Kid Koala at Yugong Yishan

“It’s not against the law to have a good time,” said Eric San, more popularly known as DJ Kid Koala, to a packed crowd at Yugong Yishan this Thursday evening. In a way, it neatly summarized San’s raison d’etre as one of turntablism’s most easygoing characters, and he leapt from one feel-good musical moment to another in a sample-filled set that soon had the crowd as upbeat and enthusiastic as Koala himself.

San is Chinese-Canadian, and his “Lei ho” greeting was warmly welcomed by the Southerners (and fellow Overseas Chinese) in the crowd. Though he may speak Cantonese, judging by his almost exclusive use of English, it doesn’t sound like he speaks Mandarin. It’s doubtful the audience even noticed—it probably didn’t hurt that the number of foreign faces outweighed Chinese ones—and he got the crowd moving early on with some signature old school beats over some fuzzy grunge and ragga tracks. San also threw in a Wolfmother sample, perhaps a nod to his recent side project, The Slew, which features the bassist and drummer from the antipodean rock outfit.

Perhaps one of the appeals of a Kid Koala show is San’s utter lack of pretension. Sporting a 60s kung-fu hero bowl cut, he looked more like a naughty teenager in his bedroom, messing around with his parent’s records—the fire siren-like breakdown of his parents’ beloved “Moonriver” a chief offender—than a street cred-conscious connoisseur of cool. Whether leaping between records—as always, sans headphones—throwing in the occasional goofy voice sample or flexing his remarkable scratching skills, Koala’s cheeky, irrepressible grin rarely left his face as he hustled about his tables, sweat dripping down his face.

Koala has described DJing as sometimes akin to having records that he’s listened to take part in a “dating service,” and if Thursday night was anything to go by, San would make for a most interesting matchmaker. M.I.A. rubbed shoulders with ragtime jazz figures, and harmonica-blowing Delta bluesmen mingled with the cocktail dress socialites out of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

After finishing his first set with signature record-as-trumpet crowd pleaser “Drunken Trumpet,” Koala returned, inviting two other DJs—opener DJ Jamming and a friend—to scratch alongside him.

Finally, after a cheerful, crowd-pleasing set, San ended with the haunting, moody “Videotape,” the closing track from Radiohead’s “In Rainbows.” It was a surprisingly mellow way to close, but perhaps echoed the cynical closing statements made by the ponderous (and talented) Chinese MC in the MLK shirt who opened, when he claimed “people in this world are only a little bit happy.”

In which, case, I strongly encourage them to come out in future for some groove therapy with Kid Koala.

Chinese visa processing center in Washington DC

I just noticed that the Chinese embassy's Contact Us page, including for the visa center in Washington DC, has apparently "been deleted."

So, just in case you didn't know, the center is located at:

Chinese Embassy in Washington DC
Address: 2201 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., Washington D.C. 20007
Tel: (202) 338-6688, (202)5889760
Fax: (202) 588-9760

It is not located at the Chinese embassy itself. Don't make that mistake, which I know I have!

Office hours these days are Mon-Fri 9:30am-12:30pm, 1:30pm-3:00pm

Concert review: Re-TROS at 2 Kolegas, along with Wu and the Side Effects, 24 Hours and ??? - September 12, 2009 @ 2 Kolegas

Originally published in Beijing City Weekend

2 Kolegas is an interesting venue. Normally, live music venues tend to be centered around the performer stage, so that no matter where you happen to be situated, the band is central to your bearings. Not so at 2 Kolegas, with its spacious outdoor grounds (perfect for an early Autumn Saturday evening) and comfortable seating, its small stage tucked away in the narrow indoor space behind the bar. As the temperature drops, I'm sure there'll be less appeal to lingering outdoors, but at this past weekend's shows, the bands had to really work to drag punters indoors.

The Mystery Band Whose Name the Web Doesn’t Divulge opened proceedings with a reasonable set of spiky garage numbers. Decked out in matching mop tops, tight trousers and pointy shoes, their mixed Fab Four Brit-pop aesthetics with generic-in-2009 American indie influences. The lead singer, with his Steven Tyler-sized lips, skeletal frame and bangs permanently shrouding his face, did his best impersonation of Julian Casablancas and Caleb Folowill, with excessive emphasis on the hoarse yelping aspect and too little on the actual holding of a tune. Their cover of Kings of Leon's "California Waiting" epitomized the singer's stylistic exorbitance: he managed to convert what is a modern-day pop classic into a tuneless, grungy shriek. Which is a shame, given that the songs, when they rose above the standard lock-step rhythms and angular riffs that have come to dominate contemporary indie rock, were promising and energetically executed.

This is a problem that soon-to-be-household (at least by Chinese rock standards) Xi'an three-piece 24 Hours avoids. Though their British influences are clear--they are named after the film "24 Hour Party People"--they stamp their infectious brand of danceable, precise indie rock with their own distinctive mark. What jumps out at initial listeners is the slick girl-guy vocal interplay between bassist Zhang Cheng and drummer Li Guan Yu, but what has become increasingly noticeable is the central role that Li plays. His expression suggests he's having his balls wrung as he's playing, but his ear drum-blowingly muscular, flexible style and creative rhythm changes are focal to 24 Hours’ appeal, driving their imaginatively-crafted, sassy tunes along. It was another crowd-winning set, and their soon-to-be-released album (on D22’s Maybe Mars label) will surely be one of 2009’s domestic rock highlights.

After the sharp, angsty sounds of the first groups, Wu and the Side Effects provided a rousing set of bluesy seventies rock that stepped further back into rock's pantheon, treating the growing crowd to a more laid back, funky set. Wu is certainly no slouch on guitar, and after so many four note staccato riffs from earlier groups, the crowd was receptive to the axe man’s limber solos, ably shored up by the slap-happy bassist and drummer.

Around one o'clock or so, as the temperature was dropping quickly outdoors, Re-TROS finally came on-stage. The crowd had filled in noticeably; the particularly strong showing from the city’s foreign contingent demonstrated how popular the three-piece is amongst Beijing's young expats. Lead singer and guitarist Hua Dong, the son of Nanjing intellectuals, has remarkable stage presence. He faces further towards bassist and co-vocalist Liu Min than towards the audience itself, and the give-and-take between the two helps to increase the act’s dramatic tension. Hua's speak-sing vocals, at times menacingly enunciated, at others delivered in a manic shriek, gain new intensity in a live setting, his skittish, tic-like movements evoking a younger (and Chinese) version of Ian Curtis or Morrissey. Liu on the other hand seems unflustered, winning fan boys with her good looks and icy, occasionally even melodic singing.

Re-TROS’ name arrived, according to an interview with Hua, from three disparate words, one of which each band member had chosen. From "rebuilding," "statues" and "rights", so the story goes, came "Rebuilding the Rights of Statues," as well as the clever acronym which one can't help but consider appropriate, given how faithfully the band draws from its heroes: namely, late 70s gothic rock and post-punk acts such as Bauhaus and Joy Division. Their sound is similarly miserable and tormented, each song building slowly and steadily upon drummer Ma Hui's locomotive rhythm and Li's deep, slinky bass, filled in by the raw white noise beauty of Hua's brittle guitar lines. And while it may be derivative in many ways, Re-TROS' sound is at least distinct from many of their Strokes-crazed Beijing peers, and carries an artful, intelligent depth that moves beyond mere primal punky expressiveness (not that that's necessarily a bad thing).

The tendency, it would seem, is to take Re-TROS gloomy motifs and discontent noise, and cast them upon a "post-Tiananmen nihilist" stage, where their music might suddenly come to represent all the pain and displacement of China's current generation of increasingly-globalized-but-still-repressed youth. Maybe, for some listeners, or even the band itself, they do. But such labeling proffers too neat a straitjacket, is simply too cut-and-dry for it to come across as anything more than "China can rock too!" journalist hyperbole. More importantly, it denies a talented group like Re-TROS the space to simply make great music, music which might very well be "anti-establishment," but doesn't have to wear the label like a Young Pioneer's kerchief.

