Promoters for real estate opening parties spend tens of thousands of RMB to set the stage for potential homeowners. Magicians and mini-skirt wearing violin players are commonplace, but none earn even close as much as the coveted Anglo-Saxon musician/clown. The “White Monkey,” as some call the foreign performer, is the ultimate showpiece for any Grand Opening, be it for a multi-billion RMB high-tech zone or an apartment villa in the cabbage-picking boondocks.

Paid in Full

I’ll never forget my first “laowai” gig in the fall of 2008.

At that time I was a senior college student in a foreign study abroad program. Money was tight, I had an English teaching job in Wenjiang every Thursday (5 classes back to back) and two of the classes consisted of 45 screaming kindergarteners, who could barely speak Chinese let alone learn basic English words.

The gig was an anniversary party for the Great Wall Wine company at the InterContinental Hotel. If you could bottle wealth, I could have made a fortune from selling the air. The chandeliered lobby featured a seafood buffet and bottomless bottles of liquor served by scantily clad models. I remember not having a white collared shirt, so my agent provided a frilly disco-esque shirt and a pair of black leather shoes several sizes too small.

 Born to Rock

There were four musicians altogether:

• A trumpet player from Singapore
• American saxophone player
• Canadian guitarist, and
• Myself on bass guitar

None of us had ever practiced or rehearsed songs together. Naturally I was a bit nervous about embarking on such a half-assed endeavor in this classy venue.

“So we are playing Autumn Leaves, What a Wonderful World, a Paul Simon tune, all easy stuff.” The trumpet player instructed confidently.

“Oh, I played Autumn Leaves in college jazz combo, it’s like E minor, A minor, F# B7 etc.” I replied.

“Yeah well we have backing tracks so don’t worry too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know an mp3 without words, it’s like a sing-along” He replied, smiling and pulling back his ponytail.

I watched the lobby fill with bespectacled, balding Chinese men accompanied by women 20 years their junior.

The gig itself was painless, within a few bars of each song I figured out the general chord pattern and plunked out a bassline, which was muted by the overpowering backing track. After each two song “set” the crowd applauded and soon we were approached by tall girls in qipaos (traditional Chinese skirts) asking,

“Shuai ge, keyi pai zhao ma? “(Hey handsome, can we take a picture?)

Posing for photos, I felt like an instant celebrity in a pre-packaged Ren & Stimpy kind of way. If you wanted Rock-star-in-a–can this was the place for it. In this industry one’s musical skill is not determined by their chops but rather if your cable can reach the soundboard some 20 meters away from the stage.

Admittedly, the first couple “gigs” were exciting and new, but the novelty of the White Monkey Gig wears off quickly when one sees the sociological forces behind the whole fiasco.

Some people actually make a career out of this…

Class, Class, Class

Historically speaking, entertainers in China are typically members of the lower class. I’m sure you’ve seen a movie or three in which an underprivileged street kid joins a traveling theater troupe either to rise through the ranks or to be dealt a cruel dish of reality. Same goes for modern day performers, many with high hopes get stuck in the net of mediocrity.

Dream of becoming a famous cellist or classical musician? I hope you look hot in a mini-skirt and can play a techno version of the can-can on the violin.

Dream of leading a R&B group or jazz band on saxophone? Sorry buddy, only Kenny G covers are allowed.

By and large, musicians and entertainers bastardize their skills to get paid performing at Grand Openings around China. I’ve met dancers and musicians of extraordinary skill who are forced to conform to the cookie-cutter line-ups at these Openings. They go like this:

• First, the Water Drum girls followed by a foreigner band and then a magician
• Announcement, ceremony and then the saxophone guy
• Foreigner band Take Two, followed by hot girl with a violin
• Ending with angry looking models waiting to step back into Boss Wang’s BMW. Applause from the peasant masses or upper crust bosses
• End show

Racism and The Hunt

The MCs and agents are actually unscrupulous pimps that will sometimes hold off paying you until:

1. you give up
2. accept less than previously agreed upon
3. get intimidated into paying up in full

The phone call. (translated from Chinese)

“Hello Wei Lai we have a show on the 25th”

“I think I’m free, what time and where?”

“Sunday evening in Deyang. *(note location is likely to be 1-2 hours outside of whatever city is named)

“There are no Blacks or Chinese in your band?”

“No… why?”

“Oh nothing, who’s singing?”

“A girl from Spain, I think you’ve seen here before.’

“Oh right the skinny one”.

“Yeah,… ok so what’s the payment?”

“1200 RMB for two sets of 3 songs.”

“Sounds good, see you then.”

No blacks, no Chinese? What the hell? What if I was an American born Chinese that only knew how to say ni hao?

Anyone who looks remotely Asian wouldn’t be approached for these jobs. A white guy who only knows power chords would be picked for a gig over a guitar virtuoso with an Asian face.

