March 11, 2010 1

review: Girl Power brings down Yugong Yishan

By Beijing Daze in Tunes under the moon

Music is back on the menu folks as you can tell by the variety of choices available over the past few weeks. now usually, this happens on weekends or even thursdays but this week, thanks to Women’s Day, there was a line up form hell at Yugong Yishan.. And I loved it.

DH & Chinese Hellcats

These guys are one of the most fun acts to watch in Beijing, bar none!!! DH (Dizzy Hemmy) seems to be stepping away from the Betty Boop feel and the whole band was sporting quite a retro look with matching shirts. They opened the festivities with their rockabilly swing sounds and had the audience rocking/jiving/ for a good 35mn.

DH was on top of her game vocally (as usual) and Guitarist/boyfriend Dee Dee was on fire. Most people see him playing for the Hellcats and forget he’s a member of Beijing heavy hitters “Brain Failure”
Those two have an amazing chemistry on stage!!

Bigger Bang

I originally misread the lineup and thought that Ourselves Besides Me, not Bigger Bang, was part of the bill.. So when these cats came on, I was surprised. Last time i had seen them was in 09 at Mao and they stole the show. I wish I could say the same for monday night. They seemed to have a few technical issues and had trouble with the synth/guitar mix. Pupi ( lead singer) was displaying moves worthy of a graduate from Kang Mao School of Epileptic Dancing (Kang Mao is lead Singer of The Subs) and her vocals as sharp as ever. They just seemed to be going through the motions that night.
Some friends that saw them for the first night were positively impressed by them so maybe I’m just being overly critical.. I’ve heard them better.

Free The Birds

This was my first time catching them since they renamed themselves and moved away from the ZIYO moniker. Greatness by any name is greatness and these cats have what it takes: I’m still unable to describe their sound or what they’re trying to do but i love it anyways.

DROOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLL

Helen’s vocals were a bit off when she started but it didn’t take long to get her back on top. I’m sure that playing 3 shows in 7 days must take a bit of a toll of her throat as she is a screamer in some ways. They went through their usual English catalog and then played a song called Free The Birds that i do not remember hearing before.

The show closed with an excited audience jumping up and down to Helter Skelter and Take it Off.

Fantastic musical evening and i even managed to roll my tongue back in my mouth as Helen got off stage. I must remember to wear a bib next time i go see them to prevent my excessive drool from staining my clothes…. or maybe i should just take it off

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March 11, 2010 0

March in Beijing: 3 festivals to feed your brain

By Beijing Daze in blabbers

There is something in the air right now and no, I am not talking about the pollution or the nasty aromas of Stinky Tofu. It seems like the Gods above decreed that March be the month of culture in Beijing: There are no less than 3 festivals taking place right now so the hardest thing is actually figuring out where to go and what to do:

The Jue Festival: Art Meets Music

As Pete De Mola put it, Beijing & Shanghai decide to play nice for the sake of culture/fun/education and give us a chance to appreciate what each other has to offer before going back to the usual mudslinging. There are a whole bunch of events taking place in both cities and we live in Beijing does a great job of summing things up here.

The Bookworm Literary Festival 2010: It’s more than just books.

Ok, so Peter Hessler canceled and a few other authors didn’t show up. Still, this is as much creative brain power as you’ll get in Beijing at any point in time. I’m particulary excited about the “food writing session” with Eileen Wen Mooney whose knowledge of Chinese Cuisine humbles me as well as “The Book is Dead” with Danwei’s Jeremy Goldkorn
There are also podcasts of all the sessions over on City Weekend’s website so that you can catchup on those sold out events.

2010 Francophone Festival: get the berets and the baguettes out

God bless the French! They keep everyone entertained and love them or hate them, we still like to have them around. That said, this festival is not about the French themselves but about the language that many countries around the world speak. This is the yearly celebration and a chance to catch some fantastic indie movies from all over Africa, France and even Canuckstan subtitled. All the events are free including a few concerts and I’ll be posting a English translation of the schedule soon. more info here about the movies and events in Beijing.

my oh my, so many things, so little time.

