The instant I saw Luo Fahui in his palatial studio outside Chengdu, I knew I was looking at an artist. His piercing, good-humored expression gazed out at me from under his bald crown without sarcasm. Narrow shoulders clothed in the characteristic monotone shirt suggested a dark-clad modesty behind those scandalous paintings. It was the middle of the day and we were sipping tea from class cups in his tall whitewashed home. His wife had on a pair of purple tinted sunglasses. I felt like I was sitting inside a heated igloo.

He Tang Yuese (荷塘月色, Moonlight on the Lotus Pond) is where Luo built his home. One of a collection of fourteen artist lofts, including that of He Duoling, Luo’s home is a testament to what an artist can accomplish in China and also what the artist needs: opulence and solitude. Hanging above the fireplace in Luo’s lush apartment is one of his recent acclaimed works, a picture of a very young boy and a tiger. The boy’s features are obscured and he’s mounted atop the small tiger as though riding it, its head in profile and one eye almost on the viewer. Both tiger and boy look hastily painted, in a flurry of passion–at first. But then you look closer: many deliberate strokes and a bleeding of the paint coalesce to give these bodies a heightened transcendence, an eye-popping ethereality.

Chengdu artist Luo Fahui

I asked him what he thought was most significant about this boy’s posture. One of its hands is thrust into a fist in mid-air while the other clutches the tiger’s neck. My friend, Liang Wei, interpreted for me:

“The boy is based on a character from classical Chinese literature, Wu Song. Originally, he battled the tiger and killed it. But this painting does not depict the original scene, where Wu Song wields a spear and takes the life of the tiger and gets away…In this version, the boy is not subduing the tiger, he’s just mounting it cockily, and he is missing his weapon, his spear. The boy is meant to symbolize China’s overconfident middle class. There is some serious political and social commentary at work there.”

Gesturing toward the back of the apartment, Luo took us through the door into the 90-foot-square garage where some of his recently-treated canvases were being aired out to dry. We chatted in front of an electrifying blue, turquoise, yellow, and gray painting with an illuminated, almost religious-looking figure in the center. We had about a half an hour together, then Luo and his wife slipped out the door very quickly to catch their flight to Scope Basel in Miami, the site of his most recent show.

I am standing transfixed in the studio loft of Luo Fahui. Beside me, sculptures of both convincing and cartoonish nudes posture about the heightened suggestiveness of grimacing skulls and opening rose petals. Huge canvases stretched over frames cover the walls, their colors–gray, orange, red, green, yellow, blue, turquoise–unmistakable. Unmistakably Luo’s.

The Body Discovered

The Spanish art critic, Marcos-Ricardo Barnatan, wrote in his introduction to the artist’s book: “…In the West, the nude corresponds to an invincible need for the absolute, an inevitable search for essence…But this breaks down once and for all in the modern era, where all systems of property disintegrate and the body is literally discovered…allowing eroticism to flow freely…that is the procedure followed by a modernity that paints those glorious bodies– distorted, damned, exalted, embellished or simply manifest…It is this modern game…to which the painting of Luo Fahui subscribes. (22)”

Luo’s work is not just erotic, but dirty. In some of his paintings, this dirtiness is straightforward- we get to see a woman’s legs spread out in front of us, or a naked subject seductively stroking a flower or skull as if it were an impressionistic take on tattoo art. At other times, the flower is exploding, gushing forth its bloody red entrails, or the subject is likewise bleeding. All of his work is partly sexual, partly about decay. There is little of struggle or fighting. There is a lot of dominance and submission. Even the boy and tiger look to be caught in a sadomasochistic lovelock rather than a death match.

One thing that’s increasingly clear is what has become a trademark of much contemporary Chinese painting: its color. All color in painting is symbolic and in China, the significance of color is potentially explosive. When Luo chooses red and gray to emphasize his subjects’ vulnerability, their woundedness and alienation, he is not only speaking to a post-Modern sexual appeal, he is evoking the destruction and resurrection of hurt in China’s Cultural Revolution and the shaking historical events of the past half-century. Chinese artist and scholar Wang Lin writes of one such painting, Female and Flower: “[The painting]’s being a symbol of desire is but a secular metaphor; from this starting point, Luo Fahui aims to probe, seek out and expose the physical, psychological and spiritual changes that happened to the Chinese people after they entered the so-called socialist market economy.”