Performers backstage at the gig waiting between shows

These days agents are a bit more opened minded about people with dark skin, however they are looking for a certain kind of dark-skinned musician; one with excellent music skills, good attitude and doesn’t seem “too African.” And sometimes they’re looking for the “Too African” stereotype.

Have Fun With It

A good friend of mine wrote a rock song about Sichuan Shao Kao (street barbeque), entitled “Basi De Hen” (Sichuan dialect for “Super cool”) which he performed regularly in 2009 at a bar in Jinli Street.

The chorus went:

Zui hao chi zui hao wan, shao kao ni shi wo de ai ren (“The most delicious, the most fun. BBQ you are my true love“)

I played this song with him for a crowd of 10,000+ in a suburb of Chongqing and had the place roaring. The peasants jumped the barrier and reclaimed the seats cordoned off for” VIP” guests. The lethargic security weren’t able to control the mayhem. Fireworks went off on stage, fog machines belched smoke and soap bubbles. It was rock and roll, baby.

If the setting is right, the audience will get into the music, especially the Chinese songs. Recently some friends and I performed a rendition of “Chun Tian Li” at a banquet dinner for a medical supplies conglomerate at a Chengdu hotel. The whole place was singing along, toasting baijiu glasses in the air and swaying their heads to the thumping E string on the chorus. The vibe continued throughout our bluegrass and funk tunes and we were asked for an encore. Perhaps there is room for baijiu banquet rock stars, after all.

Gotta Pay the Bills

My roommate, a Spanish-speaking university student about to graduate from Sichuan University said,

I can’t teach English and there are few opportunities for Spanish-teaching jobs. How else can I pay for rent? I’m forced to be an actor!

A good friend of mine and guitar player from Japan proclaims,

We’d never have these “Laowai gigs” in Japan. The people would just laugh at you. Why do the Chinese spend so much money on bad entertainment? Only professional musicians have performances in Japan.

Although I hate the system, it’s got me under its thumb. I sold out.

Alas, for now these types of jobs are my most lucrative income; the US stock market sunk, I graduated in 2009 into a jobless economy. I’ve worked in China for 2 years, as struggling writer and editor who will try anything aside from teaching English to make ends meet.

I try to justify doing these gigs by knowing that I’ll save money and use my experience in China to eventually work on environmental law and policy consulting in Asia.

For example, last year I saved up money up money from White Monkey jobs in hopes of doing independent media reporting at the G20 summit in Seoul. Unfortunately, my passport was stolen, so the trip was canceled, and using the refunded money I got a huge tattoo instead.

What say you? Are White Monkeys justified? Are they sell-outs? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

When I came across the painting Wild Garden, I thought, Pop Surrealism. The colors fit. The pastel frock has a rotundness against the painting’s muddled and blended background, similar to Mark Ryden’s use of pastel, and the whole thing treats of nature in a deliberately mocking way. The woman recalls the elegant nymph-like muses of Degas, however; she is not in the least grotesque. A vaguely Asian-looking person isolated against a desolate wilderness, she creates an overall mood too somber and earnest to be absurd. That right bunny ear jerks upward as though genuinely listening to, or for, something.

The artist is not a surrealist, but is widely regarded as one of China’s greatest living masters of realism. He Duoling (pronounced Huh Doo-oh-ling) resides in Chengdu, where he was born in 1948 and earned his art degree from the local teacher’s college in 1977. He went on to study painting at Chongqing’s Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in the late ’70s, and with a number of his colleagues in the early ’80s, founded China’s infamous “Scar Art” movement.

The Scar Artists were attempting to counteract a strict regime of socialist realist propaganda at the time. Insisting on more personal–and more reflective–themes, the Scar Artists co-opted the idea of the “real” for themselves while exploring subjects of humanism, intimacy, memory, emotion, and sexuality; in a reaction to the political ravages of the previous decades which had not been allowed to surface in art through critical dialogue.

Thanks to a friend, I was able to meet He personally and pay a visit to his studio. The studio, in He Tang Yuese, boasts staggered walls and windows of varying lengths and sizes, with one footbridge intersecting the structure diagonally in a cubistic temple to modern art. It is located near other outstandingly modern buildings and galleries, a true artists’ sanctuary.

The first painting I saw when I walked into the garage was in the same series as Wild Garden, entitled Shalott the Rabbit. Standing on a broad easel, across from the indoor basketball hoop, was this painting–it shimmered and floated in an otherworldly haze. Monotone, like the concrete pillars and structures of Chengdu, its green tint would be one I’d come to recognize. The painting deliberately borrows its imagery from the 1888 work The Lady of Shalott, by John William Waterhouse. The artist often plays on the romantic musings of the Pre-Raphaelites–painters like Waterhouse, Hughes, and Millais. Those Christian idealists attempted to resurrect what was dead or dying in an era of industrialization: feminine beauty and a sense of innocence and idealism, expressed through sincere renderings and faithfulness to “nature.”

