rocking in the SEZ

a weekend trip to shenzhen and guangzhou and a visit from my favorite sea lion.

MUTEK is a Canadian electronic music festival that toured through the PRC this March, stopping in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. Adrian and I went up to Shenzhen on a Saturday afternoon, navigated the new subway system toward the Seaview Hotel, checked in, went up to our room and were puzzled at first to hear the steady "blam" of fireworks. We should have known. The hotel overlooks Shenzhen's Overseas Chinese Town and three enormous theme parks: "Splendid China" (all of China's famous places in miniature), "Windows on the World" (all of the world's famous places in miniature), and "China Folk Culture Village" (reproductions of "ethnic" Chinese communities). Starving, we trooped down to a main shopping street, and, with the help of some kind strangers, were able to order dinner-- it's almost impossible to communicate in Cantonese in Shenzhen, since so much of the population are Mandarin-speaking migrants to the area in recent decades. It's almost as if tons of Brazilian workers immigrated to Tijuana, so that once you cross the border into Mexico, it's all Portugese (though much of the country beyond it speaks Spanish). Shenzhen is in Guangdong/Canton, the home turf of the Cantonese language, although you have to leave Shenzhen and go further into the province to speak it.

Later that night we found our way through random freeway offramps and beautifully-landscaped housing projects to the OCAT, Overseas Chinese Town Contemporary Art Terminal (or something). We basically followed the minimal beats to a large, fairly empty warehouse, and there we were. Maybe 70 people were there? Along with almost as many cops, watching stonily from the sidelines, or prowling the crowd in unconvincing undercover outfits. According to a friend who we met there, the venue never got formal government approval for the show, so it was technically an "illegal rave". Despite that distinction, it was incredibly tame-- only a few Chinese guys in the front were going crazy, dripping sweat and running-manning their hearts out. It was cool to see Akufen play, who I'd seen and chatted with a few years ago in Tokyo when Sarah and I went to Vladislav Delay's show at Liquid Room. If I only see his shows in Asian cities, will I get some kind of techno-hipster certificate I wonder? We enjoyed the blocky, bumpy electro sounds and the 5-yuan (60 US cents) litres of Tsing Tao until 11:45 when they had to shut everything down, then considered going to Windows of the World (it's open 24 hours), but crashed at the hotel instead.

The next rainy morning we again grappled with Putonghua to order some breakfast bao , then trained up to Guangzhou for the Guangzhou Triennial which we assumed would be an art exhibit, instead of just a two-day conference that had already passed (?). After that slight disappointment, we revived with DVD shopping at the two amazing cafe/shops 37/2 Degrees (a reference to Betty Blue, the Hong Kong owner's favorite movie). The two locations of this shop, on a back street near Zhongshan University, put most other pirate DVD shopping in China (and the rest of Asia) to shame-- we're talking Japanese editions of Roman Polanski's student films, forgotten Indian pop-art animation, boxed-sets of Jia Zhang-ke, Criterion Collection, mostly with English subtitles. Then dinner at my favorite Uyghur noodle place with the GZ ELIs and a journalist friend. Then a sleepy train back to Hung Hom and an all-too-busy week at the University, before a last weekend with Adrian: our indulgent yuppie sushi restaurant discovery, and a day in Tai Po and the lately-endangered Lam Tsuen Wishing Tree. There was also a Tin Hau Temple with neighborhood washing hung up outside, and bright flags to fling back the rare sunshine.