B-Boys in Guangzhou

Last nights club was pretty sweet, apparenly one of the largest in Guangzhou along with the infamous Chinese multi-city megaclub Baby Face. Virginia (the Coors MC) had the day off so kung fu dude (one of Vivians two boyfriends) and another guy named Jun (who looks and dresses like Prince; borderline gay/fashionable) had a dance routine which they performed. It actually ruled, also. The whole thing was essentially ripped off of Thriller, but it's a badass piece to rip off from. They got on stage with in black suits with monster masks and gloves and did a synchronized Thriller dance and then ripped the suits off to reveal all white suits underneith. They're decent dancers, but apparently Coors decided to show up Kim by hiring half a dozen Chinese b-boys who were off the fucking hook. Just a week ago Kim was talking about how his attitude has grown with regard to battling because no one really battles in China - last night should shut him up for a month or so, these six guys were excellent and worked really well together. Plus, they're Chinese, so it looks like they can effortlessly toss their bodies around in the air.

The DJ routine is getting easier and easier after practicing every night. I generally have an hour to play, but the hour has to be absolutely running, so it's taking some time for it to develop into a well-tuned albeit brief DJ set. I've assembled most of the best tunes that I have and arranged them in a logical sequence, and if you listen really closely, there are small cues to the larger hidden meaning in the entire piece. All of us are getting better; we can already put on a good show, but I'd imagine it to be tremendously better even in just a few weeks with time to fully work out even the smallest kinks and soft spots.

I had a bizarre dream last night in which I had a small child; a boy. His name was Charlie also, but it was almost more like he was a mini-me than a son, because I don't remember a significant other being anywhere in the dream at all. Charlie and I were at a restaurant when the lights went out and somehow the slippery boy got away from me, and I went around looking for him and finally found him, enormously relieved. This dream was unusually vivid - I woke up a few hours ago and I still remember it.

Chun Li has been shooting me text messages constantly in Chinese. I can read bits and parts of the messages, but ocassionally I miss crucial parts of the message which Kim has to translate for me. It's great practice, though. I looked everywhere on Beijing Lu for a bookstore with some books on learning characters, but they had virtually no books in English, except for the Penguin-series American classics that are everywhere. Even walking around on the street or reading a menu is good practice though; I think it also just takes time being exposed to them for them to sink into my juicy brain.

We leave at 3pm to setup in tonights club. Unfortunately today wasn't a good day for the pool, as it's still raining outside, but perhaps tomorrow. Today is Saturday night, so it should be bumpin'. Plus, tomorrow's our day off!

Massive Crowd in Zhuhai

Well, damn yes. Last night was the probably the biggest crowd of people that I've ever DJ'd in front of. The venue was the largest indoor I've ever seen aside from the Ultraworld Armory parties in DC or Bass Rush in LA. Two giant, cavernous areas. One had a huge stage with Britney Spears-type singers, the other one was a club area. The club area had a dancefloor for maybe 500 people, with about 200-300 more tables spread out all over behind it. I counted 5 bars in the room, 3 of them with stripper poles above them. The stage was really high off the ground - maybe 10 feet. I still can't believe that place is a normal club which is open every night. Proper Friday night business, though.

One of the dancers had an exposed thong which was fantastic, but later proved to be fake and a part of the skirt. Weak. But on the way out of the club we went through the second huge room and saw the person on stage literally wearing a bra and panties with a clear shawl thing over it.

I say goddamn!

New Friends Outside of Guangzhou

Yesterday was maybe the best gig of the tour so far. We arrived at the club really early, about 5pm, and spent the entire afternoon and evening hanging out in this city an hour outside of Guangzhou. I've had a few gigs in places like this, and these are generally the larger clubs, maybe because they have less competition. Whereas in the major cities have a few streets lined with clubs (which are usually very similar), the remote areas have giant mega clubs, the size of which I haven't ever seen, aside from Buzz in DC.

Setup was quick and easy, and after eating dinner afterwards, Kim and I found an empty KTV room to take a nap. The room was huge and comfortable, but that only lasted a short time. A group of three managers came into the room and turned on the light and started asking questions. I told them we just wanted to rest for a few hours before performing and he said that was no problem but that we had to move to another room. We collected our things and followed him down the hall where he led us to the green room filled with all of the dancers. No sleep was to be had in there, but lots of fun.