To put it otherwise, Luo’s work parodies many Western concepts of the nude and nudity, but not in a way that we are used to. Spun into his work, along with the bodies, are ideas–ideas of things we may not recognize: a person from Chinese mythology, a scene from Tiananmen Square. In the nudes are both the objectivity of desire and an untouchable frailty, a cosmic letdown. What is he depicting? Is it really sex?

Wang Lin writes: “First it’s image. No matter flowers, heads or bodies, in Luo Fahui’s paintings, they appear so clear and bright, sparkling and translucent…Flowers are like sexual organs of women, gorgeous, delicate and fragile. Heads, that of grown-up male’s and female’s or infant’s and toddler’s…His body depiction usually displays vague features and ambiguous structures, as if made from flour…The background is either gray nihil, or turquoise sky. With such imagery, the artist creates an erotic atmosphere both illusory and fragile, and the viewers often find themselves shrouded in a soft and bewildered emotional state.”

Luo himself wrote, in one artist statement, “Painting is actually my expression of ideas, of my spiritual and emotional desire to be realized in an independent way. Painting is my own space where I hope for sublimation – to experience freedom of thought and perfection of life, to experience the language of the primitive and the inner emptiness. Such an easy and pleasant existence, and a passage of life which I wish to continue.

But the intentionality behind his paintings is not directly linked with politics. Thinking on this subject, Wang Lin writes, “He is not a thinking-type artist who challenges the social awareness with concepts and schema, but a feeling-type painter who depicts the potential changes in the society’s mental activities with his sensitive neurotic reactions.”

Photos by Jeff Weir

For excerpts of an interview with Luo Fahui, go here.

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.

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!

Disregarding self-aggrandizing lunatics like Zhao Bandi, the discussion online (where discussions are their most “public”) revolves around a few questions:

Let’s take a closer look at these questions below:

If You Have to Ask …

For many commentators, the answer to the first question is simple. Censorship, rote learning and a politicized movie industry prevent great works with international appeal from coming out of Mainland China — Farewell my Concubine being one notable exception. Posts like this on Douban are representative of this view:

There are other works which follow the same theme, like writer NanQiao for the Oriental Morning Post’s, “A Look at How Hollywood Plays the ‘Chinese Elements’ Card,” which also goes a bit deeper into the issue. He begins by asking the question that every Chinese engaged with this topic is asking:

It seems that “stealing culture” is not the only thing that galls. When Hollywood (i.e. foreigners) can profit off of stealing culture, then the discussion becomes heated and a solution must be found. NanQiao is not the only one mentioning the profit issue. Virtually every discussion mentions that “they’re making money off of us” — this is a very important aspect of the discussion because the importance of profit can come from a few different points of view:

1. They’re turning our culture into a product to be packaged and sold!
2. They’re making money off of us! It should always be the other way around!
3. Not one Mainland Chinese movie has come even close to making the same amount of cash that Hollywood movies have made in the Chinese market
4. Movie tickets in China aren’t cheap. An average ticket for Kung Fu Panda 2 costs more than 100RMB, while the average salary hovers around 2,500 per month for young people. Going to the movies is a luxury for the average person.

NanQiao answers his question by discussing “cultural strength” (文化强势) and the ability of Hollywood to recognize and synthesize (what Americans feel to be) worthy cultural elements into a seamless narrative and the inability of Chinese films to do the same:

For NanQiao, a clear and confident idea of what is culturally valuable determines a culture’s strength vis a vis another, therefore America’s clarity and China’s confusion lead to an imbalance in cultural strength ie much higher profits for Hollywood movies.

Chengdu in the Limelight

For the answer to the second question, lets first take a look at Chengdu’s reaction to the movie. The first Kung Fu Panda movie came out in June of 2008, not even a month after the Wenchuan Earthquake. At the time Chengdu was very worried about its image and as tourism numbers fell to 2003 levels, they were looking for something to help reverse the bad press.

So they extended an invitation to Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg and his team to come out to Chengdu and see what a real panda looks like. Katzenberg immediately agreed and took a trip out to the Panda Breeding Center (who promptly named one of their pandas after Po). During the making of Kung Fu Panda 2, the municipal government again extended an invite and the whole film crew including art director Raymond Zibach visited the city.

They stopped at Kuan Zhai Xiangzi, Qing Cheng Mountain, Dujiangyan and Jinsha (slurping up some noodles and hot pot along the way). The story was already done by the time the team arrived in Chengdu, but their experiences in the city inspired them to re-do some of the animation and insert dandan noodles, elements from the breeding center and Kuan Zhai Xiangzi and a lot of the scenery from Qing Cheng Mountain.

