家常菜 / Jiachang cai / “Homestyle food”

I love how the only place in Beijing I know of that’s smokier than D-22 is the Hubei province jiachang cai restaurant I ate lunch at today. When we left after feasting for three dollars, my throat burned and my eyes were stinging.

Oh, we also got a dish in a sizzling iron bowl that was served with a cigarette stub on the edge of the platter.

The food was delicious.

Oh the parties we had?

Sunday night was my friend Justin’s birthday, and celebrations were suitably fucking awesome. Festivities were taking place at D-22, where he does sound and plays drums, so Simon and Caitlin and I headed out on yet another long (but cheap) subway journey to “Beijing’s CBGBs”… or whatever.

Beforehand, we stopped over at last summer’s favourite hole-in-the-wall Xinjiang place, lovingly referred to as Ali Baba’s (啊里巴巴). The meal was especially remarkable because for reasons, typically incomprehensible, my friend Steve was in town and used to go to the restaurant at least three times a week. It was also nice that two naan breads, three plates of noodles, a bowl of noodle soup, and four beers cost 51 RMB, or $7ish dollars.

Anyway, in honour of turning 27(?) Justin played two sets with an absolutely crazy folk singer named Xiao He, who has a penchant for beautiful shrieking, deep, Mongolian throat singing-style delivery, and wearing red pants.

I end up saying this a lot in Beijing, but it truly was one of the most astounding musical things I’ve seen. The two of them were improvising, but they were so attuned to each other, that when one of them screwed up and didn’t stop playing, the other messed up and did the exact same thing.

Having performed with Justin a number of times, it was interesting to have an understanding of how he would play. I was impressed by how much he held himself back. At times, he’d play a rhythm and Xiao He would match it exactly with his voice. Xiao He  played only acoustic guitar, plugged in, but he used numerous looping pedals (for his instrument and vocals), one of which I have. The combination of knowing how Justin improvises and knowing how Xiao He’s pedals work meant that I was involved in the performance in a way that I’ve never experienced as a member of the audience before. It was quite impressive.

Monday night were the Bar and Club Awards held by my guidebook company’s sister magazine, The Beijinger. The ceremony itself was on the tacky side (a girl dancing with a snake? come on…) and the free Stella Artois and Vodka were dangerous.  Miraculously, I’m fine today. Here’s a choice summary of events:

• A shirtless Mexican man stands on a table at the bar we relocated to, pulls down his pants, then his boxers, and stands motionless, naked, for 10 slow, slow seconds. (Thankfully we had the rear view)
• After stealing food from his friends, a colleague tells me that we’re like Inuit: “we don’t waste any part of the quesadilla.”
• The Arcade Fire came on the stereo, in a Mexican-food-serving sports bar in Beijing. Where am I?
• It rained it rained it rained
• No one came to work on time the next day
• The first order of business was lunch.

Still around…

First of all, this Parts and Labor video is incredible.

This week has been deceptively exhausting. I’ve started work on the “Insider’s Guide to Beijing,” which is a yearly-updated guidebook. It’s a pretty cool project to have, and I’m in charge of both the music section and the adult education chapter (studying at universities in China, etc). There’s a lot of material that’s re-used from year to year, so by no means is it an insurmountable task. The only thing is, it can be excruciating arriving at the office in the morning, sitting down at the computer, and basically just saying to yourself “I’m going to make progress on the chapters.” I’ve read over previous issues of the book so many times that I think I might go crazy. It’s hard to not feel compelled to change the chapters a lot to keep them interesting, but after 4 years of being published, sometimes it doesn’t make any sense to reinvent the wheel. So basically: this past week = a lot of thinking, a few odd pages of hopefully useful notes. A little bit tiresome.

Hot and Cold played Thursday at D-22, to probably about 10 people. There was no applause; complete dead silence between songs. Simon and I were both pretty tired, and I felt as though it went terribly in a legendary sort of way.