When the club opened, this place turns into a total strip club. No, no nudity, but every other strip club element was there. Old dudes playing the dice game, stripper poles everywhere, beautiful women. I know I say that a lot, but this place had really stunning women. One of them was named Tracy, and despite her very American name, she didn't speak any English. I spent a lot of the free time hanging out and talking with her, which was enjoyable. She said she didn't have a boyfriend when I asked her, and immediately followed that with "I don't know why either". Kinda hurt to hear that - I told her to get one immediately.

The actual show was great. The crowd was live, they liked all the performances, and there were no problems. Actually, there were really no problems with anything the entire night, which is fairly uncommon. After the performance we waited 2 hours until the club started to close before taking down our equipment, but it was no problem because they were enjoyable hours spent in the company of good people.

Kim and I had a blast hanging out with this huge Tibetan Shaolin kung fu singer. He had a routine where he dressed up all in black leather (basically an I-will-kick-your-fucking-ass suit) and performed a 20 minute set which included downing an entire pitcher filled to the top with 5 Coors. Props, fella. This guy was huge - well, maybe 5'8", but probably 275lbs of muscle. Built like a bodybuilder, but part of his stage act included kung fu. He did flips, handsprings, cartwheels, kicks up to his head with both feet - absolutely insane things for a huge guy like that to be doing. After we were all done performing we hung out in the green room and watched him do drunken kung fu for us after he downed 10 beers. After he'd do something, Kim would get up and try to imitate him, usually knocking something over or nearly kicking someone in the face. What a damn good time that was.

Today we leave at 2pm, apparently we have a long drive in the loaf ahead of us. I'll nap and listen to my ipod. I picked up 40 photos this morning before coming here - they look fantastic. A lot of them are from the Buddhist and Taoist temples that I went to in the last week, and the Guangzhou Museum of Art. They're in my album already, which is nearly full. Kick ass.

Kim Gets Electrocuted

It's almost 1am and we're all done performing, but we can't leave because the second club that we were in tonight won't let us take our rig down, so we have to wait until 2am to collect our things and leave. We spent 15 minutes wandering around on the street looking for an internet bar until we gave up and found a stand in front of a warehouse selling drinks. I bought some water and a door slid open behind the register revealing a giant room filled with computers. Hello secret internet warehouse.

Tonight was our last night of work before two days off, so I'm now pretty much out of time to decide what to do for the two days that I have off. I'd like to go to Hong Kong or Macao, but both of the Kims are broke and can't afford either. There's also a beach south which we might go to, if that's the case I'll probably have to loan them money, although that isn't really too much of a concern. If we don't leave town we'll go back to the waterpark tomorrow, this time with Kevin, our Cantonese boss.

Oh, while setting up in the club today Kim got electrocuted. It sounds terrible but actually it was hilarious. I was helping him configure the nylon screens which the projectors project the image onto, and he thought it'd be a good idea to jam the metal wire holding the screen into a box holding fuses and various electrical components. I didn't actually see him do this, but I just heard the ensuing screams. He tends to scream a lot though; he got a minor jolt a few days ago and screamed like a girl. This time it was prolonged over maybe 3 seconds. Immediately afterwards he said that he thought someone sneaked up on him and kicked him in the chest. I didn't actually fall over laughing until I knew that he wasn't seriously injured though, so that could make me less of a bastard.

I haven't been keeping up with the online journal as much because I've been writing in my physical journal, which I think is superior in almost every way, except that I can't share it with others. Today I wrote an extended portion on something that I've been thinking a lot about recently, which is recurring familiarities in social situations. It seems like the farther I travel and the more people that I meet, the more they remind me of people that I already know. It often seems like a coincidence that doesn't deserve a lot of attention, but it seems to be increasing in frequency. Not only that, but some of the people that I'm reminded of are people I haven't spoken to in years; and ocassionally the resemblance is shocking. I've started and plan to maintain a list of when this happens; it's about 8 people so far. Kim reminds me of Dave Lee, the driver reminds me of Jason, Price (one of the dancers; that's my name for him) reminds me of Josh Cooper, and so on. I wonder what it means, if anything. Coincidences don't happen this many times.

I'm listening to Bassdrive and damn is it sweet to hear drum & bass after being subjected to terrible Chinese club music for weeks.

Happy Summer Day

Man, what a kick ass day. I'm soaking wet at the internet place now. Lets see, where to start.