He told me he wanted the rabbit version of Waterhouse’s Lady to be “limited,” meaning he wanted her to float in an isolated cubicle of water, like a tank–contemporary shorthand for innocence and beauty, which can be pummeled together with a prop and stage set.

He Duoling does sincerely respond to the Pre-Raphaelites; he does not merely parody them or extrude and rip off their imagery, like a pop artist. He’s also inspired by Andrew Wyeth’s famous masterpiece Christina’s World, which in one painting he simply copied, overlaying it with the image of a young Chinese girl lost in her own revelry. Just like the romantics, he starts out knowing what he wants to paint, creating a luminous base by applying many continuous background layers, outlining the foreground figures carefully, and composing his scenery with strokes of tinted oil liquid mediums. He creates a wash, also using techniques from traditional Chinese landscape painting. In his figures, who are mostly Chinese or look Chinese, the feeling of revelry and complacency reflects a sense of both national pride and personal beauty. An exaggerated light saturates the canvases, which are often glowing.

What bothers me about this work is not the way his paintings look; they’re beautiful. In their beauty, and also in the detachment and complacency of the subjects, there’s a uniqueness and an ascendent quality, as if the images were going to step out of the canvas and fly upward. But this is supposed to have radical implications for Chinese art. How different Chinese and Western sensibilities are! In the West, nothing’s threatening or subversive about depicting a beautiful woman, and pointing out man’s unbalanced relationship with nature is almost required.

To use tautology, an art movement represents new ideas that should be taken in context. In China, art has always held on to the tenets of realism. True, Chinese art may be abstract; it applies a wide range of interpretations to the real. But from ancient times until today, a “master” of art has been someone who can render nature exceptionally well. In Chinese schools, from grade level through university, drawing from life is the most rigorously practiced form of art. It’s done with a seriousness that is rarely applied in any Western-style education.

In the 20th century, this use of realism took an ideological turn, in the name of social realism and propaganda. The Chinese consider figure and still-life drawing to be the essential underpinnings of a socialist art education, garnered by tradition. But regardless of use, China maintains a strong national pride in its beauty and quality standards in everything. According to some artists I’ve talked to, “realism” in Western terms means work that’s amateur or incomplete. Given the painstaking renderings of art students in China, from novices to graduates, it’s no wonder why many Chinese sniff at the work that hangs in galleries overseas.

But when I look at the Rabbit series, it’s not technicality that makes He Duoling’s work great. It’s the other aspects–color choices, distortion, the positioning of the figures. And it’s also radical political innuendo, harkening back to the 1970s. In all his images, isolated, despondent, or transfixed adults and youths, placed in rugged or watery or ill-defined settings, paint a picture of China entirely backwards: it’s in perfect economic suspense. They capture an idealized China that doesn’t require “social realism” to exist. Adapted from late 19th-century British poetry, its romantic and literary themes somehow speak to the post-modern condition.

I don’t know the reason for He Duoling’s success. The artist seems to delight in the vitality of his subjects, mostly young, who look transfixed in time and pleased with their own dream-like perfection. Many could well belong to another era. Or, to put it differently, the youthful world contained in his musings belongs to a present-day China, but one which seems to dream of the past. He Duoling has described his own work as “mystical” and “poetic,” suggesting that he doesn’t know what it means or doesn’t want to say.

My guess is, what makes it successful is a combination of things: the Chinese love of the “beautiful,” which privileges Eastern thought but delights in Western subjects; an art market enchanted with the Orient; a Chinese population that sees progress wherever there is change, and novelty when something is drawn from outside. Over the years, He has painted much of the real landscape around him, but he clearly manipulates the settings, flattening them; painting into them–metaphorically and literally–layer after layer of meaning.

The temple is currently being re-furbished and there are gingko saplings lining the road and the stairs up to the main temple complex. The complex itself seemed deserted until I banged on an old bell, rousting out the abbot who then scolded me for being a heathen. Most visitors are photographers coming for the colors: yellow leaves, red tiles, green leaves, and white cliffs. Some photographers have put together amazing shots, like Lao Yan, who visited in 2008.

There is little tourism here because the whole area is beautiful in a simple clean way. There are no major tourist attractions to draw the developers and their theme parks so a trip out to the deeper reaches of Dayi or Chongzhou is always rewarded with good air, good food and simple quiet pleasures. Below are my best efforts at capturing our trip (thanks Charlie for editing these):

Cuancuan and Xiaogui lead their moms up the mountain to the temple

Xiaogui takes a break on the way up

Zhuang and my youngest son, Damian

Man climbing up the steps towards the sunlight

Playing under the tree

A gingko branch hangs down over us

Trees accentuate the yellow and red of Tibetan Buddhism

This is the type of place I could sit in forever

There were prayer flags hung all around the temple

Imagine waking up every morning to gingkos and silence

I love the way the golden leaves look against the Sichuan sky

This blot of gold just burst out of the surrounding green leaves

Cuancuan makes a run for it

Baiyan Temple is Sichuan's only Tibetan Buddhist Temple outside of traditionally Tibetan areas

View Baiyan Temple in a larger map

Conclusion

I had a blast visiting Baiyan Si and considering it’s not far from Chengdu, it’s worth a visit. If you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comments below.

