beginner's luck
well this is a bit overdue, but i guess i'm just starting. i've been out of the states for a month now. i spent the first two weeks in thailand, which was rather uneventful since i had to follow my parents around with a group of thai physicians in america. the only highlights were getting massages and eating some good food. after that i took a plane to beijing, which has changed a lot in a year. all the bars that i used to go to are now all gone- one whole bar street has been torn down and the "bus bar" that i loved to hate is being replaced by some large building. it seems like the hip-hop scene there has been developing too, i never got to go the district near all of the colleges, but that area seems to be happening. i might end up going back there and living there for a few months after i'm done with shanghai. i talked to one of the promoters for a bar and he was going on about how beijing hip hop is much more real than shanghai hip-hop because shanghai is just a bunch of rich kids doing hip-hop cause they can and it's all about the image. he gave me an example of one of the beijing hip-hop mc's that lives in a hole and spends all of his money on cds and clothes. so his idea of real hip-hop is being broke and living in the ghetto. personally i think that's a stupid requirement, but it does shed some light on the possible existence of an "underground" scene of people that are really dedicated to hip-hop. beijing seems to have more of that rebellious spirit- which you can see in the thriving punk scene and art community that doesn't seem to be as strong in shanghai. but i decided to stick to my plan and check out shanghai for myself- it'll be instructive either way. i didn't get much "research" done in beijing though, i spent all my time hanging out with one of my teachers from my study abroad program and christine shin from swat. basically i just ate all the time haha, i have a bad effect on people, i have made 3 different people gain 6 pounds in 10 days just because i was around. heehee.
but anyway, i arrived to shanghai on tuesday after a 14-hour hard seat train ride (in china they have 4 classes on the trains, hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper) that was mildly unpleasant. the only redeeming quality was that it only cost me $20 to get from beijing to shanghai, but i think after having to deal with a tall chinese guy (yes they do exist!) sitting across from me taking up all of my very little leg room i would've gladly paid an extra $20 to be able to lay down on a bed. anyhow, it was relatively easy to find a nice apartment since shanghai real estate is a renter's market, a lot of the real estate was bought up by investors- so they're all trying to get people to rent their places out. all the streets are lined with small real estate agencies with ads posted on their windows detailing all the places they have for rent and for sale. in some of the outer districts there are people just standing around on the street trying to get you to look at the houses they are renting out. i spent 9 hours walking around looking for these real estate agents in the district i wanted to live in (the french concession- really cute and green because all the streets are lined with sycamore trees). i saw a lot of random stuff that day. one, i saw an old chinese woman that was on the ground with half her head covered in blood. there was a bus parked in front of her so i don't know if she was hit by the bus or if she fell off of it. some guy was trying to get a taxi to take her to the hospital, but the taxi driver wouldn't have the woman bleeding all over his car. the man was insistent and was holding on to the door as the taxi tried to drive away, but the taxi driver went on about how if there was blood on his seat no one would ride in his cab and drove off. all these people tell me that shanghainese people are all about making money and i guess this is an example of it. but i'll refrain from making broad generalizations and hope to meet people that are have more morals than the aforementioned taxi driver. i don't know what happened in the end, but i hope that woman got to a hospital ok. two, a guy singing opera to an accordian accompaniment, how random. but i saw them again the other day so i guess they do this often. three, the sandwich board of the future. some guy was dressed all in silver, kind of like those guys in those old intel commercials, with a tv screen and speakers on his back. he was advertising some casio keyboard for kids, but he just basically just strolls up and down the street at night. most people just look at and laugh at him, so i don't know if this'll catch on or not haha.
anyhow with my mediocre chinese and a lot of guesswork (shanghainese sounds so strange to me, sounds kind of like korean but not as nice) i was able to look at a few apartments myself and rent a place out. i'm in an old chinese walk up right off huaihai lu (one of the main streets running through shanghai) smack in the middle of the downtown shopping district... all for a cool $225 complete with furniture, tv, fridge, air condition, small kitchen, bathroom, etc. i'm glad i chose to live alone over a nicer, but further place with 3 chinese roommates. i guess it could've been a good thing to have chinese roommates, but i think all the possible negatives outweighed the possible positives so i chose the place i live in now. it was rather dusty and dirty when i moved in so i've been spending the last few days buying cleaning supplies and cleaning the place up so everything isn't covered with a layer of dust (but its much better than beijing). now i'm settled in more or less and tried to make it a little more homey with a short trip to everyone's favorite swedish store, ikea. just like in the states, except there seemed to be a migrant worker party outside of ikea since they found one of ikeas water outlets and were all taking showers and lounging about on the street in their underwear. i guess it could be a little reminiscent of opening up a fire hydrant on a summer day in new york city but i wouldn't know anything about that.