Qingcheng Mountain, located an hour outside Chengdu, is a center of Daoism and host to countless temples

The city of Chengdu practically gloated over this “free press” — in an article written for China Business, Peng Ge and Pei Yu elaborate on the efforts by the Chengdu Municipal government to get elements of the Du into the movie:

The authors go out of their way to show that the government did not spend a single penny on the “free PR” they received from the movie, despite mentioning a “person in the know” who said that the cost for this PR was around the RMB3million mark. It is safe to assume that the government expected to pay for having parts of Chengdu’s culture portrayed in the film, because Hebei Province happily invested in the movie Aftershock, about the Tangshan earthquake of 1976. So when Katzenberg said that he would put scenery from Chengdu into Kung Fu Panda 2 “as a gift to the children of the disaster zone” and when Zibach gushed that “I was so delighted and moved by Mt. Qingcheng that I insisted it be a major feature of the sequel,” the city of Chengdu was taken aback:

For the Chengdu government, Kung Fu Panda and it’s sequel are direct representations of the culture and beauty of the city. The pandas, the mountain scenes, all of the streetside vendors — according to their PR releases, these were directly inspired by Chengdu. The government’s goal was PR and ultimately profits, so for them the elements of China within the movie were not only adequate, but outstanding (in part because they “didn’t cost a penny”).

But for many netizens, including NanQiao, Kung Fu Panda 2 is very much an American movie and lacks the strong ties to Chinese culture that the first installment had. The jury is still out.

The scenery and setting were very Chinese, but the main character Po is very American. The peacock and the Master are quintessential Chinese characters, but the heroic stand at the end is considered an “America! F*ck Yeah!” type of moment, even though Po used Qing Cheng Mountain Tai Qi. All across the web there are comments that range from “They know us better than we know ourselves!” to “It’s an American kid dropped into the middle of China!”

As we can see here, there seems to be a disconnect between what is and is not Chinese culture and what is and is not valuable. For the city of Chengdu and Hebei Province, PR and the possibility of increased tourism adds value to the cultural elements within a film; for the average Chinese netizen, the answer is still unclear.

Asking the Wrong Question

For years Chinese have been told that their culture is not only unique, but that nobody else out there can really compare with or even fully comprehend the depth of China. When Chinese find out that, actually, some things are universal and that, yes it is possible to understand the deep values of Chinese culture precisely because they are universal then a whole new round of soul searching ensues.

Laughter is universal. When I watched the movie last weekend, I laughed my ass off and so did everyone else in the theater. Even when the jokes were pure-Jack Black slapstick.

Pain is universal. When Po’s mom left the little guy and he said “mama?” the whole theater fell silent and I felt the tears come. Somebody nearby was sobbing.

Inner peace is universal. When Master Shifu catches a drop of water off of the cliff face and guides it intact onto a leaf, demonstrating the power of inner peace, I knew exactly what he meant, even though I am neither Taoist, Chinese nor a Tai Qi master.

These elements were placed within a Chinese context and nothing more. If anything, the scenery itself helped bend the American cultural elements within the film, not the other way around. As I left the theater last week, I asked one of the ushers if he had watched the movie and he said of course several times. Then he said:

I could only smile at the irony there.

Kung Fu Panda is a movie that is first and foremost a Creation, inspired by the very best of China. Perhaps the discussions the film has engendered across the Chinese blogosphere will lead to a clarification of what is truly valuable about Chinese culture.

An Ordinary Tuesday Morning

On the day of the earthquake in Sichuan Province, Charlie, Ramone and John met at the Shamrock Bar and Grill in Chengdu at 7am and left on motorcycles for a tour of Qing Cheng Mountain. Qing Cheng Mountain is one of the most famous Daoist sites in China, covered in temples, pagodas and teahouses. It is about an hour northwest of Chengdu, right outside of Dujiangyan, an area hit hard by the earthquake.

It was a beautiful day for a motorcycle trip. The sun was shining and there was a slight breeze. The ride up to Qing Cheng Mountain is lined with bamboo-covered hills and small brooks. Bed and breakfast inns line the road snaking up the mountain; temples and pagodas peek out from the cliffs on the way to the White Lotus Daoist Monastery perched atop the peak.

Disaster Strikes

The three friends reached the top of the mountain just after noon and spent a couple hours taking pictures and touring the area. They decided to head back right around three o’clock. They paused for a moment on the way down, parking their bikes and stretching, when the earthquake hit.

