Beijing
the coffeeshop where we spend our days avoiding the sun… is where goldfishes swim in the sky. If you are ever in Beijing and have editors on your tail / need a good chill spot for inspiration, break a buck (or ¥25) at Nanluoguxiang, a strip of Hutong near Houhai. It’s old Beijing meets western salon, and the result is better than you can hope to be.
breathe in, stay still.
all that glitters is gold….
The Perfect Spot Planning to watch the opening ceremony / China’s coming out party is surprisingly not that different from planning the best New Year’s Eve party. In the end you just end up home lazying around on your couch, or you spent the night out walking around aimlessly and wished you had just been lazying around on your couch. I’d considered a couple “perfect” spots to watch the opening. There were the 26 cultural squares with projection screens set up around the city. But being a dot among thousands on a visit to Tiananmen Square made me have second thoughts. So we changed plans and made contact with friends who had reservations at a bar, but then our friend who could get us in was stuck outside fifth ring and coming into the middle of the city by car was an ordeal in Beijing traffic. Maybe it was to our fortune that we ended up crashing on a couch at another friend’s place who happened to live right by the Nest.
The Opening
So we were a couple blocks/a fifteen minute walk from the Bird Nest, at the home of a friend’s in a dense, high-rise residential area. From the bed room window, we get a perfect side view of the nest and the lit-up Olympic torch. It’s snugged almost picture perfect between two buildings and a construction site with four cranes frozen in mid-motion (a scene that all the aerial shots of TV coverage seems to magically eclipse). My friend Rong and I kept on bopping back and forth between the living room with the TV and bedroom every time the fireworks exploded on screen. We are so close we could hear the cheering erupting from the some 90,000 people inside the Bird Nest. The opening fireworks sequence was such a stunner we actually stood up during the national anthem, shaken with pride. Though the harmonious Tai Chi Kung-Fu (dude, I was expecting some Yuen Woo-ping action) and parade of nations kind of slowed thing down, and to be honest, Li Ning lighting the torch wasn’t so impressive beyond the big up yours to Adidas.
After the ceremony, we took a walk around the Bird Nest. No one was allowed in near the stadium without a staff or volunteer pass. So we just wafted through the crowds doing some classic people watching. Hordes of athletes, staff, performers, and volunteers were streaming out of the Nest making their way to a bus or waiting around to be picked up. The city sanctioned that buses run for 24 hours on 8.8.08. Everyone in the crowds appeared to be more exuberant than exhausted. We passed by one Canadian TV reporter who was streaming straight back home something to the likes of “well, they finally wrapped it up in over four hours. This being one of the longest opening ceremony in the history of the Games…” We had a few words of exchange with an athlete who was looking for a good disco, and then there he was, Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands on TV the next morning on the parallel bars. Hope he had a good night out.
Mini Interview with Mr. Mao from China Mobile Communications Corp
(aka largest cellphone provider in mainland China)
At two-thirty in the morning, I caught up with a friend who worked from inside the Nest during the opening ceremony for a quick Q&A.
Q: What’s your job title?
Mao: China Mobile Basetransmissions Engineer
Q: What were you responsible for during the opening ceremony?
Mao: I work on a team that ensures the CMCC network and signals are strong during the opening ceremony and throughout the games in this area.
Q: How many hours did you put in today?
Mao: Eighteen. We worked from eight in the morning to just now, two in the morning. It gets easier after today though. Today’s the big hurtle for the entire nation. I just have to come by the stadium everyday for about two to three hours to check the signal strength after this.
Q: Were you able to see the opening ceremony live?
Mao: No. We were underground doing backstage work and only caught bits and pieces on TV. It’s okay though. I saw some rehearsals and they were impressive enough. They were rehearsing just the other day when it started dumping rain, but everyone toughed through it, streaked makeup and all. I hear they picked their performers straight from the Chinese Liberation Army. All the guys had to be taller than 180cm so they can look regal in those flowy robes. On TV they might look stately, but the entire backstage pretty much stunk of sweat from the thick, sweeping robes. Today’s been really humid.
Q: What was your favorite segment from the opening ceremony and why?