That's certainly what they did at 2 Kolegas, and with the show coinciding with legendary Beijing glam rockers' Joyside's final gig, this listener for one would like to imagine that a baton is being passed towards bands as ambitious as Re-TROS, groups as eager to explore and scavenge through rock's past whilst making music that captures a complicated present and most uncertain future.

After the main set, the crowd called for more, and the band obliged with old single "Hang the Police." And while the crowd was largely hypnotized into head-bobbing absorption during the main set, they managed to work themselves into a heady little mosh pit for the finale, spurred on by the song's incendiary refrain.

--

Venue: 2 Kolegas - www.2kolegas.com

24 Hours: www.myspace.com/nopartypeople

Wu and the Side Effects: www.myspace.com/imnoteasygoing

Re-TROS:

http://www.re-tros.com/face.html

http://www.myspace.com/rebuildingtherightsofstatues

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=12847366

Tourism in Jiuzhaigou: between race and commerce

We hear him before he enters. Our 20 year-old host’s clear, unabashed tenor stops abruptly as he opens the door to re-enter, politely smiling as he resumes his role, refilling our cups of barley tea while we quiz he and his cousin on Tibetan customs.

Throughout the evening, a rotating cast of young performers, dressed in worn outfits of faux-animal skin and silk over their jeans and sneakers; some of them siblings, all of them related, stop by our private dining room to grace us with a song or two. Though all of the songs are Tibetan in origin, over half are sung with Chinese lyrics and when my father asks one of the teenage girls to sing the song in its original language, she informs him that she doesn’t know how, smiling with embarrassment.

For most of the evening, we only pick at the numerous Tibetan hors d'oeuvres laid out before us, skipping the walnut flower and yak jerky for the popcorn-like crunch of their staple cereal: qingke, or barley. Each dish had been formally introduced by our main host, a well-mannered young man just exiting teenagehood, whose dark, mid-length locks would not look out of place in a skateboarder video. He had also taught us how to toast others in local fashion: you dip your finger into your small glass of barley liquor and flick it at their face—a miniature water fight soon ensues—as well as some basic phrases using neat pneumonic devices: the Tibetan for unmarried woman (bimo) sounds similar to “don’t touch” in Mandarin, whereas the equivalent word for a married woman (yimo) sounds like “already been touched.” 

Soon enough, however, after his short collection of rehearsed explanations, jokes and phrases had been exhausted, we found the obvious lines that separated us—Han Chinese/Tibetan, customer/performer—had begun to fade, leaving behind four curious foreigners and several similarly curious locals. The mood relaxed, and we quizzed he and his family members-cum-performers on everything from the Tibetan custom of going without family names to the ethnic make-up of his school and the administration of his hometown. In response, his sister asked us what it’s like to ride in an airplane.

His Mandarin is excellent, much more standard say, than my father’s diasporic Malaysian accent or my tone-deaf Anglicized efforts, and he had learned enough Cantonese from southeastern tourists to bluff a conversation with my mother. His English, and that of his peers, however, was non-existent, but for a few key phrases: among them “yes” and “yeah!” When non-Chinese speaking Westerners attend their nightly dinner/performance, “we speak our language and they speak theirs,” he explained. The rest is communicated through sign language.

Halfway through the meal his tone became more downbeat, as he explained the lack of economic opportunities in Jiuzhaigou, the national reserve (literally “Nine village valleys”) around which his hometown sits, and perhaps China’s best known. Earlier, his uncle had told us related stories on our way to their performance house in his small, Chinese-made sedan. A straight-shooting, warm-hearted bear of a man whose eyes appear partially blind (not particularly comforting for his passengers), he had picked us up from the main road outside our hotel, for fear of our tour guide recognizing him and subsequently cutting off any future business.

“I am Tibetan,” he had established immediately. “You can trust me. We Tibetans won’t cheat you like Hans will,” he said, attempting to penetrate our initial skepticism. 80 Yuan per person for a full meal, booze, singing and dancing had sounded too good to be true, given that our tour group had attempted to sell us the exact same thing for 100 Yuan more, and we were grilling him for the catch.

But, true to his word, there was none. He told us we could pay him at the end of the night after he had delivered us back to our hotel, which is exactly what we ended up doing. On the way back, he asked if we wanted to stop to buy some yak meat, and when we had convinced him we were not interested—nor would we buy some when our tour bus inevitably pulled in at a store selling the same goods at inflated prices the following day—he sighed with bitter-tinged satisfaction. 

“If you go with me, you’ll see what the real prices are,” he had urged.

For this local ethnic performance business owner, it was as important to discourage tourists from patronizing dominant Han-owned businesses as it was for him to maintain his own living. Such are the unequal relations in Jiuzhaigou between local Tibetans, who are largely cut out of the lucrative tourist industry, and the outsider Han investor class, now reaping serious profits from the perennially crowded park.

Originally, our choice to go with a tour group—something most Western backpackers would rather eat duck tongue than consider doing—was guided largely by economics. My parents, having flown in from the States to visit their son in the distant southwestern city of Chengdu, are not particularly rugged, and Jiuzhaigou’s tourist-ready, stunning combination of azure lakes and alpine slopes, home to the endangered giant panda, seemed an ideal trade-off. 

To reach the park from Chengdu tourists have the option of taking either an 11-hour bus journey or a 45-minute flight. Short on time, we decided to fly. But buying the return tickets alone would cost around 2,000 Yuan per person when done by ourselves, whereas tour groups were offering three-day tours, flying in, all-inclusive, for 900 renminbi less. Its such numbers which these tour groups flaunt before price-conscious travelers which make them hard to turn down, even knowing full well of the hefty price inflation and unannounced shopping stops such tours involve (detours which many Chinese tourists, judging by their copious purchases of quartz jewelry, Tibetan medicine and local meats, don’t seem to mind). 

The problem, economic inequality aside, is that all of this consolidation leads to a very dry, impersonal experience. Independent tourism is scant, as the town has few, if any businesses that do not depend on the graces of powerful group operators. Tour buses, flag-waving guides and their swelling masses of domestic middle-class tourists, shuttle between airport and stopover, gaudy hotel and park entrance, flowing through the valley in three-or-four day spans in well-orchestrated, rowdy fashion. It’s no surprise that a lot of backpackers choose to skip the park altogether, preferring instead to head for less commercialized—though periodically blocked off—regions of western and northern China, much of which is still very Tibetan in culture, if not political jurisdiction.

This is indeed a real shame, given the marvelous mixture of yet-unsullied natural beauty and richly diverse ethnicities (Qiang and Hui people also populate the area, in addition to Tibetans and Hans) that Jiuzhaigou boasts. The reserve itself is truly stunning. On the initial bus ride within the park, our fellow passengers “waaaah!” with delight at their first glimpse of its trademark sites: crystalline reflection of mountain peaks against perfectly clear, impossibly turquoise-blue lakes. 

“Tai piaoliang!” (“Too beautiful!), they gushed to one another, some already pulling out their digital cameras.

My girlfriend and I laugh at such dramatic behavior, throwing our hands up like teenagers on a Six Flags rollercoaster as the crowd continues to periodically squeal and shudder with excitement, eager to disembark and begin constructing their extensive “Me at Jiuzhaigou” albums.

Contrary to some traveler reports, however, it’s still possible to escape the crowds, at least in spring (fall and holiday seasons are supposedly horrendously crowded, with a 150 meter passage taking an hour to cover, according to one friend). Instead of taking the bus between the various highlighted points—most of them lakes with the occasional karst waterfall and Tibetan tourist village—we take the footpaths, and the crowd quickly thins to the point where occasionally we find ourselves savoring moments of precious quietude. 

