randomness
i really enjoy the randomness of the watson. having absoultely no commitments allows you to do things on a whim. for example, yesterday i was walking around looking for a bag for my shiny new video camera. as i was perusing the bags at a skateshop, i hear a "ay, ni gan ma?" (hey, what are you doing?). i turn around and it's stanley from the studio with his japanese girlfriend. he was looking for franky's new shop (the guy whose store i walked into and found about the studio and whanot from), since he moved off the road into this underground shopping complex. so i took them over and the rolled a blunt and smoked up. franky was like, i don't really run a store its just a KTV or entertainment area for anyone that passes through, where else can you go and listen to some good tunes and smoke up near huaihai lu? . haha. he picked up a tiny cat from off the street who apparently was outside of his old shop and had no mother. so he took it in and named it "baby phat" haha. it was super cute and liked to climb up my leg with its claws (luckly i was wearing some thick denim) and just sit on my lap and close its eyes. stanley said that some of the dancers were performing on nanjing lu, a few girls at one place and the b-boys at another place. so we went over to the new world department store to see the girls dance. so basically it was a promotional thing for some new anti-hydrating toner (why you would want an ANTI-HYDRATING toner puzzles me). so it was on the main floor of this department store where all the cosmetic counters are and the stage fit like two people standing side-by-side. haha. they did their dance, which they have to perform 5 times a day at different times and just sit around for the rest of the time. they're doing this job for 5 days and get paid around 2000 RMB ($150, which should go pretty far). stanley said the average dancer makes about 2500 RMB a month if they have performances every week, he's just trying to book more stuff for yumi (the dancer from osaka) because she doesn't have any money. i taped the performance but there was the stupid sales ladies walking back and forth in front of the performance and they had tables set up in front of the stage. oh well, it was just yumi from the studio, the two other dancers were from new idol studio- which is the studio that kinda aims to make super stars. apparently at that studio they just try to make everyone dance exactly the same way... which i guess is what people want to see in a music video, especially an asian pop music video. shame.
so after they both performed, we walked down the street to find the other performance, they weren't going to perform for awhile so stanley, his girlfriend, and i went to eat some old beijing hotpot. some lamb, yellow liquor (huang jiu), and some beer... it was a nice meal and we had another good conversation getting into a bit of his history, the other dance studios in shanghai, some funny stories about gary (v-nutz) again.... this time i got most of it on tape, except you can't actually see him talking, but it'll be good to have the audio so i can remember what was said. apparently gary used to dance! haha, i can't see him dancing so that was a funny image... and he told me a story about how he took care of gary's cat while he was gone. he fed him really good food, but they smoked up a lot.. and he was afraid to open the window because he thought the cat might jump out and gary would kill him if he lost the cat. so gary comes back and the cat goes home... but two days later the cat dies.. stanley said it must've been all that weed they smoked haha. poor cat. gary's current cat is a beast, he just bites you all the time. in the like 15 minutes i spent at his house, during 12 minutes of it the cat didn't stop biting me. anyway, stanley was getting into how he was really broke when he was little and would walk to people's square to practice dancing. so the dancers used to dance there but now thtey're all caught up in doing performances i guess, which is kinda unfortunate. he would also hang out outside of the discos and make rich kids pay the cover for him. haha, that's gangster. apparently he used to be really gangster though, he said he can't leave the country unless someone else is accompaning him because of his record, so he really can't do anything. he also gave me some details about the other dancer's lives, how some of them already have one or two kids and if it wasn't for him and the studio they'd be out doing all sorts of criminal activity. hopefully i can get him to talk more about those things when i actually interview him. its nice to know that hip-hop has actually changed people's lives here and has really built a community of people that can depend on each other. oh and stanley said he's going to introduce me to all the dancers he knows wherever i go, japan, hong kong, guangzhou, and whatnot... so i got the hook-up! :)
so after going through bottles of yellow liquor and beer we headed back to the performance, which we just missed. but some of the dancers were happy to see me, and i finally saw sheela again... working hard in school so she can get into a good college. oh those days... haha. anyhow, they were all leaving and i was about ready to go home, but stanley, his girlfriend, and this girl that they call "xiao dongxi" (little thing, cause she's really short), were going to gary's house (not v-nutz, but a dancer) to chill. stanley and gary were like, you don't have anything to do you should come with. so we all went and just chilled out which was really nice. apparently his brother or someone in the family sells liquor, so there was A LOT of liquor in the house. so we ended up drinking some red wine, some german beer, and some chinese beer, while listening to gary mix some house (i had a conversation with him before and he was telling me how he doesn't want to continue as a dancer because he's getting old...so he wants to be a house dj). he had a pair of those pioneer 800 cd decks, so i got to mess around with them a little bit to see if i could pick it up quickly. they were fairly intuitive so it was nice to mess around with djing after so long. i was mixing some of the hip-hop he had and he wants me to teach him how to dj hip-hop, so hopefully i'll get to go over at some point and just mess around some more on those things. during this time xiao dongxi and stanley were playing drinking games (the dice game, and a modified version of the number game... instead of the 1-8 they used mutiples of 5, 0-20, and either opening one or both hands) and we were all eating some of the leftovers from his family's dinner. it was tasty. so at around 1am, i headed home with a full belly, a slight buzz, and a good feeling.