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March 9, 2010 0

Beggar’s Chicken at Wu Ming Ju: Fit For Royalty

By Beijing Daze in Belly Ties

I spent a lovely week falling in love all over again with Chinese cuisine while reading “The Last Chinese Chef” by Nicole Mones (more on that later) and as soon as i turned th e last page over, I had the mother of all cravings for Beggar’s Chicken 叫化鸡 (jiao hua ji). I did the first thing that came to mind: Jump to dianping and run a search.. unanimously, 无名居 (wu ming ju) came out on top! I double checked with a Chinese friend of mine who appreciates good food and she confirmed my findings.

Beggar's Chicken in the Streets of Hangzhou

Now, what’s so special about a beggar’s chicken ( also known as 富贵鸡 ,literally “rich and noble chicken” in Beijing) ? Here is the story:

Legend has it that a homeless, starving beggar had a chicken but didn’t have a stove to prepare it. Desperate for food, he came up with an idea. He killed the chicken and covered it with mud and baked it with fire…
A Qing-dynasty Emperor passed by. Attracted by the aroma of the baked chicken, he stopped and dined with the beggar. The Emperor loved the “Beggar’s Chicken” so much that it was added to the list of dishes served at the Imperial court.

A quick phone call to Wu Ming Ju confirmed that they did indeed have authentic Beggar’s Chicken and that it required 24 hours notice to get one so keep that in mind if you ever decide to check it out.

Wu Ming Ju, Liangmaqiao branch

Restaurants like Wu Ming Ju are poster establishments for the differences in dining habits between locals and foreigners: This place has 3 branches in Beijing with different reviews on dianping. Zhongguancun ( 1133+ reviews), Xizhimen (429+ reviews) and Lufthansa ( 319 + reviews). As far as I could tell, it’s not even listed on The Beijinger or City Weekend. Mobile Native has a listing for it. I’m not sure how to explain such discrepancy in taste or popularity!
The place serves up imperial and Jiangsu style cuisine. It is not cheap as far as Chinese Food goes for a good reason: It is Chinese Cuisine!

So, how about the food?

We arrived there on the 5th day of Chinese New Year trying to dodge the fireworks as much as possible. The staff was amazingly friendly and the restaurant a decent little throwback to my time in Hebei with their private rooms. I didn’t wonder around much but I can’t recall seeing a common seating area.

The menu was beautifully illustrated with English, Chinese and pictures making it a breeze to order. The main course of the night was preplanned so I just picked a few random dishes to complement our pre-ordered chicken. I was a bit tired that day so I forgot to write down the Chinese name of the dishes but a few stood out:

A peppered beef that was out of this world: The beef was tender and the peppers had quite an attitude if memory serves me right! It was quite popular on the table

Lotus shoots with prawns: I had forgotten about the prawns until i bit into what looked like the lotus shoot and was surprised at the mix of textures. This one had a hint of sweetness to it that balanced out the spiced beef nicely!

Simple Fungus n shoots: Simply elegant and tasty! Not much to say about other than it went well with the chicken. This one came as a recommendation of the staff which was surprising considering it was one of the cheaper dishes on the menu

But this is about a Beggar’s chicken, isn’t it? And finally the baby came along! The presentation was simpler than expected, a whole chicken sitting on a lotus leaf that exuded of earthy smells. I was a bit surprised as i expected to get the mud wrapping as well but the hostess explained that it was too messy and they removed it in the kitchen prior to serving.

Beggar's Chicken begging for me to bite into it

Our chicken was then taken away from us for cutting purposes and when it finally came back, it was time to dig in! I was a bit afraid of being let down as the book and the search had both resulted in increased expectations. I checked out the opened bird on offer and notice that it was stuffed with a few mushrooms inside and that was it.

ready to dig in baby

Finally, the moment of truth: A carefully picked up a piece and put it in my mouth where it just went in and melted right away! This was one of the most tender pieces of chicken that ever graced my tongue! The taste was quite suprising: The lotus aftertaste was that of green tea, quite leafy if I can describe it that way. The skin was crispy and tasty to perfection!
My dining partners all agreed that the Chicken was worth the search and the trip! By the time we were done with it, the plates looked like a prehistoric cemetery of cleaned up bones!
To say that we were still wanting more would be an understatement!!! we were begging for more!

