Six Weeks In China

I don't know what you may have heard about Beijing's indie music scene. The influential club D-22 is just down the street from my hostel, and it's been instrumental in getting me to meet the people who are worth knowing in the city. The first night I went I met the owner of the club, Michael, who is a professor of finance at PKU. What a fascinating guy.

Justin's band, IDH, played tonight, and they were pretty great. Of course this necessitated some boozing, so I leave it up to you to imagine my current mental state. The sheer level of talent that Beijing is putting out these days is stunning. For a quick jaunt, check out Carsick Cars and Joyside.

I also met a great guy who teaches at the music school here in Beijing. Charlie teaches modern music history -- he teaches rock and experimental music, basically. We had a great conversation about the scene and about Michigan, where he spent some time as a kid. According to Charlie, Beijing is like Vice magazine before Gavin McInnes left -- Shanghai, which is also worth visiting, he tells me, is a little more like Nylon magazine.

It seems like an apt analogy, at least as far as Beijing goes. Things are very slapdash here. People can get away with whatever they dream up. The worthwhile local music here ranges from Sonic Youth on out into left field until you're not sure what you're listening to. Kids here can play the guitar, and their pent-up energy isn't from Montreal winters, it's from growing up in a Communist society -- one which still is paranoid about modern rock music. Charlie helped organize a music festival that got canceled thanks to the government's worries about image and the Olympics.

This city is fascinating, dynamic, downright bizarre. I feel like I'm ready to be repatriated here.

I understand there's been a bit of misinformation in the States about the earthquake that hit Sichuan province on Monday. It was huge, the death toll is still climbing, and now aid agencies are saying that it will cost nearly $20 billion in aid and reconstruction to help those affected rebuild their lives.

First off, don't worry about us -- Beijing didn't even really feel the quake. The epicenter was pretty far off. I heard some people say that they could feel the aftershocks on the tops of the high-rises, but besides that, nothing major.

Secondly, Lai Sze Tso, a graduate student from U of M who's here at PKU with us, and a sociologist studying women in rural China, said that the Chinese army is being sent in as a first wave of aid. What people are going to need from the West is money, and blood donations. I don't plan on giving blood while here in China, because that's kind of risky business, but if anybody Stateside is eligible, this would be a great time to give blood. I can only imagine that the Red Cross will be sending as much as it can afford to Sichuan province.

I'm sort of fascinated by the way the Chinese government is responding to the disaster. It seems to be pretty open about talking about it. Not like bird flu, which we didn't hear anything accurate about for ages. What's the difference between an earthquake and an outbreak of a virus? Well, first of all, the quake doesn't have the potential to contaminate the world's food supply. Moreover, I think that the government realizes that if it doesn't fail now, it won't have such a big problem with public relations as it did with the bird flu scares. And anyway, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake is big enough to be a shared problem, not just a national problem.

The Chinese army has mobilized 100,000 troops to help aid in relief efforts, and I'm thinking that they'll probably send more in the next week or so. The Prime Minister is stationed out in Beichuan County overseeing the relief efforts himself.

It remains to be seen how sustained the aid process will be, how quickly Sichuan can rebuild. Already the English-language television station here in Beijing as raised questions about government oversight and whether or not this earthquake might turn out to be China's Hurricane Katrina. I can only hope that the Chinese handle this disaster better than the United States handled that disaster.