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.
Once in a while, you find yourself gobsmacked by a totally unsuspecting cultural experience. When James Wallace, a Nashville-based musician who I met in Beijing way-back-when, invited me to a concert he was playing in, I was more than happy to drop by and see an old friend. What I didn’t expect was an astonishing show combining traditional Chinese and Mongolian instruments with some of the finest bluegrass and Americana on either side of the Pacific.
The headliner was Abigail Washburn, an amazing artists who’s made the world hear just how sweet Chinese bluegrass can sound. Abigail plays a range of instruments and carries songs in such a strong, smoky voice in both Chinese and English. What’s most incredible, though, is not her considerable musical talent, but her ear for bringing together seemingly incompatible sounds to create an unexpected fusion of Chinese and American musical traditions. When a Chinese musician went to town on the pipa, I realized for the first time that this instrument (that I’d formerly thought of as just vaguely whiney) sounds like the fiercest, most badass banjo in town.
Charmed as we were by Abigail, James, and conspirator Kai Welch’s renditions of old American fare with some Chinese instrumental interludes, I was totally blown away by the introduction of the Mongolian rock bang, Hanggai. I know: Mongolian. Rock. Band. We were skeptical, but it was rad, you guys. They wore fantastically pointy hats and with instruments with such names as the “horse head fiddle” and “Tobshuur,” as well as electric guitars, bass, and drums, totally rock on with their frocks on. (Observe frocks below.) The whole company brought the house down with Mongolian and American drinking songs–they were clearly having a great time.
What I found so inspiring about the whole show was not just the obvious skill of the musicians, but the enthusiasm they showed for doing something new, something innovative, something beloved. I’m no musician (apart from my unfortunately well-documented bongo skillz…Black Yak Band, you were all there in my heart) and no informed connoisseur, but I know when I’ve seen an amazing show and I left the concert feeling good about life. I feel like seeking out these experiences–those that leave you feeling colorful and energized and even nostalgic–is especially important in Beijing, where life can fall into grayness or sameness quite unexpectedly, and this show was enough to inspire ridiculous cliches about art and inspiration and how, at the end of the day, a banjo and a pipa and a Chinese song and an American song can do the trick to make life that much better.
This entry was written by , posted on December 19, 2009 at 10:03 pm, filed under adventures, art, beijing and tagged abigail washburn, beijing, hanggai, music, yugong yishan. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
It’s getting cold. Well, to be fair, it was frigid and (government-generated) snowy for most of November, but temperatures have kind of leveled off to a season-appropriate chill. In any case, the temperature is going to continue to drop and then remain glacial for the forseeable future.
I am devising strategies to stay sane in all of this without hibernating or scorching myself on an electric blanket.
Survival tactic #1: Bright colors!
In the gray gloom of a Beijing winter, there’s a small comfort waking up to a bright orange bedroom. The Chinese seem to have embraced this concept with great vigor and I have encountered a countless collection of tangerine, clementine, and brightly golden hued walls in houses, restaurants, and hotels all over China. My apartment takes the (carrot?) cake, though. My roommate has situated our flat not only with orange walls, but orange curtains, an orange couch, and a charming array of orange throw pillows. Delightful. And citrusy.
Survival Tactic #2: Uniqlo Heattech Clothes
(This is probably the closest this blog will ever come to product placement, so please forgive me.) One arena in which Beijing has far surpassed New York is in its number of Uniqlo stores, which thrilled me when I first arrived here. Unfortunately, most of the Uniqlo stores here boast clothing more akin to 1990s Gap (tech vests, anyone?) and less like the sleek SoHo Uniqlo wares, but they do carry the heattech leggings and turtlenecks that allowed me to prevail through last winter un-frostbitten. I don’t know what “Japan Technology” means, but it makes me feel like I’m wearing robotic clothes, which is never a bad things. Overall, these leggings and shirts are thin and silky and keep me toasty. And the logo is partly orange, you guys.
Survival Tactic #3: Calming, wistful music
Winter is a season that boasts the delicate charm of looking out a window onto softly falling snow whilst wearing a thick sweater and smiling gingerly like a J.Crew model. Sadly, this charm has often worn its welcome out by February. I have found an effective way to revive romantic notions about winter is to seek out some sweet and gentle melodies to allay the murderous frustration that you haven’t seen the sun in days and coax a soothing sense of domesticity and coziness…and French-ness?