Overall, I’ll give the experience an A- . The Chicken delivered on its promise and cost RMB 180. The rest of our dishes varied in price between 30 and 60 which is on the high end as far as Chinese Dining goes in Beijing. The total bill for the 5 of us including a few beers was about RMB 580 but almost 40% of it was just the chicken.

That said, I’ll be back for more and I’ll hunting for further Beggar’s Chicken establishments in the capital.

Wuming Ju 无名居
Màizi Diàn Zǎo Yíng Běilǐ 32 Hào
朝阳区麦子店枣营北里32号
Tel: 010-65021568 65021537

maps & reviews: Dianping | Mobile Native

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March 3, 2010 0

live quickslants: The Birds are set free and everyone else back in town

By Beijing Daze in Tunes under the moon

Birds being set free this week with 3 shows!!!


By Jove!!! Beijing is out on a mission to make up for not having any decent live music options over the CNY so we’re getting sonic bombed with goodies for the second week in a row! This week’s offers are even more substantial than the last one:

Wednesday March 3

Michael Dalin Trio @ Salud: I’m a big fan of Michael as a songwriter and singer, not to mention a person. He’ll be playing a free gig at Salud in NLGX with special guests including FeiZai who I’ll be writing about shortly. Should be good fun for a wednesday night and the Rums don’t hurt.

Thursday March 4

3rd Maryinn @ Yugong Yishan: Arts meets Music with appearances by a shitload of decent bands including Rustic, The Molds, 24 Hours amongst others. There will also be an opportunity to buy art pieces all under 400 RMB. should be cool..

Friday March 5

M’beewan @ Jianghu: Reggae man extrordinaire is back to Beijing just in time for the weather to warm up. There was loads of fun to be had on his last trip as he was cooperating with tons of artist on musical mashups that rocked. Nice to have the rastaman back..

Saturday March 6

Rock Year 1999-2010 @ Mao: Free the Birds -for their second show of the week- along with, Toy Head, and Rolling Rolling amongst others. Definitely an interesting show to check out! I heard some good stuff about Rolling Rolling in the past and my fascination for all things Helen Feng just gets deeper by the minute.

but the real goodie on that night is

BEYOND THE OCEAN @ Yugong Yishan: Carsick Cars, White, AV Okubo, Xiao He and P.K. 14 all of whom are Maybe Mars artists, are headed State-side for SXSW 2010, the country’s largest indie music festival. This a warmup gig before they hit the road and a good chance to get acquainted with Beijing’s finest offering in commercial indie.

Special Mention Monday March 8

Ladies Night @ Yugong Yishan: I’m prebooking myself on this one! Free the Birds ( 3rd show in less than a week), DH & The Hellcats as well as Bigger Bang are set to unleash a dancing storm at Yugong Yishan. that’s one hell of an offering for a monday night with 3 of the better acts in this city if you ask me.. All seasoned professionals that know how to put on a show

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March 2, 2010 0

Beijing live music tidbits: Show of Peace, Dylan, Dude & Bad Mamasan amongst others

By Beijing Daze in Tunes under the moon, blabbers

I’m loving March so far and it’s just gotten started! This is gonna be one hell of a music month by the look of things and that is not a complaint.

Bad Mamasan, the Heavy Metal outit fronted by Jaime Welton ( Dirty Deeds, Black Cat Bone) is finally waking up from their never ending hibernation to bring out some much needed devil-horns-action to Beijing. Expect them on March 26th at 2 Kolegas.

There’s quite a bit of speculation regarding the Bob Dylan shows in Beijing/Shanghai/Taipei according to The Beijinger. Do we even bother to care at this point? Yet another “big name” act is announced and then cancelled because of no permits, greed or whatever reason… it’s not even fun anymore! That said, bands that do wanna play Beijing seem to be able to do so judging by the fact that the Backstreet Boys will be here in not too long. So what gives?

