Here is a magical night shot of a little town called Füssen located right outside of Neuschwanstein Castle in Germany. While I’m sure it is just as charming with the sunshine – the fog makes for a nice touch. Round of sound to StrudelMonkey for hanging around these parts of the globe to capture such a sight!
A Canadian in Beijing: Hou Hai and All That Jazz
Hou Hai is a popular tourist region of Beijing. It’s situated around Hou Hai lake and consists of restaurants, cafes, bars and beautiful hutongs filled with souvenir shops and specialty stores that wind around and spit you out on busy modern streets. When you’re wandering in the Hou Hai district, it really feels like you’ve stepped outside of the geometric grid that defines this city’s streets. The alleys follow the curve of the lake the way they did when they were first built. It’s a curvaceous respite from a linear regime.
Last night, my friend Dave and I went down to the area because I was planning to catch a jazz show at the East Shore Jazz Café. The performer was Jessica Meider, an American who has been living here in Beijing for ten years and whose music career was started and has developed here in China. I had also scheduled an interview with Jess for my women-in-music-in-Beijing research.
We hopped a cab instead of taking public transit and we were dropped off on the west side of the lake. Even though we didn’t know where the café was, it proved to be a great blessing to be dropped off on the opposite side as it gave us a chance to wander the area and take pictures. Dave had been here before but I had not. I was immediately charmed and decided that I will have to come back in the daytime to see this place fully!
The place was lit up with life on this muggy summer night and many people were strolling along, hand in hand, enjoying the breeze from the water and the activity on the shore. You can rent pedal boats or hire row boats (and drivers) to cross the lake. I didn’t see any of these boats on the water but I imagine it would be a beautiful thing to do in the daytime.
There were also many patio restaurants as well with wait staff stationed outside and in your path to recommend their establishment over the others. Solicitation is not something that China needs to work on; there are people whose only job it is to solicit customers outside of the business in question by greeting passersby (often in English when they look at me) and suggesting their restaurant. It’s a combination of both pushy and polite with: “Come take a look! Good food! Relax a while!” and the body language to suggest altering your direction like they’re directing you to turn now and take a seat. I just smile and keep walking straight and shake my head. I have become immune to the solicitation by now and I know they mean no offence by their insistence. We all have to make a living, after all.
We made it to the hutong area across the lake and I suddenly started to feel like we were lost and I’d be late for this interview. I suggested walking out to Gulou Dajie, the street where the subway is, because I have become quite used to the subway system as a means of orienting myself in the city. When we made it to that street and my Chinese skills fell on their face when I tried to ask about the restaurant (I forgot the second character and so I was just asking for “East Café” and no one knew what I was talking about), I got really agitated. I wasn’t sure which direction to walk or whether or not we were completely lost an had to double back. I called Jessica apologizing and seeking direction. We still hadn’t met in person but she was really helpful over the phone. After establishing where I was, she assured me that I was almost there. We had to walk just under a block and then we saw the café.
As usual, the minute I start stressing about something, I find out that there’s no reason to stress. Within minutes, we were climbing the stairs and emerged into a cute café that reminded me of East Village (Manhattan) music venues – upstairs, intimate, cozy, with a small, shallow stage and clusters of tables all quite close to one another. It had wooden columns dividing the room into smaller sections, some easy chairs at the back and candlelit corner tables tucked away for those dates filled with whispers and wonders. Drinks were pricey, but the windows overlooked the lake and I suppose the cost of drinks included the gorgeous view of the lights on the water. It felt familiar somehow.
After chatting with Jessica before the gig and getting some of my interview questions answered, we settled into a side table to take in a lovely first set featuring Jessica on vocals and three talented Chinese players whose names I did not catch but whose talent was impossible to miss. They truly knew their jazz and soloed easily. Apparently, it was the first night for the guitarist but his fluency was remarkable. The bass player and the drummer were loose together but comfortable and they finished the set with a jazzed up Prince song (made famous by Chaka Khan) “I Feel For You.” I was impressed.