In 2007, I listened to Nouvelle Vague nonstop. Last winter, I took further gestures in deluding myself that my life was a French New Wave movie (starring Louis Garrel, apparently) and kept ‘The Dreamers’ and ‘Les Chansons D’amour’ soundtracks on repeat. This year, I have joined the huddled masses of Beijing expats in listening constantly to Au Revoir Simone. The dreamy quasi-electro folk trio (who are from Brooklyn, btdubbs, and not actually French) just played in Beijing and Shanghai and the onslaught of coverage in the expat media circles left us all clamoring to hear their new album, Still Night, Still Light. I’ve been hooked for weeks: their melodies are shy, but poised, soothing, wintery music. And while much of Beijing may have flocked to see the band at Yugong Yishan, only one person got to unexpectedly hang out with them at the airport the next morning because we were all going to Shanghai. So, go me.
Survival Tactic #4: Don’t go to 五道口 three days in a row! It’s really far away! And it’s cold! (I learned this valuable lesson this weekend.)
Survival Tactic #5: Good friends. Good movies. Fun work. A gentleman caller or lady friend to help keep you warm. Whiskey. Jiaozi. Vitamin C. Making plans for spring.
This entry was written by , posted on November 30, 2009 at 4:00 am, filed under adventures, beijing, chinese, news, style and tagged au revoir simone, beijing, uniqlo, winter. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Due to my crippling fear and loathing of technology, I’m not normally one to geek out about web design. The bloc site We Live in Beijing, however, has a cool, eye-catching layout and a multi-functionality that combines elements of facebook (may we who live in China continue to mourn this loss…), twitter, and any clever news and events source. The site contains especially great previews and reviews of the Beijing music scene, as well as pithy little articles on dating, travel, sex, and all that makes up Beijing life.
Fuck yeah! These guys are all over the China music scene…I have no idea who they are!
While the site is funny and informative and helmed by style-conscious Norwegians, does somehow lend itself to certain stalkerish habits.
As much as we facebook-stalkers of bygone days might have longed for the ability to see who’s been visiting our profile…be careful what you wish for. On weliveinbeijing.com, a member can not only see who’s been visiting their profile of late, but also what any given member is currently doing. If Klaus is looking at Zhang Wei’s profile, I know. If Ning is contributing to a forum entitled “Don’t Marry a Foreign Man,” I know. This is weird and awkward, but just seems to just encapsulate a larger truth about life and love in Beijing: this is a city of creepsters.
Within the expat community, it kind of makes sense. When you have people coming from all directions and cultural backgrounds, you’re going to get some signals mixed and some wires crossed when it comes to communication between and among the sexes. But…also, this seems to be a breeding ground for desperate, tactless losers. New York is not exactly a cathedral of chastity, but I’ve never felt so grossed out when I go out to bars and such. Men have no problem eyeballing you in a way that’s not exactly, um, subtle, saying totally inappropriate shit, and touching you within minutes of meeting you. Mostly it’s harmless and non-aggressive, but sometimes it’s best to signal your friends, do the Wolverine thing with your keys between your fingers, and grab a cab.
I’m not trying to be a puritan here, but the extremely explicit advances and general forwardness, excessive hair gel use, and Chinese dudes’ totally unironic use of the phrase “baby girl, I wanna get wit you” has caught me a bit off guard. (Maybe I’m just used to hanging out with socially-idiotic hipsters for whom eye contact is a notch too intense for bar banter.) To address the social networking thing again, I’ve only just joined weliveinbeijing, but I already have a mailbox full of totally weird messages from men I have never met, none of whom feel compelled to actually spell out the incredibly complicated and lengthy word Y-O-U. From the fairly innocent (What u do? Where u frum, girl?) to the more forward, (”i wish to know u better and be a good friend. you feel it. i feel u. give me cell phone.”…On this one, I couldn’t tell if this person wanted to have sex with me or steal my cell phone.), to the plain inexplicable (”u have a good profile. i like ur name. it mean tree.”) I am fairly certain that there is no language in the world in which my name means “tree,” but that’s one way to get a girl’s attention…
Of course, not all of Beijing is swarming with creepsters, but there’s a fair bundle in the land of of the 10 kuai beer, uninhibited nightlife, and social networking that practically begs you to stalk other people. Until I figure this out, I’ll be going out in my habit, Wolverine costume, and telling all inquiring minds that my name is Tree.
