This music festival was the catalyst for bringing me to Chengdu. I wanted to go to Chengdu at some point while I'm back in China, and this was a great excuse. I got about 2 weeks notice for my week of vacation so I couldn't have planned anything really big anyway.
It was a 3 day music festival with DJs from all over the world. The first night I can't remember what the theme was, but the second night was hip-hop/electronic and the third night was house/techno. It was being headlined by DJ Shadow. I was also scoring free tickets to all 3 nights (which was around 400 kuai altogether). On the website Reddit there is a subreddit for China. I was perusing it a couple weeks prior to leaving for Chengdu, when I saw that the festival was going on and someone on the thread whose name I would later learn was Charlie was offering to give away a few tickets. I told him I was taking a hard seater from Beijing to Chengdu and he said that there was no way he couldn't help me out. He said if I made it in one peice I would have 3 tickets waiting for me.
The festival was located in a brand new remodeled area just outside the Third Ring Road on the Eastern side of the city (outside of the third ring road is where you begin to get outside Chengdu's city center). The venue used to be a big industrial area of the city back in Mao's day. Apparently, in the 1950s, the Soviet Union had come to Chengdu when it was one of China's leading industrial cities, and pumped millions of dollars into it. Over time they built up a gigantic manufacturing infrastructure that has long sinced moved further outside of the city as population growth has caused the city to expand.
However, that area has not gone to waste. They took a part of the old industrial zone and turned it into 2 or 3 square blocks of swanky new nightlife. The Panda Festival was taking place in only one part of the newly renovated industrial compound. There were also art exhibits, night clubs with DJs and night clubs with live music, restuarants, and even a hotel or two. I talked to a few foreigners who have lived in Chengdu for at least 6 or 7 years and they both were really hoping that the area makes it. Apparently Chengdu has been in need of a new nightlife scene, but not for lack of trying. For some reason no one's really been able to break through, there's been a ton of failed attempts at starting getting new nightlife going in Chengdu over the years, but nothing has stuck. The industrial area is quite aesthetically pleasing and all the nightclubs and restuarants I peaked inside of seemed really nice. I hope it makes it, I guess only time will tell.
At 8:30 I met Charlie and the 5 or 6 other lucky kids with golden tickets (hah) and headed inside for the Panda Festival. The industrial compound was packed with people, lots of seniors and young kids come as well because the architecture of the place itself is enough to draw visitors. It's hard to describe the area, and when I can finally upload my pictures I will be sure to add them here for anyone who cares to see. We wound our way through the compound until we finally made it to a big building with a large Xiong Mao festival banner flapping in the breeze next to it. There was a large line, rather, since it's China, a large routy mob waiting to get in. Charlie tells us to follow him and we push our way to the front, elbowing and mushing people along the way. When we got to the front it was extremely loud due to all the people and music blasting from speakers not too far away and Charlie waved at the people in charge at the entrance who had passes strung around their necks. They waved back and signaled him forward since trying to communicate via yelling wasn't going to work in the chaos. He pointed to us, the great white faces in a sea of Chinese indicating that we were with him and the people in charge nodded us in as well. When we got through the entrance, we got our hands stamped, a sticker put on our shoulder and someone handed each of us an empty cup. Apparently the entire show is open bar. As we head inside I am blinded by red light. The floors, walls, and celing were all a bright, glossy, relentless red. The red hallway then opens up into a red lounge area with 2 extremely large glass tables with long cushy black benches around them. When we get into the lounge area and turn right, I saw a venue much, much smaller than I had imagined. The room couldn't have been more than 50 feet wide by 30 feet deep, with a bar in the back. The main room was also completely white, with nothing on the walls except projections of trippy videos to accompany the music. We drank and talked amongst ourselves while Chinese people started to filter in. Before we knew it, we almost couldn't move from all the people. Luckily, being 6-3 and in China, I didn't have any issues of not being able to see the DJ or the psychedelic projections that accompanied them.