I gave away some free tickets to the show on the forum and headed over with friends around 10pm. I had heard about this DJ before, Liman from Beijing, but hadn’t seen him perform before. He was playing alongside DJ Tomu from Tokyo and Chengdu’s D3F crew, but Liman stole the show with great stage presence. He climbed atop the DJ table, gestured to the crowd all night, and came in a studded leather jacket and punk rock persona. If you weren’t there, you missed out.

But even if you did, the good news is that Xiong Mao, three weeks after hosting DJ Shadow, is doing well and drawing a crowd. Catch me and friends there next week at Disco Death on Friday October 28th with DJ JCC. Come in a costume and get in for free.

Disco Death, Friday Oct 28th at Xiong Mao

Xiong Mao with DJ Liman Photos

Over the course of the extended weekend Xiong Mao hosted a crowd of thousands, including a sold-out show on October 2nd which is when DJ Shadow christened the virgin venue. I had an incredible time opening for him, got my MPC 2000XL signed (a classic sampler used by DJ Shadow) and saw a dozen DJ’s over the course of the three day festival.

If you weren’t able to attend, the venue is incredible and easily ranks among the best spaces in China (or perhaps even Asia) to see a DJ performance. The bar was open (literally, free drinks all night throughout the festival), the bass was hitting, and a number of musical styles were represented. Local DJs like Cvalda, DJ Wu, Andy Mac, Dbassman, Marco and others did their thing in the main room alongside Beijing DJs like Yang Bing and Sulumi and German techno DJs Efdemin and Lawrence. Photos of all of them below.

What an incredible weekend this was for Chengdu!

The massive crowd outside Xiong Mao on the first day

Outside music area with Dbassman playing to a lone enthusiastic dancer

Psychedelic projections on the inside of Xiong Mao controlled by a VJ were a staple of the festival

The lively crowd in the main room was drenched in black lights

The two German techno DJ's from Berlin, Efdemin and Lawrence

Headliner for the first night of the festival, playing techno

Chengdu local DJ Wu played dubstep and some commercial hip hop

Knit cap, head lamp, white glasses, and headphones. This guy was kitted out.

Me beginning my set with classic funk by The Meters

Well equipped but without a single turntable. Xone:92 and CDJ-2000

The main room was fully packed at 11:30pm on the second day, 30 minutes before DJ Shadow begun

DJ Shadow's equipment laid in wait in the background. Also CDJ's

Climbing aboard a speaker to get a better view

Sweaty and handing it off to DJ Shadow

DJ Shadow emerges and introduces himself to the crowd

DJ Shadow performed alongside a VJ creating live visuals

DJ Shadow was scratching throughout almost the entire set

After finishing at 1:20am, I got DJ Shadow to sign my Akai MPC

Justin (DJ Big Snax) outside the venue spinning fire

Martin and Joe closed out the main room playing drum & bass

Marco was the only DJ that I saw actually playing records

Andy Mac playing techno on the third night

Dbassman following up Andy Mac and playing at midnight

Beijing techno DJ wrapping up the main room as the crowd began to thin out

Conclusion

Overall this was one of the most fun weekends I’ve ever had in Chengdu and I ran into many others who’ve lived in Chengdu for years and said the same thing. We’re all happy and hopeful that Xiong Mao’s following will continue to grow and we’re able to continue bringing world class performers to Chengdu. Look out for the first Disco Death on Friday October 28th featuring Guangzhou-based drum n bass DJ JCC.

On my way to the venue, located in the East of Chengdu, I ran into several people I know who all gushed about how great the new place is. By the time I got there expectations were high but indeed the place looks fantastic. If you’ve been inside the previous Panda Club, the new spot is at least twice as large and is prepared to host thousands for large events like this weekend. This is huge news for Chengdu’s nightlife scene, as it’s been hurting badly since the last Panda club closed down. Rather than move to a new venue that would have surely been mediocre due to Chengdu’s limited offerings, I decided to put the monthly electronic music event Disco Death on hold for a year to anticipate the new Xiong Mao. After seeing the new location, I do not regret that decision.

Before & After: Dramatic Change

Although yesterday was the official opening, I visited the location about three weeks ago when construction was in progress. And by in progress, I mean totally and completely in progress. The floor was dirt, many of the walls were non-existant, and there were homeless-looking people wandering around the lot. Now, it’s shiny and looks tremendous with an abundance of ambient lighting and factory-like details throughout.