Me and the Kims woke up at 10:30 this morning and were out by 11am, headed for the huge park in Guangzhou. It was listed in my Lonely Planet guide, but we didn't really know what to expect, but it certainly exceeded all of our expectations. By the time we got there it was insanely hot and humid. We paid 3 kuai to get in, and as soon as we go through the gates, we see a giant temple at the peak of a mountain, maybe a few miles in the foggy distance. That was our goal.

We spent about an hour and a half climbing up the side of this mountain, probably each losing about three pounds in sweat. The scenery was unbelievably gorgeous and not like anything that any of us had seen in China. Kim said it reminded him of the rainforest in Malaysia. Walking through the dense forest was really loud - we were surrounded by various wildlife; probably mostly birds and insects and a few monkeys. We made it to the top of the temple and rested there for half an hour before setting back. Naturally, the trip back was much easier.

Once we were near the bottom we found a place to buy some water and we sat and had another rest. Not ten feet from us was a golf cart, presumably the property of the park management. It had the keys in it. Kim climbed in and was about to take off but I told him to hold up because there was a guard walking toward him from behind. He said okay and sat there for a second, and then accidentally tripped the gas pedal, launching the cart downhill and away from all of us. I was laughing hysterically and I could tell that he was also, but his laughter faded as the distance between us grew. He took it for a spin for a few minutes, while I was filming it, and then came back to two guards laughing at him.

Then we tried to go to a pool but realized that we didn't have enough money on us to go swimming. Forty kuai to go swimming is a lot, but the pool is tremendous and we'll go back tomorrow. Today is no good anyway, as it's raining very hard outside. We went back to the hotel after the unsuccessful pool trip and build another set of poi at a local street-side hardware shop, then walked to get some food, as I was headed here. On the way we were caught in a torrential downpour. I got a plastic bag from a guard and put my shirt, camera, cell phone, and money inside it, as we both walked down the street getting absolutely soaked. The rain actually felt great though, after sweating all day. Just before getting here we passed a McDonalds which had a giant umbrella for a table outside which was overturned. Of course we picked it up, removed it from the stone enclosure which kept it from blowing away, and started walking down the street with this fucking enormous 7' diameter McDonalds umbrella. We made it about 50 feet before a guard came running after us yelling in Cantonese, none of which we understood. Hey, we were wet.

Ready to Die for the Big Stuffed Animal

He who wears elf shoes is keeper of the toys.

Last nights gig was way out in the middle of nowhere, two hours outside of Guangzhou. I wasn't prepared for that long of a ride in the loaf mobile. It's good that house fans are mounted all along the inside of it's breadbasket interior, or else I would've lost 5 lbs sweating. Also, I forgot my ipod and everyone else had headphones. Fuck.

When we arrived, we were clearly in the middle of nowhere. It didn't even look like a city. The club was called V8 club, and it was a large three level place with a two level club on the lower levels and a few dozen KTV rooms on the top floor. I don't know if they had a theme party before we got there, but the entire place is summer-themed. Fake palmtrees, sand, photos of women in bikinis all over the walls. Even a few blowup killer whales; sweet.

The most interesting parts were the coreographed dances. In clubs in America, a DJ plays, people dance, and.. I guess that's sort of it, but that's enough to have a great time. In this place, they have half a dozen dance routines performed by 8 girls who are constantly changing outfits in the changing room just behind the DJ booth. One dance was Thriller-themed, with all black tophats and neckties, another was a more traditional asian fan dance, another with them wearing all white, etc.

After the third or fourth routine it dawned on me; China doesn't have strip clubs, but this is what it has instead. In between dance routines guys would get on wireless mics and sing various Chinese songs, most of them famous songs that everyone knows and sings along with. This is cool with me, but the part that really fucks me up is that all of these songs are really slow and depressing he/she-left-me songs. I can distinctly feel the I'm-so-depressed-I-could-die atmosphere, but apparently I'm the only one who really dislikes it. People clap, wave their hands, lean around rhythmically, and do all the things that people do to sappy love music.

Also, the toys. Oh Jesus, the toys. This is something that I first witnessed in Guiyan. One of the gigs there went really well and the floor was packed with a few hundred people. All of a sudden someone hands me a trash bag filled with something while someone else gets on the mic and says something that I can only partially understand: "WHO WANTS IT?!?!"

