Josh Feola - Filed under 'Beijing'

August 16, 2009

Reluctant Return, or Go East

Long hiatus, Beijing stuff:

This NY Times article about Americans finding employment in China has been making a lot of waves recently. Mostly because it's totally ridiculous. For one thing a lot of the expats I've met here don't have jobs, or at least not the 'real' jobs that this article claims Chinese companies are tripping over themselves to offer young Americans on the strength of being young Americans. Second, the individuals profiled in this article come from prestigious universities and in some cases graduated with half a normal person's starting salary in savings, which means they entered the post-graduate fray with a leg up on anyone, anywhere in the world, not least of which small businesses in a developing country with extremely low overhead and cost of living. Not hating, as I exactly fit the profile of a career-confused graduate who struck out unanimously in my US job hunt and so took "go west young man" to its logical conclusion (the Far East) to find work, but reading the Chinese media backlash is pretty funny and makes me more cautious and self-aware of my role in this scene that I'm just starting to grasp.

Anyway, to spin the focus back around to the home team, I recently read this great article by Camille Paglia on Obama's early term missteps and why Sarah Palin is kind of a media genius. And China:

With the Republican party leaderless and in backbiting disarray following its destruction by the ideologically incoherent George W. Bush, Democrats are apparently eager to join the hara-kiri brigade. What looked like smooth coasting to the 2010 election has now become a nail-biter. Both major parties have become a rats' nest of hypocrisy and incompetence. That, combined with our stratospheric, near-criminal indebtedness to China (which could destroy the dollar overnight), should raise signal flags. Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?

I guess the point is you should seek work in China.

Well I'm pretty much phoning it in with this post but I should be back on my game here soon. For now at least you can enjoy this (no longer very) new Raekwon family reunion-style jam:

House Of Flying Daggers by Raekwon Ft Inspectah Deck,Ghostface Killah & Method Man

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Filed under // Beijing Camille Paglia China New York Times Obama

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July 7, 2009

Cosmic wave

One-off weird music nights are rapidly becoming the Gauze to my Jay Bil. I can't remember the last noise/drone/etc show I went to in the US (well maybe I can) but I've already made 2kolegas Tuesdays a regular thing. Last night was kicked off by this French dude with his floor-camp setup of various chirping and blinking devices. He had this one synth panel thing from Japan that was a 16x16 grid of little white dots that would display cool animations as he programmed along, very beautiful actually.

The highlight of the night was a Japanese-Korean band called 10 ("我们名字是...十"). My new kolegas-affiliated friend Michael nailed it when he described them as "Japanese Bjork meets Kraftwerk." I couldn't tell if the girl (on the left) was on drugs or just cool, but she gave off this infectious weirdo vibe that successively transformed the set from pretty good to really good to the most fun I'm likely to have this week. The musical setup was pretty complex, with the dude on the right running some simple 808-style beats and modulating/looping the girl's mic, into which she inputed her voice (which had a considerable range on its own), balloons, squeak toys, a kazoo, and various other economical noise-emitting items. The best parts of the set were when she would lapse into the kind of deskilled, transcendent shredding you can only pull off if you're a cute Japanese girl with red Kanye glasses and a red panda umbrella and a red plastic keyboard guitar.

After 10 was a set of fairly enjoyable 8-bit gizmodgetry from these four guys, but the place was pretty much cleared out by then. I hung with Yan Jun a bit and discussed the possibility of playing one of these sparsely attended events, now I need to work on my entry point. First I need to go back to work.

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Filed under // 10 2kolegas Beijing China

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July 5, 2009

Drums and drone

Another weekend, another post-late night late afternoon post.

As everyone knows (see below) I did my best to celebrate July 4th from Beijing. This is the second straight year I've been out-of-country for the 4th. Last year I celebrated by acting obnoxiously and uncharacteristically "American" toward my dear English friends and fellow Indonesia volunteers Kelly and Kate (basically saying "awesome" a lot and talking about herding cattle and generally playing into whatever other stereotypes they could throw at me). This year I wore a red white and blue plaid shirt and went out to meet a new friend, Elaine, the graphic designer I hutong-ed with last Friday. Elaine had a new, equally interesting crew lined up for the night: a Swiss artist-in-residence visiting from Kunming, an Italian PhD-in-progress studying acupuncture for the summer, and a guy named Bai Wei who's currently filming a documentary on stem cell research in China.

Also in tow was Twist, a Beijing-born English professor who lives in Elaine's building. Twist is a very cool guy (with a very cool name). After talking about religion and vegetarianism a bit I was excited to learn that Twist is a Hare Krishna. I had no idea that Krishna consciousness existed in China, but I learned from Twist that there is a small but committed group of devotees in the city.

