Insects for Dinner & The Connection
Having a large dinner to be welcomed to a new city that I perform at is standard fare, but it isn't every week that I'm treated to local dishes which include gourmet insects. No, that's only for exceptional cities like Panzihua and Le Shan (home of the Giant Buddah!). Tonight I came to find that a local speciality is some kind of fried fat millipede. The appearance of the dish is much more intimidating and threatening than the taste of it, as it tasted like crunchy buttered eggplant to me. I took a photo which is sure to gross everyone out which I'll add here ASAP.
After dining on insects I walked the streets to return to the hotel and relax for a few hours before leaving for the club. On the way I saw a young Chinese peasant writing on the sidewalk with white chalk; in english. It approximately read as follows: "I have no money, please donate so I can eat rice", after which his name was signed in chinese characters. I can attest to the fact that I'm probably the only foreigner within a 10-mile radius, so his goals for writing his plea for money to eat dinner in english are quite curious. But on momentary consideration while standing in front of him, it occurred to me that the message was intended for me. The force that made it happen is a myserrtery to me, but I gave him 50 kuai in front of a crowd of onlookers as stunned as they were overjoyed to have witnessed the connection. The more I think about what happened the more amazed I am. I hope he's eating a fat meal of millipedes now.
Macau, Continued
Shortly after leaving the internet bar yesterday afternoon I stepped into a taxi and explained that I was arriving at a local hotel but didn't have the address, only a phone number. We could barely understand eachother (in mandarin!) because his cantonese accent was so strong, but he handed me his phone to make the call. I called and was quickly connected to someone who spoke perfect english, maybe an american, saying that he could tell the driver where to take me. So we left and a few moments later I arrived on another unfamiliar street where I step out and peek around looking for a sign for the hotel named "Augusters".  Before I can find anything a middle-aged Phillipino woman asks me if I'm looking for the hotel before leading me through a small alley into a side-door, up three flights of stairs, and into the small lobby space where she explains that I spoke to her husband who told her I was on my way. 17 years ago she, a Phillipino, met and was wed to her Bangladeshi husband, where they now happily live and both speak cantonese. Now that lodgings were handled, I was free to not worry about much of anything for the next 24 hours.
I stepped outside onto the street again, this time knowing that I'd have a place to return to with only my camera, 28-135 IS lens, and tripod in my backpack. I walked the streets with camera in hand at 6:30pm as the shadows grew longer until they were no more. The best light of the day is arguably between 5:30-7:30pm, depending on time of year, and I took full advantage of it. I took a few hundred shots before seeking out the St Augustine building, walking up steep cobble-stoned streets lined with motorbikes when I saw two Chinese photographers walking just in front of me. I said hello and introduced myself, finding that both of these fellows speak english, and we walked the streets taking photos before eating dinner in a small cantonese restaurant. Our conversation jumped into and out of a number of topics, and I was happy to find locals that I could communicate with who share some of my interests. I took photos with them until midnight last night, capturing almost 400 of the best photos that I think I've taken in a year. It's really been too long.
It's 1:30pm now. It's just stopped raining, and the sun is brightly shining. Who knows what today will hold?
First Day in Macau
Last night at midnight I arrived in Zhuhai and crashed at Cheng Lei's house before crossing the border this morning at 10am. Before being able to take the step into the next country I stood in line for an hour with a heaping swarm of thousands of Chinese also waiting to cross. Relieved to finally make it to the other side, I basked for a few minutes in the bright sun listening to Portugese all around me. Welcome back to Macau.
The sky is clear and blue, the grass is green, and countless casino patrons are pumping coins into slot machines like zombies. It reminds me of Los Vegas in a beach setting, if there were one - like Atlantic City, but more Miami and less New Jersey. The flashing lights, unrelenting beeps, and artificial light inside the casinos seem to induce a coma which drowns out reality, replacing it with a dream-like fantasy of six-figure instant fortune. I snuck around and took photos of the surroundings and patrons in between noticing security guards eyeing me, until I was at last caught by one while taking a photo of a slot machine called "Double Dragon". He told me to delete the Double Dragon photo but I pretended to not speak English and managed to escape with my subtle photographic tribute to 80's arcade gaming. Hooray! One of the casinos that I came across happened to be the Sands - the same that Jason, Elaine, and I went to together in January of 2005. It appeared to have undergone some renovation but was nonetheless a recognizable interior that brought a warm feeling of familiarity. Upon entering I was thoroughly searched (do I look suspicious?), which included every pocket in my backpack, and the cargo pockets of my shorts. I told the guard in Chinese that I don't have anything in my pockets except for my wallet. His face lit up and he happily replied in Chinese: "Oh, welcome to the casino! Come in! Come in!" as if to apologize for suspecting me of whatever he suspected me of that resulted in the search. 