“It was like an explosion. The houses started breaking apart all around us, the ground was shaking and glass was flying everywhere,” said Charlie.

This is exactly where the group came to rest when the 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck

They got on their bikes and tried to navigate down the rolling mountainside. Charlie was in front and was brought to a screeching halt when a landslide took out the road fifty feet in front of him. His friends stopped behind him, and they turned around and headed back up the mountain. They hadn’t gone five city blocks when they came to a house that had collapsed into the street, blocking the way up.

By now, massive boulders and chunks of the old Daoist mountain were tumbling down into the small gorge next to the road. They were far away from where the friends were trapped, but they could see and hear them.

The earthquake subsided after five or so large tremors and the friends were safe on the far side of the river in the open field. People wandered around in a daze, silent and staring up at the mountain.

Charlie took a headcount of all the people, 105, and collected supplies. They found 300kg of rice, propane gas and some umbrellas. The camp was in a precarious position. The tremors kept coming, the mountain was falling apart and the sun was going down. As night fell, Ramone, Charlie and John huddled up with the locals and tried to get some sleep.

Flowers bloom brightly near their makeshift campsite

The Longest Night

The long night lying on the wet ground, listening to the mountain fall apart around them and sensing every tremor, was as terrifying as the initial explosive earthquake. The water pooled around their bodies and they barely slept, waiting for the tremor that would kill them all.

They planned to leave at sunrise, but as dawn fell across the small gorge they were trapped in by fallen boulders on all sides. The whole group stood and simply waited for something to happen. Then a tremor hit and a giant piece of the mountain opposite came crashing into the gorge below. Everybody panicked and began yelling to each other to make a run for it. The group rushed up the near side of the mountain, pulling themselves up through the mud and brush. The very old and the very young raced up and away from the mountain shattering across the gorge.

A Leader Emerges

When they reached the top, they found a path that led to a teahouse with chairs and a wooden shelter. The group gathered under the shelter and started a fire, cooking up rice porridge for breakfast.

The man led the group down a clear path, then veered back down toward the river. The mountainside was muddy and denuded of trees, so it was very slow going. They were closer to the area where the boulders were falling and the raging river was right below them. It was a long, tense hour before they managed to get all of the people across the muddy mountain and down to the road. The road was almost completely destroyed. Pieces had fallen into the river, boulders and landslides blocked the path. The group picked up pace and headed down the mountain.

They followed the road down, often reaching parts virtually wiped out, leaving only one small path for the group to follow. When the group reached the ticketing office of the Qing Cheng Mountain Tourism Area, they joined about 500 people waiting in line. Local and military police organized everybody into two lines and guided them down the mountain. The roads and all paths were demolished. Everyone had to hang onto branches and bamboo and climb down a precarious, muddy path. Ramone and Charlie carried an old woman with head trauma along a path that hugged the cliff. She was in high-heels and ankle deep in mud. It was still raining and the tremors kept up throughout the day.

Hiking down the mountain revealed countless surreal sights like this

The road resumed farther down the path. Police and motorcycles started appearing on the road and the survivors stumbled past another destroyed village. When they reached the foot of the mountain, hundreds of people were milling about with their belongings in plastic bags, looking for transportation out of Qing Cheng Mountain. This is where the three friends split from the group.

Clutching The Ace of Diamonds

They found a car back to Chengdu and listened to the radio on the hour-long drive back, learning of the extent of the damage done by the earthquake. A few hours later, Charlie sits in the Sultan Restaurant in south Chengdu and shakes his head at the experience. He pulls out an ace of diamonds and shows it to me.

He shakes his head and laughs.

Youtube Clip of the Quake Striking

A Chinese-language news broadcast is embedded below. It’s live footage of the earthquake filmed by a member of the group on Qing Cheng Shan. Titled “Most terrifying live footage of Sichuan earthquake by far”, the video already has been viewed by hundreds of thousands around the world.

More Photos Taken After the Earthquake

The photographs below were captured after the earthquake by visiting photographer and friend, Julia Zimmerman. We returned to the place where Charlie was during the earthquake along with Ramone and retraced their steps, capturing photos of the locations. We’ve also included some photos taken in a nearby town and outside of Chengdu.

