Temple of Divine Music
So what happened for the last performance was this:* the Urinals were supposed to go on at 10 and went on at 9:30. That's a.m., by the way. So if you turned up to see the band and got the Finnish folk dancers, well, I hope you enjoyed them.
Chaoyang Park is a festival ground with permanent rides. The performers have named the temporary stages after the rides: Oh, did you have the Tilt a Whirl stage? We had the Roller Coaster stage. At breakfast we compare notes with Blou. You had drum sound in the audience--we did too but no sound in the stage monitors. Maka, the sound engineer and drummer for Kiwa, a Maori/Tongan/Greek ensemble from Wellington, had especially choice words for the challenges he'd been dished up.
To be fair, the sound workers have to deal with switching from Mummy Troll ** to the Finns with two fiddles and stomping dancers to Cuban conga players. It can't be easy, especially when festival officials and band managers with pull swap the schedule around.
Friday the Urinals played at the Bumper Car stage. Haonan took on the task of introducing the songs--he even wore the band T-shirt! I wish I could have taken photos of him, but Kevin Cain had given me his little digital video camera to film from the audience. It can't possibly be watchable. There was so much glare on the viewfinder from the sun that if Rod hadn't been wearing an electric green shirt, there's a good chance that the footage would have been of the parachute jump behind the stage and not of the band. I couldn't see a thing.
Rod and John introduced "I'm a Bug" as a sing-a-long: "We sing the verse, you sing the chorus--'buzz buzz.'" Haonan couldn't bring himself to say "Buzz Buzz"**** the first two times they explained it, but he did on the third. The song is so short, though, they didn't really figure out what was going on--but they clapped. And they clapped during "Surfing with the Shah." And they clapped at the end of each song. And the set came in at EXACTLY 30 minutes. Emily was happy, the officials were happy. Was it a good set by our standards? You know what? It doesn't matter.
After lunch***** Haonan took us to the Temple of Heaven. This was the best touristy expedition yet. There was a sweet breeze and the sun shone. There are gardens and birds around the temple and the structure is elegant. (I just changed tense mid-sentence, didn't I?)
Yikes! Rod just knocked on the door. He and Emily are spending an extra week here, and she just figured out that their flight to Xinjing leaves at 8 a.m., not 8 p.m. I gotta shut down and help. More touristy rhapsodies later. Or not.
---
*I think my photos and posts are scrambled.
**That's the name of the Russian rock band. We tried for days to figure out what their name was because it was translated from Russian to Chinese to English as Red Mummer, Mum Troy, and Troymer. They are very Rock Star*** and have the world's scariest girlfriends--they're working on the Lotte Lenya as evil Soviet villain in Dr. No look.
***John managed to swap CDs with them, though. We'll listen to it at least once and give you a report.
****Or "bzzz bzzzz" in Chinese.
*****I haven't mentioned that we've been fed every four hours whether we are hungry or not. (At breakfast we overheard one of the Kiwi schoolgirls: "I want fish and chips. I want pizza. I'm tired of eating Chinese food!")****** Yesterday the Canadians were musing about the first thing they'd eat when the got back to Halifax: Alexander King ale. Spaghetti with meatballs. And CHEESE. Roast beef.
But we're loving it: bok choy, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. John may be pining for a burrito and a margarita, but even he has found it a treat to eat such great food all the time. As vegetarians, it's been a privilege to have Hounan and Emily's navigate through the menus for us.
******The Kiwi girls are tired of many things. I overheard one in the elevator saying that she's "tired of getting in trouble all the time." ("You have to stop being such a bad girl," I told her. Giggles.) We've been mimicking (mimicing? sp?) them, I'm afraid. Imagine a high-pitched New Zealand accent: "I'm tired of looking at the Hill of Accumulated Elegance." "I'm tired of Inner Mongolian ice cream." "I'm tired of being an imperialist running dog lackey." Oh well, you have to be here to think it's funny. We think it's hysterical.
Chaoyang Park is a festival ground with permanent rides. The performers have named the temporary stages after the rides: Oh, did you have the Tilt a Whirl stage? We had the Roller Coaster stage. At breakfast we compare notes with Blou. You had drum sound in the audience--we did too but no sound in the stage monitors. Maka, the sound engineer and drummer for Kiwa, a Maori/Tongan/Greek ensemble from Wellington, had especially choice words for the challenges he'd been dished up.
To be fair, the sound workers have to deal with switching from Mummy Troll ** to the Finns with two fiddles and stomping dancers to Cuban conga players. It can't be easy, especially when festival officials and band managers with pull swap the schedule around.
Friday the Urinals played at the Bumper Car stage. Haonan took on the task of introducing the songs--he even wore the band T-shirt! I wish I could have taken photos of him, but Kevin Cain had given me his little digital video camera to film from the audience. It can't possibly be watchable. There was so much glare on the viewfinder from the sun that if Rod hadn't been wearing an electric green shirt, there's a good chance that the footage would have been of the parachute jump behind the stage and not of the band. I couldn't see a thing.
Rod and John introduced "I'm a Bug" as a sing-a-long: "We sing the verse, you sing the chorus--'buzz buzz.'" Haonan couldn't bring himself to say "Buzz Buzz"**** the first two times they explained it, but he did on the third. The song is so short, though, they didn't really figure out what was going on--but they clapped. And they clapped during "Surfing with the Shah." And they clapped at the end of each song. And the set came in at EXACTLY 30 minutes. Emily was happy, the officials were happy. Was it a good set by our standards? You know what? It doesn't matter.
After lunch***** Haonan took us to the Temple of Heaven. This was the best touristy expedition yet. There was a sweet breeze and the sun shone. There are gardens and birds around the temple and the structure is elegant. (I just changed tense mid-sentence, didn't I?)
Yikes! Rod just knocked on the door. He and Emily are spending an extra week here, and she just figured out that their flight to Xinjing leaves at 8 a.m., not 8 p.m. I gotta shut down and help. More touristy rhapsodies later. Or not.
---
*I think my photos and posts are scrambled.
**That's the name of the Russian rock band. We tried for days to figure out what their name was because it was translated from Russian to Chinese to English as Red Mummer, Mum Troy, and Troymer. They are very Rock Star*** and have the world's scariest girlfriends--they're working on the Lotte Lenya as evil Soviet villain in Dr. No look.
***John managed to swap CDs with them, though. We'll listen to it at least once and give you a report.
****Or "bzzz bzzzz" in Chinese.
*****I haven't mentioned that we've been fed every four hours whether we are hungry or not. (At breakfast we overheard one of the Kiwi schoolgirls: "I want fish and chips. I want pizza. I'm tired of eating Chinese food!")****** Yesterday the Canadians were musing about the first thing they'd eat when the got back to Halifax: Alexander King ale. Spaghetti with meatballs. And CHEESE. Roast beef.
But we're loving it: bok choy, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. John may be pining for a burrito and a margarita, but even he has found it a treat to eat such great food all the time. As vegetarians, it's been a privilege to have Hounan and Emily's navigate through the menus for us.
******The Kiwi girls are tired of many things. I overheard one in the elevator saying that she's "tired of getting in trouble all the time." ("You have to stop being such a bad girl," I told her. Giggles.) We've been mimicking (mimicing? sp?) them, I'm afraid. Imagine a high-pitched New Zealand accent: "I'm tired of looking at the Hill of Accumulated Elegance." "I'm tired of Inner Mongolian ice cream." "I'm tired of being an imperialist running dog lackey." Oh well, you have to be here to think it's funny. We think it's hysterical.
posted by Kat at 6:54 AM
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