One of the things I did to celebrate my country's independence was to try one of the most thoroughly "Beijing" of consumables, dou zhi (豆汁). This literally means "soybean juice", but is under no circumstances to be confused with the soy milk you buy at Whole Foods in wonderfully processed and palatable flavors. Dou zhi is very fermenty. Definitely an acquired taste, and one that even most "new school" Beijingers don't bother to acquire. I liked it, but given that my resume includes several years of veganism, one year of strict macrobiotics, and more recently various episodes of dietary exploration I guess I'm not exactly the least common denominator when it comes to thresholds for culinary weirdness.

After dinner I went to Gulou (鼓楼), Beijing's famous Drum Tower. We'd planned on going to an "Old Shanghai" event that somehow translated to dudes in red hats and matching Adidas short shorts... ended up just sitting outside and mooching the ambient music leaking through the walls while enjoying cheap beers from the mart next door and a sporadic breeze. After his third nip of baijiu Bai Wei became passionately engaged in elaborating upon numerous subjects to which he has dedicated much thought, notably stem cells, Obama's greatness, and the virtues and vices of Chinese women. Nice to have atypical conversations that move beyond the "who are you, what are you doing here, how long are you staying" exchanges I've had with most people I've met.

I went home at around 3am. This was my first time to Gulou, which is about 5 miles from my house, and got lost several times on the return trip, but I didn't mind. Riding my bike here, especially late at night, is a joy. There was some initial roughness with my new ride but after convincing my seat to remain solidly horizontal I've really fallen in love with my scrap heap of a bicycle. The brakes don't work so well so sometimes I have to screech to a halt by dragging my feet on the pavement Fred Flintstone style, and the lack of a bell means I've had to whistle a lot (for some reason I've defaulted primarily to "Michelle" by the Beatles and "Jump" by Van Halen for this purpose, do not ask me why), but these are minor bumps in an otherwise stellar relationship thus far.

I woke up this morning with a bill in my door that I initially read to be 1,000 RMB, but later discovered was my 10RMB ($1.50 USD) water bill, so everything's good. I'm currently in my office, alone, jamming Black Monk at full volume, can I really get any more narcissistic than literally listening to my own voice (albeit chopped and droned) over loudspeakers? Anyway it's putting me in a good zone, I need to buckle down and get some work done for monday. I also need to work on taking more pictures, huh? Will get on that.

Bm by Black Monk

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Filed under // Beijing bikes Black Monk China dou zhi 豆汁鼓楼 gulou

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June 30, 2009

Chinese noise

Last night I met Yan Jun, a Beijing-based poet/musician/organizer. I dropped off some copies of the then new Black Monk LP for Yan Jun at a record store in 798 when I was in Beijing in 2007, but didn't end up seeing him in person. I got back in touch with him the other day. Luckily he remembered me, and told me about a weekly experimental music night at a bar a couple of miles away from my apartment.

I biked there solo and started talking to some Australians sitting out front, one of whom happened to be Aaron Hull, a touring field recorder/droner. His set was very good. Pretty atmospheric and amorphous but with some well-placed field samples and the slightest (slightest) hint of deep house rhythm to provide some structure.

Following Aaron were two Chinese noise bands that were virtually identical, except the second one had an additional dude to spit into a mic and flail around more than the others. These bands were ok, nothing special. I did like when this dude (above) started screaming into a tube. Wasn't moved by the laptop guy who looked like he was reading unimpressive emails the whole time.

And what should I pass on my ride home but 黑太阳酒吧... maybe next Tuesday.

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Filed under // 2kolegas Aaron Hull Beijing China noise

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June 27, 2009

I can listen, I can talk

Last night I got to see the one Beijing band I had previously heard of, Carsick Cars. It happened to be their major tour-ending, 2nd cd-releasing blowout show. Not much of a blowout actually, just two bands. The first one had a very atmospheric, shoe-gazey thing going on, which was fine until it was punctuated by weird guitar thrashes and high-pitched wailing, along with seriously obnoxious lights (not their fault). I wasn't too into it but I had no expectations and I was psyched to see anything with a general indie reference point.

The Cars, though, were pretty good. I've heard them compared to Sonic Youth from several sources, but I didn't hear that so much at first. They played a solid 45-minute set that sounded like an average of every SST record put out in 1984 except with an overall posi (read: saccharine) vibe. Nothing groundbreaking, but very enjoyable. After this first set they made one of the least subtle "ok we're done unless you really want us to play another song" stage exits I've ever seen. The obligatory encore literally started within 2 minutes. And I was much more into it. I started to understand the SY references, this was darker and noisier. They finished one song, played a crowdsourced hit, and then left again. This time I thought there was about a 50% chance of another return. They came back 5 minutes later and did a pitch-perfect cover of my favorite Stooges song, which sealed the deal for me. Big co-sign.