Ramone, Sascha's wife, Charlie, and Sascha

Walking up the mountain road on Qingcheng Shan you could see enormous cracks in the road

Many buildings on the mountain were reduced to rubble like this

Sichuan earthquake survivors look on at photos of the destruction

A bicyclist rides past tents set up to house earthquake refugees

Police survey the destruction left behind by the Sichuan earthquake

The orange-clad reconstruction crew takes a break to eat

Chinese soldiers walk through an affected town with flag waving

A man stops to examine the destruction wrought by the earthquake

Observing an earthquake refugee camp. Five months before the 2008 Beijing Olympics

This was the courtyard where Charlie and company established their camp. Some supplies remain

This post is for those who couldn’t be at Chengdu Zebra Music Festival and want to get a feel for what it was like. If this sounds like you, here are some quick notes about Zebra before you jump straight into the photos:

• Started in 2009, this year was the third annual Zebra Music Festival in Chengdu
• Festival organizers claim that attendance this year was 150,000. I and others are skeptical of this figure but regardless, it was a very well-attended event
• The vast majority of performers were domestic bands and pop artists, although the lineup was punctuated by the occasional foreign act. Local bands The Trouble, Mr Turtle, Proximity Butterfly and Mosaic were all main stage performers this year
• Xiong Mao (Chengdu’s now-defunct home of electronic music) didn’t host their own stage at the festival this year. Rather, DJ’s were slotted to perform for the final few hours on the second (Sky) stage
• To see a full lineup from the festival, check our post in the Chengdu Forum about Zebra Music Festival

Photos from Zebra Music Festival

As in previous years, I brought along a frisbee to the festival. It was a huge hit and in the afternoon between bands we’d have a circle of 15 people playing together. Many at Zebra told me that the festival atmosphere and outdoor setting was what brought them there more than anything else.

Myself (and my good friend Kafe, pictured below) caught a ride up to the festival grounds at 198 Poly Park near the Panda Base outside of Chengdu. Taxi fare from Chengdu to the festival grounds was about 50 yuan.

Outside of the entrance gates, an enormous banner listed performance times. As always, it was ridden with mistakes. Here you can see me as “Justchaile” and Cvalda (a local drum & bass DJ) is listed as being American.

Vendors were scattered around the park selling t-shirts, stickers, and post cards. This particular group (“F.E.S.”) brought stickers and tie-dye t-shirts.

Nearby the Sky Stage was a small half pipe which skaters and BMX riders performed on during the day.

Frisbee action in the afternoon. This frisbee got used so much it crack and then nearly split in half after being tossed thousands of times. Before this I’d never seen a frisbee break like that before.

Between the main stage and Sky stage were Jagermeister and Budweiser tents. Drinks are cheap at Zebra! 10 yuan for a Budweiser can and 10 yuan for an ice-cold shot of Jagermeister. It was much, much easier to obtain alcohol than bottled water at the festival.

Local band Proximity Butterfly opens up the main stage on the afternoon of the first day.

This array of hotdogs served as bait to get festival attendees to signup for a cell phone music service. Upon signup, you’d be given two tickets which you can exchange for hotdogs. No one signed up or ate them and these guys seemed to be just standing around in front of hotdogs all day.

Our friend and esteemed Chengdu graffiti artist Gas was in attendance.

This banner didn’t last long before being defaced by pranksters.

The food area included this guy grinning and offering what looks like 50 pounds of chicken feet and assorted organs.

And coconuts! 15 yuan included a hole poked in the coconut with a colorful straw.

Festival security guards were laid back and pleasant as always. Here they sat in a grassy field and chatted.

A sign indicating the Xiong Mao electronic stage from last year. There was no such stage this year, but the sign has persisted in this location for one year.

One vendor sold do it yourself t-shirts, painted on site with whatever message or imagery you like.

Cotton candy cost 5 yuan, or about $0.80.

Although vendors were informally scattered around the festival grounds, there was a designated vendor area. Clothing, shoes, and various trinkets were for sale here.

Local band The Trouble opened the festival on the second day. Seen here on the large screen (and below playing guitar) is the bands lead singer and guitarist, Gao Xin.

Local music producer and friend Jovian performed on the third day. An experimental set of live bass and performing all original production.

I performed just after sunset on the third day, playing a multi-genre medley set featuring Metallica, James Brown, Guns ‘n Roses, and Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.

The Jagermeister tent went for broke on the last evening of the festival, selling double shots for 10 yuan.

Edison Chen stepped on stage saying “I am Edison Chen!” to the enthusiastic cheers of the massive crowd.

On the last evening we had fun playing leap frog and taking photos.

A large helicopter paid a visit to the main stage on the afternoon of the third day. It descended to a very low altitude and circled around the stage for about 10 minutes. In between songs, the lead singer of the local band performing said “Whoa! That’s a huge helicopter!” and everyone laughed together.