After perusing a number of gambling establishments, I hit the street and quickly found more to see and photograph. First was the Kun Lam Statue, designed by a Portugese sculptor and erected halfway through the last century. It stands tall and proud, and I took many a photograph at this site before going inside to browse around the museum dedicated to the structure. Just next door I found a small island called the Fisherman's Wharf, which holds such attractions as the man-made volcano (with a side-adventure called Dragon's Quest - another subtle 80's video-game reference), European-themed shopping district, and conveniently located helicopter landing pad with exciting helicopter action. I climbed to the top of the fake volcano which sadly didn't stage a fake eruption, but offered a great view of Macaus gaming district.
Opposite the Fisherman's Wharf I found the Macau Art Museum. Not thinking much of it, I walked inside expecting to leave minutes later, but didn't actually emerge until more than 90 minutes had passed. This was the real surprise of the day, and upon entering I find that the museum has, for 20 years, been almost entirely dedicated to modern art. Not a single piece of calligraphy or Tang-dynasty oil painting. No, just blood-red paint splattered onto brooding paper mache figures of chimeras and dragons. I don't get it, but I suppose that's the defining essence of the modern art movement. Bravo, modern art.
Not knowing what to do next, I hit the streets again and decided to tour some of the alleys, attempting to find out how the real citizens of Macau live. Finding a real alley in this place is difficult; everything is a casino, restaurant, or high-market retail outlet. After a few mintues of wandering I found what I was looking for and stopped at a restaurant filled with locals. I don't know any Macanese dishes so I ordered what I could read on the menu and quietly ate among the partially shirtless crowd while looking at my map of Macau. The next alley I found revealed a place to cool off under the A/C and write about what the day has offered, so here I am. In a few short moments I'll head onto the street again - still not sure if I'll spend the night in Macau or cross the border once again to return to Zhuhai for the evening. I'll return to the CITS (Chinese travel agency) office tomorrow at 5pm to pick up my American passport with new visa.
I must leave here soon, can't take this 160bpm Chinese dance music going into my ears much longer.
The Ghost Festival
Today is the ghost festival - a celebration for the dead. Most of the people that I've spoken to about it seem to take it fairly seriously, deciding to not go out in the evening to give the ghosts their space. Evidently they roam all over the place and can look like normal people, but it's not trouble until they ask if you have a lighter. If you accept and the ghost lights a cigarette with your lighter, the flame burning is your soul and your death should follow shortly afterwards. It puzzles me that Chinese people believe in ghosts without really believing in a God, but this tradition is thousands of years old.
So, I guess I'll stay in tonight!
Rustic Sculpture Gallery
This evening I met a few Chinese friends of Saschas and enjoyed Chongqing hot pot with them until my lips tingled and tastebuds were rendered completely useless. Seated atop purple plastic chairs that would be considered by most people reading this too small for a 12 year old, Sascha couldn't take the intense evening humidity of the city and took his shirt off. Sweating all over and yelling in local dialect, he looked most like the people he seems to most loathe: the everyday adult male citizen of western China. Equally enjoying the irony and spicy challenge at hand, we spoke about the labratory which we'd visit after the meal which reveals itself to be somewhat of a sculpture gallery.
Not just a gallery though, this is the workplace of a local Chongqing sculptor whos work is featured around the world. After a quick drive in his bright red VW Golf we arrive in what looks like a rural farm setting. Mere steps out of the car reinforce my initial suspicion when I see the parking area surrounded by overgrown grass, abandoned buildings, and heaps of rubble - but among these signs of neglect sits a beautiful 6-foot tall stone sculpture of an outstretched hand. It seems evident that it's religious - surely buddhist, and here I begin to understand the magic of this place.
Years ago, after a 3-year struggle for it, the site was acquired and developed as a sprawling workshop. Once a communist-era facility and later a factory, what now remains are hollow shells of the former buildings - walls but no floor, roof but no doors. But this place isn't made for comfort - no, it's an art factory and gallery. Each of the numerous empty buildings are minimally decorated with large paintings and photo prints on the wall, many of them the victim of extended sun exposure, but they only add to the character of the place. Which is a quaint farm-like art facility set in the middle of the most populated city in the world.
The most special area that I was introduced to was a long tunnel lined with lit candles and wooden couches. Once a storage area for generators, it's now a supremely unique gathering center. Six of us are seated around a small table surrounded only by candles and a fan, drinking aged tea and talking about the history of this place. It's always a pleasure to be in the company of new people, but the atmosphere was almost overwhelming. Photos to follow.
18 Steps
I'm in Chongqing now, enjoying a full day here after a gig I had last night at a club called Falling. The show itself was somewhat of an affirmation after several mediocre club gigs, that every once and a while things will get out of hand (in a good way) and I'll have an unforgettable time.