This entry was written by , posted on October 8, 2009 at 11:07 pm, filed under Uncategorized, adventures, beijing, chinese and tagged creeps, dating, facebook, trees, weliveinbeijing.com. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
There are two basic ethnic groups in Beijing: Chinese people and everybody else.
Call them foreigners, 老外 (Lao Wai: a kind of slang expression that literally translates to “old outsider.” Perhaps a more updated and gentle way of saying “Foreign Devil.”), but when it comes down to it, you’re either A or B. Chinese or…not.
There are some gray areas (such as my friend who was born in Beijing to Chinese parents, but grew up in Canada, so is considered local by Beijingers, but not by the state), but mostly Beijingers are divided on their status of being homegrown or exported. There are some who would consider this lumping-together of non-Chinese people to be a.) wildly reductive b.) kind of racist and c.) totally bizarre, but I can’t imagine who those people would be. Maybe it’s a preserve the purity of the race (yikes) thing, but even children born of non-Chinese parents in China are not considered Chinese citizens. It’s notoriously difficult for foreigners, even those married to Chinese people, to gain citizenship or even obtain visas with really secure longevity. Considering China is increasingly becoming a major destination for West African and South East Asian immigrants, it seems that China may one day have to tackle the great rainbow-colored beasts of multi-culturealism, assimilation, and immigration policy! For now, though, in China (as in the world of reality TV fashion shows), you’re either in or you’re out.
The tide seem to be changing, though, and the idea of what is “Chinese” with it. Though Beijing is still a city notorious for brief stints by job-hopping foreigners, more and more so-called 老外 are making Beijing their permanent homes. These people are taking root, changing the cultural climate, and producing a new generation of Chinese children who don’t necessarily look or act like the Chinese of yesteryear. I’ve seen people–especially kids and teenagers–off all ethnicities chattering away in fluent Beijing-hua. This city is their home; they are, effectively, Chinese.
When people ask me what the big differences are between Beijing and New York, my obvious go-to answer is that what Beijing lacks in cultural diversity it makes up for in motorbikes. This may not be true for long, though, as a new generation of multi-cultural Beijingers take the reins. Maybe someday “foreigners” may not just be mere foreigners, but part of a real global city where the 老外is allowed inside.
This entry was written by , posted on October 5, 2009 at 11:13 pm, filed under Uncategorized, beijing, chinese, language, news and tagged beijing, foreigners, immigration. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’ve been asked by a few people to post pictures of Beijing on this blog and I would oblige except that a.) I am a terrible photographer and b.) I never remember to take my camera anywhere.
Luckily, my good friend Domo Kun has come to visit Beijing from his home in Japan and has decided to document the experience! Inspired by both Katie’s Domo antics in the past (and general involvement with monsters and magical creatures*), as well as Amelie’s gnome, Domo has decided to share his photos from a recent shopping trip in Beijing. In the future, Domo plans to visit many exciting landmarks here in Beijing and also hopes to venture to other cities in China!
Domo is in the apartment, getting ready for a big shopping adventure!
Domo walks down a pleasant Beijing street. Skies are blue–an all-too-rare occasion here in Beijing.
Fruit! Domo salivates! He is partial to melons.
Domo is a kinky sort of fellow.
Domo is having a chat with these security guards. He admires their small turquoise benches.
Domo is tired. Time to ride home and feast on melons. Until next time, Domo reminds you to keep it so real it’s HD.
*I’ve just realized this totally makes her sound like Hagrid. She is not.
This entry was written by , posted on October 3, 2009 at 12:43 pm, filed under adventures, beijing, travel and tagged beijing, domo kun. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
According to a whole hell of a lot of Chinese people, Gasp (气喘吁吁) is pretty much the worst movie ever made. (Clearly, these people have never seen He’s Just Not That Into Making The Stupidest Movie Ever.)
