gold Mountain. There is not gold in these here hills – it gets the name for the color of the trees in fall or something.
This section of the Wall was first built in 1368 and restored in 1567; parts of it have been restored more recently, though as you will see, certainly not all of it. And yes, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The entrance ticket to this area is Ұ50.

The bus dropped us off here, and the guide gave us instructions on how to manage the ten kilometer walk to Simatai, where the bus would pick us up in about four and a half hours. No pressure.
The day was clear but hazy, so visibility was pretty good although the sky was generally not blue.
Note the relative – nay, complete – lack of tourists. This particular bit is obviously restored and in very good shape.
The start of the journey features some climbs which seemed a bit steep at the time. Little did we know what lay ahead of us.

As you go along, the state of the Wall deteriorates.
Note that the next guard tower in line is pretty far gone.
And past that is a section that you can barely walk on.
Note the lovely trees in bloom – I’m pretty sure they’re cherries. It was springtime, and things were starting to look alive.
The trend of steeper and more deteriorated continued.
Not long past this point there was a sign to inform us that we were entering the Simatai section of the Great Wall. This area costs Ұ40 to get in. There was a sign that said it was the ticket office of Simatai Great Wall, but there was no one there. At one point a woman was just walking along and checking our tickets.

There was a rather inconspicuous arrow pointing us around this tower.
Seems obvious that the path does not go through it, but many people tried, climbing up inside only to find out the other side was even less accessible.
We walked around it.

Here’s a picture that gives you a good idea what Simatai is like.
You can see that parts of the Wall are only a few feet high along here. And look at the ridge in the distance. See how the Wall continues up it?
That’s an area where it’s not very high.

As you walk along, you can see that aside from tourism, the local economy also includes agriculture.
Those are terraced corn fields. All along the Wall, we met up with locals trying to supplement their income by selling water, cola, beer, postcards, or guidebooks or (for the ones that spoke more English) offering their services as guides.

Between where the previous pictures were taken and the steep ridge in the distance is a river.
You have to cross a narrow suspension bridge (for an extra Ұ5) to cross it – not that you have a choice.
It’s a pretty steep descent to the bridge.
That’s another Great Wall ticket office. There’s actually a guy sitting on a folding chair at the other side. And that’s my sister and nephew not being exhausted.

From the other side looking back:
There’s a big sign near the Simatai parking lot to introduce the area. “Simatai Great Wall is most famous for its five characteristics: precipitous, dense, ingenious, peculiar and comprehensive...it is the only section that still keeps the original appearance of the Ming-dynasty Great Wall.” It also describes the “rope bridge” as looking like a “magnificent rainbow” – sure.

As tour members straggled in at Simatai, a minibus took them to a nearby restaurant for a buffet lunch. As it was after 2:00 and we’d had virtually nothing for breakfast and had just hiked 10k over rough terrain, to say we were starving would be an understatement. The food was tolerable, a selection of the most common Chinese dishes: gongbaojiding (kung pao chicken), tomatoes with scrambled eggs, and so on with steamed rice. Beverages were extra.

Outside the restaurant, there were ears of corn hanging on trees to dry. Though given that it was only April, this must be last year’s crop.
The trip back into Beijing took a lot longer than the trip out. Why? You might ask. Here’s why:
A bit after we passed the airport, we hit rush hour traffic. It was like this for something like two hours covering what should have taken 30 minutes or so.

I’m worn out now just from writing about it. But what a day!

This is not my homework

2009-05-27T21:27:00.001+08:00

Ever since I started learning how to write in Chinese, I’ve thought about doing blog posts using my new skill. Here goes.

我星期一下班以后起自行车回家，别人也骑车，但是他不看着路，就撞到我了。我的胳膊和腿都受一点伤，而且车筐也被撞坏了。

Well, that’s a pretty short post. Here it is in English:

On Monday after work I was riding my bicycle home, and another guy on a bike wasn’t watching the road and ran into me. My arm and legs were slightly injured, and my bike’s basket is broken.