The paths are all painstakingly constructed through the middle of Jiuzhaigou’s natural environment so that the trail traverses steep mountainous slopes, or floods over from running streams located inches beneath. The carpenters’ work —performed by the same migrant Hans that construct towers from Beijing to Lhasa—is quite impressive, and in actuality very environmentally pragmatic. Whereas we Westerners often balk at the idea of having to stick to pre-constructed paths, it makes far more sense when one considers the number of tourists who pass through the park each year, and the heavy-treading threat to Jiuzhaigou’s delicate eco-system they would otherwise present. The laborers go to significant lengths in order to maintain the existing lay of the environment; for instance: cutting the planks into different pieces so that some of the trees within the path remain standing, sticking out through the path from hand-sculpted holes.

Yet even amidst the humbling grandeur of the park, it’s hard to not feel disheartened at the commercial inequity of the entire enterprise. As convenient and impressively well-constructed as it is, with regular buses traversing its smooth roads, world-class facilities and museum, one begins to wonder where the human element resides, if at all, within the park’s rather eerily deserted hills and forests.

We find it, albeit in passively subsisting form, at one of the main tourist villages, its stereotypically Tibetan architecture gussied up with new paint jobs and whose local shop owners offer snacks and cowboy hats, amongst other paraphernalia. We came looking for food, but when we ask about restaurants, one of the shop owners explains the park’s mysterious culinary dearth. 

“The park operators don’t allow us to open any,” he explains, offering us packaged snacks as the next best thing.

Instead, we are forced to go to the park’s central cafeteria for serious sustenance, where patrons are forced to pay 50-80RMB for food tickets, or alternatively, to make do on laughably over-priced instant noodles. We choose the latter option, and join the numerous other economizers at a table neighboring a newly married bride and groom. They are both in full costume, having made the trek out to the park with a professional photography crew in order to achieve a more spectacular wedding album. 

It was with great fortune, then, that a young woman handed us a business card just outside the park, offering the non-commissioned Tibetan performance. She smiled at our indignant reaction to discovering the level of profiteering which our tour guide had forcefully pushed upon us for an identical performance (“Why not? You should support our local industry!”, the tour guide had chided me, when I’d turned her offer down the day prior), guaranteeing that the show was legitimate.  

Which, it turned out, was true. It was not particularly professional, consisting essentially of a dozen young locals dressed in worn Tibetan costume, parading ignorant Chinese tourists around a done-up house, but they were authentic enough simply as themselves, providing us a chance for local interaction that was otherwise sorely absent. 

After dinner, we stepped outside and, beneath strung-up prayer flags, danced in unsteady, awkward unison, clasping hands in a circle about a pyre. The Tibetans, converting the widely-held Han stereotype that they all love to sing and dance into commercial opportunity, tried to keep the dance and its dumbed-down steps going, but we outsiders--some having just donned traditional local costume—were simply hapless. Before long, the group dispersed, leaving the young men who’d earlier shared their culture and lives with us so openly, to dance unencumbered with one another.

They moved without self-consciousness, performing the elegant spins and hand waves that characterize Tibetan dancing. But, being the diligent host that he was, our young skateboarder-locked friend soon stopped, approaching us to ask if we needed anything.

“No, we’re fine,” my mother responded. “You guys dance, we’ll just watch.”  

Or, as my father had earlier put it over dinner when he had asked us the same question earlier: 

“We’re here, you’re here, and we’re talking together. As long as we have these two things, we’re already very happy.”

Concert review: 24 Hours at D22

Last Friday, I saw the Xi'an three-piece 24 Hours tear up D-22 with their set of sharp, irony-tinged pieces of perfectly danceable indie pop.

One of the points that has garnered a lot of attention in coverage of Beijing's booming rock scene is the prominent role of women. 24 Hours is no different: their bassist/lead singer and guitarist are both women, and their lock-tight playing, bounty of jaggedly catchy hooks and no-nonsense, utterly confident stage presence left the crowd in a state of dazzled awe.

Musically, they recall a lot of the bands that have influenced this past decade's indie sound: the band themselves cite garage, disco and post-punk as influences, and will appeal to fans of Bloc Party, the Long Blondes and (perhaps most of all) Franz Ferdinand. The band's name comes, according to their Myspace, from the film "24 Hour Party People", the 2002 classic that covered Manchester's music community through the late 1970s and 1980s, and their Brit-pop roots gleamed clearly through their set.

They aren't however, slavishly imitative of their influences. For a Chinese band that performs in English, the group's lyrics are surprisingly good. Though it's not something to judge by a double standard, it needs to be acknowledged that writing songs in a foreign language is significantly harder than singing in one, and I strongly doubt that most folks living in Xi'an, central China, get the chance to use English as much as say, those from France or Sweden, other countries whose bands (think Phoenix and Peter, Bjorn and John) often sing in non-native English. Their lead vocalist, Zhang Chen, in a classic retro-black dress and straight-cut bangs, swung between delivering lines with dark, tongue-in-cheek gall a la Alex Kapranakos and nailing speedy bass lines in full rock-out mode. Her voice is already far more filled-out and authoritative than peers; beyond the yelps and shrieks, she’s also able to actually carry a tune. Additionally, the other two band members frequently sing as well, sometimes employing an engaging call-and-response male/female interplay that suggests a more danceable, gender-switched Von Bondies.

Their songs, while not breaking much new ground, are well-constructed, layered three-minute affairs, with plenty of impressive, angular riff exchanges between the guitarist and bassist. Meanwhile, drummer Li Guan Yu glided effortlessly from punishing four-to-the-floor rock to funky disco hi-hat work. And as high-caliber as their songcraft is, what really lifts 24 Hours into rarefied territory is their musicianship: the three-piece are already a ferociously tight, skilled rock machine. If they missed even a single beat, I certainly didn't hear it, and the way they consistently landed genre-leaping, mid-song rhythm changes and breakdowns was quite mesmerizing. That is, except for some in the crowd for whom the band’s rock righteousness was simply too much to contain, pogoing in riotous joy throughout their set. 

And though you can get a taste of 24 Hours on their Myspace, just know that the posted tracks do their live shows no justice, which is surely why fans are so eager to hear their upcoming debut album, to be released, I’ve heard, in October on Maybe Mars records.

Bigger Bang followed 24 Hours, and while their musicianship was not at the same stratospheric level, they show a lot of upside, while they continue to develop their sound and presence. Working much in their favor, however, is spry lead singer Pupi who, in her Karen O-evoking eye liner and bowl haircut, staggered and swung around much like, well, Karen O. She dominated the stage with her slightly deranged, smiling clown-girl poses, and though her voice was drowned out by her bandmates, she has an undeniable charm and pull. The band's sound is similarly YYYs-molded, moving from minimalist punky pop nuggets to softer, fuzzed-out ballads.

Earlier on, the crowd was treated to a couple of other decent acts: Defy, a fun, old-school rockabilly group in full greaser get-up whose set included lively renditions of the 50s classic by Eddie Cochran, “Summertime Blues” and the Clash’s “I fought the law,” as well as the proggy, surf-rock tinged jams of Rubber Phonograph Needle, who looked like they’d just walked off the set of a Monkees cover shoot and whose similarly well-dressed girlfriends/groupies stood motionless before the stage throughout their entire set. 

24 Hours: http://www.myspace.com/nopartypeople

Bigger Bang: http://www.myspace.com/biggerbangtheband

Defy: http://www.myspace.cn/defys 

Rubber Phonograph Needle: http://www.myspace.cn/rubberphonographneedel 

Travel information for Shaxi, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Yunnan province

Shāxī 沙溪 Travel Information

This is a wonderful town and I strongly recommend a visit for anyone out in the Lijiang/Dali region. It's got all of the traditional architecture and ethnic minority culture, with hardly any of the tourists!

