horns up in the modern sky

So unfortunately we didn't end up getting drinks with the bloody ghost last night. Also, unfortunately, he seems to be a bit of a weirdo (who woulda guessed that a dude who dresses up as a bloody ghost in a Chinese metal band that can't even decide what their name is would be weird). After many text messages in which he flip-flopped between agreeing to hang out and declining the invitation, he finally shows up at Eveline's apartment building to drop off a couple copies of his band's DVD, and, we think, he made about an hour-long trip from the outlying Beijing district he lives in to do so. Then he calls her from outside the building and says he doesn't want to come up so can she come down and get the DVDs from him. She does so, has an awkard conversation (he seems completely taken aback, she recounts to us later, when she tells him that she's from the U.S. and not China), and when she finally returns to the apartment, she gets yet another text message from him: a cryptic smiley face. As she put it, "this romance might be over." God, for the sake of rock and roll, I hope not.

On another front, tonight Maya and I get on yet another hard-sleeper overnight train, this one to the northwestern town of Datong, which is only the 3rd most polluted city in China. It apparently has some crazy Buddhist caves and a monastery hanging on a cliff-face, which, as much as we love pollution, are the real reason we're going.

Before we took off, I thought I should catch y'all up on what we've been doing over the last week in Beijing. So here's a rundown, fast and furious:

We went to the fourth and final day of the Modern Sky Festival, a huge indie rock fest featuring four stages - the main stage, the electronic stage, the folk stage, and, on that day, a "Heavey Metal" (as they spelled it on the program) stage. It was pretty amazing thing to be at, full of thousands of little alternative Chinese kids, many of whom were artschool students selling their various creations - paintings, dolls, clothing, pins, marijuana T-shirts(!), etc. We bought this weird little mummy doll (Eveline, you're gonna love it) called a Jitmu - it has an odd little red-cloth appendage hanging from its button eye, and when Maya picked the doll up to look at it, the girl manning the stand, explained in halting English: "It is crying, but blood." We were sold. One of the bands on the metal stage, a Chinese hardcore band whose name escapes me, closed their set with a cover of the Hatebreed song, "Live For This." It's a horrible song - if you're gonna cover Hatebreed, you really have to play "I Will Be Heard" or "Last Breath" - but the crowd loved it, and it was still fun for us to witness it being played in China by a Chinese hardcore band.



During another band's set, I had the great fortune to witness a variation on the other insane "Ring Around the Rosie"-style Chinese moshing technique that Eveline had mentioned - a kid was waving this huge red flag on a bamboo pole in front of the stage, and about 10 other fans were skipping around him, hand-in-hand, in a big circle! I almost peed myself it was so funny. Maya and I are determined to bring this move back to moshpits the States with us - not! The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, by the way, were headlining the fest, but we left before they went on because it started pouring rain - and we don't like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

...swung by 666 Rockshop, a metal record store I found through the metaltravelguide.com website I mentioned in a previous post. The shop turned out to be, basically, just around the corner from the 7 Days Inn we've been staying at. The proprietor, a young long-haired Chinese dude in denim, spoke good English, and I asked him if he had anything by some Maya's and my favorite bands that we'd seen so far in China. Unfortunately, he only had, like, 10 CDs by Chinese bands total (again, Chinese bands don't really put out CDs), but I bought 4 or 5 of them.

...checked out Beijing's Russian area, where Chinese hucksters approached us in good Russian instead of bad English (Maya shut them down quick). There were also lots of stores selling fur coats.

...wandered through Ritan Park, a beautiful little park next to the Russian area. We watched a dude practicing the Chinese harp and old folks doing Tai Chi. We also watched as a mom held her little daughter in split-pants (more on these horrible creations in a post to come) over a sheet of newspaper so she could shit on it in plain view of everyone.

...stopped by the Yonghegong Lama Temple, and almost left - I'm suffering from pretty serious temple-fatigue right now, and at first, this looked like just another shrine - before discovering, in the last building, an absolutely breath-taking 50-foot-plus-tall Buddha statue, which has been certified by Guiness World Records as the largest such idol carved from a single tree (unfortunately, you weren't allowed to take the pictures). Maya and I are still skeptical of this whole single-tree thing, considering the gargantuan, bend-backwards-and-you-see-can't-quite-see-to-the-top proportions of the damn thing, but who knows...

...went to the Beijing Zoo, where we saw the great pandas and feeding time for the lemers (freaky-looking buggers) and these ridiculously cute little monkeys. What was less heartwarming were the generally ghetto-as-fuck conditions of the zoo - the big cats, in particular, were stuck in tiny, rusty, barren cages, and this one tiger almost broke my heart, pacing the perimeter of his sorry abode, periodically letting out the most mournful yet still powerful moan you've ever heard.

...took a boat to the Summer Palace. When we first got to the dock, we expected a nice river cruiseship to pick us up. Instead, a rickety motorboat pulled up. We got in, and the driver took us careening through the water. It was fun, and we were getting psyched for the promised 50-minute ride. And then, after about 3 minutes, we slowed down, pulled up to another dock, and were told to get out and board this really dingy-looking and extremely sluggish tourist boat. This took us on one of the least scenic rides you could imagine - at one point, we crossed under a dirty concrete bridge and passed a homeless man's shack underneath; the Chinese tour guide mysteriously kept talking into her megaphone the whole time. After about 20 minutes on this boat, we pulled up to yet another dock and were herded into yet another boat, this one a cool old-fashion wooden vessel, which was nice other than the fact that the seats were old conference-room chairs that had been placed freestanding in haphazard rows across the floor. This ride ended up being very pleasant, though not without its own surprises: about 10 minutes in, Maya noticed a old Chinese man swimming in the river right next to us. It was pretty fucking chilly out that day so I can only imagine how cold (and filthy) the water must have been, but he looked very happy, almost serene, even when our boat's massive wake swept over his head. We would end up seeing at least 4 other old men swimming or about to dive in along the rest of the ride. A few even waved to us.

...and we explored the Summer Palace, one of the most beautiful places we've seen yet in China. Surrounded by a totally massive sprawling park full of pavilions, arched bridges, and a lake full of dragon boats, the palace rises out of a mountainside, which we climbed to an amazing view. Here are some pics, as promised...








Until I get a chance to post again, wish luck to those far crazier than us - my little brother Darren who just left to work in Sierra Leone, Africa; and Eveline's boss Gwynn, who has been in Burma (if you don't know about all the craziness that's been going down there, swing by CNN.com) for about the last week and is scheduled to return today, but Eveline hasn't heard from her yet. Suddenly we seem almost sane...