Mao’s other house

It’s been a while since I wrote about a local music show, mainly because I haven’t been to many. I caught a Hedgehog acoustic show at the Stone Boat a few weeks ago, but haven’t posted anything about it. Maybe I’ll get to that eventually. Last night I headed off to the MAO LiveHouse for a multi-band bill that looked pretty promising.

When I came in the door, the girl taking money pointed out a little sign. It said there was no re-entry to the club once you left, though you would be welcome to purchase another ticket to come back in. Cute. I paid my ¥50 and stayed in.
I never definitively caught a mention of a name, but I think this is Fire Balloon. I’ll post a correction if I’m wrong. As you can see, they are typical of Beijing bands in one way: it’s a three-piece with a female member. (edit - It is indeed Fire Balloon, 火气球.)
The lead singer and guitarist, aside from a rather crazy hairstyle, is quite good at his instrument. He doesn’t play a lot of solos, but when he does, they’re worth listening to, with an interesting tendency to work into unexpected notes. His singing is of a mumbly, indistinct style that reminds me a bit of Joyside.
The bassist contributes backing vocals, and her bass playing is excellent. Whether using her fingers or a pick, she is really good, with quick, imaginative lines and solid rhythm. If they have a weak link, it’s the drummer, who is pretty steady in the main but awkward sometimes on his fills. I searched the net for information but came up with very little, just mentions of their name on other bands’ sites.
Next up was SKO, who fit in with the kind of pop punk you hear from Green Day, Good Charlotte and the like. Not the most original music, but well written and very well played.
The lead singer is (from the sound of his accent when he spoke English) an American. He mostly spoke Chinese, however, and seemed quite fluent. Their lyrics were in both languages.
The main thing I noticed is that they are extremely precise in their playing in spite of the rowdy nature of the style. They also have a knack for coming up with sing-along choruses that are very catchy.

Next was a band called Perdel, and they’ve got a very different take on rock than any of the other local bands I’ve seen.
Their set started with a drum solo. Not a long or indulgent one, mind you, and he started out standing up.
Then the bass player walked out and joined in, playing a Rickenbacker-style Fernandez bass.
Keyboards next, with a burbling rhythmic sequence that he altered by fiddling with the knobs on a beat-up old Korg. I have a weakness for knob-twiddling keyboards, so this pleased me very much.
Continuing the progression, the lead guitarist was next. He’s quite good, with a style that mixes good melodies with outside touches.
Finally the lead singer and rhythm guitarist came out and the build-up worked into a song.
They had quite a lot of fans in the audience, cheering and singing along, including a group of girls next to me. This one took video of pretty much the whole show. Stylistically, they’re maybe a bit more poppish and melodic than most Beijing bands, and the keyboards give them a bit lighter edge, though they are nowhere near wimpy. Once again, lyrics in both English and Chinese.
When they finished their last song, there was a drawing when slips of paper with names were pulled out of a box. The winners came up on stage and took over the band’s instruments. The guy in the middle with the guitar was actually able to play a bit, and he sang part of a song while the others mostly just stood there.
The headliner of the evening was Subs, whom I have written about before.
They were pretty much the same as previous shows I’ve seen. This band gets tons of press here (comparatively speaking – it’s not like any Chinese rock gets mainstream notice here), and I guess I can see why, but I find Kang Mao's constant throat-rending screaming a bit much. When she makes an effort to sing, she reminds me a little of Lene Lovich or Pauline Murray, but there’s very little room for that in the full-on assault of angst-ridden noise.
After she screamed her last song, she left the stage to the band and headed for the mosh pit.
And that was a night at MAO’s house (the live one, not the dead one). The venue gets a thumbs up in almost every respect. Good size stage, good lighting system, decent sound, working air conditioners, reasonable drink prices, room for both dancing and avoiding dancers. All for $7, plus $4 for a gin and tonic.

