Going out. I’ve been going out a bit more lately around Beijing, usually a sign that I’m getting restless and it’s almost time to get back to work. I’ve spent the last month basically sitting around and reading. I’ve gone to a few brew pubs and walked around the hutong-rich area of Nan Lou Gu Xiang. Nan Lou Gu Xiang is one of the modernized hutongs that looks to have been overhauled for tourists. It’s chock full of shops that sell Chinese knick knacks, clothes, pipes, cafes and bars. It’s a nice area to walk around and do some window shopping and it’s not far from the Drum and Bell Towers and Qianhai Lake which, depending on who you talk to, is either a nicely condensed area of nightly entertainment or an infested tourist shit hole. It’s a combination, really, in that NLGX and Qianhai Lake (the subway stop is Shichihai) offer places like Great Leap Brewing (one of the few Beijing microbreweries), live music at 4Corners or Cafe 69 or at the more Chinese-crowd bars across the lake, and plenty of choices for food. Oh, and if you’re a single male walking around the lake alone at night you can expect to be offered a lady, a bar, or both and maybe something more. *wink wink*
Videos. I’ve also been uploading more videos to YouTube, a few of which are about the Chinese New Year celebrations. They’re rough and mostly uncut as I find editing video a time consuming process.
Living in Beijing. One of the benefits of living in Beijing is its delivery service. Not just online shopping, but food and drink orders. Yes, Taobao and Amazon have same-day delivery for their items, but you can also order food delivered and drinks. Not only can you order through websites but many websites have QR codes (I didn’t think they were even used any more) that you san with an app called WeChat. With this you can access their store and order from there. I haven’t used the WeChat app to order anything but I have used the websites and so far it’s been pretty easy going. I’ve had Indian food and pizza delivered (but the McDonalds system gave me trouble so I gave up) and am thinking about trying the Slowboat brewery WeChat store. Usually delivery is free but some places charge anywhere form 8-30RMB.
Chinese language. I have resolved to begin learning Chinese in earnest now and have begun seeking out a tutor. I attended classes in the first semester and learned the basics but now I want to up my game a little more. Classes are good for beginning, but I usually progress faster with a tutor because the classes can be rescheduled easier and follow along with my improvement. Some students have volunteered to teach me but, I hate to say it, you get what you pay for. I’ve started saying “okay” now in the hopes that one of them works out. Plus, it’s a good experience for them to learn how to teach their mother tongue to someone who doesn’t know it at all.
CPop. And here’s some music for you from the other side of the world. Unlike Kpop, which was given a huge boost by PSY and his “Gangnam Style”, CPop doesn’t receive much airplay in the West. There are a few reasons for this, one is that China blocks YouTube which greatly contributed to the spread of Kpop, two, Chinese pop music doesn’t incorporate much, if any, English into their songs, and three, some of the videos are just weird. Not that these are bad things, but it may be a few more years before you see a Chinese pop song hit mainstream Western media. I don’t doubt it will, Japan has its manga, Korea has its Kpop, China is just has to create its own niche.
Anyway, the song is “Little Apple” by the Chopsticks Brothers and it was famous in 2014. I heard it in one of the bars along Qianhai Lake and asked the guy next to me what it was (he said he was a film director but still only on mid-sized productions). There are a few versions below. The first is the original video as it was released in China. If you can, give it a view and see if you can figure out what it is about.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/uDyo6IAnbVY[/youtube]
If you’re not up to the challenge of figuring out what’s going on in China with that video, here’s the original video with English subtitles.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/d59boCs31uM[/youtube]
Now that you have an idea of what the video is about, Kpop stars T-Ara did their own version of the song with an appearance by the Chopstick Brothers themselves. How fitting as Korea is another country in which plastic surgery is rampant.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/05-c-iy-WnY[/youtube]
So far as I can tell, the song is about appearances and, I think, is a critique on modern society’s fixation with plastic surgery and remaking one’s looks, a topic that seems to be growing in China right now.