The first night was a lot of fun. Shows in China are similar to ones in the U.S. The dancing is a little different, and definitely more hilarious. There seemed to be no reason or rhyme to the wild flailing of limbs all around me as the show really started to get going. Their dancing reminded me somewhat of those big inflatable thin balloon people you see at used car dealerships that shimmy, bow, raise, and snap in the wind. At one point, and this is during heavy electronic music mind you, a large number of Chinese kids locked wrists, and began to jump around and around in a circle while yelling incoherent babble in what I can only describe as a techno-possibly-drug-induced-Chinese-ring-around-the-rosie. I tried to get a video of it, but by the time I got my phone out they had already dispersed. The hipster trend has also caught fire in China. The trendy, alternative, rebel Chinese youth came out of the woodwork that night in full force. The extremely skinny jeans, crazy button up shirts, wild hair, platform shoes, HUGE black rimmed glasses. It was a sight to see. One guy had headphones on (yes, headphones at a concert) an all black flat rimmed hat, a hoodie that was pulled tight around his head, a pink shirt, white jeans, and platform shoes. As much as I may have mixed feelings for those I label as 'hipster' I couldn't help but smile at the restless, super-hip Chinese people all around me. I highly doubt a current U.S. clothing/lifestyle trend would be capable of catching on in China even ten years ago. I know five years ago I didn't see any traces of the 2006 America I knew in Chengdu, but then again, my eyes weren't exactly all the way open.
I found Charlie later in the show and thanked him again for the ticket, and asked him how he liked the show. The conversation went something like this:
Me: How do you like the show so far?
Him: It's great, I was worried about the turnout, but it's packed.
Me: Yeah you could spin the DJ's turntables if you got to the very front.
Him: I hope no one does that to me.
Me: Yeah... what?
Him: When I DJ tomorrow, I hope no one fucks with me.
Me: You're DJing tomorrow?
Him: Yeah, didn't I tell you?
Me: No.
Him: Yeah, I'm playing before DJ Shadow comes on.
Me: You're opening for DJ Shadow?
Him: Yeah I guess so.
Me: Oh.
It turns out Charlie DJs all around Chengdu and he was asked to open for Shadow. I guess that's how he got all those extra tickets and we got special entrance to the show before it started. This may sound strange, but none of that really shocked me at the time. In all honesty, I figured it was because we were white and/or foreign. It's amazing what seems normal would have seemed extraordinary just a month earlier. Anyway, I left the show at around 1:30 and seemed to have a curious case of the clumsies as I was oddly having trouble walking. I found a cab and before I knew it I was at my hostel. I was also very hungry so I walked a block away and got some street food.
Let me tell you something about Chengdu street food: it is god damn delicious. Even though I've only been back in Beijing for a few days, I am already craving more of that street food. I call the street food in Chengdu shao kao, although I'm not sure if that is the correct term for it or just what I've always called it in Chengdu, I think the translation for shao kao is simply barbeque. Anyway, how it works is this: displayed in front of you is an assortment of skewered foods of all types of vegetables, meats, fish, and even eggs. You grab a fish-and-chips-esque plate and load it up with whatever you want. You hand them to the cook and he places them on a coal grill attached to his bicycle. He then adds all of his spices and sauces and uses voodoo incantations to summon tastes and smells otherwise impossible to bring into this world. While he is doing this all you can do is sit down on a toddler sized plastic stool at your mini 3 foot table and count down the seconds until your food is ready. When my food finally arrived I went into an odd dreamlike haze and suddenly all of my food was gone. I paid something like 15 kuai for about 10 sticks of food and went back to my hotel and passed out.
If I can't make it in China, I'm going to go back to Seattle or somewhere in the U.S., buy a rickety-ass bike, attatch a mini-wagon to the back and and sell the delicious roasted vegetables and meat. I will request/steal/buy the recipes that makes the meat so good, learn the voodoo magic, and I will then tour the U.S. on the bike, serving shao kao out of the back. It will be the dawn of a new Johnny Appleseed era, and it will be called Adam Meatwagon.