We slipped out half way through the show because of an early class today, but I really enjoyed taking in some jazz here in Beijing, a scene that is relatively small but growing in popularity. The audience was about fifty-fifty Chinese and non-Chinese. Jessica also told me about some jazz festivals popping up in China, thus helping the scene grow even further. Maybe I’ll have to time my return to this country to align with one such festival. I’d love to see what the early stages of a jazz movement in China sound like.
I left humming Prince and eager to play my guitar.
When I woke up, I put on a black and purple t-shirt.
A tribute, of sorts.
A Canadian in Beijing: Floating at Bloody Sunday
Bloody Sunday worried me when I first heard about it. I thought it might be a hardcore women’s event that discussed menstruation and girl power, which to be honest is not for me. I mean, I’ve ‘been there, done that’ and it’s no longer my speed. No offence to all the blood sisters out there who are currently reclaiming their bodies, self-worth and sisterhood; it’s wonderful to experience this kind of transition and learning, especially about patriarchy and empowerment. For me, time passed and now I look back on that time in my life, raise my fist in solidarity and realize I’ve moved on. No crime in that. Part of that very movement is thanks to the empowerment, so credit given where credit is due.
Now, along a different empowerment path, this monthly event is about connecting the arts community here in Beijing. A woman named Pauline organizes the night along with several friends and volunteers. She works full-time in the gallery district of Beijing and is interested in combining arts media together to form alternative gathering spaces in this city. Pauline is from Belgium and she has lived here for many years and so she is very connected to the ex-pat community. We met through my friend Sarah (who I told you about in this blog.)
Anyway, Pauline asked me if I wanted to take part in May’s “Bloody Sunday” event and I agreed to play some songs. This month, it took place in the beautiful Ritan Park ??????????? at the Stone Boat Café, a small restaurant set on the water across a small bridge. It was built about twenty years ago to replicate the traditional structures often built into the water as permanent boat-shaped entertainment spots. (I spoke about a famous one of these structures when I visited the Summer Palace.) Ritan Park itself was built in the year 1530 and is one of the oldest parks in the city. I was told that it once served as an altar site where the emperor made sacrificial offerings to the sun god. By the time I learned that, it was too dark to go exploring. Maybe next time.
I arrived in the early evening to do a sound check and, of course, nothing was ready. I had brought my Chinese textbooks, however, and I was thrilled to sit on the restaurant’s patio working on my reading comprehension while the sound system was slowly assembled on the outdoor platform that would double as the evening stage. I sat right next to the water’s edge and intermittently lifted my head to peer over the railing at the families fishing or laughing as they sat on the rocks around the small lake. I even watched one man successfully pull in a large fish. I have no idea what kind of fish it was but I did notice that he took it home with him, smiling proudly. All in all, everyone here seemed peaceful and the energy was infectious. I felt my muscles relax when I hadn’t even realized I’d been tense.
I sipped tea, translated a text, eventually had some dinner at a very leisurely pace and then it was time for me to plug in my guitar and test the levels. Everything worked out fine and I sat back down again and chatted with the strangers that had taken up residence at my table. It was more of a communal table, really, since there were perhaps eight possible seats (an estimate considering two sides were benches built into the stone boat’s “deck”) and so several people came and went, almost wholly non-Chinese but from various countries. English was our common language.
Some other individuals arrived from the organizing committee and began to pull a large sheet between two trees on the shore. These were the people in charge of programming visuals for the night. As the sun slipped out of the sky, their images lit up the area and gathered a crowd of Chinese migrant workers and Sunday park-goers who gathered on the rocks and watched the silent film clips for several hours as though hypnotized. They were hypnotic, I must admit, and coupled with the music that was spinning by several dj’s including NARA (whose mixes were exquisite), they became hard to ignore.
When it came time for my set, a few of my school friends suddenly appeared to support me and I was grateful. The small area that I was facing was otherwise filled with strangers, so seeing some familiar faces was a treat. Behind me just a few paces was the water and this platform had no railing. I’m sure it was beautiful to see from the perspective of the audience, but I had visions of falling backwards with a splash and electrocution. . . and so I mostly stuck to the microphone and didn’t look behind me!