today, i got myself a spiffy livity bag (www.livity.org) for my camera, they are actually real (!!!) and super well made.. all out of progressive materials. and i got it at half the price of what they should be. then i came out and the sky foreshadowed a coming thunderstorm. so i quickly went to a restaurant near my place to get some take out.. but i still got stuck in the downpour. it was a slow day, so i ended up watching the eye, a horror film about a blind woman who gets an eye transplant and sees ghosts. it had a lot of hype around it whenever it came out... it was well made, but not nearly as scary as i hoped it'd be. oh well. i did a little bit of practicing (which i need to do a lot more of).. and went out again to get some mediterranean food.. yummy! and ended up buying another 21 cds. lots of random stuff. a lot of bad rap mixed in with some soul funk stuff. listening to cee-lo's new album now... not bad, not bad. alright. i should practice a bit before i go to bed.
so after they both performed, we walked down the street to find the other performance, they weren't going to perform for awhile so stanley, his girlfriend, and i went to eat some old beijing hotpot. some lamb, yellow liquor (huang jiu), and some beer... it was a nice meal and we had another good conversation getting into a bit of his history, the other dance studios in shanghai, some funny stories about gary (v-nutz) again.... this time i got most of it on tape, except you can't actually see him talking, but it'll be good to have the audio so i can remember what was said. apparently gary used to dance! haha, i can't see him dancing so that was a funny image... and he told me a story about how he took care of gary's cat while he was gone. he fed him really good food, but they smoked up a lot.. and he was afraid to open the window because he thought the cat might jump out and gary would kill him if he lost the cat. so gary comes back and the cat goes home... but two days later the cat dies.. stanley said it must've been all that weed they smoked haha. poor cat. gary's current cat is a beast, he just bites you all the time. in the like 15 minutes i spent at his house, during 12 minutes of it the cat didn't stop biting me. anyway, stanley was getting into how he was really broke when he was little and would walk to people's square to practice dancing. so the dancers used to dance there but now thtey're all caught up in doing performances i guess, which is kinda unfortunate. he would also hang out outside of the discos and make rich kids pay the cover for him. haha, that's gangster. apparently he used to be really gangster though, he said he can't leave the country unless someone else is accompaning him because of his record, so he really can't do anything. he also gave me some details about the other dancer's lives, how some of them already have one or two kids and if it wasn't for him and the studio they'd be out doing all sorts of criminal activity. hopefully i can get him to talk more about those things when i actually interview him. its nice to know that hip-hop has actually changed people's lives here and has really built a community of people that can depend on each other. oh and stanley said he's going to introduce me to all the dancers he knows wherever i go, japan, hong kong, guangzhou, and whatnot... so i got the hook-up! :)
so after going through bottles of yellow liquor and beer we headed back to the performance, which we just missed. but some of the dancers were happy to see me, and i finally saw sheela again... working hard in school so she can get into a good college. oh those days... haha. anyhow, they were all leaving and i was about ready to go home, but stanley, his girlfriend, and this girl that they call "xiao dongxi" (little thing, cause she's really short), were going to gary's house (not v-nutz, but a dancer) to chill. stanley and gary were like, you don't have anything to do you should come with. so we all went and just chilled out which was really nice. apparently his brother or someone in the family sells liquor, so there was A LOT of liquor in the house. so we ended up drinking some red wine, some german beer, and some chinese beer, while listening to gary mix some house (i had a conversation with him before and he was telling me how he doesn't want to continue as a dancer because he's getting old...so he wants to be a house dj). he had a pair of those pioneer 800 cd decks, so i got to mess around with them a little bit to see if i could pick it up quickly. they were fairly intuitive so it was nice to mess around with djing after so long. i was mixing some of the hip-hop he had and he wants me to teach him how to dj hip-hop, so hopefully i'll get to go over at some point and just mess around some more on those things. during this time xiao dongxi and stanley were playing drinking games (the dice game, and a modified version of the number game... instead of the 1-8 they used mutiples of 5, 0-20, and either opening one or both hands) and we were all eating some of the leftovers from his family's dinner. it was tasty. so at around 1am, i headed home with a full belly, a slight buzz, and a good feeling.
today, i got myself a spiffy livity bag (www.livity.org) for my camera, they are actually real (!!!) and super well made.. all out of progressive materials. and i got it at half the price of what they should be. then i came out and the sky foreshadowed a coming thunderstorm. so i quickly went to a restaurant near my place to get some take out.. but i still got stuck in the downpour. it was a slow day, so i ended up watching the eye, a horror film about a blind woman who gets an eye transplant and sees ghosts. it had a lot of hype around it whenever it came out... it was well made, but not nearly as scary as i hoped it'd be. oh well. i did a little bit of practicing (which i need to do a lot more of).. and went out again to get some mediterranean food.. yummy! and ended up buying another 21 cds. lots of random stuff. a lot of bad rap mixed in with some soul funk stuff. listening to cee-lo's new album now... not bad, not bad. alright. i should practice a bit before i go to bed.
posted by Derrick at 1:02 PM
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