China
- Sept/Oct 2006
After
two years of work and Bureaucracy, it is with great
excitement that we embark on our inaugural tour
of the People’s Republic of China. This is
not so strange as it seems for apparently the first
foreign book that chairman Mao allowed for publication
in China was a volume of Poetry from none other
than Robert Burns – The People's ploughman
Poet’s poetry for the people.
However,
as there are to date, no direct flights to China
from Edinburgh, so we have an eight-hour stopover
in Amsterdam: time for a spot of lunch and a couple
of pints in the late summer. Eating is to be the
order of the next two weeks so it would be churlish
not to take advantage of the opportunity to scoff
some Shwoarma – the undisputed heavyweight
king of Dutch national dishes, washed down with
a couple of pints of Guinness: Yum Yum.
(please
note: The phrase "Yum Yum" is the intellectual
property of Rob Van Sante and is used here by his
permission under the terms of a limited licence)
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James |
After
a relatively painless nine-hour flight we arrive
in Beijing, thankfully we are met there by Steven
Wang – our man in China, accompanied by
Pei and James. This is somewhat of a relief
as none of us speak any Mandarin and in this
city inhabited by no less than three 'Scotlands',
we would be completely lost without some local
knowledge |
Steven
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Rob
& Pei |
After
we drop our bags at our new home, the luxurious
Shang Kang Cheng Hotel, it's time for our first
meal in China – an epic feast capped with
Beijing’s most famous culinary specialty;
roast duck with pancakes. This differs from
the same dish at home in that after the surgically
masked, axe-wielding chef delicately slices
the breast from the said duck, he makes a broth
with the remaining cuts to be savoured after
the assemblage has devoured the thinly sliced
breast meat. Along with the other ten exquisite
dishes, this was indeed a fine breakfast and
as it is now midday, we are free to explore
the surrounding area |
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Beijing
is a massive city teaming with people, but there
is a relaxed air about it. The traffic though
often excessive, calmly cascades around you
– we were never even nearly hit once by
car, rickshaw, bicycle or pedestrian–
and even Rob tripped over things less than normal.
The
weather too is fantastic this time of year –
hot but relatively dry, so after a wee perusal
of the local markets, it's time for tea at our
hotel.
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Show
at Beijing University
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first concert is not until tomorrow and it is
Saturday so after supper, we head out on the town.
Chinese people drink beer with their meals but
are not big pub goers although there are now certain
areas in the cities, which are full of bars cafes
and nightclubs. Largely westerners populate these
though increasingly, young upwardly mobile Chinese
people are frequenting these areas. We eventually
find ourselves at the North Bay jazz club to catch
the early set from one of the local bands: Nice.
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Our Beijing
Concert is at the University in a beautiful
big theatre. It is freshers week and all the
societies are out in force just as they would
be back in Edinburgh: The Chinese Chess Club,
Socialist worker party, Electric guitar team,
Tae Kwon Do club, socialist worker party, Beijing
University Shinty Club, Kite making/flying/fighting
club/team Socialist worker Party, Rugby club
etc
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signing 'official' bootlegs!
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To
be fair, I could not read the signs so perhaps this
is not what they were recruiting for but surely all
universities are the same?
Whatever
the clubs, we had a fantastic and enthusiastic
crowd at the concert. They even sang along which
I think would have been a tall order for us
had the tables been turned.
We
have been lucky enough to work in three separate
Asian countries with local crews – China,
Malaysia, and Uzbekistan. All of these men have
been great workers and characters and it strikes
us during the sound check that to take such
a crew on the road in the west would be a fantastic
source of fun and bemusement. To arrive at a
theatre in Worksop or Williamsburg with one’s
own road crew, speaking a language of which
nobody locally has any understanding would cut
through any communication difficulties. That
is the answer; Dutch sound engineer, Chinese/Uzbek
crew.
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the crew
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