I would like to give thanks to my coworker LX who offered some suggestions on vocabulary and grammar. 谢谢你!

I’m not sure who I think my audience for this kind of post might be, since people in China can’t get to this web site. To those who might say I’m just showing off, I’ll say, “I don’t think so.” I’m just enthusiastic about my learning and want an outlet for these things.

Chinese time machine #5

2009-05-27T20:08:00.007+08:00

Moving back even further – though not a lot – we come to 15 February 2009. It was clear and very cold in Beijing, but I chose to venture out to Daguanyuan (大观园), which I’m not even really sure how to translate. The English maps give it as Grand View Garden, which will apparently do.

One thing about this place that is unique among all the places I’ve visited in China is that it is not old, and not only is it not old, but it was built as a set for a TV series. It’s hard to explain the cultural importance of the book called 红楼梦 (Hong Lou Meng, usually translated Dream of the Red Chamber) to the Chinese. It is one of the Four Great Novels, and you probably would be hard pressed to find a single Chinese person not familiar with it on some level. In the 1980s, China Central Television produced a series based on the book, and instead of filming it on soundstages, they built an entire compound designed to match every description found in the book of the place where the main family lives. It’s the story of a prominent family in decline, so grandeur is called for.

Here’s the front entrance.
Yeah, it was February, so prepare yourself for lots of pictures with bare trees.

At Ұ55 (US$9), the ticket is a bit on the expensive side compared to a lot of Beijing sights.

There are many buildings arrayed around various water/ice features.
Helpful signs tell you what parts of the book involve the buildings, which character lived there and so on.
As you can see, they did a very good job of imitating the style of construction you see at the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and so on.

Inside some of the buildings are figures dressed as the characters.
Most of the major characters in the story are women.
This compound within a compound is the nunnery where Miaoyu retired to a Buddhist life.

Here’s a view across the largest lake.
I’ve never before seen a sign that said “Keep off the lake” – though of course while it’s frozen solid, the meaning is correct. The Chinese is a little more verbose, and says that the ice is not safe, so please don’t go on the lake. I presume they change the sign once it’s not frozen.

Since the family in the story was highly placed in society, they had some special buildings made just for occasions when the emperor would visit.
Any resemblance to the Forbidden City is no coincidence.

Inside one building is a bunch of Red Chamber memorabilia.
These are photos of actors who have played the various parts in various productions of the story, not just the 1980s series that was filmed here.
And this kind of tree...
...is called a “Dragon Claw Tree.”

Some visitors are not impressed by elaborate buildings.
And for a price...
...you can dress in period costume and have your picture taken.

As I promised, you’ve seen lots of pictures of bare trees. It seems that such a situation is intolerable.
So the staff has provided some trees with a little help.

I guess there’s a new version of Red Chamber currently in production, and they had some promotional posters of the new cast.
I’m hoping that for the actual filming, they will have more authentic hairstyles.

There you go. I think about when I’ve visited Universal Studios, and it’s kind of hard to imagine sets like this ever being built for an American production.

Daguanyuan is in the Xuanwu (宣武) District of Beijing, not a long taxi ride from Changchunjie Station (长椿街站) on subway line 2. It is certainly not on the short list of Beijing places you must see unless you are a Chinese literature buff or maybe interested in TV production, but it was interesting, and I’ve already seen the things on the short list. There is also an underground theater at Daguanyuan where they show a computer animated 3D short feature that involves a dream in the Red Chamber. A character falls asleep and drifts through various scenes somewhat resembling events in the book. Or so I’m told – I haven’t read the book yet.

Chinese time machine #4

2009-05-26T20:56:00.006+08:00

Set the Wayback Machine for 1 March 2009. In Beijing it was one of the first relatively nice days of the year, weatherwise. As I often do on such weekend days, I picked one of the places around town that I haven’t seen yet and went to find out what’s there.