The World Peace show gang is strangely quiet these days! The website hasn’t been change in a while and no updates to sink our teeth in :( I did get a comment on a previous post directing people to a different site http://showofpeaceconcert.com/ claiming it as the source for news relating to the event. The original site is still standing and unchanged so i guess ….. I don’t know!

Finally, I came across this cool students band called Dude and they crack me up! These kids are taking classic Chinese songs like 月亮代表我的心 (yue liang..) and 我们的爱 (women de ai) then they punk-ify them.. yup, how about that? head on over to their Douban page where the tracks are available for download and check their upcoming shows. it’s worth it for a laugh!

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February 23, 2010 3

Whooo are you, who who.. Maggie Who!

By Beijing Daze in Beijing 人, Tunes under the moon

I’m on the road all week so updates coming courtesy of the Wordpress App on my iPhone… Excuse the poor formatting :-)

In between rehearsals, studio sessions and school, Phil Schloss of Maggie Who found some time to answer a few questions for BeijingDaze… Cool beans!

1- What’s going on in your world? This is your chance to plug your stuff:

Right now we are all waiting for the record to come out and anxious to hear peoples reactions. Studio has been hard work and a lot of fun and we are all really excited that we had the chance to do something like that at this point in our lives. High school is finishing up for us so again, we are all looking forward to graduation. As for the band, going out and playing more shows is going to be a big part of the rest of this year. Eager to play as many shows as possible and rocking out as hard as we can.

2- first things first! How did the name “Maggie Who” come about?

This is a question I always get. Back in 2005 when we were doing our first show, which was a school show, we were asked for our set list and our band name. Since we didn’t have a name yet our drummer at the time threw out the word Maggie Who. That just stuck. We found out later that he was either trying to think of a porn star or a stripper that he thought was named Maggie Who. Still trying to figure out who it is we are named after.

3- The band has been together since 2005 one way or another, that’s not bad for Beijing! Did you thinks back in 05 that it would take 5 years before you recorded your first EP? and why did it take that long?

Well, back in 05 it was just Brian, a drummer, and me. We had no bassist and we were only in middle school. We were all still learning the basics of how to play in a band and as we got older and better, we brought in Jim on bass and David on drums. I don’t think that we ever really had a clue that we would be doing an EP, but it was for sure an idea that had always been around. I think it took those 5 years cause that’s when we really got tight as a band and were ready to do something like an EP. Also, with the live shows, it kind of took away time for writing, but once we all got together and had a few practices we were banging out tunes and it sounds like it’s all come together on the record.

4- First time i saw you guys was in September ‘09 opening for “Dirty Deeds”. I was talking to Desmond of Black Cat Bone fame while you were covering Buckcherry’s Too Drunk To F–k and he said “Look at these kids, they walk and act like rock stars already!” Do you consider yourselves rock stars?

Ha. I wouldn’t say we are rock stars and I doubt any of us think that. We are just following in the footsteps of guys we look up to. We are all really comfortable on stage with each other and I think that has a lot to do with the way people see us. It’s nice to have the spotlight for a little while and act like rock stars, and if people see us as rock stars already, then that’s awesome. Do we think we are rock stars? No. Do we act like rock stars? Of course.

5- You haven’t been playing much over the past year. Any special reason?

A lot to do with writing for the EP and practicing. Schoolwork, and holiday’s when we are not together takes up some time too. School has been busy this year so we don’t have as much time as we would like to, but the time we do have goes into the studio. Other than that we try to play every show we can get and we promise there will be more to come!

6- Word association. for each one of these words, write down the first thing that comes to your mind:

* Beijing: Fuck yes.

* Shanghai: Fuck no.

* Baijiu: Where’s the whiskey?

* Chou Doufu: Eat it whenever it’s around

* Cui Jian: Living legend. Godfather of all that is Chinese rock and roll.

* AC/DC: For those about to rock, we salute you!