Getting there: Shaxi is about three hours from Lijiang (Bus: 17RMB), four hours from Dali (Bus: 24RMB). From either, take a bus to Jianchuan. Outside Jianchuan station are minibuses with Shaxi signs in their windows. Rides are 8RMB per seat, and take approximately 45 minutes.

Lijiang to Jianchuan daily bus schedule:
11:00 am
1:30 pm
3:00 pm

Accommodation:
Number 58 Hostel (58号小院)
Tel. 86 872 4721358

Shaxi Cultural Center and Guesthouse (沙溪文化中心)
Telephone: 0872-4722188
Contact: Xiao Yang 13577851576
www.shaxiculturalcenter.com

More information:
General town information: http://www.teahorse.net
Shaxi Rehabilitation project: http://www.nsl.ethz.ch/irl/shaxi
Tea and Horse Caravan road: http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/2004vol2num1/tea.htm

Tiger Leaping Gorge

Woody Guesthouse
Tel. 13988712705 / 13988745996
QQ: 849224646

I would recommend Woody Guesthouse for those looking to spend a second night or coming in from Daju. Its located near Sean’s guesthouse towards the far side of the park for those coming in from Qiaotou, about an hour and a half from Tina’s and Middle Leaping Gorge, which I also strongly recommend. The views from the bottom of the gorge are incredible!

The owner is very friendly, speaks English well and the food was excellent.

Interpreting Chinese Youth Sub-culture as a Haughty Expat

Like many foreigners in China, I find myself spending a lot of time observing and interpreting Chinese culture, particularly its modern youth culture. A lot of the time, I find myself fighting the urge to be haughty and snobby, looking down upon whatever Western food attempt, miscued Chinglish effort, local rock band, modern art display and other examples of contemporary Chinese art and culture through my ‘oh-so-cultured’ Western eyes.

I can almost see the online video about disrespectful Overseas Chinese, where the ungrateful ABC walks around some upscale display condominium, pointing out the inauthentic, "knock-off Western" paintings or a particularly poorly matched choice in bedroom furniture. It's bi-polar in the unique way that being an expat in China so often is, because I feel like I spend a lot of time defending China from the ignorant, outsider opinions of people who write off China without having stepped a foot inside it, do not speak the language, and know nothing of the country beyond Western media coverage. My relationship with China is not so much "love/hate" as it is "defend/critique."

In coming to China, it is easy to look upon a lot of contemporary Chinese culture, particularly that of the yuppie/nouveau riche classes, as tacky, kitschy, derivative and naive, to look upon its interpretation of modernity as simply a sloppy attempt to imitate the developed West. And then, as does happen so often during conversations about this topic, expats (like myself) will bring up the Cultural Revolution, China's rocky past and how amazing it is simply for any of this to exist at all. We’ll continue that though contemporary China may be a long way from Tokyo and even further from London or Milan, it's still a whole lot closer than it was 30 years ago.

I came to Chengdu having heard of a nascent art scene, and was quite sorely disappointed to see just how undeveloped and small it really is. Newspapers frequently run articles discussing how hot Chinese art is in the market these days, yet sadly, when I visited the art warehouse district in Shanghai, I found that the art I saw there which struck me as most original was made by foreigners. Having come interested in discovering youth sub-culture and rebellion, I’ve found that too much of it appears to consist of kids in tight jeans and Chuck Taylors who listen to Panic at the Disco, the more enterprising of them perhaps starting a band that sounds almost identical.

That's not to say that this doesn't happen in the West: it does, in great amounts. But I suppose that's just the point: I'd come to China looking for something different--"Williamsburg-in-Shanghai", but unique in a Tokyo-ish way, was my naïve ideal. And where it is indeed very different, so much of what is deemed contemporary and young here seems directly imported, or bastardized in interpretation, straight from the West. Whether it's young couples eating a “romantic meal” in McDonalds on Christmas, college students imitating Kobe on the basketball court or middle-class kids at a punk show, much of it feels completely lacking in Chinese characteristics. It feels hollow, inauthentic, and lacking the sort of localized, independent adaptation that made rock and roll, punk and the Weather Underground so, well...cool.

In talking to a fellow foreigner about it, we noticed that so many of our young Chinese friends--all intelligent, open-minded and capable--were so devoted to going to America for college and fortune, that perhaps it left little opportunity to concern themselves with developing local culture and art. Most of them study hard sciences, not the humanities, and in their spare time they don't seek out "Carsick Cars" or the latest hip indie band, they practice their English through "Desperate Housewives." The most Chinese cultural activity I can point to is that some of them write Tang style poetry for themselves. Others take an interest in Tibet, minority culture and Buddhism. But even such an interest I've read comes originally from "Shangri-La chic" becoming fashionable first in the West, then being re-adopted by Chinese hipsters via Western media.

When you live in a society thrusting itself head-first towards a vision of development that is so culturally intertwined with being Western, and when so many of the best and brightest spend all their energy competing to get into MIT, it leaves little energy for subculture. My friend suggested that perhaps in a generation or two, the children of a more-established middle class will be more interested in the humanities, art and such things often considered non or less-monetary in nature. Perhaps that will be the case, though given the competitiveness of modern China, I wonder whether even future generations will be willing to take their eyes off the cash prize for long enough.

At this point, I suppose it's just too early to expect much of what the “cool kids” and their subcultures here to have developed its own characteristics. Having only recently gained access to Western media and lifestyles, many Chinese are in a ‘honeymoon’ phase in terms of their relationship with the West, possessing an idealized vision of societies of universal abundance and comfort. In reading Zachary Mexico's enlightening "China Underground," I was struck at how of all the counter-cultural youth he met, few of them seemed to be doing much that I would deem "innovative" or "unique." Whether this is partly due to Confucian, conformist education or other similar “uncreative Chinese” arguments is another argument altogether.

Eventually, when I go out seeking culture that feels sufficiently "Chinese," I find it amongst the elderly, and often enough, in parks: writing calligraphy with water brushes, singing local opera and playing Chinese chess or mahjong. I study kung fu at the local sports university, and though I occasionally do see some kung fu majors practicing, it's more likely that I will see track and field athletes taking a recreational tae kwon doe class. Chinese youth culture, to caricaturize, is more about Warcraft, NBA and KTV than anything uniquely local or particularly different, at least to Western eyes. That's not Chinese youth’s loss at all—rather, it's mine, as a foreign observer seeking out something that this country’s young people are not at all obliged to provide.

One China blogger at the site Lost Laowai has pointed out that more Chinese youth appear to be rebelling through fashion, a sort of baby step towards deeper forms of rebellion, borne of critical thought, dissent and creative communities. I can only hope this is true, but would imagine that such youth fashion circles are, in their own way, as conformist and imitative as mass culture, though admittedly within a much smaller community.

That's not to say there isn't creative, interesting stuff going on here, nor that I'm even aware of all of it. This is, naturally, just one non-expert perspective by a foreigner. Wonderful online platforms like neocha.com expose us to non-mainstream music and creativity that were previously unknown, and I occasionally do meet or hear about locals doing exciting work. But my point is that largely, in my (albeit limited) time here, I haven't seen much noteworthy "contemporary Chinese culture" to date.

Links:

Idealized images of Westerners:
http://www.chinasmack.com/stories/china-does-not-have-any-men-suitable-for-me/

One of the best Chinese bands I’ve heard: http://www.myspace.com/rebuildingtherightsofstatues

Zebra Music Fetival review (Day 3)

If Day 2 was Zebra fest’s endless party, Day 3 was the comedown, all mellowed out and tranquil. That is, at least, from a crowd perspective, where compared to the previous day, the festival’s finale had significantly less people, and only really started to fill out by evening. On stage, however, things were far from calm. For where the prior day was filled with more poppy, flamboyant groups, the last day’s line-up of buzzworthy bands were generally more angsty and indie in sound: think Queen versus Sonic Youth. 