It was a 3 day music festival with DJs from all over the world. The first night I can't remember what the theme was, but the second night was hip-hop/electronic and the third night was house/techno. It was being headlined by DJ Shadow. I was also scoring free tickets to all 3 nights (which was around 400 kuai altogether). On the website Reddit there is a subreddit for China. I was perusing it a couple weeks prior to leaving for Chengdu, when I saw that the festival was going on and someone on the thread whose name I would later learn was Charlie was offering to give away a few tickets. I told him I was taking a hard seater from Beijing to Chengdu and he said that there was no way he couldn't help me out. He said if I made it in one peice I would have 3 tickets waiting for me.
The festival was located in a brand new remodeled area just outside the Third Ring Road on the Eastern side of the city (outside of the third ring road is where you begin to get outside Chengdu's city center). The venue used to be a big industrial area of the city back in Mao's day. Apparently, in the 1950s, the Soviet Union had come to Chengdu when it was one of China's leading industrial cities, and pumped millions of dollars into it. Over time they built up a gigantic manufacturing infrastructure that has long sinced moved further outside of the city as population growth has caused the city to expand.
However, that area has not gone to waste. They took a part of the old industrial zone and turned it into 2 or 3 square blocks of swanky new nightlife. The Panda Festival was taking place in only one part of the newly renovated industrial compound. There were also art exhibits, night clubs with DJs and night clubs with live music, restuarants, and even a hotel or two. I talked to a few foreigners who have lived in Chengdu for at least 6 or 7 years and they both were really hoping that the area makes it. Apparently Chengdu has been in need of a new nightlife scene, but not for lack of trying. For some reason no one's really been able to break through, there's been a ton of failed attempts at starting getting new nightlife going in Chengdu over the years, but nothing has stuck. The industrial area is quite aesthetically pleasing and all the nightclubs and restuarants I peaked inside of seemed really nice. I hope it makes it, I guess only time will tell.
At 8:30 I met Charlie and the 5 or 6 other lucky kids with golden tickets (hah) and headed inside for the Panda Festival. The industrial compound was packed with people, lots of seniors and young kids come as well because the architecture of the place itself is enough to draw visitors. It's hard to describe the area, and when I can finally upload my pictures I will be sure to add them here for anyone who cares to see. We wound our way through the compound until we finally made it to a big building with a large Xiong Mao festival banner flapping in the breeze next to it. There was a large line, rather, since it's China, a large routy mob waiting to get in. Charlie tells us to follow him and we push our way to the front, elbowing and mushing people along the way. When we got to the front it was extremely loud due to all the people and music blasting from speakers not too far away and Charlie waved at the people in charge at the entrance who had passes strung around their necks. They waved back and signaled him forward since trying to communicate via yelling wasn't going to work in the chaos. He pointed to us, the great white faces in a sea of Chinese indicating that we were with him and the people in charge nodded us in as well. When we got through the entrance, we got our hands stamped, a sticker put on our shoulder and someone handed each of us an empty cup. Apparently the entire show is open bar. As we head inside I am blinded by red light. The floors, walls, and celing were all a bright, glossy, relentless red. The red hallway then opens up into a red lounge area with 2 extremely large glass tables with long cushy black benches around them. When we get into the lounge area and turn right, I saw a venue much, much smaller than I had imagined. The room couldn't have been more than 50 feet wide by 30 feet deep, with a bar in the back. The main room was also completely white, with nothing on the walls except projections of trippy videos to accompany the music. We drank and talked amongst ourselves while Chinese people started to filter in. Before we knew it, we almost couldn't move from all the people. Luckily, being 6-3 and in China, I didn't have any issues of not being able to see the DJ or the psychedelic projections that accompanied them.