* Polka Dots: Buddy Guy.

7- What about this EP? When is it coming out and what’s on it?

We are hoping for it to come out in early April. Still a few things left to do on it but apart from that, its sounding pretty good and now we just need to get the little bits and pieces together and it will be ready for release. It’s a 4 song EP. All originals that all the guys wrote. There are 2 tracks on the EP that we have been playing live for quite awhile now so some of our fans will be familiar with them and the other 2 are songs that have not been played live yet.

8- Name 1 high points and 1 low points of your musical career:

A high point would definitely be playing live at the Hard Rock Café. It’s pretty cool telling people that you have played at a place like that and you’re still in high school. I think all the guys were blown away by that. A low would have to be paying for an amp I broke onstage at Mao Live House. I had a beer on top of the amp and in the middle of our set at one of our biggest shows to date, my guitar cut out and it turns out that beer had overflowed in to the amp and broke it. I had to play the rest of the show with a shitty clean jazz amp and ended up paying for the repairs for the other amp. Not fun.

9- Seems to me like Beijing’s music scene has exploded over the past few years with veterans and new comers and It’s getting harder to keep track of the bands/shows now; Any particular gems people should be aware of in your opinion? Some bands or singers that pretty darn good but can’t seem to get recognition?

Rolling Rolling – Guys that would always play when we started at Mao Live and we think they are great. Can’t wait to see them play again.

Bad Mamasan – Some badass old school metal that straight up kicks ass. Jaime Welton shreds and it’s the closest thing to Motorhead and Sabbath in Beijing.

The house band at Cheers is amazing. I have never seen them play anywhere but Cheers, but every time I go there and see them they are great. The bassist is crazy and the singer has an amazing voice that always gets people dancing.

10- What if: What if you just couldn’t be in Beijing doing the things you do… where do you think you’d be and what would you be doing?

I don’t know if I would have even picked up the guitar. I know there would have never been Maggie Who. I would probably be in either Hong Kong or the states waiting to finish up high school and go off to college. As for the other guys, I can imagine that it would be similar to that too. Not as interesting compared to what we are doing now.

Catch Maggie Who along with Dude and others @ Mao Live tonight ( Feb 24th 2010) and let me know how it went!

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February 23, 2010 0

Live Music quickslants: Free the Birds, Chasing Star, Mademoiselle & Maggie Who

By Beijing Daze in Tunes under the moon

Man oh man! I picked the wrong week to get the hell outta dodge because Beijing is getting ready to make up and kiss after the general musical coma we experienced with Chinese New Year.

Wedneday Feb 24th:

Maggie Who @ Mao: Well, these kids were cool enough to open for “Dirty Deeds” when they reunited back in September, need I say more? They’ve been busy recording their first EP over the past few weeks and they’re ready to kick ass ( I think). It’s part of Mao’s “Don’t Call Us Foreigners” series. I’m curious about it and really sad that I’m gonna miss it.

Thursday Feb 25th:

Daisy Sweetgrass @ Ginkgo: Do I even need to mention that this lady has the sweetest voice in Beijing along with a smile that would melt a rock? Oh, and it doesn’t hurt that she can sing with the best of them. Good old fashioned roots music at one of the most underrated places in town.

Punk Metal Orgy in Green @ Mao: how’s this for a bill: the Unsafe, Misandao, Hell City, Soju Legion, Trash Cat and Discord? There’s gonna be noise, guitars, screaming, middle fingers and lot of attitude. It’s a Beijing Guo’An themed party so try and wear green!

Friday Feb 26th:

Mademoiselle @ Ginkgo: Marie Claude works a crowd with the best of them. The Montreal Minx as she’s been knicknamed sings in French, Chinese, English and smiles. Her brand of Gypsy jazz is unique in Beijing and I love her to death. That said, French Warning on the evening, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Sunday Feb 28th:

Lantern Festival @ Yugong Yishan: Free the Birds ( formerly known as ZIYO) headlines the show with Chasing Star opening the festivities. 2 Bands that could headline on their own are sharing the bill and should not be missed. Chasing Star only comes out of hiding once every blue moon but they be good y’all. Of course, Helen Feng on her own warrants a trip to Yugong that night.

