Another month down and another winter season quickly approaching. My apologies for not having written more sooner but to say “I’m busy” is an understatement. This semester I’ve been given three writing sections and no TA to help out with the marking and grading, so it all comes down to how much I can stand reading Chinglish before going bug-eyed.
Halloween itself was a rather low-key, recovery-from-the-night-before. But the day before Halloween, October 30th, “Gate Night” in the West, was my first venture into the Chinese metal scene. If you’ve followed my blog or my musical tastes for any length of time, you’ll know that I do enjoy heavy music and it’s always interesting to see what other countries have on offer in regard to their metal scene. Some scenes (such as in Laos) remind you of the 1980s whereas other scenes (Poland, for instance), you’re surprised that you didn’t know they produced some of the most well-known metal in the world.
Anyway, this metal show, known as the Halloween 330 Metal Show, played host to six metal bands at the Yu Gong Yi Shan venue. The venue itself nestled inside some old section of what looked like old city walls or some temple. Ten metres from the big entrance gate was a little wooden door, rather unassuming and, unless you knew what you were looking for you would probably walk right by it. That door opened into a small walkway that eventually led into a larger hall, maybe the size of two 60-seat classrooms, complete with an upper and lower sections. Four of the bands were good and two I bought their CD (yes, I still buy CDs). I ended up getting Crack and Burning Woods‘ CDs, the first being proper Chinese speed metal, the latter being a folk-metal type of band. Of all those, the promoter guy said he only enjoyed one of them. He’s been in the business longer and was looking at it from the sales point of view.
While there, I met one guy who told he worked as a music promoter in China. I never got the company name but he says he’s been in Beijing for close to 20 years. Props to him, except that he said no one respects English teachers… not even in China. Ouch. To be fair, the meeting started off with cultural faux-pas’ on both sides. He said he was from Switzerland and I responded that he must be used to good metal, to which he immediately corrected, “You’re thinking of Sweden.” Strike one. Strike two: after hearing my mistake he asked, “You must be American.” Wrong, Canadian. Ha! So we both made mistakes and got along swimmingly after that. Aside from him, I met this Polish girl who went all out to dress up as some sort of Chinese monster-fairy, complete with qipiao dress (the traditional Chinese wedding dress that make all Chinese brides look insanely gorgeous) and white contact lenses. Kudos to her for her effort.
You might wonder why I still go to metal shows and even buys CDs. Aside from music being a lifelong interest of mine, since I’ve begun travelling in 2009 seeking out metal bands has taken on a new meaning. I’ve always judged a country’s freedom based on how easy it is to find their metal scene. For China, it took about six months to find metal CDs but another five months after that to find a proper metal show. Most of the “serious” metal heads were still caucasian but simply the presence of a large crowd showed me enough to think that there is some amount of freedom in this country, despite what the Western media would like to portray. That being said, it did take a year to see a metal show.