Mao: I loved the part where they had the warriors with the sails, conjuring Zhang He and China’s heritage of exploration. Those sails look like feather but they actually weigh a lot… and I don’t know. I was just watching them and was suddenly really moved. I think that was sort of the tipping point for all the efforts put into this coming to fruit. You have no idea how tense the backstage was during the entire thing. Everyone was holding their breath and freaking out over minute details that could result in mistakes. It really was more tense than celebratory, and I guess while watching the sails sequence, I felt like I could finally let go of my breath and just enjoy it. I mean, for China, the Olympics really is an important turning point for us to join the world stage. China wants to map out a new image of itself, because the images foreigners recall when they think of China are still stuck in history. So like the ‘64 Tokyo Games where the Japanese re-invented their WWII image or how the ‘88 Seoul Games became S. Korea’s coming out party after its civil war, the Beijing Games provides the stage for a nation ready to prove itself.
/Mao Gongyin from CMCC, 8.9.08, 2:30 am
Link: Beijing's Balancing Act If you read only one essay about China this month, let it be this one.
After all, many benign impulses surely flourish under the frantic and gaudy surface of modernizing China.
on Beijing Coma
photo: 浜坂達朗
205 flag needles of acupuncture/curtesy of World Journal
In the latest New Yorker, Alex Ross muses on the Chinese music scene from genres classical to the experimental, with a sweeping look on the growth of western music in China in the age of “Super Girl” adulation. Worth a read. I’m always happy to find mainstream critics/journalists other than the eminent James Fallows who writes China well.
Some highlights
1. He mentions Yan Jun, who I had the pleasure of working under during the Get It Louder exhibition. Yan Jun laoshi is perhaps the most polite and minimalist “monk” I’ve ever met, the type you know who would enjoy walking barefeet on clean wood tiles and could put together a noise show that blows your mind away. Yan Jun will be featured in the upcoming ”Beijing Olympics” issue of Theme Magazine as guest TOP TEN music editor (translated by your truly). Please keep a look out for it. He picks some sweet sounds that you can youtube.
2. Speaking of Theme. Today I got this when I tried to access the site. :D Time to get more bandwidth…?
3. Written primarily with a beat from the Beijing music scene, the article predictably locates itself @ 2 Koolegas, D22, and Mao’s on the experimental/indie=kinda expat-y front. Last time we were going to D22’s for a Carsick Cars’ gig, RongRong & I asked a group of (seemingly) bar-going crowd for directions to the place. The girl in the group grabbed her boyfriend’s hand tight like RR&I were vixens in stilettos out to get him and said “we don’t go to places like that—” Eyes smoldering, red lips and all. You can never tell these days who really is a rock n’ roll hero.
4. Carsick Cars’ will also be featured in Theme’s next issue.
5. What I’m trying to say is, check out Theme’s next issue soon yeah? :)
6. As a last note, this is my new blog site (essentially: less personal musing, more links, more China). Tumblr is hijacked referral from Lam’s Tumblr blog.
It's been really hard lately to write, whether in a journal, for school, or for work, I feel like I've finally gone and lost all my wordmarbles... all my warbles. This is especially bad, considering I have a piece due for Theme this Sunday, and I just read Rain ripping some writer to shreds. Damn it. I lost my warbles I lost my warbles and all I really want to do is drink on it. Instead my stomach is screaming hunger and lurching for all the nutrients in OXYGEN, but I will not eat I refuse to eat because it is my goal to look like a Dolce & Gabbana model - smoky eyed, sultry lips, thick thighs, tiny waist, a man under her heels - we may never get there, but we continue to pray to Photoshop. I can't believe I'm going back to New York next week.
Normally, I would be ecstatic, but... for some reason, I'm not really ecstatic, for some reason, all I really want to do is dive home to Mao&Rong. When I think about the different lives I lead here, in New York, and then in China. When I think about the way I change in these three different places, I really only just get damn confused. All I know right now is I'm due for Beijing. Winter Break in New York was dramatic enough, very admirable set of characters and plotlines that I may never exploit due to losing my warbles. Maybe... maybe I should write more in this electronic pad... write to just write without thinking. I know we're getting a little rusty, so even if it's stream of conscious shit, so what? Just do it?