The day after, though, I listened to a recording of the set that Caitlin had helped us make, using our Fisher-Price “My first cassette player.” And thankfully, it was pretty great. Or pretty less-bad. Either way, much more enjoyable at a second listen. We’re now trying to transfer the cassette onto Simon’s computer…

Did I mention last weekend we played on a boat? Like, the floating kind. Moored on a scummy green canal not far from our house. There were love seats in the lifeboats. I attacked the drum set with an inflatable pink dolphin.

A good time was had by all.

“Beijing’s own Canadian duo”

Hot and Cold had a great show on Saturday!

It was a night of many firsts:

• Our first Saturday night show. (We definitely caught a few poor foreigner suckas who didn’t realize Beijing faves Carsick Cars weren’t playing)

• As a result, we played to Our first sizable audience (Most of them didn’t run away after hearing the first song, either).

• Our first show to open with Simon and I screaming for 20 seconds (and no instruments). All right!

• Our first heckling. I thought it was a joke at first: “You guys suck, play some real music!” Too bad I didn’t think to remember the guy’s face – D-22’s sound man wanted to beat him up afterwards. Hot and Cold has now firmly established itself as a too-cool noise-rock band.

• Our first major paycheck. (Around 70 Canadian dollars – how did that happen?!)

• And finally, it was also the first time Toronto band Woodhands came to China and opened for us. This was especially funny because two nights before, they played at one of the largest venues in Beijing. And all the other bands at D-22 on Saturday were “experimental.” (On a musical Venn-diagram, keytar playing and “experimental” never co-exist). Actually, D-22’s deliberately fuzzy sound system made them much more appealing than before, and they really warmed the crowd up (dancing, even!) so that when we got to make our racket, it was appreciated).

Following our set, Shouwang, the guitarist of Carsick Cars, played a brief solo piece. I never cease to be amazed by him. At one point, held his guitar in the air by its neck, and gradually let it slide through his fingers, resulting in lower and lower notes. The fact that Shouwang had returned to Beijing from Europe only a few days earlier and was entirely improvising this melodic drone song only enhanced the performance’s brilliance.

Without stopping, he then invited Simon and I to join him on stage. As we gradually worked into a frenzied crescendo, our friend Justin, an astounding drummer from New York City, darted over, and proceeded to pound us into even louder territory.

The four of us play together fairly frequently considering I’m rarely around – somehow, it always clicks. I was very happy with how it sounded: Shouwang and Justin are probably my two favourite Beijing musicians, and I think the best in the city as well.

We were followed by 10, the crazy, only-red-wearing, toy-breaking duo from Korea and Japan. As always, they were great, but I think my favourite part of their performance was having dinner with them and seeing how happy they were to eat rice served in a pineapple at a nearby Yunnan restaurant.

Finally, at 2am, Justin joined saxophonist Li Tieqiao, for yet another phenomenal performance. At one point, Li took off his mouthpiece and played through it by itself, and continued by blowing through his mouthpieceless saxophone, getting it to sound like a trumpet.  For most of the set, Justin used only a snare, and played standing up, with the drum strapped onto him. Amazing.

I was in bed by 4am.

Evidence:

Hot and Cold

Oh, I forgot: also, the first time I played bass and recited a tale of receiving fish by air mail.

Shouwang takes chopsticks to his guitar (how we roll in Beijing).

A moment of silence, Chinese style

Since last week’s earthquake, there’s been an almost-unfathomable outpouring of popular support for Sichuan province.

The government declared Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week National Days of Mourning. Publications dropped colour from their front pages, numerous benefit concerts were planned or held, and even the TVs in front of my office’s elevators were turned off.

I was at work on Monday, when the entire country was encouraged to be silent for three minutes in solidarity with those affected by the earthquake. Most of my colleagues headed up to the roof of our building in the Central Business District, but somehow I was left behind. On the 12th floor, there was still a pretty impressive view. As cars stopped dead in the streets, I could see office workers from neighbouring buildings lined up in nearby squares, some of them facing southwest – the direction of Sichuan. Even restaurant cooks and waitstaff were in formation, heads down. Nobody budged.