I, and approximately…one other person think that Gasp is on the of the most original, compelling Chinese movies this side of a ten minute Jia Zhang-Ke tracking shot. (No offense to good ol’ JZK, but this is a new kind of Chinese movie!)
Sure, it’s slightly rude and vaguely surrealist in a way that is totally unappealing to epic-loving Chinese audiences, but Gasp tackles some of the weightier issues of modern urban life in China with an incredible style and humor, even irony, rare to contemporary Chinese filmmaking.
The film tells the story of Frank (John Savage), a dopey Texan hit hard by the recession who travels to Beijing in hopes of selling his family cheese company to a Chinese investor. In Beijing, he encounters an outrageous cast of characters, from Mr. Lee (Ge You, one of the most famous comedians in China, for whom this movie represents a Jim Carrey in Eternal Sunshine-like leap), a business man in a serious life crisis, to aspiring starlets, lunatic business people, and a strange host of expats. Set almost entirely within Beijing, Gasp (directed by Beijinger Zheng Zhong, who penned 2004’s also-controversial, also-surrealistic Baober In Love) is political, timely, culturally significant, but it also succeeds on a much higher plane–it’s the first Chinese movie I’ve ever seen that is able to comment on the fact that China is such a totally bizarro place.
With a formal style that shows Beijing through Frank’s boggled, often baijiu-addled eyes, the film is spliced, diced, and often utterly baffling. Through jump cuts galore and strange slices of story, we see Beijing and all its denizens as complicated, miserable, ecstatic, hungry–a range of bizarre moods and appetites in this bizarre city. Chinese audiences may not like Gasp for the very reason I like it so much: it embraces China as an disjointed pastiche of old and new, an unresolved society with quirks and flaws to play with the best of ‘em. The film lacks a linear narrative structure, it jumps around and confuses–much like life in this and any city.
Gasp is part of a new generation of Chinese films that subscribe more to genre than previous generations and this comedy takes its humor like I take my coffee–black, black, black. There are some terrifically funny moments in the film: a model learns that she’s been hired only to showcase only her more…bulbous physical attributes, an African-American expat teaches Ebonics to a group of eager young Chinese, as well as a lot of Lost In Translation-style misunderstandings and mistranslations. That being said, this film may garner comparisons to Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation as a stranger-in-a-strange (Asian)-land story, but Gasp achieves what Coppola could not–a real attempt to understand China, beyond the facade of strange and different. Zheng Zhong is clearly influenced by a lot of global cinema, but think Jarmusch-style sensibility rather than the muted crises of Sofia Coppola’s work.
This film may resonate with me and not with Chinese audiences for several reasons–I’m an expat living in Beijing, I like weird films, I’m not easily offended by criticisms of China (or even the US, for that matter), but I think that this is, by and large, a film that will be mostly appreciated by a foreign, non-Chinese audience. Gasp is window into a China we’ve never seen on-screen before, a China that embraces style and wit and all the contradictions that make this place what it is.
The film isn’t perfect and does feel too fragmented and frantic at times, but it is also daring and original. The film also features a pretty badass soundtrack by Howie B and some incredible art direction and costume design, which can ice over even a crumbly film. It is my fervent hope that Gasp will be seen by an international audience some day and provide a jump-cut-laden, non-linear window into one of many crazy Beijing stories.
Trailer (no subtitles, but little dialog) can been seen here.
This entry was written by , posted on October 2, 2009 at 12:19 am, filed under art, beijing, film, style and tagged beiing film, beijing, film, gasp, zheng zhong. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
My computer is being a bitch right now, as is its custom. All technology conspires against me, but that’s another story.
Luckily, since I am among the happy Apple-toting hordes, there is an Apple (苹果） store in Beijing. Located in Sanlitun Village–an enormous and terrifying mall-like structure in the center of Sanlutun Area (embassy and tourist grazing area by day, ready to party by night) with imposing geometric architecture and a center courtyard featuring a LED screen ready to burn your eyes out of their sockets.