My voice carried to the tables and chairs on the shore as well, but the performance was really directed at this small area on the restaurant’s patio. The visuals continued throughout my set as well and I occasionally found my eyes pulled to watch while I sang as though I were simultaneously in two different roles: performer and audience. I had to consciously pull myself back and focus on what I was doing because the images were so compelling!
When my set was finished, (and it was very casual and consisted of both English and Chinese – quick spontaneous translations on my part – considering the very mixed audience), I walked around the site more and discovered a brilliant display of items for “exchange.” This was a pile of items that anyone could take, like a free garage sale. People were sorting through the clothing and sifting through smaller items and I’m not sure if much was taken and given a new home, but I love the concept. There was no expectation to actually “exchange” item for item, but the idea of giving away things to others is always positive, both for the person who is minimizing their possessions and for the person who is happy to acquire something new. In this way, it’s a “win-win” exchange, so aptly named.
The best feature of this restaurant was its upstairs room that truly resembled an enclosed upper deck and/or sleeping cabin in a mid-sized leisure craft. Climbing the super steep stairs was also interesting (treacherous?!) and when I got to the top, I found a young man sitting cross-legged on a couch directly facing the stairs who was offering tarot card readings. I asked how much he charged and he told me (with a French accent) that it was 100 kuai. I answered him in French that I’d be happy to have a reading if he’d take a barter of one CD. He smiled and agreed. I sat down to a fairly accurate description of my current life by a complete stranger. I do love a good fortune and this one was fairly encouraging.
I slipped him a CD later on in the evening by ascending the stairs enough to show my head above the landing and then extending a CD through the railings. I leaned it against the chair within my reach. He was in the process of giving someone else a reading and he smiled at me quietly and nodded. Another exchange.
I left the Bloody Sunday event feeling relaxed and smooth, as though the whole event had been a giant reefer for my spirit. I don’t smoke, but this kind of event felt the way I have heard friends describe that feeling; I sort of floated away into the dark night air of the park. I fell asleep soundly that night and dreamt colourful dreams filled with water and travel and painted rafters.
I felt fortunate.
A Canadian in Beijing: A Must Do = A Shidu Picnic
The second last day of the holidays and I was invited to go on a picnic in the outlying areas of Beijing with one of my new friends, Rui, and several of his friends. I was the only foreigner (non-Native Chinese speaker) and so I was a bit nervous. Still, Rui’s English is excellent and I only hesitated for an instant before accepting the opportunity to see some of the outskirts of this city and to meet a new group of people.
We went to an area called “Shi Du” which means the ten ferry district. It’s about an hour’s drive south of Beijing and it leads into ten separate valleys around small, jagged mountains which each include water access and stunning scenery. Because it’s become a popular travel site, there are also shops and various other leisure activities locate in each.
This is a time in Chinese history when people from the city have enough money to actually visit the country as a leisure activity – to enjoy the fresh air, the open skies and the natural wonders that lie outside of the concrete and glass. As a result, we were not the only ones with this idea!
We arrived at the fifth “du” and walked along the rocky ridge of a beautiful lake and scoped out our picnic site. We were about twenty feet from another group and the lake was full of people on leisure rafts with large sticks to propel them forward. When everyone was satisfied with our choice of location, all the men then went back to the cars to get the food and coolers and other items while the women stayed with the dogs. I stayed too, of course, considering my gender and the complete surprise that I garnered when I offered to help too!
When they returned, there was the typical arguing about where to put the cook stoves and then the men all mutually failed several times at starting the fires. I had to laugh. Everyone had a better idea than everyone else and it was just comical. It could have been happening in any country, in any language. Eventually, the coals took and the cooking began, as did the laughter and the good times.
Here in China, it seems as though picnic blankets aren’t the norm. Instead, plastic is used. Large strips of cheap plastic was pulled from a roll and was laid out flat and held down with rocks. The food went on top of it – a veritable feast of kabobs and salads and beverages. My friend had stocked up on vegetables from the market that morning and so I ate vegetable versions of what they were eating. I tried my best to overlook where they had been cooked considering my status as a guest and my desire not to stand out any more than I already did.