The promoter that I came to Chongqing with is named Duncan, but Sascha and I started calling him Egon, from Ghostbusters, and Beaker, from Sesame Street. Yesterday on our way to Chongqing he told me something which stuck with me for a few hours; he said that in Chongqing people especially like tech house. This immediately drew suspicion and excitement from me because it's not ordinarily the kind of music that I'm encouraged to play by sponsors, because of the "what is this" reaction it often garners from a less-educated and close-minded foreign crowd. Happily that was anything but the case last night as Egon was exactly right. I played an hour of tech house and the place was going nuts, and played an hour of breaks afterwards, a lot of Autobots, and Aquasky, and general Botchit-style beats. I was surprised at how well accepted the selection was, it being as fringe as it is in Western China, but it absolutely could not have gone any better. I recently finished developing a t-shirt design which I spent a few months working on, because I think that throwing shirts out during the show would be a big hit. That suspicion was also confirmed when the club brought some white shirts with their logo on them to the booth where I signed them and threw them into the crowd. Before I threw them out I held them up as everyones hands raised and eyes opened; an incredible feeling, but it'll feel better when they're the shirts that I've been envisioning. The gig itself was near the top, definitely along with the first incredible show that I had in China, last summer in Xian.
Before the show I met a friend of Sascha's named Fu who's a local musician who has a shop which sells music and framed artwork - I'll try to go back there tonight to pick up some pieces which I was eyeing yesterday afternoon. There's a workshop here as well which I'm told must be seen, and is along the same lines as the lab that some of us in Chengdu have been thinking about starting for a long time. Lastly, and most recently..
I was taken to a part of Chongqing called Shi Ba Ti, which means 18 Steps. Chongqing is an unusually hilly city with varied topography, but one descent is very special. It's the site where a deep tunnel was dug during the second world war for Chinese citizens to hide from Japanese bombs being dropped on what was then the capitol of Western China. 4,000 people scurried into the hole during a Japanese attack on Chongqing as countless more flooded to the hole of the tunnel to find a way inside where they thought they would be safe from falling bombs. Chaos ensued and those who rushed inside seeking safe haven were suffocated, leaving a tunnel kilometers deep filled with thousands of bodies. The tunnel remains in the same place, closed by a sobering rusty gate which keeps any would-be occupants out, but is a constant source of cold air which emerges from deep inside the tunnel. During the hot summer months, hundreds gather in front of the tunnel to enjoy the breeze while drinking tea, playing chess, and spending time with their families. Truly an incredible site with an incredible history.
Tibetan Benefit Show
I'm in Mike's apartment in Shanghai with a group of friends, hanging out before returning to Shuffle to play tonight from 11-1am. It's our first time playing together in Shanghai and we're looking forward to it - we rehearsed for an hour or two this afternoon after helping set up the equipment. We're listed in all of the local publications as the #1 thing to do tonight in Shanghai (with the help of a number of local journalist friends), even above DJ Shortkut who's here from California. Apparently a few hundred pre-sale tickets are sold out so the attendance should be proper, helped in no small part by 10yuan Carlsberg beer (with the average price in Shanghai at an upmarket club being about 50-60yuan).
About the event; it's a non-profit charity event to raise money for children in Western Sichuan. None of us are getting paid for the performance, and as a matter of fact, we're all staying on couches while we're here in town. I think the promoters have just barely covered the operating costs, so from here on out it's just a party where we're all trying to have fun. A number of Shanghai promoters will be in the house and it'll be a great place to promote ourselves, both as a group and individually. I'm going to finish my white wine now; served to us by Mike's neighbor from France. 
Beijing & The Great Wall
It's been two weeks since my last post here; I think I can safely say that this is by far the longest I've gone without a single post. I've had an incredibly small amount of time over the last few weeks to write, between working, completely moving into a new apartment, and flying to Beijing to meet Nemo and see the tourist sites with him, staying in a hostel near Tiananmen Square.
After weeks of searching for a new apartment (I had problems with the previous one; not only was it a bit too small, but parts of the apartment were continually falling apart, like the shower and parts of the plumbing). Additionally, I was interested in finding a place that would be better for summertime, and part of the criteria was that it would include a balcony large enough for a small group of people. Needless to say, I found everything that I was looking for, and even exceeded my own expectations for what it was possible to find. My rent has jumped up a significant amount, but that's no surprise and doesn't put much of a damper on the relief I feel for finding what I've been looking for for so long. I'll post some photos of the place when I return to Chengdu; in the meantime, ADSL internet is being installed there today under the guidance of a friend while I'm out of town.