At the same time, it seemed as though every car in Beijing was blasting its horn, and the construction sites nearby all turned on their emergency alarms. It was deafening.

The combination of this constant drone of sirens with the somber, motionless crowds below was actually incredibly moving. To my knowledge, nothing like this has ever happened in China before.

The three mintues’ noise is all over Youtube now. This first clip is taken from CCTV. Granted, China is a Communist state, and this is state media, but it gives a pretty astonishing picture of the extent to which the country has been moved by this disaster, and how they’ve rallied to the cause. (Of course, every province in China is conveniently on Beijing time, making for a smooth-running video montage)

This next clip was taken gives a good sense of the general atmosphere on the street – this was ordinary people showing solidarity, too.

On Tuesday, while testing a walk near the Forbidden City (north of Tian’anmen Square) for a new Beijing by Foot guide, I ran into a enormous mass of people marching through the street, blocking it entirely. Within a minute or two, about a thousand people passed by me on the two-lane road, all of them screaming “Jiayou Zhongguo! Jiayou Sichuan!” (Lit. “Add oil China! Add oil Sichuan!” but more like “Keep on!” or “Go!”) After some deliberation, I decided to follow the crowds, which were composed of everyone from the elderly to working class types, students, and even uniformed private guards who must have left their posts.

It was hard not to feel emotional watching this hoard of chanting people. Still, there was a police presence (2 cop cars, some motorbikes, and clearly something like SWAT vans). Eventually someone in uniform encouraged the receptive masses to disperse, and they cooperated.

Yes, China is a single-party state, and carries the legacy of that, but as the government has shown, for better or for worse, when they need to mobilize, they do it, fast.

Now Premier Wen Jiabao has gotten a lot of international press for calling out to a trapped child, “It’s okay, Grandpa Wen is going to save you.” He’s also been seen crying at the site of the wreckage. Sure, it’s easy to be skeptical of things like this, and to a certain skepticism is justified.

Compare China’s response to this natural disaster with Burma’s though, and hard not to gush about what an impressive job they’ve done – they’ve acted quickly, accepted foreign aid, and even (perhaps reluctantly, but still) allowed all kinds of press in the affected area. Rescue teams have succeeded in saving people more than a week after the disaster. Now think about that in comparison to Hurricane Katrina.

I just looove post-rock

Went to see Dalian post-rockers Wang Wen Saturday night.

The perhaps more competent, if predictable (pretty twinkling guitars… omg LOUD!), Beijing group Maze opened for them.

I was in the mood for it at the time, but I realized by the end of the night that I’m a much bigger fan of what I am wont to call post-post-rock:

Gangsta rap.

Digestive tract; Hot new traxx

Noteworthy workxperiences:

Checking and changing the names of every subway stop in the Beijing City area, using an unfamiliar design program, on an old iMac, with a jumpy mouse, in Chinese

Proof-eating for the “Beijing Eats” food guide.

This entailed a jaunt across town with colleagues, to sample the (refined?) gloopiness of Shandong province cuisine. For ethical reasons, we skipped out on the sea cucumber – apparently they’re endangered – but felt morally obliged to give “9 turn intestines” a try. The dish consisted of cylindrical cross sections of I forget what animal’s intestines, in a delightful little brown sauce with a rich, barn-like fragrance. You order it by the centimeter. We bought 23.

The ensuing facial expressions were priceless. It’s a rare sight to see the faces of five out of six self-professed China buffs at the exact moment they realize they’re still clinging to Western food preferences. I would best describe the look as “nauseous.” But hey, we ordered bland tofu and poorly-realized bread too.

