Music
Parlovr China Tour Vlog 3
by Michael Joffe
June 10, 2010
"See that guy right there....you'll never see him again in your life." That's what I kept repeating to myself walking among millions of people in cities I had never heard of before coming here, like Guangzhou and Changsha.
“See that guy right there….you’ll never see him again in your life.”
That’s what I kept repeating to myself walking among millions of people in cities I had never heard of before coming here, like Guangzhou and Changsha.
On our second playing day, we met Kemp, a really cool bar tender/DJ and one of the founders of a bar we played at called 4698 (hint: think day, month and year inverted – i.e. massacre in the late 80s). I asked him if there were many bands in Changsha and he said that the city was too small to have many bands. He said the population was only 9 million. Like, bigger than Manhattan.
There’s a really interesting controlled chaos to the way everything works here. People cross the streets in a pell-mell fashion, walking in front of fast-moving cars, not obeying any rules and regulations. There’s no quiet anywhere. Always horns honking and people going somewhere.
After Changsha, we played Wuhan, which was a much dirtier city, but had a cool down-to-earth feel. We stayed in a hooker hotel, replete with bedbugs and pictures of titties on the wall, condoms and sex toys in the dresser drawers (where the Gideon’s bibles would be).
Walked around some wild markets, with live snakes, frogs and chickens all for sale in one stall. Ate at traditional restaurants. The food can be pretty amazing. It all has this particular flavor that I can’t identify exactly. Hoisin? It’s this kinda metallic salty hot flavor that they put in everything and you can smell in the air everywhere.
Looking forward to a classic baguette sandwich when I get back. har.
XO – Alex