The first set we caught at the main stage was Hedgehog, a highly-regarded garage-punk trio from Beijing with a pint-sized but surprisingly powerful female drummer named Atom. Their tightly-wound fury and knack for writing catchy songs could easily lend them lazy Nirvana comparisons, but seeing as they closed their set with a tidy cover of “Territorial Pissings”, I think it’s only fair. Similarly, at the end of their righteously well-received set, the lead singer somewhat awkwardly pushed over his Marshall with his guitar, and the drummer threw her sticks against the floor, which bounced like a tennis ball. It was by far the most (perhaps only) self-destructive ‘rock-and-roll’ moment of the entire festival.

Following Hedgehog was Carsick Cars, one of the only bands I had heard of prior to the festival. The China blogosphere hypes this group like the NME upon hearing the Strokes, and opening for indie royalty like Sonic Youth can only further such gusts of hot air. But, to their credit, they played a very impressive set, utilizing plenty of white noise and demonstrating the most learned and tasteful influences (they reference Velvet Underground and Yo La Tengo) of all the performers. It sounds quite absurd to talk of bands needing to be “learned” in rock and roll, but, after you’ve heard enough local screamo acts, you too will appreciate such ‘high-brow’ sounds. Carsick’s mood, aided by the dark abstract imagery on-screen during their set, is both nihilistic and hopeful, delivered partly as a sneer and filled with youthful exuberance and potential. If I was to postulate: they seem to embody the designer brand-rock subculture of current China’s rising youth urban middle-class, as the fashionable teens in the pit, screaming along to each lyric by heart, would suggest. 

In between Carsick Cars and yet another Beijing noise-rock group, Subs, came Ashura, one of Chengdu’s oldest (10 + years) and most established bands. Whereas the previous two trios sound seemed better suited to dark clubs, Ashura’s brand of Red Hot Chili Peppers-inspired, arena-size rap-rock was perfectly suited to the event. The four piece looked immediately at home, and almost upon taking the stage had the packed audience bouncing along to their soaring guitar riffs, fluid rap verses and ubiquitous hooks.

Subs also had the crowd moving, but in a different way. Their sound is far more raw and dissonant, all primal punk energy, and their amps were turned up so loud that they practically blew a path through the park, a la Mogwai. Their vocalist Kang Mao is China's answer to Karen O, leaping and screaming about in slightly deranged-looking make-up and bowl cut. We left early however to catch our friends in Proximity Butterfly at the Deputy stage.

Proximity are mainstays on the Chengdu foreigner nightlife calendar; their shows are like community meet-ups, something that Joshua (originally from the US) and Heather’s (Canada) inclusive personalities help to foster. Compared to the other groups at Zebra, I was struck at how much more ambitious their musical vision is: think Jane’s Addiction and RATM singing of a post-apocalyptic world, they mix Joshua’s philosophical/mystical subject matter with muscular, funky riff workouts. Where it feels like other groups are either in the process of finding their sound or describing more primal states of being such as rebellion and relationship angst, Proximity have already created their own entirely unique musical world.

They were followed by the Trouble, a good-natured ska band, decked out in matching suspender and bow tie black-and-white outfits. And while such music for me will forever be associated with high-school Reel Big Fish covers, it seemed the audience was enjoying the six piece’s cheerful, lighter vibe. Over by the Xiongmao stage, DJ Charlie, originally from Washington DC, was keeping a sizable crowd grooving with his signature mix of 90s hip hop and classics, jumping from Michael Jackson to James Brown to Chemical Brothers with enthusiasm. We left while headliners High Tone, a French dub group, mixed their dated sounding instrumentals before what was left of the slightly bemused crowd.

In talking to a friend about the show, we both agreed that little that we’d seen at the festival would be considered particularly new or ‘hip’ back in the West. But of course, we’re not at Glastonbury…we’re at Chengdu’s first ever serious music festival and so, for most of the thousands of locals who passed through over the past three days, seeing these bands must have been a significant, or at least eye-opening experience. It’s great enough that something like this is taking place here: let’s hope that they’ll make it an annual event!

Zebra Music Fetival review (Day 2)

Baoli Park, Chengdu

May 1-3rd, 2009

Zebra is the first music festival I’ve attended in China, and apparently, the first music festival in general for many of the attendees who made the trek out to Tulip Park, located next to the Panda Breeding Center in Chengdu’s northeastern suburbs. As it turns out, like everybody else I talked to, I was very impressed with the organization and crowd turn-out and participation.

The festival organizers have clearly done this sort of thing before: the park was well-signed, with ample distribution of port-a-loo and waste/recycling bin facilities. The main stage is truly impressive, with a powerful lighting and sound system, and carried the big-name pop and rock acts. The two smaller stages cater to specific genres—Panda (Xiongmao)—just like its Chengdu club namesake--hosts DJs playing electronic music ranging from drum-n-bass to hip hop, and the Deputy stage, organized by local indie hub Little Bar, hosts alternative guitar bands. Curiously, the festival’s Chinese name is “Robot,” and images of cute round robots abounded on signs and screens. 

The crowd, while a good mixture of families and backgrounds, was still predominantly young students and 20-somethings out for a good time. Beyond the music, one of the most interesting ways to pass the time was to scout out the fashion scene. On the whole, classic rocker apparel, including dark drainpipe jeans, and high and low-top Chuck Taylor’s were well-represented. Apparently, pork pie hats are all the rage, for both genders, and for girls, super-teased hair was making a huge comeback, alongside panda eye/Robert Smith make-up. I spotted one guy with a classic Moz-style coiffe and plenty of prerequisite takes on the traditional Johnny Rotten spikes, mohawks and emo fringes.

The best, and most puzzling outfit was undoubtedly a young bloke wearing a full-length Jesus-style muumuu. He’d also gone to the trouble of getting a silver hand printed on to the top of his shaven skull. It made exactly zero sense to me until a friend mentioned that some Cosplayers—in which one dresses up as Anime characters (this is Asia, after all)—were out in costume. Behind the main stage, a hippie-Africana drum troupe was banging away merrily, surrounded by a disproportionately large crowd of people. I figured this was because some of the drummers must have been foreigners, and given the sort of dread-rocking, free-spirited types who often make up such drum circles, they would prove the perfect spectacle to curious Sichuanese kids, a little more insulated than their east-coast brethren, busy forming impressions of these strange, wild-looking laowai all the while. It turns out though that a high-profile Chinese movie star was shooting a scene there, and folks had just swamped the place for a gander.

Music festivals in general tend to attract a diverse brand of folks, and I’m used to seeing plenty of spacey, tripped-out ravers and “permanent festival-goers” at Coachellas and other similar gatherings. But it was a trip seeing the reactions of locals to my fellow foreign friends. I spent most of the afternoon hanging out with friends’ Josh and Heather, who had set up a tent and camped the previous night. Josh and Heather—of the local rock band Proximity Butterfly—both sport spectacular dreadlocks, and locals come up often to have their picture taken with them. An Australian friend, Cam, also happens to have locks. While hanging out by their tent, he would also have locals come up asking for pictures.

“You know I’m not in the band, right?” he would ask.

“That’s OK. Can I still get a picture with you?” they would ask.

And because seemingly every Australian but me has dreadlocks in this city, our friend Jessie, would get the most wide-eyed looks of all. Blessed with fabulously artistic taste, Jessie has pink/blonde dreads, a number of tattoos and piercings, and was wearing a leopard-print dress and pink Docs…in short, she looks about as un-Chinese as you can get. While leaving the park that night, we passed a row of security guards in formation. One by one, as they turned to see her, their jaws would literally drop, eyes wide as a baby visiting his first zoo, in utterly confused, fascinated wonder.