Check out these photos from three weeks ago and compare them to photos from last night below.

Dirt Floor Xiong Mao From 3 Weeks Ago

Arriving at the Chengdu East Music Park

Walking to Xiong Mao down the dirt road which a few weeks later would shine brightly

The path to Xiong Mao was strewn with construction equipment and large trinkets like this

Having just arrived outside of Xiong Mao, this guy comes out of his cave and sees what all the commotion is about

Xiong Mao's opening corridor

Cavernous and incomplete, but clearly with great potential

Another vast room that was under construction

Now that you know what it looked like just a few short weeks ago…

Photos of Panda Club On It’s Opening Night

The sign outside of the club is notably written in English and not Chinese

Ambient lighting and fixtures at the main room bar

The main room DJ booth is almost fully equipped. No turntables yet, though.

Disco balls hanging in recessed pockets in the main room wall

The main room has no tables, but features couches along the edges of the room

Taps at the bar are neon and lit up

Walls and furniture are minimal, lending a neon factory atmosphere

CDJ-2000's and an Allen & Heath mixer in the DJ booth

Vastly upgraded equipment from the previous Xiong Mao

Over a dozen lights hang from trusses mounted to the high ceiling

If you can't find the club, look for this very tall obelisk outside

Panda Festival Ticket Giveaway

I have five tickets to give away and each of them are for all 3 days. To win them, all you have to do is leave a comment below naming one of the headliners from a previous Disco Death event. First 5 win. If you can’t attend (or don’t plan on) attending all three days, please let me know and I will donate those tickets to someone else on the Chengdu Living Forum.

The tickets for the 2011 Panda Electronic Music Festival are colorful! Five sets of three.

Conclusion

The re-emergence of Xiong Mao brings a lot of hope with it. Hope for Chengdu’s fledgling live music scene and hope for promising events that attract an ever-larger crowd of music lovers. The first Disco Death is on October 28th and I can’t wait to kick things off and break in this new venue.

Hope to see you guys at the festival this weekend. All the information on that is on the forum here: 2011 Xiong Mao Festival with DJ Shadow.

In short: a massive graffiti battle attracting crews and writers from all over China, to paint inside a church on a Saturday afternoon. For Chengdu’s humble street art scene, this is the stuff of dreams.

Rather than go on about what a joy the event was (I also had a blast DJ’ing there), I’ll let the photos do the talking. At the bottom of the post, after the photos, you’ll find an exclusive audio interview with Xeme, Hong Kong based graffiti writer and Wall Lords event organizer.

Chengdu 2011 Wall Lords Graffiti Battle Photos

After arriving at the Luxe Hills gate, it was about a ten minute walk up stairs to get to the church. Outside of the church there were about 10 writers doing their thing and inside is where the competition was held and musicians performed. First the outdoor shots:

A large banner outside of Luxe Hills made the event location clear

Walking up stairs to the church, signs urged visitors "Please don't graffiti here"

Xian-based writer TBD lays down his outline outside of the church

Security guards look on as TBD applies final touches

A Russian writer from Saint Petersburg lays down some curved hatches on his outline

Guangzhou-based writer Jungle laying about halfway through his Ghost piece

Hanging outside with Gas (left), local rapper Lao Xiong (second from right) and two b-boys

 Photos from Inside the Graffiti Church

Stepping through the massive doors into the giant church was humbling. On the inside there were over a dozen writers from all over China crafting intricate murals across a 20 meter wide space.

Walking inside the massive church interior where the competition took place

St Petersburg writer Wais was the sole judge at Wall Lords in Chengdu

Hong Kong's INCP crew's submission was a psychedelic bird

Local rapper (and my friend & neighbor) Lao Xiong of Chengdu's Big Zoo crew performs

B-boy windmills on the Wall Lords print near the church entrance

Chengdu based MC and graffiti artist Eli Sweet

Wall Lords organizer and Kowloon-based graffiti writer "B" representing

Graffiti writer from ABS crew visualizes the winning design

Sketching the outline for the epic Poseidon piece by ABS crew

Finishing up the contest winning Poseidon piece at Wall Lords Chengdu

The winning piece is announced on stage by Gas: ABS crew's Poseidon

Bonus: Exclusive Interview with Xeme

Several weeks before the event took place, Xeme scouted the venue along with Gas and made preparations. During that time I met with him, collected details about Wall Lords, and made sure that he’d be available for an interview at the event. Here it is, you can stream or right click and “Save As…” to download the MP3:

Interview with Xeme at Chengdu Wall Lords 2011

Hong Kong based graffiti writer and Wall Lords event organizer Xeme

Conclusion

If you weren’t able to attend this event, I hope that the photos give you an idea of what being in attendance was like. It was great to see all kinds of Chengdu citizens, young and old, veteran artists and novices alike, unite to enjoy street art. And Wall Lords selecting Chengdu to host this event can be used as a certain milestone for measuring Chengdu’s cultural development. Overall an outstanding event that I had a blast at.