The problem is, every other day, you just wanna give up, you just wanna throw up your hands and surrender to the fact that maybe, maybe you just don't have the talent, and it's high time to go the PR route, or take Microeconomics and go into accounting to make daddy happy. The problem is, every other day, you get so inflated on the idea that perhaps you do have a shred of salvageable talent, and a bloody unique story to tell... and you're bleeding from your throat to tell it, and your brain is decaying because you're too busy living to write and you're too busy writing to live and why can't they ever ever just collaborate?? Teach me to breathe words, so I know when to pause and when to punctuate and when to love and when to seize and...!
I can't believe I'm going back to New York next week. I'm really excited to see Ham Lam. I adopted Ham Lam you know, the week I met him. He has a dog named Henry Lam. He is the only Asian hipster I know. Walking with him and his dog under the orange glow of Brooklyn Heights... made me feel like a scene out of domesticity. Ham Lam made me laugh so much with self-doubt and word tripping that I desecrated.
I lie. He is the only New York Asian hipster I know.
In Australia, Ari's girl left him... and he left for booze, sex, rock n' roll. He sounds awfully happy for being awfully sad. I'm at a loss for what to think? Is love so tenuous that it can be healed by banging your head against the wall 56 times, the same state of unconscious as drinking 5 rounds and jumping up and down? Remember that scene at the club, when you turn on all the fluorescent lights? Do we look foolish my love, if I just want to go at it on the floor.
Everyone is love.
Lately, I too just wanna get wasted. I just wanna climb inside the stereo stripped naked and barren inside. I just wanna scream in there and hear nothing except my muteness intertwining with the sound of bass, jam, love, melody. I just wanna curl up in there and be raped a thousands times by the music and cry until I'm starved to death. I'm sorry I'm so emo I can't help it because it's so quiet here god it's so quiet when it's just the music and the lights low and I'm so faraway from love and NOTHING NOTHING IS ABRASIVE ENOUGH I JUST WANT TO SCREAM UNTIL THE SHARDS trash my lungs.
I still think it's cool that I dated a pimp though. I'm so wasted on love. I should probably call Geng. I know I'm cold, but it's only because I fear for myself, I just don't want to bring the awkwardness of my being onto you, it's that easy swaysey.
Ugh... let's start again. Let me tell you about my two favorite kids in the whole wide world. I met them this time last year give or take, and seven months later we were in a tent in Inner Mongolia at the foot of some beauty of a mountain. Rong calls Mao my "big white rabbit" because he's pale like a baby with wonder-some eyes. He's probably the smartest person I know. I know this, because he helped me with a translation project and I almost ended up crying with the words he used (English to Chinese... so I mean, he REALLY helped me). 500 years ago, he would be some renowned scholar at the aid of some wise emperor. 500 years later, I wonder if it's China that wasted his talent.
Do you mind if I write onto eternity? Even if it's drivel. Even if it's dramatic. Even if it lacks tension, symbolism, conflict. Even if you can't understand a thing. Do you mind? Rong is the most beautiful girl I've ever known. She has the eyes that steal your soul and cheery lips that break into the widest toothy grin. She laughs like the wind, and her long hair makes wind worthwhile. The most unconventional beauty, blood and bone and flesh and maturity and innocence wrapped into one. I'm so sick of seeing our faces in the mirror - our made up beauty, our magazine styles, our cool shoes and coats starving for mass attention while we back ourselves into a corner, lighting up a cig to say I'm too cool for you but actually if you give me five glaring minutes I'm perfectly willing to fuck in that shithole of a bathroom at this godforsaken party. I'll leave my gum on the door as a token.
I don't think I've ever cried as hard. I didn't think I was going to cry at all. I think, was it the whistle of the train going by, the cinematic scene like a music video running through my head, that when I hugged him, even my bones sacked down to my very stomach, and it's these tears welled up from the depth where you'd get stomachaches... that's where it starts, where it travels up and up until your throat clogs and your cheeks huffs and your eyes swim and I cried so much Mao Mao, I cried so much I was afraid I'd scared you and you think I'm a foolish stupid girl. That night, the last thing I did was brought him a 2 yuan drink. It was Kang Shifu green tea, lukewarm from August heat. The last thing I said to him was "Mao Mao... hug her for me please... hug her for me please..." The last thing I thought to him was "I would die for you guys. I would die for you guys." You understand? You and Rong. I would die.
You understand. Happy Birthday love. Over and over.