As for the music: overall, it was quite good, without being some display of breakthrough artistic innovation. We came just in time to catch Reflector on the main stage, an energetic pop-punk trio who—from the bass player’s theatrical strumming to the lead singer’s snarling vocals—screamed Green Day. Such music is a good fit for these sorts of events—it requires little prior knowledge of the band or music to nod along, and the band’s fierce attack and tuneful songs carried the audience stylishly. The kids close to the stage were having a blast, bouncing along with double rock-sign fist pumps, and there was the occasional crowd surfer.

The band which followed, Underground Baby, sounded similarly Green Day-esque, if with a slightly more expanded pop-rock sound. It may have been simply that I was standing further away from the stage, but they lacked the intensity and magnetism of Reflector. The slide continued with VC Super VC, decked out in all-white, exposed-chest Bowie-era t-shirts, with hats and boas to match. Their songs moved even further into bland pop-rock territory, including a couple of contrived solo ballads.

All of the bands, however, lacked nothing by way of on-stage theatrics—from extended windmills to timed leaps and back-against-back 80s guitarist camera close-ups—it seems every band that played has earnestly studied footage of Woodstock and Live Aid. Watching these boys with their long hair, matching suits and skinny pants strut about, it felt like what I imagine it might be like attending a Chinese theatrical production of “Romeo and Juliet”: all the moves and lines are perfectly orchestrated, but it feels somewhat second-hand and inauthentic. But, rock and roll has always been about miscegenation and cultural borrowing (some might say theft), so in the end, who cares? The crowd certainly didn’t mind the moves one bit.

The best act on the main stage that night was surely the New Cools, who drew further back for inspiration to the sort of synth-driven quirky new wave of XTC and the Cars. Their lead singer had charisma to spare: wearing a neon multi-colored white tracksuit, he robot-danced and squealed bi-lingual hooks like “Everybody is here now!” (In English) and “I want to be a famous director!” (In Mandarin) As always, it was fascinating seeing how bands, as well as the jumbo-screens before them, split between Chinese and English. At one point, the screens flashed: “Make some noise!” and “Clap your hands!” sans Chinese. There was a delay of a few seconds before enough people caught wind and the crowd kicked into action. Also interesting were the public service announcements, which varied from: “You’re here to cheer on the bands, not to pick a fight!” and “Sing along, but don’t spit!” right through to the rather Chinese: “You follow orders…because you are Zebra music fans!” 

My favorite act of the day was Chengdu locals Mr. Chelonian (though I was informed that their name should in fact be “Mr. Turtle”). Either way, as last band on the Deputy Stage, they rocked with a sort of Guns ‘N Roses-meets-Peter Tosh swagger, jumping from bouncy reggae and ska rhythms to Little Richard “four to the floor” and Black Crowes-evoking blues jams. Such a rich mixture of styles displayed a kind of rock literacy and technical fluidity rare among other local acts. The singer in particular, has a smooth verbal dexterity unusual to Chinese singers, sounding like Brad Nowell if the late Sublime singer had grown up in Guangxi rather than Long Beach. I would also have to give their fashion style a thumbs up: the singer, in a loose polka-dot shirt, bandana and long curls, evokes Axl’s glory days, the bass player is all Slash, while both were off-set by the (excellent) guitarists Dali-hippie vibe. In such a way, they seem to neatly summarize the wonderfully eclectic hodge-podge of rock history that comprises China’s contemporary indie scene. 

Highlights from Flatnose: the Axis of Post-Soviet Totalitarianism tour

Ali Khan: From Delivery Truck Driver to Indian Don – Amritsar, Punjab

I met Ali Khan through my host in Amritsar, a pharmacy shopkeeper named Pankaj. He wore long, white kurta pajamas that washed gracefully down his rotund, teddy-bear shape. I had just flown in from Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, and was surprised at how refreshed I felt, back in the warm, chaotic streets of India. Having started off my journey at a Sikh wedding reception in Delhi almost three months ago, there was some sweet closure in finishing in Amritsar, home to Sikhism's holiest place of worship, the Golden Temple.

Ali Khan, referred to by others as "Babaji," meaning "Spiritual Leader", quickly took me under his wing. He proved a charming host: instead of crashing on Pankaj's couch, as is generally the case through Couchsurfing, Ali got me a free room at a nearby hotel, and free food at the M.S. Food Plaza next door to it. A powerful "fixer," known to practically everybody in the area, he devoted most of the two days I spent in town driving me around on his Honda motorcycle: to local sites, to client's homes, even to discuss trading opportunities between India and China with local wholesalers. But most generous of all, he opened up to me in a remarkably candid fashion, giving me a depth of insight into his profession, opinions and experiences that far less interesting people would ever care to offer.

If ordinary people have a problem, they talk to Ali. His power comes through his connections to high-ranking officials, and using this advantage, he gets people what they need—for a commission, of course. His three cell phones ring consistently. ("My office," he joked, referring to them.) While sitting in Pankaj's pharmacy, I watched an auto-rickshaw driver and his family come in, kneel respectfully before him, and ask for assistance with getting a doctor to inspect the driver's failing eyesight. They also asked him to visit their home, so that a neighbour they have been fighting with will stop squabbling.

"They just have to see that Babaji knows (the family), and their neighbours won't cause them any more problems," he explained, with a dash of boastfulness.

Coming back from the Pakistan border, where an evening show of patriotism runs nightly, we stopped at the home of a widow, whose husband was killed by terrorists. She sought a promotion in her government teaching job, but if she asked her superiors directly, she risked them demanding a huge sum of money or worse, to sleep with them. Ali could get her the promotion whilst saving her significant face.

Not all the requests he gets are major. When leaving a restaurant, the owner's son asked Ali to talk to his father about getting him a motorbike.

"I'll get you your bike," he responded.

In all the dealings I witnessed him attend to, Ali was never distracted or dismissive. He grants everyone an attentive, kind audience, and it is partly through his immense, natural charisma that I think he has become so powerful. Everywhere we went, people approached him and lightly tapped his knee, a sign of respect afforded to seniors in India. Some seemed to look upon him wearily, but most, even if they might fear him somewhat, displayed sincere affection towards "Babaji."

"Some people call me a criminal, because I deal in bribes and with goons (hired thugs)," he told me, unapologetically.

"But without me, how would all of these average people be able to solve their problems?"

A native of the troubled Kashmir Valley, Ali spent 13 years in the Middle East, working his way up from delivery truck to manager within the fast food industry. But after meeting his current wife, he moved back to Hyderabad in eastern India in 2003, hoping to work in a BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) center, using his fluent Arabic and English, or to open a fast food restaurant. After an unfruitful year of searching, he was unemployed when his sister-in-law asked him for help. A local don was illegally building on her land, a practice most people without connections in India are essentially powerless to stop.

Ali went to the illegal construction site, where he said he encountered about 25 goons, intimidating men who earn their livelihood through violence, or its implicit threat.

"You may be able to hurt me," he told them. "But I am from Kashmir Valley, and my family will send men to come down and destroy all of your families."

He was bluffing of course, but the local don bought it, and Ali was able to save his sister-in-law's land. Word spread fast of a new don in town, and soon people were approaching him asking for assistance in their own affairs. Without trying at all, Ali became a broker between the local dons--the same ones he had stared down previously--and ordinary people.

As his power grew, he took the extreme step of having a police officer fabricate a charge against him, imprisoning himself for 21 days in India's largest prison. There, he became friendly with five major dons doing time inside, and it was partly through them that he learned some of the extortion-and-blackmail methods he explained to me.

"I don't keep enemies," he explained outside the pharmacy. "I either make peace with them, or destroy them completely."

One method he has employed involves calling in false charges against an enemy, each charge being called in to a different police station. After being released from one prison (a good beating having taken place inside), the person is immediately arrested by the next station, and so on each day, until he agrees to submit to Ali. The police stations take the bribe, and people learn not to make trouble with him.