Computer and taste-bud challenges aside though, it’s been a good first week. I haven’t been able to do much writing of my own, but I did start to compile a Beijing time line for a walking guide to the city. The juxtapositions were comical at times:

• 1911 – Qing Dynasty collapses
• 1969 – Beijing subway opens.

Needless to say, some additions were made.

This week I also realized how glad I was that my boss is also a bass player – two out of five working days I have to leave early for sound checks. We agree they count as “research.”

Tuesday was 2 Kolegas’ weekly experimental series, and Hot and Cold’s first show since January. We had pretty mixed expectations, considering that the sound equipment is worse than the shitty knock-off amps we play on in our practice space, my bedroom’s indoor balcony. I think both Simon and I were happy with how it went though.

Our second last piece of the set, known to me only as “Elephant Graveyard” (I can’t decipher any of the other lyrics) built up into a sort of drone-anthem. At various intervals, Simon was offstage, microphone in front of the PA, feedback-making, except we were already playing so loud that you almost couldn’t hear the difference. I proceed to work myself into some sort of Peking Opera gong-banging frenzy, eventually losing my mallet, and throwing the gong and myself across the venue’s floor. We then reconvened for what I hope was an endearing cover of Life Stinks, by Pere Ubu.

A good time was had by all.

Most.

Some.

A couple people.

Well, I know Dan enjoyed himself.

I had been tentatively booked for a solo performance at D-22 since early May, but I never really thought it would pan out. I’d performed alone there before, but at that time I had actually written material. So I was surprised to pick up the bar’s concert schedule in some clothing shop on the other side of town and see the name “Josh” written under two other bands for Thursday the 16th.

Thankfully, Dan answered my pleading calls, and agreed to join me for an improvised performance Thursday night. The first (and last) time we played together was in August 2007, but we both had a good time playing with noisy toys and drumming on plastic bags, so I think to a certain degree I was confident that things would be at least passable.

Maybe we were the only two who felt this way, but I was pleasantly surprised with how well things fit. We improvised two pieces of about 10 minutes each. I think popular consensus favoured second little ditty. It was — explosive, I suppose. While Dan drummed all tribal-thud like, (with a touch of classy cymbal), I set up a Buddhist prayer loop drone, and proceeded to accidentally break an electronic toy piano (“This is piano fun. [Sound stops] This is no fun. [Snapped cable falls out of jack] This is broken input. [Scattered pitying laughter].”)

Temporarily instrumentless, a momentary two-man drum and gong solo ensued, with Dan and I on either side.

Not too be outdone, I continued by inadvertently putting my bass out of commission when a small but crucial piece of plastic snapped off and disappeared forever.

By this point, though, loop after loop of echo-y drones had been layered on top of each other – basically the sound of seven basses playing together – as the drumming crescendoed.

Somehow, (maybe I’m just really great at screaming “1-2-3-4″ ?) everything stopped – at the exact same time.

We were pleased.

Some pictures from Tuesday – apparently we move too fast to be captured on film.

Music Discipline School was a bizarre and somewhat pathetic hour and half long play that followed us. It was actually sort of excruciating, and featured a cross-dressed guy with coke bottle breasts and bunny ears that were blown up condoms. It was mostly unintentionally absurd. They read off scripts. We made the mistake of lending them our piano  – as a prop.

About fucking time!

I’m still here.

Today was my first day of work with Immersion Guides. It was a taste, I suppose, of the Real Shit. That means preparing an index for a new Beijing by Foot book, and copy editing the listings for this summer’s Olympic map.

It would have been fairly mundane, except that in the process of working, I learned of multiple restaurants across town that sound amazing and cheap, as well as what sounds like the twin brother of my ultimate favourite store in Beijing, 金五星 aka Golden Five Star, which sells just about everything you could want, from pool floats to bathtubs in which to frolic.

Also, the Real Shit I have to look forward to involves going on excursions from Beijing almost once a week (with or without a friend) and checking out spots new and old. That, and you know, writing about some friends’ new record label and (hopefully) proof-eating restaurants reviewed. Yesss.

