Boys Noize. This is probably one of the least distressing images that got projected
Went to a concert tonight and thought I’d write a little bit about how they work in China. So far as the music was concerned it went pretty much as expected, but the concert environment itself was at least to me pretty unusual. First off, I’m not used to concerts that aren’t crowded; in this one, the standing room was only about half full. Nobody really even pressed to the front (probably because it was so damn loud. my ears are still ringing), rather everybody made these rough lines and left everyone like a two-foot bubble of personal space. I’m not sure I’m able to explain quite how weird it felt, that the only time I was in a very populated place but ::wasn’t:: getting constantly jostled and pushed by everyone was at a loud electronica concert. Boys Noize is not mellow stuff by any means, and people were dancing (sorta) but yeah, for god knows what reason everybody kept their distance from anyone else. Consequently the room stayed pretty cool, nobody was even sweating. Which was a plus (I guess?), but that doesn’t mean the place smelled any better, because…
Of the maybe 250 or so people in the room, at least 70 were chain smoking the entire night. I wish I were exaggerating. I mean I realize that people smoke at concerts in the states on a pretty regular basis but this… this was something else. By the end, there actually wasn’t a spot on the floor where you could avoid stepping on a cigarette butt. In fact that only reason I’m even writing this blog (it’s 4am) is that I legitimately smelled too much like cigarettes to go to sleep; I had to take a shower to get rid of that and it woke me up somewhat, so here I am.
Also, dancing with people was really confusing. On three occasions girls made eye contact with me, came over ostensibly to dance, and then like stood stock-still/stopped dancing/became completely unresponsive. After they took the initiative! What the hell, right? I still haven’t figured out why they would do this, but it just befuddled me. I wasn’t incredibly upset by this turn of events though, because all three were of course smoking and i’ll be damned if that’s not one of the most unattractive things a person can do. bah
Getting home was sorta an adventure (read: unnecessary uphill battle) because apparently the club where Boys Noize was playing is the place where all the new taxi drivers hang out or something. Here is how the conversation went with the first three taxis I tried:
“Take me to the intersection of [Street A] and [Street B]”
“Huh?”
“*Assumes I’ve spoken wrong, shows the taxi driver the written address, reads it again.* Do you know it?”
“*looks briefly uncomfortable* i don’t know…”
“It’s by the forbidden city. right on the side of it. can you go there?”
“But i don’t know the street”
“Ok, fine. Tiananmen. You know tiananmen, right? just go to the tiananmen east subway stop”
“Don’t know that one”
“You’re kidding”
“I know where tiananmen is, but not the subway”
“*Leaves in frustration*”
Now, the fourth driver the conversation opened the same way, but I had zero patience and there were no other cabs to try, so I had to try to get this one to understand. So when he didn’t know the address or the subway stop by my house, i kept going:
“Ok, how about tiananmen west, or dengshikou, or wangfujing subway stops. from any of those, i know where my house is”
“I don’t know subway stops.”
“Any subway stops?”
“None of those…”
“You’re from beijing, yeah?”
“Yeah”
“You know where the forbidden city is, right?”
“sure”
“Go there. Just go to that. Go to the east side of that.”
“but…”
“just go”
sure enough on the way home we passed denshikou station (look! i said. that is an important subway station), which is how I got to work during my first week, so I was able to navigate him home from there. The most fun part though was when he was like, you told me the wrong address! we’re going on deng’anmen, and you say we’re near where you live.’
deng’anmen is not my street, but it is one that intersects my street, apparently. I am not sure why this fact means that i was in the wrong, but i was at this point finished talking to this man, plus i would have just been even nastier than i already had been to him and really he didn’t deserve that. but seriously, i feel like taxi drivers should at least know things like major subway stations, or large roads, right? i don’t know if this phenomenon is beijing specific, or what, but it is deeply annoying.
Sorry for the rant-y-ness of this one. Smoke gives me a headache
Here’s another picture, just for fun. Doors were at 10, we came at 1130, and it looked like this:
I am glad I went, though, all things considered. It’s nice to get out.
That last picture says it all! China is crazy.