In a drunken rage, his neighbour in Hyderabad once tried to attack Ali with a sword, narrowly missing. Ali had charges pressed against him in Punjab, on the other side of the country, where the neighbour was detained for five months, while his family begged Ali to release him.

Exploiting the country's inefficient bureaucracy and utterly corrupt police force is fine and well, I thought, but how does he establish such high-ranking political connections, those through whom his power ultimately rests, in the first place?

Often enough, he laughed, through the same bluff he used against the local don in Hyderabad. Ali will call up a police superintendant or similar official, telling them that he knows their superiors, even if he does not. He doesn't disclose his intent to them, but merely takes them out for meals, and later on, drinking whisky until 4 am. By about the third or fourth session out, in the midst of their drunkenness, the official will have revealed some dark detail about himself that Ali can later use for leverage when asking favors.

"Illegal property, women, booze, drugs...every man has a weakness," Ali smiled. "And I am very smart at finding a man's weakness."

When chatting inside the hotel, waiting for Pankaj to open his shop, Ali showed me a photo of a young woman he kept on his cell phone.

"You see the mark on her neck?" he asked, unusually sombre for someone extremely convivial with those he meets.

"They used telephone wire to strangle her."

The woman was 19, a young bride who Ali had cared for like an uncle, buying her saris when her single mother could not, even sleeping in the same bed and washing her when she was already 17. Ali had helped to arrange her marriage to a very wealthy family. The bride murder though, was not over a supposedly insufficient dowry amount, as with other cases he has dealt with, but education. He believes the girl had gotten into a fight with her host family over continuing her schooling, and they had beaten her. Shamed and afraid she would complain to outsiders, they decided to murder her, then bribe the police and cover up the investigation, claiming it was a shower accident.

When the girl's mother called Ali after finding out what happened, he gathered 200 people to go to the groom's home. There they lay down on a nearby highway, stopping all traffic, whilst chanting the provocative slogan: "Pakistan! Zindabad!" ("Long Live Pakistan!")

But why chant "Long Live Pakistan?"

"Because if the media comes and senior police find out that there have been some pro-Pakistan protests in this district, the local police will be in serious trouble," he explained.

Having turned the police over to his side, Ali had the bridegroom arrested and the 200-odd crowd stormed the station, beating him. Presently, his family is paying huge sums of bribe money to keep him from imprisonment, and have hired a powerful lawyer (Ali knows him) to represent them. Yet for now, Ali thinks they will try to keep the groom inside for fear of revenge murder. Every 14 days after temporary bail, he sends a group of people to hurl insults at the groom outside court.

Ali took the murder personally, like losing his own daughter, and the rage is subdued but still clear as he retells the story.

"I broke every piece of glass in their house. The windows, the kitchenware, the TV...everything."

And even though he usually doesn't believe in killing, he has discussed the matter with the bride's mother, who has a 14 year-old son. As a minor, if he shot the groom himself, the boy would only be in jail for seven years, particularly given the connections that Ali can pull.

For a man who doesn't read or write Hindi, Ali wields remarkable influence over the handful of cities which he constantly travels to and from. But when I asked whether he preferred his current job to, say, an ordinary white collar profession, he responded immediately.

"If I could choose, I would like a family life like Pankaj's...maybe to own a restaurant. I don't want much from life," he confided.

"But I'm in too far now. If I don't do anything, people call me. If I sit at home, the police will ask for me."

It sounded surreally like a scene from a "Godfather" movie, except shouted over his back through the dusty, crowded streets of Amritsar, whilst he took me to the train station.

Besides, what would the cities that Ali works in be without him?

For me, a traveller who grew up with the chance to live and work in a society that offers opportunities and a system of rule of law that most Indians could never imagine, I find it difficult to consider the sort of brute street justice he metes out desirable. Yet for the hundreds of ordinary people that he has helped, sometimes on commission, but sometimes on donation basis, Ali gets them the dowry sum, the reduced hospital payment sum, the promotion...the small benefits that allow them to get by a little easier in a system where normally only an elite few pull every string.

On my second day in town, Ali took me to visit a former client, who was feeling unwell. Her husband and children treat him like family, and his concern for her, like his concern for Pankaj and many others that I met, went well beyond that of some stereotypical, cold-hearted gangster. I asked him if this empathy for others comes from his Muslim faith (A heavy smoker and drinker, he considers himself a "bad Muslim.")

He shook his head. "I've always had it inside me, ever since I was a child."

"Call me when you get to Delhi," he requested, before leaving me at the station platform. "Otherwise, I'll be worried all evening."

But before the train even arrived in Delhi, he was already checking in.

--

Mohammad and Mike: Escape plans, from the Mythic Cities of the Silk Road – Khiva/Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Mohammad and Mike are both keen on emigrating to the West. But where one has a plan, the other is simply hoping for something special.

Mohammad is Uzbek, but his English flows with a natural, American accent.

He studies English in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, which is an independent republic within Uzbekistan. I had just come from Nukus the previous day, having separated from the travelling friends I'd made first in Esfahan in Iran, then bumped into in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, and who were also travelling on to Uzbekistan. Nukus is home to the famous Savitsky Art Museum, which houses thousands of paintings by Uzbek and other artists that were considered unfit by critics during the period in Soviet history when only official Stalin-approved Socialist Realism artwork was allowed. I'd gained a quick, fascinating introduction to a land few people have heard of, let alone pronounce. We'd agreed to meet up in Khiva, famous for its slave trade during the mythic days of the Silk Road.

Mohammad makes money as a tour guide there, but had agreed to show us around free of charge to see some lesser known sites, outside the iconic mud-thatch walls that enclose Khiva's old town, from which the European tour groups that flock rarely step out from.

"Some of the old people complain that things were better during the Soviet times, but that's because they are lazy. They expect the government to give them a job," he told us, as we walked towards the Emir's old guest palace.

"Look at that girl over there. All she can do is manual labor, carrying that bucket of water. But I can earn money through my language skills."

As he showed myself and some backpacking buddies around, effortlessly rattling off facts all the while, he begun to quiz us on moving to London. Cost of living, opportunities as a Russian teacher, getting a student visas...in exchange for his insight into local Uzbek life and a free tour of town, Mohammad was learning how to make it to the promised land. A good trade, all in all.

In contrast, Mike, as he had us call him, was less smooth about his intentions. I met him through his friend, Sukhrob, the only local in Bukhara that agreed to meet up with me, a few days after we left Khiva. We went to a bar near Lyabi-Hauz, the peaceful square around a pool in the city's famed old town.

After less than an hour, Sukhrob left suddenly, apparently to take care of some sort of business. When we had first met, I asked Mike what his job was.

"Personal trainer," he'd responded with some hesitation, and Sukhrob had interjected to help him explain he works in people's homes. But soon after, he told us he was a school teacher, and invited us to speak to his class of 14 year-olds tomorrow. My travel partner Caroline and I agreed to go the next morning.

When Stalin carved up the Central Asian states, he handed them national identities where previously only semi-nomadic tribes and loose ethnicities used to exist. In Uzbekistan, Bukhara and Samarkand, two of the most famous cities of the Silk Road period, are majority Tajik speakers. So it was interesting to see how Mike, a native Tajik speaker who considers himself Uzbek, referred to Tajiks from neighboring Tajikistan.

"I don't like them. Tajiks are wild," he told me. "They don't know how to behave properly."

Hungry for a taste of Uzbek club life, I headed out with him, after dropping Caroline back at the hostel. Soon we were walking in the pitch darkness, out from Bukhara's winding, narrow old town streets, away from all the tourist restaurants and handicraft stores and hotels, and into the main political center, that separates old from new Bukhara. The utilitarian Soviet football stadium was on our left, new monuments, celebrating the rule of President Islam Karamov, and stark, rectangular glass government buildings stood on either side of us.