If you have any comments, post them below!

Beautiful imagery created by Beijing illustrator Zeeko

I had just returned from a vacation in the U.S. and had been oblivious to the social media firestorm (on Sina Weibo) that followed the July 23rd tragedy. I was catching up, asking what element of this story had caused it to go viral, and seemly take on a political dimension. Was it the loss of life? The failure of the heralded new transit system? The government’s response to the tragedy? Or the human drama of a child miraculously pulled from the wreckage alive?

I began to see how the threads of this story intersected, and how, carried by the rising tide of social media, it had ensnared the public consciousness. Each of my friends at the bar related stories of impassioned discussions they had witnessed among their Chinese friends and colleagues about the issue. The public interest around the story was not surprising to me, but the degree of public outrage – and the unusually pointedness of the criticism – generated by it somehow was.

What made this event so different from other human tragedies in recent years (like mine disasters) which presented seemingly similar questions of economic development versus safety?

As one of my friends pointed out, part of the answer is symbolism. The high speed rail system was a prominent symbol of a safe, modern, high-tech China, that the government carefully portrayed in promotional rhetoric. This tragedy dealt a severe blow to that image. Recent subversive art using the iconography of the train system (like this street graffiti piece, shown below) shows how former symbols of progress have been recontextualized within the public backlash.

Street graffiti depicting the doomed Wenzhou bullet train, photographed in Shanghai

The Wenzhou crash fractured an idyllic image of China’s future in which many citizens were emotionally invested. Through the cracks in this bright dream, broader public anxiety and frustration has begun to vent, like hot gas once trapped below tectonic plates.

When a story goes viral, it enters a feedback loop, in which media coverage begets public attention which begets additional media. Eventually this cycle wanes, as the media half-life of the story is reached, and public attention cannot be sustained by the diminishing emotional fuel. In the case of the tragic July 23rd crash, this process could take quite some time. It feels like this event has penetrated China’s public consciousness in an uncommon way.

A custom t-shirt design related to the Wenzhou crash which has been in heavy circulation on Weibo

This is a personal essay about the author’s experience learning of the Wenzhou tragedy second-hand. If you haven’t read about the Wenzhou train crash and would like more details, check these links out:

• Wikipedia: Wenzhou Train Collision
• BBC: Bullet Trains Collide

as well as opinion and analysis here:

• And on the Seventh Day News Rested by Sascha on The Hypermodern
• China’s High-Speed Politics on the NYT
• The Wenzhou Crash and the Future of Weibo
• Chinese Newspaper’s Defiant Commentary on Train Collision on the WSJ

This turned out to be a great thing because blogs that I already like were carefully selecting articles that I probably hadn’t read before, being that they were published months or even years ago. I thought an internal link roundup like this would be a great thing to do and Chengdu Living was nominated shortly thereafter by Far West China, a great Xinjiang blog authored by Josh, and then by Steve of You’re Not From Around Here, Are You?

Without further ado, let’s get into the seven links:

Chengdu Living’s Most Beautiful

Interview with Gas, Chengdu’s Most Prolific Graffiti Artist

Years ago I first started seeing the “Gas” tag appearing around Chengdu. Unlike the other tags around town, which were mediocre at best, whoever this Gas character was, he had real style. I wondered who he was and where he was from. And as the tag became more prolific, the desire to discover who the person behind it became greater. After asking around I finally found another graffiti artist who knew him and would introduce me. Since then we’ve become good friends and I love seeing Gas’ artwork around Chengdu. It’s not hard to find considering it’s showing up at official Nike events, cool bars like The Lazy Pug, and much more. Just feast your eyes on his “Chengdu” pieces.

Chengdu Living’s Most Popular

Anti-Japan Demonstration Ignites Chengdu

Picture this: one day I’m walking around minding my own business and I get a call from Sascha who tells me that an anti-Japanese protest is happening in Chengdu. At the time I was at an electronics store signing the contract for an iPhone 4 on China Telecom not far from Chunxi Lu, the shopping district where the demonstration was to take place. With no time to return home to grab proper photo equipment, I tear the plastic off my new phone and put it to good use… taking photos of people burning Japanese flags, smashing windows, and causing absolute mayhem in Chengdu’s most popular commercial district. This post was linked to by dozens of blogs and websites including the well-respected China blog Danwei, the LA Times, and many more.

