China - part one

so the show in phnom penh, cambodia was a little disappointing, especially after the great shows in vietnam. the venue was good, a german run arts house with regular events and screenings, however as i started to perform, so a bunch of chatty expats came in and just talked through the whole set. there were moments where i was going to move aroundthe space more to engage them, but somehow i knew they just werenot going to be quiet and listen... which was proven when beat poet antonio pineda joined me to read some of his works to 'musical' accompaniment. he got louder and louder to rise above the chatting, which of course then drove people away... a great shame, but then there will always be bad shows to balance out the good ones! after the show we went for drinks and i ended up staying out until daylight (no idea what the time was, as you will recall my phone was stolen in hanoi and that is my only means of timekeeping...). so for the whole of my last day in cambodia i slept off a hangover!

on the 1st july i got a taxi at 6am to the airport to fly to china. i still had no idea what was in store for me when i got there, but found my way out of the airport easy enough, changed some us dollars easy enough and although slightly ripped off by a taxi driver, got to my hostel. here i faced the prospect of sleeping in a room with 5 other smelly blokes or 3 so took the latter. i set up bed on a lower bunk, met a somalian guy wh was staying there for a year to study and a chinese guy who had no english but was super friendly.

wanting to venture out and explore, i asked at the desk if they had a map but was told they only had one in chinese. then of of the guys behind the desk asked why,so i explained i wanted to just wander around, find some food but not get too lost, and he offered to take me on a walk around the area, which was awesome. he showed me to a really cheap noodle place - a bowl of noodle soup and a bottle of coke came to 160rmb, or £1.60 roughly... then we wandered along nanluogu hutong, which is a kind of touristy alley, but has some great bars and snack places. and found me a map, which cost 80rmb, which apparently was also too expensive.

2nd july i wander around the city the same way as i went the night before, which would be west from the hostel, but then headed south from the landmark i recognised from the night before, the drum and bell tower. from there i headed to the forbidden city and walked around the west side of the perimeter until i got to tiananmen square. i should now mention the heat - it was around 35 degrees C. i was melting! and i could see most other people were too.always reassuring! from there i wandered up a street that i discovered was one i was going to try and find through the week, which has at least two massive bookshops with english language books in stock. i had finished martin amis's 'the information' - which is a great read by the way - and needed another travel book. i eventually plumped for the latest david mitchell. i took it very easy that evening as far as i can remember, having walked quite a distance and been roasted all day...

the following day josh feola who runs xp with his girlfriend lulu came to meet me and we visited the venue. a really nice space - i advise anyone who is traveling through beijing, and wants to perform, to play there! i looked over the place and found a few objects that i could possibly use in my performance, and then headed back to the hostel to meet another expat, brad seippel, who i met through his sister michele (whom i met at the mcneill street pumping station festival in louisiana last year). brad is also a musician, and we chatted music over food, heading back to xp to catch a concert in the evening. first up was a guitar and iphone duo playing trancey rock in the vein of spacemen 3, whose t-shirt the guitarist happened to be wearing. and then a guitar and bass duo with drum machine followed. all loud and pretty good, but for me too much use of loop station!

on the 4th i had to get up pretty early as i had a trip booked to the great wall. i was with a great group of people- 2 from the uk of nigerian descent, 2 from hong kong and 3 turkish guys who were hilarious. we were taken to a jade factory (and pushed to buy stuff), the ming tombs (or one of them), the great wall (one of the steepest parts - a solid 45 minute climb again in the midday heat, but good to do), lunch (which was pretty good and varied), a silk factory (where we were pushed to buy stuff), the bird's nest building (where we pulled up on the side of a road not very near to the building at all), a tea house (where we were pushed to buy stuff - and at this point the turks got really angry and stormed off to get a taxi back to their hotel!) and finally a tibetan health centre for a foot massage (and yes, once again pushed to buy stuff!!). it was a fun day out and i should have got contact details from the guys that were left on the trip as we all got on really well. i got back in time to have a wee lie down and then headed to xp once again to catch a fantastic violinist and an interesting guitarist, but again the loop pedal was very much in use...

the next day brad came to meet me, as i would be staying with him from that day, and had the afternoon off, so we dropped off my luggage at his place and then visited the temple of heaven to explore with microphone and camera... we were there a couple of hours, then headed out to the end of a subway line to see what there was out there. we found quite a poor area that suddenly turned into a demolition site, but with people still living in it... i did attract a little too much attention, recording the resonance in some holes in a concrete block, but generally people were friendly. i don't think many foreigners go to that part of town. we must have been walking for around 6 hours all together, so when we got back, and faced the prospect of going to xp once again,but having the added fun of it raining, we decided to call it a day and rest.

on the 6th i made preparations for my performance in the evening , and then headed to the forbidden city, to go inside this time. i don't think i have seen so many people in a place, except maybe in a stadium. it was incredible! because the site is just huge, but there were people everywhere! it was an ominous, gloomy day which i think helped the ambience of the place. oh, and i had my first 'tea girl' experience. a pretty girl approaches the single male foreigner and asks lots of questions, stating that she is learning english and wantsto practice. she will invite you to go and have a cup of tea with her. if you accept, you will have a nice chat over a cup of tea, and then be charged something like £200 for it! well folks, i didn't fall for it, you'll be glad to hear...

so, to the concert. li jianhong started the evening off with some fine noisy guitar gnashings, and then his wife vavabond played a subtle glitchy set using a light sensor on an iphone and laptop. i played my more recent set,with recordings from australia, argentina, cambodia and vietnam, using sound exciters on the stairway and a microwave to play sounds through them, plus grinding sea shells and getting some nice abrasive sounds from a metal dustpan. we also played a collaborative set between the three of us, which was nice, but i feel the solo sets were much better.

we met up with a friend of brad's called michael, whom i had met briefly earlier in the week over donkey burgers, and we had beers a plenty and great food until around 4am - as seems to happen after my shows!

the following day was definitely an easy one, not walking too far, catching up with emails, and then heading out to catch brad's concert that evening. we grabbed some awesome dumplings before the show, and then hung out with another american expat, also called michael as well as a scot, mary. brad's set was really nice, combining abstract electronics with pop tunes and a traditional instrument called a pipa. he was supporting a chinese 3 piece pop band who were very good at what they do and great fun, even playing covers of boney m's 'daddy cool' and calvin harris's 'i get all the girls' but changing it to 'i drink all the beers' - all the more arresting by it being sung by a very sweet looking young chinese lady.

a late night was not on the cards - although i think we still didn't get back until 3am - another meeting with michael #1 and his girlfriend, barbecue chicken and more beer... however i had to get up early to catch a 09:20 fast train to shanghai. following my friend josie's directions i arrived at the metro station closest to her place and then found none of the cafe's including mcdonalds had working wifi, so i had to ask 3 people if i could borrow their phone to call my friend! i got through, she met me, and after dropping the luggage once again we headed out to the central area of pudong to get something to eat and have a walk around.

Shanghai is a very different city from beijing, with a number of different centres and many more high-rise buildings - it seems a much more modern city, but i think i have to explore more....