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February 22, 2010 1

Wild for Wings 2: Xidan Chiku Brings on a Long Finish with Perversion

By Beijing Daze in Belly Ties

Following my little outing to Kuan Dian 宽店 (map), I still had a couple of kao-ed wing place to try and we headed next to Xidan Chiku 西单翅酷(map)!

i could eat this all day!!

What makes this place special? Well, how about up to two weeks waiting time to get a table? Locals are crazy for this little eatery and it shows in the reviews on dianping and other Beijing-based review sites. We got lucky on a monday preceding spring festival to get a table at 8:00 p.m for the next day! Heck, we even changed plans to accommodate the fact they had an opening so early!

simple and plain facade hides wings of wonder

The restaurant is in a hutong just outside of xidan subway station exit C. As you come out of the station, take a left and walk down for 500 meters or so. You’ll pass a few BBQ places but just keep going until you see the sign and the two red lanterns, you’ll recognize it when you get there!

The inside is a typical hutong with 2 rooms set a eateries and a section for grilling the goodies. On the night we went there, it was quite cold so there was no way to even think about sitting outside or things like that.

comments and polaroids from Biantai eaters.. fun and pain

K-hua got there first as usual and I followed along with S and a few other folks. They close early so she had to start ordering wings ahead of time and when we got there around 8:20 or so, it was “last call”.. never thought i’d get one of those on wings! The staff was pretty adamant about letting us know that we needed to get our last orders for gilled goodies in before they turned off the pit. We could always get other dishes that didn’t involve grilling but that’d be it.

The first big difference between Kuan Dian and Xidan Chiku is the menu! While the former had limited items, the latter had one hell of an extensive selection with lamb, fish, wings, veggie and tofu on a stick. They also had a lot more choices in terms of general cold dishes.

The Yangrou Chuan’r was actually quite nice, so were the mushroom and squid. This was a welcome surprise as i had expected the rest of the menu to be an afterthought and it was not! However, we were there for wings and by golly, wings there was!

perfect glaze, tender n juicy

As usual, we got a bit of everything! Their regular wings, 1 sided spicy, 2 sided spicy and the phenomenally hot-perverted biantai! K-hua, S and myself were still recovering for the Kuan Dian biantai wings we had the previous evening so we didn’t overdo it. Just one wing per person to get a taste.

u dare?

so how were these wings?

The original (bu la or yuan wei) flavor was perfectly grilled, presented a nice glaze and seasoned with cumin and small hints of pepper. The meat fell of the bone and the chicken did taste like it had been marinated for sometime. Definitely a winner!!

I fell into a burning ring of fire..not looking as afraid as i should be!

We then moved up the spicy ladder all the way to the Biantai! what can i say about these puppies? yes, they were perverse! Yes, they were evil! but beyond that, they were amazing, the gift that keeps on giving! it was like a wine with a long finish and the flavors /heat kept coming more and more! Honestly, these are the best spicy wings i’ve had in China! bar none!!!

I fully understand now why this place is so popular and will be coming back again very soon! At the moment, as far as I am concerned, they are Kings of the Wings in Beijing.

Xidan Chiku 西单翅酷 (map)
15 Zhongsheng hutong , (500m north of subway exit C )
西城区西单图书大厦东侧钟声胡同15号
tel: 6603-2605

CALL AHEAD FOR RESERVATIONS!!!!

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February 17, 2010 0

Music Tidbits to tie you up through the break

By Beijing Daze in Tunes under the moon, blabbers

I posted this yesterday but the server trolls decided they were hungry and just swallowed it whole, so here comes it again!

Chinese New Year celebrations did put a damper on live shows in the capital so one’s gotta find a different way of getting their music fix. In my case, I use Douban to catch up on what my favorite bands in Beijing are up to and sometimes, it quite surprising what you find out in there:

Atom packs a punch y'all

Hedgehog: in or out?