After affixing the flag, a protester's "thumbs up" emerges and the crowd erupts with cheers

Honorable mention: Chengdu Living Has Been Harmonized

Chengdu Living’s Most Controversial

Attempting to Talk Your Way Out of a Visa Fine

Published on January 1, 2010, this was the original featured post on Chengdu Living. Written by Eli and documenting his experience trying to evade a P.S.B. fine in Chengdu, it drew dozens of comments about P.S.B. rules and regulations, the morality of skirting the rules, and grown men crying. The post itself is fantastically well written and Eli engages each of his detractors one by one in the comments below. If this post was designed for controversy, it was a smashing success.

Chengdu Living’s Most Helpful

The Chengdu Living Forum 

This isn’t a post at all, but without question, the Chengdu Living forum (accessible from chengduforum.com) has become the most helpful single resource on the site. Every week new members sign up and are participating in what is a growing body of varied and up-to-date information on everything Chengdu. Authoring blog posts and interacting with friends and readers is fantastic but the forum really brings a new level of interaction. And I can’t go without mentioning how helpful the forum has been for me personally and other long-term Chengdu residents.

Honorable mention: The Giving Birth in Chengdu Post Series. A year and a half ago Sascha begun a storied journey into fatherhood that has taught him countless lessons. In that time he’s published an ten-part post series breaking down an incredible amount of useful information about giving birth and raising children in China.

Chengdu Living’s Surprise Success

Greed & Corruption: the USA Pavilion at the Shanghai Expo

This was Elias‘ first post published on Chengdu Living, and man, did it get read and commented on by a lot of people. This first-hand account of a Student Ambassador at the Shanghai Expo detailed the greed and corruption that led to the Pavilion receiving condemnation from all sides. The comments field on this post alone alone erupted into heated debate over the moral and legal implications of the US Expo’s conduct. I had little foreknowledge of the Expo and didn’t comprehend the implications that publishing such a detailed insider account would have.

Honorable mention: Enduring the China Blues. Since “China Blues” has been published, I’ve heard the term casually used in conversation at least a dozen times. It just fits.

Chengdu Living’s Under Appreciated

The Most Potent Fertilizer on Earth

The “Jin ke la” post on Chengdu Living has to be the funniest one we’ve ever published. A Chinese fertilizer company produced a series of videos promoting a product called “Jin ke la” and decided to turn the ridiculous up to eleven by associating it with U.S. Presidents and global agricultural revolutions to name a few. From the post:

Honorable mentions: Enjoy Some of the World’s Greatest Teas in Sichuan, China’s Soul Search

Chengdu Living’s Proudest

The Ace of Diamonds: Surviving the Earthquake

Aside from being among the most life-threatening and eye-opening experiences of my life, I love reading this story. I’ll never forget returning from Qing Cheng Shan a day after the earthquake – it took me that long to climb down the mountain and hitch a ride to Chengdu – and telling this story to a circle of close friends. As I shared each vivid detail from my very recent memory, Sascha sat across from me silently writing. Furiously writing. I paid no attention but a day later this story, based on my account, was written. I originally intended to write it myself but Sascha has a way with storytelling, and once I read it I felt immense satisfaction.

Honorable mentions: Chengdu Living Has Been Harmonized, The Murky Evolution of the Chinese Education System

Conclusion

That about wraps up this post on Highlighting 7 Links. Here go my nominations:

• Ryan at LostLaowai
• Mike Weed at CQScene
• Richard at Notes from Xian
• Sasha at Shanghai Novice
• Seeing Red in China

Currently we’re in the midst of another massive QQ-style internet takeover. This time it’s Sina’s Weibo micro-blogging service (think Twitter) that’s swallowing up millions of users. After hearing about it for weeks on end I registered an account and downloaded the Weibo app on my iPhone. After several months of exploring the system, interacting with old friends and making new ones, I barely even bother to get on QQ anymore since virtually everyone has already made the switch.

Here’s how and why you should get on Sina Weibo to begin interacting with friends in your neighborhood and across China.

The Weibo.com post interface alongside the logged-in user stats

How Does Weibo Work?

From the beginning (almost two years ago) Weibo has been described by nearly everyone as the Chinese Twitter clone. This does a serviceable job of describing how Weibo works: at it’s heart it’s a chronological timeline of less-than-140 character posts authored by people you follow. Simple enough.

Since its inception though, Weibo has added several features distinguishing itself from Twitter and becoming something of a Facebook-Twitter mashup. Since both of these juggernaut social networks are inaccessible to users in this country, this unison makes a lot of sense since Facebook and Twitter have already gone through the trouble of spending years figuring out how social networks like this should work.

Quick Facts About Weibo

• You follow people, have followers, and save favorites. Very similar to Twiter.
• Photo sharing is easy since Weibo automatically hosts images for you. Upload them from your phone or computer and they automatically appear directly inside the timeline. Like Facebook.
• In addition to pictures, you can also upload audio and video. These also appear in the timeline and play instantly just like on Facebook.
• There’s already over 150 million registered Weibo accounts and the user base will soon eclipse Twitter. Adding tens of millions of new users per month.
• Just like Twitter, Sina has verified accounts, indicated by a “V” insignia, for celebrities. Or anyone with a pinch of guanxi with Sina.