The first night was a lot of fun. Shows in China are similar to ones in the U.S. The dancing is a little different, and definitely more hilarious. There seemed to be no reason or rhyme to the wild flailing of limbs all around me as the show really started to get going. Their dancing reminded me somewhat of those big inflatable thin balloon people you see at used car dealerships that shimmy, bow, raise, and snap in the wind. At one point, and this is during heavy electronic music mind you, a large number of Chinese kids locked wrists, and began to jump around and around in a circle while yelling incoherent babble in what I can only describe as a techno-possibly-drug-induced-Chinese-ring-around-the-rosie. I tried to get a video of it, but by the time I got my phone out they had already dispersed. The hipster trend has also caught fire in China. The trendy, alternative, rebel Chinese youth came out of the woodwork that night in full force. The extremely skinny jeans, crazy button up shirts, wild hair, platform shoes, HUGE black rimmed glasses. It was a sight to see. One guy had headphones on (yes, headphones at a concert) an all black flat rimmed hat, a hoodie that was pulled tight around his head, a pink shirt, white jeans, and platform shoes. As much as I may have mixed feelings for those I label as 'hipster' I couldn't help but smile at the restless, super-hip Chinese people all around me. I highly doubt a current U.S. clothing/lifestyle trend would be capable of catching on in China even ten years ago. I know five years ago I didn't see any traces of the 2006 America I knew in Chengdu, but then again, my eyes weren't exactly all the way open.
I found Charlie later in the show and thanked him again for the ticket, and asked him how he liked the show. The conversation went something like this:
Me: How do you like the show so far?
Him: It's great, I was worried about the turnout, but it's packed.
Me: Yeah you could spin the DJ's turntables if you got to the very front.
Him: I hope no one does that to me.
Me: Yeah... what?
Him: When I DJ tomorrow, I hope no one fucks with me.
Me: You're DJing tomorrow?
Him: Yeah, didn't I tell you?
Me: No.
Him: Yeah, I'm playing before DJ Shadow comes on.
Me: You're opening for DJ Shadow?
Him: Yeah I guess so.
Me: Oh.
It turns out Charlie DJs all around Chengdu and he was asked to open for Shadow. I guess that's how he got all those extra tickets and we got special entrance to the show before it started. This may sound strange, but none of that really shocked me at the time. In all honesty, I figured it was because we were white and/or foreign. It's amazing what seems normal would have seemed extraordinary just a month earlier. Anyway, I left the show at around 1:30 and seemed to have a curious case of the clumsies as I was oddly having trouble walking. I found a cab and before I knew it I was at my hostel. I was also very hungry so I walked a block away and got some street food.
Let me tell you something about Chengdu street food: it is god damn delicious. Even though I've only been back in Beijing for a few days, I am already craving more of that street food. I call the street food in Chengdu shao kao, although I'm not sure if that is the correct term for it or just what I've always called it in Chengdu, I think the translation for shao kao is simply barbeque. Anyway, how it works is this: displayed in front of you is an assortment of skewered foods of all types of vegetables, meats, fish, and even eggs. You grab a fish-and-chips-esque plate and load it up with whatever you want. You hand them to the cook and he places them on a coal grill attached to his bicycle. He then adds all of his spices and sauces and uses voodoo incantations to summon tastes and smells otherwise impossible to bring into this world. While he is doing this all you can do is sit down on a toddler sized plastic stool at your mini 3 foot table and count down the seconds until your food is ready. When my food finally arrived I went into an odd dreamlike haze and suddenly all of my food was gone. I paid something like 15 kuai for about 10 sticks of food and went back to my hotel and passed out.
If I can't make it in China, I'm going to go back to Seattle or somewhere in the U.S., buy a rickety-ass bike, attatch a mini-wagon to the back and and sell the delicious roasted vegetables and meat. I will request/steal/buy the recipes that makes the meat so good, learn the voodoo magic, and I will then tour the U.S. on the bike, serving shao kao out of the back. It will be the dawn of a new Johnny Appleseed era, and it will be called Adam Meatwagon.
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