i was too tired to go to the hip-hop night on thursdays, which is supposed to be the happening night- but i managed to get myself to go to a shanghai rap cd release party last night. it looked rather cheesey to me on paper (www.shanghaining.com)- the ads are reminiscent of those "hip-hop classic" cds that are sold on tv with weird handrawn artwork and the feeling that its really trying to hard to be cool. but i decided to check it out anyway, or at least walk by the venue and see if it might be good. i walked by at 8:30 planning to get something to eat and just find out where the venue was at... and there was a bunch of people standing outside for a show that started at 9pm. lots of guys all gansta'ed out with tilted baseball caps, stickers intact, fake bling, throwbacks, the whole nine yards. i decided that it would be worthwhile going, so after getting some noodles i headed back. when i walked in some guy was asking me if i was media but i didn't understand him, so i just shook my head no, which was stupid because i could've gotten in for free. next time i'll just make something up and hope for the best haha. anyway, i met some producer for sony records in the first few minutes- so hopefully i'll be able to contact some of the artists through that guy. he seemed really eager to talk to me for some unknown reason to me, but he gave me his business card and everything without me even asking for it. the whole show was sponsored by pioneer dj (for those in the know, they don't make turntables they only make mixers and cd players) and pony and a few other people. i'm not sure if it wass just because it was sponsored by pioneer but all the djs were using the cd players that emulate turntables. they had two djs do performances if you want to call it that. the first guy was basically just practicing in front of us all, he just played some beat and scratched over it.. when he got bored he changed the beat and/or sample and continued. while he was doing this, two girls were dancing behind him, probably to distract the onlookers or to keep people entertained because the dj certainly wasn't. for me at least, the crowd cheered when he would do remedial things- i could unfortunately do something more interesting even though i'm 2 years out of practice so that doesn't say much. the next dj was more promising though, he actually performed and did some interesting things. he even mixed some old chinese opera together and then put one over a beat which wasn't too bad. i ended up talking to one of the dancers because i heard them speaking english to each other. a multi person! half taiwanese and german whaddya know. apparently she teaches classes and stuff, so she gave me her number and hopefully i'll go dancing with her at some point. so she got paid $40 to dance for like 15 minutes, not bad! maybe i can get her to hook me up if they decide they want a dancer that is not a hot girl. getting paid to dance would be a wonderful thing, since i would be doing it anyway and it would be a good way to meet other dancers. apart from the djs, they also had performances on the 3rd level. all the people in the groups were gangsta'd out, nobody dressed normally- rather anything you would not see in a mainstream rap video. i thought it was interesting that there were no solo artists! all of them are in crews- i guess that reflects the current state of things in rap in america, but there was only one song that was basically just one person. most crews have a woman mc too, which i found surprising. they weren't that bad either, the flow here is much better than in beijing- which is probably due to shanghainese dialect- which strung together and not as choppy as the beijing accent. although i think it would be a lot easier to rhyme with a beijing accent because they just tend to add the 'r' sound at the end of stuff which is convenient in a rhyme structure. anyways, sometimes they would forget their own lyrics which is funny to me- and i guess they don't have the capacity to freestyle because they just kinda stop and look blank.. and then say sorry while they're on stage. hell you could just say everybody say HEY! or something. i guess they need to work on that. another funny thing was they incorporated costume changes and all the people in the group more or less matched. i thought it was funny, kinda like when you see couples that match. the rap here seems to be very city pride since it mainly uses shanghainese and they name drop shanghai all the time. at about 12pm the performances stopped and they were supposed to have a dance party afterward. i guess they didn't hire a proper dj for it though- which was smart because no one wanted to dance. they just all left. i was like what the heck, but apparently the gansta crowd doesn't dance... they just do the rockaway, lean back.. (haaa. sorry i had to). but yeah, i think this only showed a little part of what is going on here, at least i hope so, since this isn't exactly what i'm looking for. (for pictures visit the shanghai diaries shanghai hip-hop photo album, and for a second opinion see the shanghai diaries entry)
i have yet to call up my contacts- so i'm sure there will be plenty of other things to explore.