This time it was 恭王府 (Gongwangfu, usually listed as Prince Gong’s Mansion on the English maps). It’s near the central lakes area of Qianhai and Houhai, off in the hutongs.
Unlike many buildings from Imperial times, it has a humble entrance.

It being a rather nice day, lots of people were outside, and many of them also chose this place to visit.
It has the usual assortment of buildings and courtyards fit for royalty.

There are many items on display from the old days.

I almost hate to waste storage space with such a silly picture...
...but I kind of liked the way they tried to disguise the fire hydrant as a potted (plastic) shrubbery.

The best part of the compound is in the back.
There’s a large garden with several little lakes.

This little one...
...is made in the shape of a bat, rather like the traditional Batman symbol. The image of a bat decorates almost every spot at Gongwangfu that can be decorated. That’s because the word for bat (蝠) and the word for good fortune (福) are pronounced exactly alike, fu (with a rising tone). So bats are considered very lucky in China, but I’d have to say it seems a little strange to see them everywhere. Seems kind of like Dracula’s castle.

Here’s one of the Matching Hat Brigades.
It’s a big tour group. They can often be seen following around a guide with a megaphone and a flag. Do you suppose an American tour group would be willing to wear matching hats?

Here is one of the most popular parts of Gongwangfu:
Inside this artificial hill is an artificial cave, and carved on the wall is a big 福 done in the calligraphy of Emperor Qianlong (I think it was Qianlong – it usually is). People line up to pass single file through the cave.

This pavillion at the very back...
...is decorated with a bamboo theme.
There you are. Prince Gong’s Mansion. I’ve skipped over a lot of the history you can learn there, partly because it was a couple months ago and I’ve forgotten it already. They had lots of old photographs of European ambassadors visiting officials and royals in this place during one of the periods where foreigners were welcomed.

Back in business

2009-05-20T21:38:00.002+08:00

I've got my computer configured now so that this country's issue with Blogspot (whatever it might be) will not get in the way of my using it. Same with YouTube.

I guess this takes away one of the excuses I had for not posting any updates...

And all the rest

2009-05-13T06:03:00.009+08:00

There are so many things to see in Sichuan that four days can hardly scratch the surface. I've covered pandas and Giant Buddha as well as a bit about food and downtown shopping, so this time I'll write about the rest of the trip, which involves various things around the city of Chengdu.

One of the famous sites in the city is the Wuhou Temple (武侯祠), which is not far from the center of town. This complex is built around the large tomb of Emperor Liu Bei (刘备) of the Shu Kingdom (221-263) and mostly honors his premier, Zhuge Liang (诸葛亮), one of the most famous strategists in Chinese history. “Wuhou” means “premier” (in the sense of the government official, not any of the other meanings of the word) or “chancellor”.

Liu Bei's tomb has not been excavated – it's just a large circular mound with trees growing on it, presumably with a burial chamber somewhere beneath it.
That's the burial mound on the right. There is a circular wall built around it, which I think dates from about 1700, when the original construction was rebuilt by the Kangxi Emperor of the Qing Dynasty.

In the garden area outside the circular wall is a wonderful garden of miniature trees.
We think of bonsai as a Japanese art, but like many things, the Japanese learned it from the Chinese.
There is also a museum devoted to the arts of the Three Kingdoms period.
And here is the statue of Zhuge Liang.
One of the fun things about this complex is the carved animals that decorate the railings.
Each of them is different, and there are a wide variety of animals represented, both real and mythical.

Immediately adjacent to the temple complex is Jinli Street (锦里路).
This street dates to the Qin Dynasty (221BC-206BC), when it was one of the most prominent streets in the city, but there is virtually nothing left from that time period. It was reconstructed in 2004 for a taste of Old China. I'm pretty sure the Qin Dynasty didn't have Starbucks (新巴克).
There are shops and booths selling a large variety of local handicrafts and other goods, plus some imported things from Tibet, India, and so on.
This man is making elaborate shapes out of sugar.