Just before people go absolutely apeshit, I come to find that the bag is filled with stuffed animals, keychains, and mostly worthless Coors junk. The kind of stuff you'd trade in tickets for at an amusement park or video arcade. You wouldn't tell that by the crowd though; you'd think I was throwing out steaks at Auschwitz. I threw handfulls of toys and junk into the crowd and people are screaming their heads off wanting more. Three girls managed to lean almost entirely into the DJ booth and make a swipe at my hands, making me drop a bunch of them on the floor. I figured they really wanted them, so I gave them to them, but that didn't even stop them.

Anyway, the same thing last night. Guy tosses out toys while singing, people lose it, then at the end he has THE BIG BEAR WHICH EVERYONE WANTS. It's maybe the size of a football. He prances around with it, pretending to throw it in every direction, teasing everyone, for about 5 minutes.

The word prancing is especially fitting here because the guy had elf shoes which curved up at the end. They looked kind of like black slippers you'd wear around the house. This is a fashion fad which hasn't caught onto me yet, so for now he's Santas little Chinese helper.

Loaf Mobile Formal Introduction

Just finished up at the first club in Guangzhou, which was much nicer than all of the clubs in Guiyan with only a single exception. The club was really far out, it took about a half an hour to get to. Of course we took the loaf mobile, which is the general name given to Chinese vans which have a name in Chinese which literally means "bread car" because they look like ridiculous loaves of bread with wheels on them. Kind of like the 70's van that they drive in Scooby Doo.

Kim is teaching me to spin fire on strings. Poi, I guess it's called. He practiced for six months on beaches in Thailand where apparently it's very popular. He has scars all over his chest, arms, and neck to show for it. Everytime he performs in front of people most of them are falling over themselves they're so impressed, because this is something that not only they haven't seen, but a form of art that they didn't even know existed.

Wow, that's weird. A girl just sat across from us and Kim said hello, to which she replied in fluent English. Evidently she was born and raised in Canada but is of Chinese heritage. The labret piercing gave it away though.

Tomorrow the mission is to find a pool and bring the boombox.

Welcome to Kung Fu Land

New city! Arrived in Canton at 9am this morning from Guiyan. Some adjustments were made to the itinerary so now I'm taking Tenzins route through the eastern coast of China instead of travelling through the southwest near Tibet to the north near Mongolia and Russia. So I'll be in all of the big modern cities instead of the way-out smaller cities. Part of me is a little upset because it's the smaller cities which I seem to enjoy most, but on the other hand, I'm going to Shanghai which I like, and Beijing which I've never been to but I must see.

It's really hot and humid here. The food is delicious; almost as good as in Sichuan, but much more formal and fancy. Everyone speaks Cantonese and I can't understand them. It sounds really different from Mandarin, and I think it's what most people in the west stereotypically think of when they think of Chinese. All of this "bing bong wing wong" business which isn't in Mandarin. I'm at an internet bar now which is super posh and expensive. Literally 15 times more expensive than the one I went to in Guiyan, but this one has huge leather couches, webcams, headphones, etc. Seems to be a fairly large complex as well, housing about 200 people that I can see.

I didn't sleep last night at all really, but spent time with Chun Li. That's not her real name, by the way, but it's the name that I've given her because I can't remember hers. She reminds of someone.

Yes, Chun Li from Street Fighter.

I would have liked to have spent a few more days in Guiyan hanging out with her, but duty calls. Kim arrives tomorrow at noon, he had to take a 24-hour long train trip because his visa isn't ready yet and he can't board a plane without it. I loaned him a book and a handful of CD's to keep him from going insane, because he doesn't speak Chinese and there almost definitely won't be anyone on the train who speaks English. Everyone is playing Warcraft III and Counterstrike all around me.

Adjusting to the Tour, Guiyang

The gig went much better last night than the night before - didn't have any major problems when DJ'ing this time, although I didn't even go through the trouble of setting up Serato Scratch at all, and opted to just use CD's. One thing that was unusual was seeing Zita perform in front of a large crowd - KTV style. The club itself was super nice - definitely the most posh we've seen so far, although I think it was only the fourth club that we've been to. It had high ceilings, really comfortable couches with pillows everywhere, and not even a lot of tables. It didn't seem very much like a Chinese club to me, which was fairly awesome. I didn't see that girl again last night, although I thought she said that she'd be heading out to check it out. She wrote me a few messages in pinyin and then a few more in Chinese characters which I couldn't read at all. Irene helped me to vaguely translate a few of them. Apparently before leaving for the club just after 10pm she sent me a text message in Chinese which was a traditional Chinese poem. Weird.