Besides, I had a hard time with the language. I couldn’t have explained myself properly even if I had tried. Everything happened so quickly that I often found myself the only one not laughing at a joke I hadn’t understood. It was hard, but they were all really nice and Rui translated as often as he could. Eventually the group was offering to teach me Chinese. In fact, they said “you don’t need a school! You just need to hang out with us!” That felt good.
Across from the feasting, we could see children playing in large, thick, plastic balls that were floating on the surface of the water. It looked like an enormous amount of fun – like those huge indoor walking wheels for pet mice but big enough for humans. They were tethered to the edge of the waterway so that they couldn’t float away and I could hear the laughter bouncing off the liquid sunshine.
After the food, my friend and I walked down to the edge talking about music and lyrics. He sang a few songs to me in Chinese and then started to share all the songs he knows in English, most of which were incredibly cheesy and huge hits from the past. He sang them word for word (sometimes the wrong words in misunderstood English) and I joined in when he sang that Jack Wagner song “Nothing’s Gonna Change my Love for You” (made famous again by Glenn Mederios in the 80’s), Richard Marx “Right Here Waiting for You” and George Michael’s “Careless Whisper.” (I’m pretty sure he was still with Wham at that time!)
Imagine us: me, the only foreigner for miles around and him, a young Chinese man without any kind of self-consciousness, singing his heart out on the edge of a lake. When I sang along, our voices reverberated against the cliffs and echoed over the water. No one stared any more than they already had been staring. In fact, we were even interrupted by someone trying to get us to buy time riding on a horse. So, I guess we weren’t being so “xiguai” (or strange) after all. Either way, there’s an absurdity that I felt in that moment that still makes me laugh at the thought of it.
One real downside to the day was the waste everywhere. I saw so much litter — so many wrappers and plastic everywhere. It was sad to see such a beautiful landscape with such dirty evidence of previous picnics.
The toilets, too, were just cement blocks surrounding pits that were absolutely FULL of human waste. I could barely walk by them without gagging, let alone use them. Eventually, though, I had no choice and I’ve discovered that I’ve become particularly good at holding my breath. Even thinking of it now makes me queasy, though. I’m not immune to disgusting toilets yet and perhaps I never will be.
We climbed back to the picnic site and had more food before helping clean up.
One of the women had laid out plastic “blankets” for the dogs and was desperately trying to convince her dog to lie down on this “blanket” to stay clean rather than laying in the dusty dirt. The dog was not interested and eventually settled right beside the blanket much to her disgust.
(At the end of the day, I watched her clean him with a wet napkin — a “moist toilette” and they’re very popular here. She washed his underside from paws to buttocks while her husband held him in the air. Then he was deposited in the vehicle without much ceremony.)
The group just piled the waste in a large central area after everything of value was gathered, and then left it there for hovering “recyclers” to sort through. Just like in the city where elderly people collect bottles and recyclables, I had noticed several older people eying our picnic and awaiting our departure.
I have such a hard time with this coming from such a beautifully maintained country, especially our forests and provincial or national parks. We have so much education about “no trace camping” and having a “light footprint” on the earth. I am conscious that these recycling people will extract the valuable recyclables but then leave the plastic bags and food waste there to rot (or collect dust because they aren’t biodegradable) like all the other small piles I saw.
I left with my friends feeling a sense of guilt towards the earth and a helplessness to relieve it. I also felt incredibly grateful to have been given such a great opportunity to see a part of China that I wouldn’t normally have seen. Everything is a mixed blessing and I try to feel the balance at the best of times. I’m not sure how to reconcile it all.
We drove onwards and stopped to photograph the “shidu” or “tenth ferry.” There were cable cars here and a bungee jumping platform. There was also a small island and a lake filled with pedal boats and happy vacationers.
One the way home, I noticed that this section of one of the “shidu” lakes is a popular car-washing spot. People drive their vehicles right into the water and then wash the cars right there. You wouldn’t see this in Canada!
The long ride back to Beijing was quiet. Everyone was exhausted by the sunshine and the large amount of food intake. I smiled out the rear window of the vehicle and felt a sense of pride at being invited and included in such an outing. I felt like I had been adopted by this group and given a true modern Chinese picnic.
Next time, I’m going in those water balls!