After the show I explored some abandoned hutongs with a group of people who all have very cool job titles: graphic artist, urban game designer, architect, filmmaker, Artforum correspondent. Got me thinking: can I still call myself an archaeologist even if it's just to sound cool? At any rate I did employ my archaeological skillset to date the abandonment of the hutongs we were sneaking around in to ca. 1999 as there were not one, but two Matrix posters hanging within. There was a weird high school bad kid element to the whole hutong session (jumping fences after midnight to drink warm beer in an abandoned lot?), but it was fun. Topics of conversation evolved naturally from architecture to cryogenics (I think MJ's passing was somehow the mediating point). I didn't talk much, mostly listened.

Woke up feeling a bit raw from the aforementioned warm beers and my day got a little rawer when my landlord came knocking down my door at 8am to inform me that my bike had been stolen. Several people I've never met confirmed this as I walked down the one flight of stairs separating my room from the outside world. That these people knew it was my bike that was stolen and aggregated seemingly for the sole purpose of informing me of the theft was weird and, to be honest, a little suspicious, but I'll write it off as community development and chock it up as a W. The bike was, in fact, gone, which sucks.

RIP THE MIGHTY KHAN: 6/21/09 - 6/27/09

Up next: Beijing Bicycle Lock

You Can Listen You Can Talk by Carsick Cars

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Filed under // Beijing bikes Carsick Cars China hutong Pettibon Stooges

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June 25, 2009

Beijing Bicycle

Riding a bicycle in Beijing is really fun, especially if you like cheating death. My boss gave me his hand-me-down Khan bike so he could upgrade, or downgrade, to a ride with more street cred, but I'm perfectly happy falling in the ex-pat pack with this model. It's big, a plus since being visible is a life or death matter on these streets.

I'm being melodramatic. It was only on day one that I had some potentially life-threatening scrapes. On day two I got my street legs. By day three I was virtually local in my casual disregard for cars with perfectly legitimate objections to my presence in their lane. There actually proved to be very little difference between these three evolutionary steps, except exponential increases in use of the novelty bell on my right handlebar.

So having a bike means I'll be highly mobile, and hopefully will have some solid field trips documented here over the next few weeks. At least until it gets too cold. I'm a huge advocate of walking, but now that I have this bike I feel like I'm commuting for the first time. What was I thinking before? I guess Boston is much smaller than Beijing.

Now I need to join a bicycle gang.

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Filed under // Beijing bikes China

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June 23, 2009

在北京

Someone once told me if you live in China for a week you can write a book about it; if you live there for a month, a magazine article; and after a year you struggle to form a sentence. So I better get on it before I'm at a loss for words.

I've been here for a week that's felt like a month. I landed at 5 am last Tuesday and in the proceeding 12 hours I passed swine flu inspection (twice), got a physical, attended job orientation, opened a bank account, and applied for a work visa. In the days since I've taken care of such trivialities as finding a place to live. I also have a bicycle.

This past Saturday I attempted to build my social network in a single day:

First I went to an opening at Three Shadows, a photography gallery in Caochangdi. The building is angular and Ai Weiwei constructed. I was actually really impressed by the curation, they make a conscious effort to do interesting things with the medium, like stack old filmstrip-looking things in corners against walls. I really liked these lightboxes containing photographs of miniature stage sets (above). Since my soon-to-be roommate Rosa Tu will be working at Three Shadows this summer I'll probably make it out there a few times.

Next I jumped a cab to Beijing's incumbent artistic hotbed, 798. I went to an opening for Kafkanistan, a Kafkaesque interpretation of tourism in Afghanistan. The exhibit came complete with mockup passports, photo opportunities with fake uzis and Afghani dress, and an inescapable Vice Guide to Travel vibe (read: Edgy Hipsters Do the Third World). Definitely a heavy American Apparel aesthetic that I was not feeling, much better was this exhibit of abstract acrylic paintings by Chinese artist Hu Shengping in the adjacent gallery. The highlight of Kafkanistan was a typewriter and of the 798 jaunt in general was these dinos and some cool graffiti, which I heard was made to order immediately before the Olympics:

Next was the ironic Texas barbecue, which was even more ironically (actually not) held on the roof of an Irish bar. Met the ex-pat network there then unfortunately rolled solo to see Mobb Deep. Bizarre on all counts.

Mobb Deep was of course short the incarcerated (but no less prodigious) Prodigy, but Havoc and well named fill-in Big Noyd played a few classics. By a few I mean two. Then a not so subtle segue to 21st century Deep. I left after the 50th g-unit shoutout.