And of course there's an area devoted to food.
This is the latest entry in the “too cute to resist” category:

Another site in Chengdu is the Yongling tomb (永陵), where Wang Jian (王建 847-918) is buried.
Like Liu Bei's tomb, it features a large circular mound. That's what you see with trees on it above the faded red doorway. The path to the opening is guarded by statues of animals and men. Photography is not allowed inside, so here is a link to a bunch of pictures. You can actually go inside this mausoleum, which was raided over the centuries of many treasures but still holds a lot of history. The most interesting thing is that the sarcophagus is decorated with carvings of 24 female musicians and dancers, providing a wonderful glimpse into the music of the era.

Moving even further back in history, there is the Jinsha (金沙 or Golden Sand) site. In 2001, during some new development, workers stumbled upon many old artifacts, and when experts were called in, they found remains of an extensive settlement dating to the Ancient Shu Culture around 1000BCE. Careful excavations were conducted, and thousands of items were found. Archaeological work has stopped now, and the main site has been enclosed in a large building.
It's only about 5k (a couple of miles) from the center of town.
They've built a raised walkway across the site so you can see many things close up, and there are signs indicating where the most famous items were found.
One thing that is really surprising is that thousands of elephant tusks were found, apparently buried in a ritual manner. It seems that elephants were common in this area 3000 years ago. There certainly aren't any around now.

A short walk from the excavation site is the museum.
The circular skylight at the center of the building is designed to resemble one of the most famous items found there, the Immortal Sun Bird Disk.
At the bottom of the central shaft the design is repeated, for a really lovely effect.

Here's another of the famous artifacts.
This is one of the most artistically designed museums I have ever seen. All of the displays are beautiful, undoubtedly modern but also suited to the ancient items presented. The ambient light is very low, making it really difficult to photograph, with dramatic spotlights on the items.
This beautiful gold foil disk presents such an evocative image that it was chosen as the symbol of China's ancient heritage. It is part of logos you see around the entire country.

The Jinsha site also features a cultural center where there are shows with dancing and so on, but it was closed when we were there. Jinsha is related to another famous site called Sanxingdui (三星堆 or Three Stars Mound), which is even older, but is farther from town, so we didn't have time to see it. Next time... Both sites represent a period of China's history that is not very well understood. For example, it is unknown what happened to the people who lived here 3000 years ago.

The last place in Chengdu we visited was the Wenshu Monastery (文殊). It's located not far north of the center of town.
It dates from the Tang Dynasty and is today the home of the province's Buddhist organization.

I particularly like this statue:
Note the monkey underneath the elephant feeding it. And yes, the elephant is carrying the world on its back. The globe is fairly detailed with the Earth's continents, so I'm sure this is not an ancient thing.

There are beautiful gardens behind the temples, and at the back is this amazing building:
There you go, Chengdu highlights in words and pictures.

Buddha is really big in these parts

2009-05-10T21:50:00.007+08:00

During four days in Sichuan, about 3000 years of history can easily be witnessed, if not completely absorbed. Remains of cities dating to 1000BCE can be seen within the city; it is the birthplace of Taoism, and has long been important to Buddhists as well, with many sacred sites and spectacular temples.

Several of the main attractions in the area are located a couple hours southwest of Chengdu by bus, near the city of Leshan (乐山 or Happy Mountain, though “happy” in Chinese doesn't sound so frivolous as it does in English). The bus ride takes you through a vast agricultural area, a patchwork of flooded rice paddies and other crops, some of which I've probably eaten but didn't recognize.
You can occasionally see water buffalo in the fields helping with the work. This kind of farming does not lend itself to massive mechanization, requiring instead large amounts of muscle power from humans and animals.

Leshan is home to a bit over a half million people, pretty small by Chinese standards, but only a little smaller than Seattle. There are very few high-rise buildings, but the usual assortment of fashionable stores can be seen on the mostly narrow streets. It sits at the confluence of three rivers, and in ancient times the currents near here could be pretty treacherous. So in the year 719 a monk named Haitong devised a plan to carving a great homage to Buddha out of the cliffside in hopes of calming the waters.