Performing with Kafe on the second stage.

Conclusion

Even with its difficulties (technical problems and mediocre programming being foremost), it was still a blast enjoying the good weather in Chengdu with friends. And in a sense, we’re lucky that Zebra Music Festival didn’t befall the tragic fate of Suzhou’s Strawberry festival which was abruptly cancelled.

Thanks to local photographer Xixi who contributed the last ten photos featured above. You can follow him on Sina Weibo (the Chinese twitter) right here.

If you attended Zebra in Chengdu, I’d love to hear what your experience at the festival was like in the comments below.

Chengdu Living suddenly became inaccessible from within China on Thursday March 10th.  Hoping for the best, we held on for a day until we were able to confirm that indeed, after 14 months of being online, we are now officially blocked — otherwise known as being “Harmonized” (被和谐了) to use the local terminology.

Update: Chengdu Living is currently accessible from Chengdu without a proxy. It’s evidently blocked in other locations in China so the block might be intermittent or based on region. As always, we recommend using a VPN so won’t have to concern yourself with this at all. See below for our free VPN giveaway.

How Did This Happen?

The short answer is that we don’t know.

Although “the rules” of publishing a blog about life in China don’t exist, we knew from the beginning that being blocked was a possibility. Over the years we’ve developed a deep love and respect for Chengdu and we feel satisfied that Chengdu Living reflects that, but there’s another side to this. We didn’t want the content to be too far removed from the social and political realities of Chengdu. It’s a delicate balance to maintain and in this situation you will get no warnings: you go straight from business as usual to being blocked with no explanation.

Foreigners who’ve spent considerable time in China know how the pleasures and trials of living here are complex. As with anywhere else, there’s good and bad. We wrestle with the hardships and frustrations of China like everyone else, but our ideal has been to cultivate a platform which celebrates the positive aspects of life here. Those which excite us, which we talk about amongst ourselves, and we want to share with everyone.

In short, the block is a surprise to us and we aren’t clear for what reason we were blocked. However, our current best guess is that it has something to do with a story we published several weeks ago about the effect of China’s burgeoning middle class on recent political unrest in Egypt.

The Great Firewall

The Golden Shield Project (nicknamed The Great Firewall) is the censorship and surveillance project operated by the Ministry of Public Security in China. Since 1998, the Golden Shield Project has been protecting Chinese from:

• Pornography
• Anti-social opinions and activities
• Ideas, organizations and opinions which are a threat to national security
• Ideas, organizations and opinions which undermine the government’s policies on religion or are seen as subversive

Basically if your site contains reference to REDACTED REDACTED, REDACTED Movement in China, or REDACTED Square, then you run the risk of being harmonized. It’s estimated that there are tens of thousands of civil servants propping up “The Shield”, presumably by searching for sites including certain keywords. For this reason, many dissenting Chinese choose not to share or discuss their opinion on sensitive topics at all.

The political and ideological root of the Firewall carries an ironic and almost poetic twist, though. Deng Xiaoping, the real revolutionary hero of China and shining star of Sichuan legacy, said in the early 1980′s:

“If you open the window for fresh air, you have to expect some flies to blow in.”

The idea is that economic reform and market economy (fresh air) were essential to China’s growth, but would simultaneously introduce unsavory elements (flies) which had to be eliminated.

The Technical Details of Our Blockage

Immediately after suspecting we were being blocked we contacted some friends who helped us investigate the details of the block (thanks, you know who you are). It turns out that this was a DNS Poison attack which confuses the servers which translate ChengduLiving.com into an IP address, sending you to the wrong destination. This results in a page not found error. The website is exactly where it should be, but you’re being intentionally directed to the wrong place. Because this type of attack is linked to our domain name, there isn’t much we can do but hope that it gets unblocked.

In the last day we’ve talked to some more people and have some leads on a solution. It might be possible to overcome the block, but there’s no way to be sure. When we have more information, we’ll share it.

Update: Chengdu Living has been unblocked, at least in some locations. We aren’t sure how long the site will remain accessible without a VPN.

We Recommend You Do Not Use Your Chinese ISP’s DNS Servers

Since China’s major internet service providers are all state-owned, pushing a DNS Poison attack through the thousands of DNS servers across the country is very possible. However, you can avoid using their DNS servers complete and easily by using OpenDNS or Google Public DNS.