Why Weibo is Worth Your Time: Making Connections

New & old friends on Weibo

Being connected to your friends is a wonderful thing. Facebook or Twitter on their own don’t hold much appeal to me and I don’t think my case is very extraordinary. It’s the connections that are valuable. Weibo offers the exact same thing: a connection to all of your contacts in China.

If your friends in China are like mine (mostly people in their 20′s and 30′s), there’s a good chance that they’re all on Weibo and cruise their own timelines from their office computer or smart phone. And once you’re connected to them, you’ll stumble upon others with similar interests.

For instance, one of the first people that I followed on Weibo was Gas, Chengdu graffiti artist and friend. A few weeks ago he traveled to Changsha to participate in the biggest annual graffiti event in China. During his extended weekend in Changsha he posted dozens of photos of artwork all around the city and through those posts I got connected with artists I hadn’t even heard of before. The same thing has happened in many of the other social circles that I’m in be it technology, photography, or music.

In short, Weibo is a great way to connect with people who have similar interests in China. Or just connect to Tom Cruise or Bill Gates who have recently joined Weibo and accrued hundreds of thousands of followers in a matter of days.

Another Benefit: Improving Your Chinese

It goes without being said that since Weibo is mostly dominated by Chinese people who don’t speak English, almost no one is using English at all. This is either a huge problem, if you can’t read any characters at all, or will really catapult your written interaction in Chinese.

Like many of you, I’ve been (informally) studying Chinese as long as I’ve been in China, experimenting with different tools and tricks along the way. I’ve already gone on about Studying Chinese with an iPhone or iPod Touch and Weibo is really an extension of that.

J-Dilla (US hip hop producer) tribute on Weibo, courtesy of Zhenkai, Chengdu local B-Boy

I cannot understand everything on Weibo upon first glance (not by a long shot) so here’s what I do: tap and hold to copy something I want to translate to the clipboard. Then pop over to Pleco (the best Chinese-English dictionary app) and paste the contents into the pasteboard reader. Any words or characters that I don’t understand and are likely to be used within the next 6 months get added to my flashcards. Using this technique alone I’ve added 500+ new flashcards to Pleco that I’ve stumbled on in Weibo. Since I don’t have much time to sit down and read Chinese books for hours at a time, collecting and recording these bite-sized pieces of vocabulary works great for me.

Registration & Weibo Clients

After you head over to the Weibo site to register your account, you’ll receive some suggestions on who to follow. If you aren’t interested in following Mainland pop stars and celebrities, I suggest you find at least a single friend who’s on Weibo so you can get connected with people you actually know. If you get connected to a few people that you know from the beginning, you’re likely to stumble upon more people that you know or are interested in. I’ve found a handful of local artists, musicians and photographers who I’ve met (so to speak) through Weibo.

Once you’ve got that covered, you have just to select whether you’ll be accessing Weibo from a computer or a mobile device. Here are your options:

Web interface

The traditional method of accessing Weibo is through their website at Weibo.com. The interface looks virtually identical to what Twitter.com looked like before it’s redesign about 6 months ago. It’s a 2-column chronological listing of posts by people you’re following. You can hover over usernames to see information on their account like where they’re located, who their following and so forth.

iPhone & iPod Touch

Although there’s an official Weibo client (developed by Sina) which does the job perfectly well, there’s a superior third party alternative called Weico (App Store link / official site). It has virtually all of the same functions as the official client but is better designed and includes several different themes which you can toggle in the app settings. I’m using the Graphite thing which works well and looks great (pictured at right).

Android

Similar to the situation on iOS, there’s an official Sina client as well as Weico. The Weico app on Android is still in beta but is available for free download just as on iPhone and iPod Touch. I haven’t used either of these apps (I don’t have an Android phone) but expect them to be virtually identical to their iPhone counterparts in function and design.

Personally I much prefer accessing Weibo from my iPhone since it perfectly fills idle moments throughout the day: waiting in line, taking a taxi from here to there, etc. If you have a smartphone with 3G access (either an iPhone or Android device), reading and posting on Weibo will be especially quick and convenient for you.

Join Tom Cruise & Bill Gates on Weibo

Since going through the paces of registering an account on Weibo and locating friends, I barely even bother with QQ anymore. Although I was never a fan of QQ to begin with, it was the connections it provided – to virtually everyone in China – that were really valuable. Since Sina’s Weibo network has been spreading like wildfire over the previous year, I can retain all of the same connections on a service that’s much less intrusive.

If you haven’t already, it might be worth your time to check it out and see what it can offer you. If you do, send me a message and say hello!