Construction took ninety years, and Haitong did not live to witness its completion, but it did indeed calm the waters, probably due to the huge amount of rock cut from the cliff and dumped into the river.

This Buddha, called 大佛 (Dafo), which simply means “big Buddha”, stands 71 meters (233 feet) tall. In English, the name is rendered sometimes as Giant Buddha and sometimes as Great Buddha. No matter what you call it, it is pretty amazing, quite worthy of its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

To see the whole thing, you have to take a boat on the river for ¥50.
The boat will cruise past the statue, turn around, and then pause for several minutes right in front of it for photos. If you want, there's a photographer on board who will for a fee take “professional” pictures of you with the Buddha in the background.
From here you can see the long zigzag stairway that goes from the top of the cliff to Buddha's feet, and the roundabout path on the other side to return (though not in the same picture).

To get from the boat dock to the Buddha, you can take a taxi or ride a city bus. The bus gives you a really interesting view of some really interesting parts of town you wouldn't normally see (and the local tourism committee probably wishes you wouldn't).

As is usual for attractions in China, there are a variety of ticket options available, and the descriptions on the sign are only meaningful if you already know what is there. We opted for the full package for ¥120 each, figuring it would get us into everything we could possibly want.

From the park entrance you start up the hill and pass a number of interesting things, such as the White Tiger Lair.
There is a sign with a legend about a dragon and a white tiger, and they also have a dragon carved wrapped around a little pond nearby.

You go up a bunch of stairs...
...to find yourself at a temple complex.
There's a bunch of renovation going on, and it's very crowded between the construction fences with all the people lighting their incense and so on.

At the top of the hill there is an old pagoda that doesn't seem to get much attention.
Well, since you're here, you can't really choose not to go down to Buddha's feet. You start out level with his head.
At the top you can look down.
Yes, it's a long way down.

This is what it looks like about halfway down:
And near the bottom you get a good look at the massive feet.
When you get to the bottom and look up, this is what you see:
When you go out the other side and climb the stairs back up the cliff, it gets kind of confusing. We entered a separately ticketed area which was covered by our everything passes. We walked a long way along a path and saw something kind of curious.
As some kind of good luck charm or something, people wedge sticks into every possible crevice. I don't know the significance of this.

Eventually you get to the cave of the Thousand Arm Guanyin
This is followed by a whole bunch of carved Buddhas, all replicas of famous shrines around Asia, including some from Japan and India.
In English, the name is something like The Asian Buddha Theme Park, but it doesn't seem to have any rides. I think it would be great if if did. Imagine learning some of the famous stories in 3D seen from a hurtling roller coaster!
If you noticed that's not Buddha, give yourself a gold star. It's Shiva, in a replica of a famous statue in India. It may be a Buddha Park, but they're not too strict about what is allowed.

After returning from the Buddha Park to the main park area, we wandered around trying to figure out how to get to something new. The maps were very confusing, and there was no clear best path. We saw a few more temples and ended up at the main exit.

We hopped back on the #13 bus and rode past one of the things we had tried to find in the park, a famous bridge.

Notes on getting around: There is a frequent bus between the New South Gate Station (新南门站 Xinnanmen Zhan) in Chengdu and Leshan for ¥43. Leshan city bus 13 will take you to the dock where you can get on the boat (there are several different companies offering what seems to be the same service for ¥50). After you get off the boat, route 13 will also continue on to the Great Buddha. The Leshan city buses are kind of run-down compared to the Beijing buses I've ridden, but they offer a great inexpensive (¥1) way to see a bit of the city as you ride around the streets. When you leave the Great Buddha park, cross the street and catch the 13 bus back into town – it will take you right to the bus station. I do not recommend buying the added ticket to the Asia Buddha Theme Park unless you really want to see a bunch of replica statues.