Whether you’re using a Windows or Mac computer, switching to another DNS server is easy. For me, I opened System Preferences, clicked Network, then Advanced, and entered 8.8.8.8 into the DNS tab. Here’s an image to illustrate:

Using Google Public DNS takes 30 seconds to setup on a Windows or Mac computer

Three Reasons to Continue Despite the Block

We’ll continue to publish content on Chengdu Living and build the audience as we’ve been doing. Here’s why:

• According to our website analytics, an enormous percentage of readers are located overseas or are accessing the site through a VPN from China. Our Facebook and Twitter accounts alone, with thousands of fans and followers on each, demonstrate the size of this audience.
• We have an obligation to continue the work that we started. Every meaningful accomplishment is achieved after overcoming obstacles like this and it’ll add to our experience.
• We don’t know how to stop. Chengdu Living is an extension of our lives. We’re writers, bloggers, and otherwise creative types who want to contribute the lessons and adventures that we’re privileged to experience. Engaging local culture, language, and society and sharing it with others is a fulfilling pursuit.

Freedur VPN Giveaway

We’ve long been advocates of using a VPN because such an enormous portion of the internet remains inaccessible to surfers in China without one. If the internet is anything more to you than a conduit for email, we believe it to be essential since more and more of our lives move online every day. With that in mind, we have 25 Freedur VPN accounts (3-month duration) to give away so you can get started now if you aren’t already on a VPN. All you have to do is leave a comment below and we’ll select 25 commenters at random to receive free accounts.

Note: Freedur has been generous enough to offer dozens of free accounts to Chengdu Living readers and contributors and we personally use this VPN provider although we think any VPN that works is great. If you have an alternate VPN that works well for you, feel free to post the details below for anyone else who’s interested. If you’re a VPN provider and you’d like to promote your service by allowing us to donate some accounts to readers in China, contact us.

Foreword

When I was in high school in Washington D.C., I knew graffiti artists who would endlessly sketch their alias’ in notebooks during class, eventually graduating to spray paint and the quiet streets of the nation’s capital. I thought for sure I had left this culture behind when arriving in Chengdu but was shocked and excited to find that I was wrong. For over a year now I’ve been noticing a graffiti tag posted all around Chengdu.

It’s not the first I’ve seen a tag in the city by any means, but two qualities about it made it impossible for me to forget: its sheer abundance and its unmistakable artistry. It’s simple, ever-present, and beautiful. Just three letters: G-A-S.

After noticing Gas and his tag literally proliferate around me and the places where I pass time in Chengdu, I pledged to make an effort to track him down. I was compelled and fascinated by what kind of figure was behind this.

With a little help from a friend (thanks Eli), I connected the dots and interviewed GAS. Following the interview you’ll find a collection of street art created by Gas in and around Chengdu.

Interview with Gas

Chengdu Living: Who are you?

Gas: “My name is Shui Gui (水鬼, literally “Water Ghost”). My tag is ‘Gas.’ I am an art student from Chongzhou, a city outside of Chengdu in Sichuan.”

Chengdu Living: How long have you been an artist?

Gas: “I wouldn’t call myself an artist, just a writer (literally: 写字人). I have been writing since I was 15. I was always into hip hop culture – break dancing, street ball – I tried drawing and using other mediums before then, but 15 was the first time that I picked up a spray paint can and painted a wall. I remember seeing graffiti for the first time – whoa – it blew my mind.”

Chengdu Living: How old are you now?

Gas: “Twenty one. You know, I’m still new to everything. I don’t have a girlfriend; I have never been with a woman. I have never been in love. I don’t have a lot of money or a lot of experience either, I just do graffiti. I want to contribute to Chengdu’s culture. I know that graffiti in China is not at the level of graffiti in the West, so I have to turn it up and keep improving.”

Chengdu Living: How do you see the situation toward graffiti improving in Chengdu?

Gas: “We need more cooperation. Chengdu has a problem with being fragmented- we need to find a common ground. Someone told me that the era of hip hop in Chengdu is dead. I don’t believe that. It’s not reached its pinnacle yet, its time has not arrived. People say they are Chengdu kings but that’s bullshit, Chengdu does not have kings yet. King is like a military rank. You cant just say that you are a King, or say that you are All City, just because you think you’re good. You have to earn that. People don’t focus on the fundamentals enough. In Chongzhou, where I’m from, there is a street- 100 meters long, covered with graffiti on both sides. This was all done by me, legally.”

Chengdu Living: How did you get to do that?

