Drums and drone

Bm by Black Monk  
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BM.mp3 (9584 KB)

Another weekend, another post-late night late afternoon post.

As everyone knows (see below) I did my best to celebrate July 4th from Beijing. This is the second straight year I've been out-of-country for the 4th. Last year I celebrated by acting obnoxiously and uncharacteristically "American" toward my dear English friends and fellow Indonesia volunteers Kelly and Kate (basically saying "awesome" a lot and talking about herding cattle and generally playing into whatever other stereotypes they could throw at me). This year I wore a red white and blue plaid shirt and went out to meet a new friend, Elaine, the graphic designer I hutong-ed with last Friday. Elaine had a new, equally interesting crew lined up for the night: a Swiss artist-in-residence visiting from Kunming, an Italian PhD-in-progress studying acupuncture for the summer, and a guy named Bai Wei who's currently filming a documentary on stem cell research in China.

Also in tow was Twist, a Beijing-born English professor who lives in Elaine's building. Twist is a very cool guy (with a very cool name). After talking about religion and vegetarianism a bit I was excited to learn that Twist is a Hare Krishna. I had no idea that Krishna consciousness existed in China, but I learned from Twist that there is a small but committed group of devotees in the city.

One of the things I did to celebrate my country's independence was to try one of the most thoroughly "Beijing" of consumables, dou zhi (豆汁). This literally means "soybean juice", but is under no circumstances to be confused with the soy milk you buy at Whole Foods in wonderfully processed and palatable flavors. Dou zhi is very fermenty. Definitely an acquired taste, and one that even most "new school" Beijingers don't bother to acquire. I liked it, but given that my resume includes several years of veganism, one year of strict macrobiotics, and more recently various episodes of dietary exploration I guess I'm not exactly the least common denominator when it comes to thresholds for culinary weirdness.

After dinner I went to Gulou (鼓楼), Beijing's famous Drum Tower. We'd planned on going to an "Old Shanghai" event that somehow translated to dudes in red hats and matching Adidas short shorts... ended up just sitting outside and mooching the ambient music leaking through the walls while enjoying cheap beers from the mart next door and a sporadic breeze. After his third nip of baijiu Bai Wei became passionately engaged in elaborating upon numerous subjects to which he has dedicated much thought, notably stem cells, Obama's greatness, and the virtues and vices of Chinese women. Nice to have atypical conversations that move beyond the "who are you, what are you doing here, how long are you staying" exchanges I've had with most people I've met.

I went home at around 3am. This was my first time to Gulou, which is about 5 miles from my house, and got lost several times on the return trip, but I didn't mind. Riding my bike here, especially late at night, is a joy. There was some initial roughness with my new ride but after convincing my seat to remain solidly horizontal I've really fallen in love with my scrap heap of a bicycle. The breaks don't work so well so sometimes I have to screech to a halt by dragging my feet on the pavement Fred Flintstone style, and the lack of a bell means I've had to whistle a lot (for some reason I've defaulted primarily to "Michelle" by the Beatles and "Jump" by Van Halen for this purpose, do not ask me why), but these are minor bumps in an otherwise stellar relationship thus far.

I woke up this morning with a bill in my door that I initially read to be 1,000 RMB, but later discovered was my 10RMB ($1.50 USD) water bill, so everything's good. I'm currently in my office, alone, jamming Black Monk at full volume, can I really get any more narcissistic than literally listening to my own voice (albeit chopped and droned) over loudspeakers? Anyway it's putting me in a good zone, I need to buckle down and get some work done for monday. I also need to work on taking more pictures, huh? Will get on that.

Posted via email from Josh Feola