shanghai is treating me well so far. it's much prettier than beijing. the architecture is MUCH nicer (beijing is tearing all the cool old stuff and replacing it with really badly designed bulidings), and they have a better taste in what is cool/stylish. it seems to be alot less chaotic than beijing- much more orderly and organized. everything has a timer too, which is great. the crosswalks let you know how many seconds you have to walk so you aren't running for your life across a 8 lane intersection, the subway tells you the exact amount of seconds until the next train comes and opens its doors, the traffic lights are all timed too. the only bad thing about it so far is that its more expensive than beijing. food costs more and things in general are more expensive. but we'll see how it all pans out...
i have a bit of a cold now, so i went to the chinese medicine store and got some medicine. the box explains in english that the medicine: clearing away the heat evil and expelling superficial evils, stopping cough and eliminating spufum. sounds much cooler than our american cough medicine huh? too bad i couldn't have postponed my fulbright and studied chinese medicine next year...
but anyway, i arrived to shanghai on tuesday after a 14-hour hard seat train ride (in china they have 4 classes on the trains, hard seat, soft seat, hard sleeper, and soft sleeper) that was mildly unpleasant. the only redeeming quality was that it only cost me $20 to get from beijing to shanghai, but i think after having to deal with a tall chinese guy (yes they do exist!) sitting across from me taking up all of my very little leg room i would've gladly paid an extra $20 to be able to lay down on a bed. anyhow, it was relatively easy to find a nice apartment since shanghai real estate is a renter's market, a lot of the real estate was bought up by investors- so they're all trying to get people to rent their places out. all the streets are lined with small real estate agencies with ads posted on their windows detailing all the places they have for rent and for sale. in some of the outer districts there are people just standing around on the street trying to get you to look at the houses they are renting out. i spent 9 hours walking around looking for these real estate agents in the district i wanted to live in (the french concession- really cute and green because all the streets are lined with sycamore trees). i saw a lot of random stuff that day. one, i saw an old chinese woman that was on the ground with half her head covered in blood. there was a bus parked in front of her so i don't know if she was hit by the bus or if she fell off of it. some guy was trying to get a taxi to take her to the hospital, but the taxi driver wouldn't have the woman bleeding all over his car. the man was insistent and was holding on to the door as the taxi tried to drive away, but the taxi driver went on about how if there was blood on his seat no one would ride in his cab and drove off. all these people tell me that shanghainese people are all about making money and i guess this is an example of it. but i'll refrain from making broad generalizations and hope to meet people that are have more morals than the aforementioned taxi driver. i don't know what happened in the end, but i hope that woman got to a hospital ok. two, a guy singing opera to an accordian accompaniment, how random. but i saw them again the other day so i guess they do this often. three, the sandwich board of the future. some guy was dressed all in silver, kind of like those guys in those old intel commercials, with a tv screen and speakers on his back. he was advertising some casio keyboard for kids, but he just basically just strolls up and down the street at night. most people just look at and laugh at him, so i don't know if this'll catch on or not haha.
anyhow with my mediocre chinese and a lot of guesswork (shanghainese sounds so strange to me, sounds kind of like korean but not as nice) i was able to look at a few apartments myself and rent a place out. i'm in an old chinese walk up right off huaihai lu (one of the main streets running through shanghai) smack in the middle of the downtown shopping district... all for a cool $225 complete with furniture, tv, fridge, air condition, small kitchen, bathroom, etc. i'm glad i chose to live alone over a nicer, but further place with 3 chinese roommates. i guess it could've been a good thing to have chinese roommates, but i think all the possible negatives outweighed the possible positives so i chose the place i live in now. it was rather dusty and dirty when i moved in so i've been spending the last few days buying cleaning supplies and cleaning the place up so everything isn't covered with a layer of dust (but its much better than beijing). now i'm settled in more or less and tried to make it a little more homey with a short trip to everyone's favorite swedish store, ikea. just like in the states, except there seemed to be a migrant worker party outside of ikea since they found one of ikeas water outlets and were all taking showers and lounging about on the street in their underwear. i guess it could be a little reminiscent of opening up a fire hydrant on a summer day in new york city but i wouldn't know anything about that.