Not really sure what’s going on with one of my favorite indie bands! At first, they supposedly broke up with the when their bass player left and the remaining 2 formed “B Side Lovers”. I was surprised to see that on their douban page, a couple of new demos showed up and the band seems still on. so far, 4 new songs have showed up and i like them all… so i guess i’ll stay tuned.

The SUBS: a whole lotta rocking coming up

My favorite screacher and her bunch of compadres are busy with a new record as evidenced by pictures from their recording sessions here and a couple of posts on the band’s official blog by Kang Mao (I think). Forthcoming album is maybe called “The Human Voice” as far as my limited mandarin lets me understand. Looking at those pictures, I realize how sexy Kang Mao is in Jeans and leather. Her stage outfits just do not do her justice.

RandomK(e): someone oughta tape this

this is what i got in my mailbox:

RandomK(e) will celebrate its fifth year of existence with an event infused with randomness, art, more randomness, and of course the music of the K(e). Save the date: Saturday, 27 March, 2010 at 2 Kolegas. We’ve got quite a few ideas up our sleeves for this show, so you won’t want to miss it. Look for the K(e) to premiere new music and generally assault your frontal lobe from all directions. More details here.

Maggie Who ready to be unleashed

Color me curious. Tweetland is buzzing about these kids recording session for their upcoming record and word on the street is that they will be taking a break from the studio to play a live show at Mao on the 24th of February. for those that don’t know who they are, this little group of expat kids won battle of the bads a few years back and rocked the house as the opening act for the Dirty Deeds reunion show last september. These cats walked and acted like rock stars on stage at Yugong Yishan to a packed house! I’m looking forward to see what they’re coming up with

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February 12, 2010 0

mini quickslants: Samba and bluegrass with a side of fireworks and fairs

By Beijing Daze in blabbers

Not much happening here folks, please move along!

so yeah, it Chinese New Year in Beijing and the city has come to a halt! No live shows, restaurants shut down, people leaving town for warmer beach-ier pastures. What of us the ones that are left behind? what are we gonna do to distract ourselves? well, it might not be much but there are a few goodies around

Friday Feb 12:

Redbucks @ Jianghu: my favorite rowdy stomp crew is still in town and still intent on getting you off your lazy rear end into a dance floor. perfect opportunity to head over to Salud afterwards for a few Rums to fight off this umpteenth cold spell that’s hitting Beijing.

Brazilian carnival @ Ginkgo: samba, costumes, sunshine, dancing and ginkgo’s eclectic crowd are incredibly unpredictable. Poncho Y Sal bring the beats and I’ve seen people over there dance til the wee hours of the morning.

and that is it folks… that will be all your live music for a little while

Sunday FEb 14

Time to get off your rear ends and get some culture with one of the million temple fairs taking place in Beijing. It’s a cool chance to just get out and especially if the weather cooperates and get exposed to a different side of the capital. The Lama Temple and Ditan Park area will be crazy so I can’t say I’d go there for sure but some of the smaller temple fairs are worth the trip:

Dongyue Temple Fair
Held within a centrally-located Daoist temple, Dongyue’s fair boasts a huge number of food stalls, with cultural exhibitions and ethnic performances. RMB 10. 8.30am-4.30pm (Feb14-20).
141 Chaoyangmenwai Dajie, Chaoyang District. (6551 0151) 东岳庙，朝阳区朝阳门外大街141号

Shijingshan Temple Fair
Unlike other temple fairs around town, Shijingshan’s is full of foreign scenes, sounds and foods. Celebrate the exotic! Perhaps as a result, this fair is said to draw many foreigners. Nothing goes with foreign like foreigners. RMB 10.
8.30am-5.30pm (Feb 14-21). 25 Shijingshan Lu, Shijingshan District. (6886 2547) 石景山游乐园, 石景山区石景山, 25号

full list over at The Beijinger Blog:

http://www.thebeijinger.com/blog/2010/02/12/All-s-Fair-During-Chunjie-Beijings-Temple-Fairs

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