The Lunch Chronicles, Volume 36

I’m much too lazy to go back and count how many times I’ve written about my lunches, so I’m just picking 36 as a reasonable number.
These two restaurants are frequent choices. The one on the left has several noodle dishes I really like, and the other one, as the sign says, specializes in pastries and congee (or zhou). I’ve mentioned their food before:
The following meal is not from either of those places.
Clockwise from the upper right, we have a spicy tofu (doufu) dish, vegetables with garlic, dongbei da lapi (northeast style slippery noodles), and gongbao jiding (kungpao chicken). You can also see some noodles on the far side of the table and steamed rice on the near side. The slippery noodles are made, I think, from potato starch, and they can be a real challenge to eat with chopsticks. I feel a little better that I’m not the only one who occasionally drops one – even people who’ve used chopsticks all their lives have trouble with these things. They’re seasoned with soy, vinegar, garlic, parsley and little strips of pork. Tasty, and with a fun texture I suppose some people might not like.

And now to move on to something other than lunch.
It’s breakfast!

One of my colleagues wanted to show me a typical Beijing breakfast, so I managed to get out of my apartment early and meet her at the office. We walked a short distance to a little hole in the wall that had steamed buns and zhou. The little buns have seasoned pork in them and are pretty good. The little dishes have vinegar for dipping; I opted out of the hot spicy oil this time. The porridge is made from unsalted rice and is really bland. It is said to be very healthy, and is served to sick people like Americans might serve chicken soup. The whole thing runs less than a dollar a person.

I will now move on to a topic that doesn’t involve food at all. Really.
No, it’s not a SmartCar. It’s a Chinese brand; I don’t know what it’s called.
Maybe someone can read the logo, but I can’t.

In other completely non-foodly developments, when I entered the building one morning, I found the lobby buzzing with activity.
Maybe not exactly buzzing – more like plucking, bowing and blowing.

The had a long banner laid out on the floor with artists decorating sections in their own ways.
It took me a while to decipher what the monochrome paint used here was supposed to be. Then I realized it is collapsed buildings and rubble. Sichuan after the earthquake. He also painted a helicopter with soldiers parachuting down for the rescue effort, just to the left of this frame.

Good good study day day up up

The other day, a Chinese coworker saw me on my way to Chinese class and said “Hao hao xuexi tian tian xiang shang – do you know what that means?” *
I thought for a moment. I knew all of those words, though they were being used in a way that was unfamiliar. The literal translation is the title of this blog entry. I said, “Study well every day and you’ll get better.”

She said I was close enough. I mentioned it in class and my teacher said it was an old slogan of Chairman Mao’s to encourage children to do well in school. I would be written in big letters in classrooms.

It’s a feature of Chinese that repeating a word can intensify it (reduplication can have other meanings, but this is pretty common). I already knew about tian (day) and tian tian (every day, though you can also say mei ge tian where mei means every). I’ve also seen ren ren (person person) to mean everybody, though I’m told that’s only used in writing – nobody says it anymore.

Shang is a very interesting word, as is its opposite xia. Shang can be translated as over, above, on, before, board, get on, ride, top, up, start, and lots of others. The basic concept is being above or moving above, so if you get onto a bus you use shang. In terms of time, in Chinese you have to think of time as being kind of like a river – it flows downhill, so above is the same thing as before, and below is after. Shang ge yue means last month; xia ge yue is next month. There are also the common phrases shang ke (start class) and shang ban (start work). The upper part of class is the first part, when you start it. And of course, up can also mean better, as it does in the sentence that started this whole thing.

Incidentally, while reduplication is not very common in English, there are many languages around the world that do it – Chinese is not at all unusual in this respect. We do use it in a few cases, like “I live in a house house (as opposed to an apartment).” There are even some languages that feature syntactic triplication.

OK, enough for today’s Chinese lesson. Check back soon for another post about…food!

* - Corrected from my misheard original.