Around two in the afternoon, I felt as if my vision was getting blurry, staring at the computer. It was as though I couldn’t keep my head straight, or focus. Eventually, someone said something. All of us in the office were feeling the same thing. We stood up and could feel an earthquake rocking 12th floor office. It turns out that in Sichuan province, outside of Chongqing, there was an earthquake that registered 7.8 on the Richter scale. Things look kind of dire around there. Hopefully rescue teams will get things under control.

As an emotional palate cleanser and an appropriate segue into things musical, here’s a video to a song that has been stuck in my head for the past two days.

Apparently the Mae Shi count as a noise band, which is just dandy. I always think that Hot and Cold (who sort of sound like vibin’ TV static by comparison) are still kind of a rock band, albeit without a drummer, guitar, choruses, clearly discernible lyrics… etc. There’s still rhythm involved. And we’ve totally mastered the totally rocking use of total repetition.

Anyhow, our first show is tomorrow, at 2 Kolegas, a little-ish bar in a drive-in theatre area not too far from our house. It’s for the weekly Waterland Kwanyin experimental night curated by poet and musician Yan Jun.

The last time I went to Waterland Kwanyin, I had the privilege of being stunned by an improvised piece by jazz drummer / spazz drummer Justin, saxophonists Li Tieqiao and Li Zenghui, and the chubby-cheeked noise guitarist from a band called Walnut Room whose name I can’t recall. To say the least, when their set picked up momentum, it was as if a train was in the bar. It was one of the most awe-inspiring performances I’ve seen in Beijing, or anywhere.

Less cool-sounding but mind-blowing on the concept front was a silly looking Mexican guy who made what can only be described as a megaphone chandelier. Thirteen megaphones were attached onto a metal hula-hoop that hung from the ceiling in the middle of the room. The guy then stood in the middle of the hoop, rotating it as he recorded loops, resulting in total cacophony that transformed into a round of “Happy Birthday,” the megaphones’ preset song.

When we play, we’ll be using projections for the first time: both art projects of Simon’s and a 10-minute semi-narrative Simon, Caitlin, and I filmed on Saturday. Depending on the tone of the music accompanying, the film is either a murder or love story involving a panda (Manicom) and a mysterious, bike-riding worker (myself). Shot in our car park on a still camera with video capabilities, we warped the film with shitty computer effects and did minimal editing. Either it’s about the troubled relationship between industry and nature in China, or it’s about flashing lights, a bright blue uniform, running around, primary colours, and a fucking Panda mask.

I think it’s the latter.

[If you read this, let me know. Maybe I will take special effort to strategically insert your name into posts so as to ensure your continued readership]

It’s 9:40am, and I’m pretty sure the apocalypse has hit Beijing. Everything is a thick, menacing grey. A few lonesome lights are on in other apartment buildings. There’s no one else in this cavernous apartment except Caitlin, who is asleep. Oh, and I think some of the lights outside are turning off. There was a large gust of wind and the internet went out. Great…

Actually, this isn’t as ominous and frightening as when the same thing happened to me last summer, at two in the afternoon. The sky went pitch-black, and streetlights had to be turned on. For about 15 minutes, it was midnight.

I can’t really see down the street.

Today I had been planning on heading to Dashanzi, the industrial/art district fairly close to here by Beijing standards, to wander around and meet up with a friend of Caitlin’s who is the proud owner of (numerous?) baby lizards. It’s kind of hard to want to leave the house, however. Lightning.

On a less gloomy note, Carsick Cars were mind-blowing on Thursday night. D-22 was having its second anniversary party, and the place was totally packed. The front of the stage was so crowded that people were squeezed too tightly together even to smoke cigarettes. My friend Justin, who does sound at the club, had to kneel on the front of the two-foot tall stage, in front of the band, pushing people off the PAs.