Apparently our itenerary is undergoing some changes, and we leave for Guanzhou tomorrow, but I'm not sure at what time. We were supposed to go to Kunming next, but evidently we're switching locations with Tenzin's group. There's been some speculation that this is because their group has been substandard thus far, but I won't really be able to substantiate that until later this afternoon when I give Sacha a call to find out what the deal is.

I'm listening to a DJ Honda mix on my iPod which I got from one of the DVDs that Gutter sent me. It's actually fantastic, also. A lot of exclusive tunes, including a Biz Markie freestyle where he's rhyming about Tokyo and Honda. Time to walk back to the hotel, we're heading out to eat and then set up equipment in just a few minutes.

Friendly People that Work in the Hotel

Chongqing came and went, and I'm now I'm into my fourth day in Guiyan.

Chongqing was a blast; my first time using Serato for a full set where it really went off. Had no significant problems, enjoyed the gig, and had the opportunity to see a lot of the city the day after the gig when Aty fucked up my departure flight from Chongqing to Chengdu. I was only in Chengdu for one day after that before leaving for Guiyan and starting the tour.

This is the first stop, but it almost doesn't feel like it. Kim and I have been hanging out a lot, made a lot of new friends, and we meet new people and have the opportunity to practice Chinese daily. I've never really been in a situation where no one speaks any English and I can actually communicate with people until now. Out of a 30 minute conversation I might be able to extract 40% of the meaning which I'm pretty satisfied with.

Two days ago after a gig in the hotel elevator, Kim and I were with a pair of beautiful women who got off at the 3rd floor. When the door opened, there was a couch situated right in front of the elevator door, with aboutu 15 girls just sitting there looking pretty. We waved and whatnot and went upstairs. One thing that's peculiar, though; I had heard previously about getting calls in your hotel room late at night asking if you want women, but it had never happened to me. We were in his room for 20 minutes talking before the phone rang. Some lady was on the other end, but I couldn't really understand anything that she was saying. I'm not sure if she's speaking a local dialect or has an accent, but it was difficult for me to comprehend. Toward the end of the call, she said "okay?". I didn't know what she was talking about so I just said okay, goodbye. 5 minutes later there's a knock at the door and it's a lady maybe in her 40's with both of the girls that we were in the elevator with, of course. Try to communicate, fail, they come in the room, want us to make a purchase, we both decline. After a few minutes we didn't feel like turning in for the night so we decided to go to the 3rd floor and check it out; explore. The door opened and it was the whole gang of them, we sat around and spoke a little bit, enjoying eachothers equally bizarre company. We walked down the hall and found a convenience store where we got a pair of beers (Pubu's), and followed the sound of music into a giant dark karaoke hall only lit by candlelight. The place was almost empty but Kim and I sat at a table on the far end and watched people sing karaoke to what looked like Kung Fu movies. Incredibly weird, to say the least. After a few minutes, all 10 of the girls come over and join us, pull up chairs, and just sit around smoking cigarettes. I spoke to a few of them, but couldn't say much. Suddenly out of nowhere the lights turn on and the place is closing, so we decide to go back. Well, they follow us, back to Kim's room where I had to get my bag. We sit around there for a few minutes, everything's incredibly interesting, since apparently we've just made almost 2 dozen ill-employed friends. They want to hear some music, so we go to my room and listen to Tribe and Wu, sketch for a little in my book, they smoke all of my cigarettes, and sit around and chat for a while. Meanwhile Kim is unsuccessfully trying to pull one of them back to his room.

This part is what really messes me up, and I can't figure out. If these girls are in fact prostitutes, why are they interested in just hanging out with us? Perhaps they lack friends and have been traumatized by the rigours of the circumstance of their employment; or maybe they're just lonely. Either way, the one that Kim was trying to pull (with my help, I translated), wasn't having it at all. I have absolutely no explanation for this. They stayed and we hung out for probably 2 hours or so, until very late at night, at which point they all left. The found my DJ business cards on the ledge next to the door and each took one before leaving. It has my phone number on it, and probably 4 or 5 of them gave me a call yesterday afternoon and evening to ask where we'd be performing that night. I told them, but none of them showed. After the gig when we went home, two of them turned up at my door at 2am and we watched Return of the Jedi together before they headed out.

I don't know what to make of my new friends, but instead of questioning it, both of us appear to be just relishing the local oddities and unanswered questions.