Gas: “I spoke to the town officials beforehand. It comes down to being a good person. They know that I’m a good guy. Some people are really stingy with their art, they just want to make a little bit of money with it. But their skill level really isn’t that good yet. The way I feel is that you got to get your skills up first, then you can try to make some money off of it.”

Chengdu Living: How did you get started in graffiti?

Gas: “When I first started I thought it was really tough to use aerosol, but I was interested in it, so I kept practicing. Now I have a decent control with spray cans. I try to find flow, the rhythm. Having the right color scheme affects the way that people feel about your piece. The relationship between the colors, the relationship between the composition and the wall, the wall and the surrounding environment. It’s all connected.

If you’re just starting, I reccommend you do this. Start with A, B, C and work your way up to Z. Make them look good. Even for Chinese writers, they need to perform this well before they’re ready to move onto Chinese characters which are more visually complex. Hong kong has an influential writer named Xeme. He writes in traditional and simplified characters. He has a ton of style, check him out.

I look at a lot of graffiti online. I use online translators to understand discussions other languages.”

Chengdu Living: Are you a member of a crew?

Gas: “I’m not part of a crew. I’m completely independent. If I join a crew, they want to control me. They tell me what to write and what not to write. Like bombing – they won’t allow it. It’s not that they are afraid of bombing – they all got busted many times – they just want to take a more commercial route. I think that’s ok, as long as you are respecting the roots of the culture, but I’m trying to promote graffiti in a systematic way. My previous crews tag was OCT. Oct = our city, or CTU, the airport code for Chengdu. If you see this tag in Chengdu, it’s definitely mine. I paint a lot, and I have never been busted.

You have to do it with shameless bravery (不要脸加勇敢). If you ever stop doing graffiti, then you never really were a graffiti artist to begin with. If you are just passing through, if you are just enjoying the fad, then you aren’t really doing graffiti.”

Chengdu Living: What are your goals for your graffiti?

Gas: “To give people on the street art to enjoy. Taking pictures of graffiti and putting them online is cool, but that’s not what I’m all about. I don’t write graffiti to collect the pictures, the goal for me is to put it on display in the street. Some people just paint in the small alleys. That’s fine, but not a lot of people are going to see it. Some people have a lot of excuses, I’m tired of the excuses. I’ve been hearing them for 5 years. I want to paint on big streets. I want to find big streets to put my art on, big corners, noticeable places. Take it to the streets.

I hope that Chengdu grows to embrace street art in all forms. I wish that the Chengdu subway would do what the some other cities do, and let artists paint in designated spots. Like sometimes they will put some art up to cover over the people who have written ban zheng ( 办证 , an ad for false documents) – in public places. Sometimes I cover up those things when I paint.”

Really I would like to paint on trains. But I gotta be realistic. You gotta start with the tagging, and work up to the bombing. Systematically.

Chengdu Living: Who are your influences?

Gas: “Ren, in Changsha Hunan province. He’s the craziest writer in mainland China, and a good friend. Xeme in Hong Kong. He writes the most elegant Chinese characters. Revok and Ewok. Pose and Sever. Mad Society Kings (MSK).”

Chengdu Living: Where can we find you online?

Gas: “Follow me on Weibo. My username is Gas1. I have a blog also.”

Chengdu Living: Anything else?

Gas: “There is one more thing I would like to say. China is a harmonious society. I have a big brother- a brother named HuJinTao, and I will always be loyal to him. I have another big brother named WenJiaBao. I believe in their policies. Even though some people might think that they are wrong, I think in this era, they’re doing a good job.

In the face of problems, there will always be some people who don’t like the way that you are handling them. But I feel like they have helped a lot of people in the middle. Not the richest, not the poorest, but the people in the middle. Please include this.”

More Gas Pieces

Thanks and Conclusion

Special thanks to Eli for not only making the introduction, but conducting, translating and transcribing the interview along with me. The interview was recorded in Chinese and we played it back in another session, translating and transcribing at the same time. Thanks of course goes to Gas for participating in this interview and providing images to share.

We’re looking forward to upcoming interviews with other Chengdu personalities. If you have a suggestion for someone who’d make an interesting candidate, go ahead and send us a message and let us know!

First Round of Additions

I added some more images, below. If anyone has anything else that you see and want it posted here, email me.

Second Round of Additions

I went to Gas’ hometown of Chongzhou a few days ago and got some photos while I was there. Lots of really nice stuff there and a nice town otherwise, worth checking out since it’s about 40 minutes from Chengdu by bus.