Far from being aggressive though, this was one of the happiest crowds I can recall being in at a concert. At various intervals, the person doing lighting would turn almost all of the house lights on, so that the audience seemed to get as much attention as the band. When CSC played “Zhongnanhai,” their underground anthem, the entire bar showered them in the song’s namesake cigarettes. (Earlier in the set, a bearded, endearingly pudgy Chinese guy in blue hipster glasses hand passed around numerous cartons to share).

If our show with Carsick Cars is 2/3 as full as it was that night, it’s going to be ridiculous. There’s a funny listing in one of the Beijing monthly magazines about the concert: “D-22 keeps May symmetrical by having electrifying rock gods Carsick Cars see it out. Undaunted by having to share a stage with CSC are Korean noise types 10 and the unknown Hot and Cold.” Bu…..yah?

I wish I was a “noise type.” Also, I wish I knew what that actually meant. Oh, the freedom of being unknown.

Death defying, phone buying

Today was mostly uneventful, which I can blame on being achy from the rabies shot. Or maybe on my regular passing out on the couch at nine in the evening, in supremely awkward positions.

I noticed a funny comment today in last month’s That’s Beijing magazine, an issue on bicycles: “Anyone still riding [a Flying Pigeon] these days is likely to be a postal employee, a retiree, or French and living on Nanluogu Xiang.”

Ha ha ha. Actually, the postal service bikes are amazing – they’re green. Maybe that’s not a big enough perk to warrant becoming a mailman. But it says China Post and has sides pouches for letters and everything!

So in the afternoon I took Old Stupid (this is this loving name I would call the bike, if I had to) a ways down the street to pick up a cellphone that can text message in Chinese. It was about time to get a new phone seeing as the one I had been using in China beforehand is practically a family heirloom from six years ago. I don’t know the name of the model, but if you do a Google image search and type in “Nokia” and “Old,” look for the turquoise one.

I have a new respect for Beijing cab drivers, or at least an appreciation of their benevolence. Stuck in the middle of the road, I decided to cross two final lanes of sparse traffic. But right as I started pedaling again, a taxi came around the corner. I was going so slowly that I had time to clearly enunciate a resigned “Ohhh fuck…” as bike and I crawled across the car’s path. Thankfully I was spared. Here’s to renewed caution.

The phone buying in itself was pretty enjoyable. There’s something great about making important purchases in foreign languages. I couldn’t recognize the word for “charger,” but when my duo of patient salesmen explained what it was and what it did, I definitely understood what they were saying. There was little awkwardness and mostly just clear interaction, only in Chinese, which was encouraging.

After I bought my phone, the guys helped me register it, and asked for my Chinese name. My surname is “Fu,” I told them. “This 副？” “No…” “This 付？” “No…” “This 福？” “No…”

Eventually, I just wrote it out for them: 傅。

It’s very possible I misheard, but this is what I understood in the conversation that followed between the two guys:

“Hey, that’s a nicely written character.” “Better than mine.” “Oh, you should just study more!”

Or I’m wrong, and they were actually lamenting my poor stroke order and left-handedness. Whatevs.

Hot and Cold is powah-ing up – we wrote a new song today, in the indoor balcony of my room where we practice. It’s interesting to see how our sound changes every six months. We’ve really built off the new style we started to favour over Christmas. I don’t know how I would describe it, except that there’s a bit more of a beat. You can listen to Helen’s Interiors at www.myspace.com/hotandcoldmusic and see what I mean. I couldn’t really hear for certain, but I think the new song is about rabies.

Caitlin arrives tomorrow morning, from Montreal circa Geneva. I am really excited for her and other Plateau-dwellers to arrive. There are actually a lot of things to check out tomorrow. There’s the Mini Midi music festival at 5pm not far from here, and then later on, a toss-up between more Mini Midi, Carsick Cars, Queen Sea Big Shark and a host of other bands at D-22, and some French indie rock group playing on a boat/bar  anchored on the scum-lined Liangma canal right outside my door. Decisions!