The Beijing Apple store is eerily similar to the various New York Apple stores, especially the 14th street one (detailed in my forthcoming memoir, Apple Stores I Have Known And Had Panic Attacks At) from the frosted fiberglass staircase to the eager geeks scrambling to out-nerd each other with shiny gadgetry. I knew that my sojourn to the (in my experience) somewhat-hyperbolically named Genius Bar would be a big bilingual headache, since I need help translating what I’m told at the American, English-speaking Apple store, but I sallied forth with my broken USB ports, irrevocably corrupted iPod (been spending too much time with Chinese government officials…), and a head full of dreams.
马克？ ? (Ma Ke) Asked the Eager Young Genius who greeted me.
Whaaat? 什么？
马克？ 还是i-P -O-D? He smiles, Mac or iPod?
They both have problems, I reply, 这两个都有问题。。
What ensued was a careful and utterly wordless examination of both my computer and iPod. Pressing keys, restarting, plugging and unplugging…(opening up applications, copying and pasting) Ten minutes later, he had finished poking and prodding. “Would you like me to tell you what the problem is?” I asked.
“No.” He replied. “No time today. Come back tomorrow.”
To put a fine point on it, emoticon-wise: -_-
Really: 苹果 can suck it. All over the world.
This entry was written by , posted on September 30, 2009 at 12:37 am, filed under adventures, beijing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
The age of branding is well upon us, but nowhere is it as apparent as in China. In a city of brand names, knockoffs, and bootlegs run amok, it seems that branding is essential in every area of life–from cell phones to clothes to concepts to individuals.
Beijing Brand Numero Uno
Perhaps partially because branding is a surefire way to indicate the status and power so many Chinese are hungry for, or perhaps because brands are so easily copied here, this issue of cultivating authentic brands and branding takes enormous precedence here.
On a very basic level, the Chinese are notoriously adept at filling the demand for foreign luxury brands. YaShow Market is Beijing destination number one for knockoff designer clothes. While the market lends itself to touristy shopping sprees and some impressive haggling, it’s also where one can buy one’s mother a “Prada” handbag lined with fabric reading “Hongqiao Factory Made.” (Not that I’ve done this or anything…) There are electronics markets, jewelry markets, even auto markets all promising Samsung! Apple! Chanel! BMW!…with varying degrees of legitimacy. In many cases here, the name is more important than the product and the knockoffs market is booming. While buying myself a cell phone (a slick crossbreed between an Oppo phone and an Apple phone that Steve Jobs wouldn’t quite recognize…), I saw a an iPone (as opposed to the less popular iJohnnyCake?) and an iPhone Air. A great idea, but a little too far ahead of the curve.
On a much larger level, the idea of branding oneself and one’s endeavors are of staggering importance. People will unabashedly judge their colleagues based on name, presentation, and pedigree–much more so than I’ve experienced in the US. Last night, I met a girl who works at a fairly prominent film production company in Beijing. We chatted for a while and she was quite amicable, if somewhat blasé towards me and my ideas. She asked me at some point where I had gone to college–when the name “Columbia University” was dropped, her attitude towards me changed completely. “她真厉害！” she exclaimed to my colleague (”She’s so impressive!” or…”intense” depending on your translation) I hadn’t done anything but mention an academic institution that, in China perhaps more so than anywhere else, serves as a major status symbol–a component of the Maya Rudolph brand.
Of course, this is not a new phenomenon, nor is it at all specific to China, but there is a certain unapologetic emphasis placed on presenting oneself, one’s job, one’s life, as a brand worth investing in. (I’ve seen business cards here to make Patrick Bateman weep.) It’s strange to see this commercial upswing, this blatant pursuit of status through luxury branding, as so accepted on a wide scale when the US is coming to grips with what a fucking disaster it can lead to.
There are many implication to this much bigger conversation about the Chinese impulse to brand (and, in effect, to compartmentalize and promote ideas and even people as products) and what that means about the individual in China and what the capitalist nightmare it all points to, but more on that later. For now, I’m off to buy some bootleg DVDs. Croterion Collection, anyone?
This entry was written by , posted on September 23, 2009 at 1:10 am, filed under adventures, beijing, chinese. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.