Friday 1 August
After a late night in Singapore punctuated by Geylang Claypot Rice with Jamie, Luke and Dawn followed by Tiger Translate's Future event in Zouk (featuring Li Qiu Qiu and Dexpistols), I took a four hour flight to Guangzhou, where I hadn't been since 2001.
Unlike a visit to NZ after a long time, everything had changed, to the extent that the city today was completely unrecognisable from my trip with Ben and Anchali in December '01. Massive, modern, shiny and grey, Guangzhou was at once the gargantuan and faceless beast that is Modern China.
Had a quick lunch with Sayson and got ready for the press conference in the basement of C:Union, a reggae bar that had been decked out with artwork for our event. Met the local artist Mee Wong who's responsible for some of the most saucy pieces in the collection, and was busy painting a semi-naked babe onto an old-fashioned bathtub - hot.
Managed to successfully field a few questions in Mandarin (with the help of a couple of Tigers) and then hung around talking to the musicians and the local team. Grabbed some spicy frog legs at a nearby restaurant together with the BAs from all over China. Feeling pretty low energy I willed myself into it as the doors opened around 8, and was totally blown away by the live performance by Beijing rock band, Muma. I read last week that the Beijing live music scene is now up in the top ten worldwide and seeing these guys perform, I could believe it.
Nitya, Ashwin and some of their friends turned up later and we hung out at the bar, also meeting some randoms including an experimental electronic musician from Denmark who had suffered a total nervous breakdown and never had to work again, his language partner, a fashion designer from Wenzhou, and assorted trading professionals from Syria, India and the UK. When the African came and they all started puffing at the bar, all I could think of was; Cosmopolitan? China? Wow.
Headed over to Nitya's friend's place to chill for a while (he gave me a gorgeous black and white printed sticker of Bob Marley for the new crib) then finished up the night with some crazy seafood done in a southern style. Got home around 5.30am.
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