I arrived in Beijing five days ago and picked up Nemo at Beijing International Airport. We took a taxi to a hostel near Tiananmen Square and spent a few days seeing local sights like the Forbidden Palace (home to generations of Beijing emperors), Heavens Park (I don't know how to properly translate some of this..), Summer Palace, Chinese National Museum, The Ghost Market, and a handful of other locations. It's been a pretty good time, but all of the attractions aside, I can't say that I care too much for Beijing. Most of it is very dirty, old, and generally unsightly. Areas which have been renovated are gaudy and covered in too much neon to be even half as presentable as cities like Shanghai and Hong Kong. That's okay though, because like Washington DC, this is just a historical tourist attraction for most foreigners. Staying in a hostel has been pretty lame, though. I miss my house.
Yesterday we spent the entire day trekking on the Great Wall, starting off at Jingshanling and ending at Simatai. The hike was pretty difficult, as the first four hours or so were along portions of the wall which hadn't been restored; these were the best parts of the hike, but included a lot of climbing. Nemo could barely take it and kept saying that he couldn't go any farther. It reminded me of the first time that I'd been challenged to a point where I thought I couldn't continue, at Outward Bound on Hurricane Island in Maine, when I was 17. Nemo made it to the end at Simatai where we took a three-hour bus back to Beijing. I got many beautiful photographs which I'll post here when I get a chance to edit them. After reaching the top of Simatai I took a train-like vehicle down a portion of the mountain which took me to a cable car which I took for 18 minutes further down the mountain to the foot of Simatai where there were restaurants and connections to roads. Overall the trip was fantastic and the weather couldn't have been more perfect. The sights along the wall were truly exceptional as I had hoped they'd be. My greatest hope that this point is that the photos I took reflect that half as well as my memory does.
In a few moments I'll call the travel agency and book flights to Beijing for tomorrow afternoon. Next weekend I have a gig in Shanghai with H&G at a Tibetan aid event. I'm looking forward to it, and I know that Tenzin and Kensho are (because they've never been to Shanghai), but I don't think they know that Shortkut is performing on the same night at Pegasus.
Happy Day
I got a new bicycle the other day and got it properly tuned today. Check it out, it's a Battle, the esteemed combatants choice:
I feel so much more a part of Chinese culture when I'm cruising on my bike rather than taking a taxi, even with the uncompromising heat outside. I haven't traversed a very long distance on the bike yet, aside from riding it home from the bike market north of Tianfu Square the day before last.
I also found a new 2BR apartment today. It's in a swank complex on the 14th floor and includes a pool, tennis and basketball courts, and a big balcony. Hooray!
I think I acquired a short contract with a foreign beer company today, to do 6 shows in different cities next week. I'll get final confirmation tomorrow. And on the 7th of this month I'll find out the details on the tour this summer which I might decide to be a part of. We'll see, interesting things in the pipes right now.
As if this weren't enough good news, I won in Monopoly tonight!
Pride and Sweat at the Swim Arena Complex 2000
Tonight I was invited to go swimming with Yaya and her friend at a hotel on the west end of town. I was told that it was more than a pool, but I didn't really know anything about it. Turns out it's on the 5th floor of the California Hotel, a towering structure that I couldn't even see the top of when I was standing in front of the building. When I arrive on the 5th floor I spend 15 minutes walking aimlessly through a seemingly never-ending labrynth of hallways lined with art galleries which I could see through glass walls. When I find the swimming area, it opens into a gigantic area which holds a number of indoor and outdoor pools, spas, saunas, and fountains. The ceiling, which is a glass skylight, is 50 feet over my head which ocassionally makes me forget that I'm inside a glass structure. The ambience of the area is tremendous and not like anything I've ever seen before, even at country clubs crowded with millionaires wearing polo shirts with crests on them. I think they spend their money on sand traps or whatever, though.
I spent a few hours hanging out in and around the giant pool, and then traversed the pool courtyard to another area with a few smaller pools. These were like jacuzzis; the outside of the pools were lined with jets, but each pool was a different temperature. One was very warm, one really hot, and one really cold. What they do is first get into the warm pool, then the hot pool, and finally sit in the freezing cold water for a few minutes. They all insisted to me that it's good for your skin as soon as I started to ask questions about why anyone would do that. I wasn't very anxious to try until Yaya did it before me. I'm not joking about the water, either - you could serve it in a glass on a hot day as ice water. Yaya yelped as she eased into the cold water as quickly as she could, so I jumped in all at once, under the surface. I popped back up and sat in the pool with her for a few minutes before I started feeling dizzy and lightheaded. I sat there for a moment wondering what was going on until I got out and sort of crawled back into the warm water (my feet were numb) where I couldn't feel my legs at all. It was fun!
Afterwards I sat in the sauna, which wasn't actually very sauna-like, but had great music. They seemed to call it "Chinese Night Music".  It easily beats their daytime music.