So, that more or less catches me up. Of course there's an infinite surplus of tiny things that have happened I could write about. The last week has been dizzying and I've barely had time to decompress. More to the point, I'm in kind of an identity crisis with this blog. Sporadically traveling has been my MO for so long that I don't know how to write about staying still. I may need to repurpose this space. One idea I've had is to collaborate with other certified American friends in major world capitals. The result of that idea is a new blog called Megalopoli. In the mean time I'm going to get some food and learn how to use Grass GIS.

josh

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Filed under // 798 Beijing Caochangdi China graffiti Mobb Deep swine flu Three Shadows

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June 14, 2009

On this road pt 2

Road trip:

Drove through the South to move my sister out of her old and into her new apartment in Savannah, Ga. Unfortunately the trip was rather under-documented on my end, with the exception of my requested pit stop at the Georgia Guidestones, an azimuthally aligned monolithic entity shrouded in New Age conspiracy speculation and reactionary religious retaliation. A massive mantra in multiple languages (which at points sounds borderline eugenic) situated on a small hill in provincial Elberton, Ga, self-proclaimed granite capital of the world. An anomalous monument.

So, I got a job in China that basically looks like this. I'll be working at a software startup for the next two years. I'm relocating to Beijing in 10 hours. I was just reading this post from my last China pre-departure, it's funny how my life makes these circles. For my last night in the USA I visited some friends in Los Angeles' Chinatown. And I've just been invited to a Texas themed party in Beijing. Ha.

-Josh

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Filed under // Beijing China Georgia Guidestones Los Angeles

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December 22, 2007

It's cold but it's cool

I leave Beijing in 11 hours. Following the advice of a good friend I've taken my last few days here slowly, letting my obligatory last-minute holiday shopping, sight-seeing, and city slumming unfold at a pace that has allowed me to re-experience the small minutiae of Chinese life and culture that I long ago began to take for granted and will soon begin to miss the most.

It took me a few days to get a feel for Beijing. I practically experienced as much culture shock coming here from Yunnan as I did stepping of the plane in Kunming. Here I've seen modernized (and modernizing) China, a sprawling metropolis in the process of stepping up to the world limelight in preparation for 8/8/08. I didn't know much about Beijing besides Tiananmen Square, where I saw Mao's paternal, satisfied grill surveying the small troop of overt and covert police guarding the Chinese flag and breaking up any and every public "demonstration," including my friend's short-lived performance with a yo-yo he'd bought at the Summer Palace. In the middle of the Square I saw Mao again, here a waxy (likely wax) body interred in a massive mausoleum filled with silent tourists and businessmen visiting the spot for good luck. Mao's omnipresence was only matched--exceeded even--by that of the "Specially Licensed Olympic Commodity Merchandiser". Beside the countdown ticking away in a government building opposite the Great Hall of the People I of course encountered an endless stream of hustlers grinding to get mascot keychains and "official" t-shirts into my hands and foreigner funds out of my wallet. I wonder if Mao had a grave that wasn't guarded by two armed military personnel around the clock whether he would turn in it.

My first impressions of Beijing were not positive. All I saw was a giant, thoroughly polluted and ostensibly cultureless mass lacking the charm (and killer street food) of Kunming, which had begun to feel like my home base between my sporadic trips to farmland and frontier. After I got my feet on the ground and my head in the right place (i.e. into a winter hat) I made an effort to get to know this city for what it is. I visited the 798 arts district and for the first time saw a large, international contemporary art scene in China, splitting my time between a noise record shop called Sugar Jar and Galleria Continua, where I saw an interesting Anish Kapoor exhibit. I did some excellent hikes on the Great Wall, which allowed me to cross a World Wonder off the list and scope some spectacularly ruined, decrepit, and unpopulated sections of the planet's largest man-made structure. The most fun I've had here has been at the indoor markets, however, where all the Mandarin I've managed to learn in my short time here has culminated in an expert admixture of humor, flirtation, and pure will power aimed toward the end of garnering my last-day pickups at the "enlightened foreigner" discount.

And I am a foreigner. I've spent many hours in dimly lit internet bars writing posts like this, emailing you all, planning my future, pining for the familiarity and comfort of home. I distinctly remember each time leaving the wangba with the sun a little lower in the sky and thinking how leveling the internet is, allowing me to follow certain patterns of life that are my rote at home and that I can more or less maintain anywhere in this increasingly interconnected planet. Then I get yelled at by a 90-year-old woman furiously trying to sell me a steamed bun and a bootleg Adidas backpack, or led by the hand by a concerned onlooker who knows I'm lost and swears by the Buddha that it's much too far to walk back to my dorm on my own, or taken to dinner by the family of a friend of a friend I made on the basketball court, and I realize I could only be in China. Then I realize this is what I'll miss the most.

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Filed under // Beijing China Olympics

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