i was too tired to go to the hip-hop night on thursdays, which is supposed to be the happening night- but i managed to get myself to go to a shanghai rap cd release party last night. it looked rather cheesey to me on paper (www.shanghaining.com)- the ads are reminiscent of those "hip-hop classic" cds that are sold on tv with weird handrawn artwork and the feeling that its really trying to hard to be cool. but i decided to check it out anyway, or at least walk by the venue and see if it might be good. i walked by at 8:30 planning to get something to eat and just find out where the venue was at... and there was a bunch of people standing outside for a show that started at 9pm. lots of guys all gansta'ed out with tilted baseball caps, stickers intact, fake bling, throwbacks, the whole nine yards. i decided that it would be worthwhile going, so after getting some noodles i headed back. when i walked in some guy was asking me if i was media but i didn't understand him, so i just shook my head no, which was stupid because i could've gotten in for free. next time i'll just make something up and hope for the best haha. anyway, i met some producer for sony records in the first few minutes- so hopefully i'll be able to contact some of the artists through that guy. he seemed really eager to talk to me for some unknown reason to me, but he gave me his business card and everything without me even asking for it. the whole show was sponsored by pioneer dj (for those in the know, they don't make turntables they only make mixers and cd players) and pony and a few other people. i'm not sure if it wass just because it was sponsored by pioneer but all the djs were using the cd players that emulate turntables. they had two djs do performances if you want to call it that. the first guy was basically just practicing in front of us all, he just played some beat and scratched over it.. when he got bored he changed the beat and/or sample and continued. while he was doing this, two girls were dancing behind him, probably to distract the onlookers or to keep people entertained because the dj certainly wasn't. for me at least, the crowd cheered when he would do remedial things- i could unfortunately do something more interesting even though i'm 2 years out of practice so that doesn't say much. the next dj was more promising though, he actually performed and did some interesting things. he even mixed some old chinese opera together and then put one over a beat which wasn't too bad. i ended up talking to one of the dancers because i heard them speaking english to each other. a multi person! half taiwanese and german whaddya know. apparently she teaches classes and stuff, so she gave me her number and hopefully i'll go dancing with her at some point. so she got paid $40 to dance for like 15 minutes, not bad! maybe i can get her to hook me up if they decide they want a dancer that is not a hot girl. getting paid to dance would be a wonderful thing, since i would be doing it anyway and it would be a good way to meet other dancers. apart from the djs, they also had performances on the 3rd level. all the people in the groups were gangsta'd out, nobody dressed normally- rather anything you would not see in a mainstream rap video. i thought it was interesting that there were no solo artists! all of them are in crews- i guess that reflects the current state of things in rap in america, but there was only one song that was basically just one person. most crews have a woman mc too, which i found surprising. they weren't that bad either, the flow here is much better than in beijing- which is probably due to shanghainese dialect- which strung together and not as choppy as the beijing accent. although i think it would be a lot easier to rhyme with a beijing accent because they just tend to add the 'r' sound at the end of stuff which is convenient in a rhyme structure. anyways, sometimes they would forget their own lyrics which is funny to me- and i guess they don't have the capacity to freestyle because they just kinda stop and look blank.. and then say sorry while they're on stage. hell you could just say everybody say HEY! or something. i guess they need to work on that. another funny thing was they incorporated costume changes and all the people in the group more or less matched. i thought it was funny, kinda like when you see couples that match. the rap here seems to be very city pride since it mainly uses shanghainese and they name drop shanghai all the time. at about 12pm the performances stopped and they were supposed to have a dance party afterward. i guess they didn't hire a proper dj for it though- which was smart because no one wanted to dance. they just all left. i was like what the heck, but apparently the gansta crowd doesn't dance... they just do the rockaway, lean back.. (haaa. sorry i had to). but yeah, i think this only showed a little part of what is going on here, at least i hope so, since this isn't exactly what i'm looking for. (for pictures visit the shanghai diaries shanghai hip-hop photo album, and for a second opinion see the shanghai diaries entry)
i have yet to call up my contacts- so i'm sure there will be plenty of other things to explore.
shanghai is treating me well so far. it's much prettier than beijing. the architecture is MUCH nicer (beijing is tearing all the cool old stuff and replacing it with really badly designed bulidings), and they have a better taste in what is cool/stylish. it seems to be alot less chaotic than beijing- much more orderly and organized. everything has a timer too, which is great. the crosswalks let you know how many seconds you have to walk so you aren't running for your life across a 8 lane intersection, the subway tells you the exact amount of seconds until the next train comes and opens its doors, the traffic lights are all timed too. the only bad thing about it so far is that its more expensive than beijing. food costs more and things in general are more expensive. but we'll see how it all pans out...
i have a bit of a cold now, so i went to the chinese medicine store and got some medicine. the box explains in english that the medicine: clearing away the heat evil and expelling superficial evils, stopping cough and eliminating spufum. sounds much cooler than our american cough medicine huh? too bad i couldn't have postponed my fulbright and studied chinese medicine next year...
posted by Derrick at 12:51 PM
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