This time between the “Western holidays” (Christmas, New Year etc.) and the Mother of all Chinese Holidays, 春节, has been fraught with changes, stalled projects, snow, worrying about calamities both in China and abroad, new friends, and 太多的咖啡，香煙，和啤酒。In the midst of all this strange limbo between festivals, I’ve been rather absent on the interwebz. Fear not, here are some interesting links to tide you all over while I’m busy figuring out my life and buying fireworks for the impending New Year.
Some menacing work from NeoCha
–> NeoChaEDGE is an amazing, bilingual Chinese design and art website that I’d heard about from several sources, but never really checked it out until Mike sent me the link. It’s a website devoted largely to Chinese designers and graphic artists, but also reports on music, performance, and other aspects of the offbeat or underground art world. It’s definitely a unique interactive site to see artists who didn’t necessarily come straight outta 798 or 莫干山路 and represent a more independent slice of the Chinese art world.
More work from NeoCha
–> This band, La Loupe, consists of some new American friends who rock out folky tunes (often featuring my second favorite* instrument, the melodica!) with Chinese lyrics. They have a small, but awesome following in Beijing and are a little Dean & Britta-esque in their compositions and overall vibe. Really catchy songs, the music is simple and witty.
–> This is just absurd. Welcome to our scary world.
–> Last but not least, check out my girl Tao Yang being a total expert on Chinese independent film all over the news–holla! Tao Yang was interviewed for a Chicago news station about film festivals and the direction of Chinese film and aced it fabulously.
*after the glockenspiel, of course
This entry was written by , posted on January 22, 2010 at 12:04 am, filed under adventures, art, beijing, chinese, film, music, news and tagged beijing, chun jie, dean & britta, la loupe, neocha. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Rapture on the Great Wall:
Hallelujah!
This entry was written by , posted on January 9, 2010 at 12:28 am, filed under adventures, beijing and tagged great wall. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
冬眠
DONG MIAN
Hibernate
winter sleep.
This entry was written by , posted on January 7, 2010 at 11:52 pm, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
There’s nothing to put the insanity of one’s own native culture in perspective more clearly than the insanity of another. Since coming to China, I have been both horrified and mesmerized by the inexplicable programming on CCTV. (China Central TV, which controls essentially all of the programming in the country and boasts 19 channels ranging from news to a “military and agriculture” channel.)
While a lot of CCTV aims to entertain with family-centered soap operas (many of which are based in bygone dynasties and some of which feature magic!) and American Idol-style talent competitions, it’s the documentary-like exposé programming that I find most baffling. In the past few months, I have witnessed an hour long, prime-time “news” story about an elderly couple living on the outskirts of Beijing who have a lot of cats. Likewise, I’ve seen hard-hitting, in-depth programs about a man who can eat a lot of food and a lady who went to Australia. It’s entirely possible that I’m missing some language or vital cultural context, but I had relegated CCTV to the same level of media savvy as Nick at Nite until I had the following conversation with a friend:
FRIEND: So, do you watch TV in China?
ME: On occasion, I have indeed been known to. I must confess, though, that I find it truly puzzling!
FRIEND: How so? Please elaborate!
[It's a tiny bit possible that the specific language of our conversation was not exactly like this. But I digress...]
ME: Well, in the place of prime-time news programs, I have seen a lengthy program featuring a man eating a live snake while a group of young children look on. Chinese people are truly bizarre.
A pause.
FRIEND: Fear Factor.
ME: Oh, yeah, I guess so. Well, another time, I saw a show where they spent like an hour talking about how some old people have a lot of cats.
FRIEND: Anything on HGTV. Or Lifetime.
ME: Fine. A game show where people try to fit their entire families into spaces of infinitesimal square footage!
[I pause, confident that I have finally triumphed in the weird TV Olympics and also proud of my use of the world "infinitesimal"!]
FRIEND: (coy) Was this show, by any chance…Japanese?
ME: (grumpy) Possibly…
FRIEND: Whatever. No matter what you’ve got over there, I submit for the evidence: Wife Swap, A Shot at Love With Tila Tequila, Ice Road Truckers, or any show involving competitive cake decorating. Our TV is ridiculous.
ME: No! We are Americans! We invented television! We made Walter Cronkite and The Daily Show and the complete works of Matthew Weiner!
[I realize that this tirade makes me, who doesn't really like TV that much, sound like Kenneth from 30 Rock. I also realize that making a TV reference as evidence that I don't "really like TV that much" is kind of not that effective.]
FRIEND: Wife. Swap.
ME: Touché.
Conclusion: We are all weridos. Some of us just like eating snakes more than others.
This entry was written by , posted on January 3, 2010 at 4:38 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Happy 2010, mes amies. May this year be wild and fun and hopeful and prosperous and beautiful.
Here is a Chinese word to tide you all over:
雪犁
XUE LI
SNOW PLOW
This is something that Beijing lacks, but should really consider investing in to deal with this snow that’s been falling for almost 48 hours.
This entry was written by , posted on at 3:49 am, filed under Uncategorized. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.