There was hardly another soul out, it was extremely dark, and I was walking towards a club in some posh hotel with a man I hardly knew. At some point, I wondered, will my good faith in strangers I meet online in Russian and Tajik-speaking, post-Soviet Uzbek dictatorships land me in harm's way?

The club felt seedy and desolate, and charged a cover I wasn't willing to pay for both of us. Mike had apparently neglected to bring any money, and on my shoestring budget, I decided it was time to head home.

After giving up his efforts to get me to walk to another club, Mike agreed to accompany me back, and soon the topic shifted to overseas friends. He spoke of two acquaintances that had made it to Australia, and begun to ask about his prospects of finding work there. Not wanting to get his hopes up, as with the many people who ask me to help them go to Australia that I've made on this trip, I told him that they only take skilled workers in particular fields, and that even then, it's very competitive.

"But what about other jobs?" he asked. "Like a construction worker, a car washer...jobs like that?"

Mike claims to have taught himself English alone, which would be quite an achievement given his relative fluidity. He begun to curse the Uzbeks who'd made it to the West for failing to help people such as himself to come over. This in turn led to a more general screed about how the people today are "too wild, rude and selfish."

As we neared the hostel, all I could mutter feebly is "Good luck with your dream," as he referred to it. But he continued to press me on the topic, using the euphemism "selfish people" to imply, well, me. Just as we reached the steps of the hostel, he gave it one last pitch:

"I'm still waiting for some one person to make my dream come true," he continued. "Maybe I can give that person a gift, like some money, and they can write me a letter to go to Australia..."

I looked to him, a young, pimply-faced man, hardly 20, likeable enough and with English skills far superior to most of his peers. He saw in me some golden opportunity he had to push for, and though there are millions of others just like him, just as there are millions of beggars who yearn for your change, I thought for a moment of saying something other than outright refusal.

Something along the lines of: "I can see if I know somebody," or "I'll see what I can do to help."

But instead, I awkwardly spouted: "Well, I'll see you tomorrow morning then," in reference to our earlier agreement to talk to his class.

Caroline and I waited for him the next morning for half an hour, and when Mike didn't show up, neither of us was surprised.

--

Hossan and Hassan: Smoking in an Empty Club in Tashkent

Where Mohammad and Mike are working on getting there, Hossan and Hassan have already made it. Well, at least out of Uzbekistan, which is no small achievement, given the amount of activity one sees at Tashkent International Airport, the most desolate, emptied airport I have ever seen. There, you cannot even buy goods in the local currency, Som, but must use Euros, Pounds or Dollars.

It is surely a symbol of the country's continuing struggle for national identity, when the national opera house, in staging its traditional Uzbek dancing performance, uses Russian to introduce performers, rather than Uzbek. But later that evening, having attended the performance, a mix of traditional dance with sporting efforts at belly dance, flamenco, samba and pop idol, I met Hossan and Hassan, twin brothers, at Diplomat-S, a club in the heart of Tashkent, Uzbekistan's Russified capital.

It was not quite midnight, and few people had arrived that Halloween evening. Almost all of the tables were reserved, and as the evening wore on, we were shuttled about by bouncers and bartenders telling us the few locations within the club at which we were entitled to stand.

"90 percent of the girls here are prostitutes," Hossan explained, and proceeded to educate me on prices and tastes.

"I don't like Uzbek people," he told me, "even though I am an Uzbek. They just want to f*ck each other all the time, for money...Kazakhs are better. I don't look Uzbek, so if I talk English to them, they think I'm a foreigner."

When I asked what he does, he told me he is a model and an actor. He pulled out an iPhone, and fast-forwarded through a video to show me clips of him punching a bag, talking to girls and other scenes from a film released in 2007 throughout Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. When Hassan came over, he showed me a popular Sprite commercial in which Hassan jumps into a pool.

He spoke of the model girls he slept with while modelling for over a year in Bangkok, of working for Diesel in Dubai, even of a short-lived stint as an English teacher in China, which happens to be my most recent job. Yet I can claim no affiliation with Christian Dior or Brazilian models, as Hossan does, with almost effortless cool.

"Why did you come back to Tashkent?" I asked, if he disliked the place so much.

"To get married," he said, matter-of-factly. At 26, he felt already past the ideal age for Uzbek youth to marry (23 for men, 19-20 for women) and he wanted an Uzbek wife.

"Uzbek wives are better," he went on. "If you marry a Russian or a Korean, they will want more things. But an Uzbek wife will cook and clean for you."

--

Park, North Korean refugee to Trinidad and Tobago, Coconut Product Seller

I have a penchant for providing biographical details to strangers that are outright false. In high school, I convinced my entire grade that I was moving to Perth, two hours away, and would never see them again. The morning back from holidays, one of my best friends punched me so hard in the arm I struggled to write in class. Different professions, unusual hobbies, the riding of kangaroos to work in Australia...if there's an audience gullible enough to believe it, who am I to deny them a good yarn?

So it was a match made in backpacker heaven when I found out that James, an Englishman I travelled in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, had successfully conned the Chinese into believing he was the drummer in an Eagles' cover band. Why the drummer? So he wouldn't have to sing for curious locals, of course.

In Iran, I found that many people thought I was Afghani, due to the large number of Afghani refugees and immigrants working there. In Uzbekistan, try as I might, people refused to believe that I am from Australia, continuing to tell one another that I am Korean. So, rather than fight it, I decided to become, in a story developed with James, an honorary North Korean.

Over pints in the Blues Cafe, an American-inspired bar in Samarkand, once capital of the legendary Timurid Empire, we hatched our tale. A refugee from North Korea, I had arrived on the shores of Trinidad and Tobago, where James, a native there, was a coconut farmer. We had gone into the coconut industry with a fellow travel partner, a half Sri-Lankan Englishman named David, who we concocted to be our spiritual guru. His sect, an obscure offshoot from Sikhism, replaces the Sikh turban with half a coconut, and we three were currently business prospecting in Uzbekistan.

"What's your name?" asked a friendly Russian at the bar.

"Uhh...Park," I replied after a lengthy pause, having decided on the spot that "Park" worked well in the case that I accidentally spurt my actual name.

The next evening, when James and I were delivering our pseudo-biographies to another bartender, she responded "Korean? Oh, our bartender is Korean too!" The back door swung open and sure enough, out she came, looking vaguely Korean. It was only then that I recalled that Uzbekistan, amongst other Central Asian countries, has a significant numbers of Korean immigrants that had been brought over during Stalin's reign.

My face dropped. The only Korean I know is "Anyang haseo!" and I doubted that would cut muster before a native Korean speaker. The game was up, and I was about to send our merry ship sinking, ever so embarrassingly, to the bottom.

"Speak Chinese!," James whispered frantically, seeing how speechless I had become.

Of course! I am a Chinese-speaking North Korean!

So, after asking if she was Korean in Chinese, the bartender didn't respond. But she wouldn't have known anyway. It turns out, thankfully enough, that she, like many young Koreans who grew up in Central Asia, does not speak Korean, (nor Chinese), but simply Uzbek and Russian. Off the hook! But only narrowly.

In their inability to speak Korean, with Russian names like "Sergey," who was my Korean-Uzbek taxi driver, I felt an abstracted but distinctive solidarity. I too did not speak any Chinese at all before moving back to China in order to learn it, and was quite happy to assimilate into Australian society, much in the same way that Koreans in Central Asia seem to have there.

But next time you're in Uzbekistan, if you're ever hankering for a change of diet, having tired of the plov (pilaf) and shashlyk (lamb kebabs) that form the staple of Central Asian cuisine, you can thank heavens they didn't stop making their own cuisine as you tuck into some delicious kim chi and bi-bim-bap!

And as for Park and his fellow enterprising coconut sellers, they too have been left behind in Uzbekistan.

(Written originally in November, 2008, during travels through Central Asia and India)