The Hairy Wang Band surpassed itself last night at the Shangri-la Hotel! There was another open mic night in the hotel’s F2 bar. This time, we were the only performers, so we had over an hour to do whatever we liked. I have to say, we were a lot better this time compared to the first time. We gelled more. Phil and I didn’t mess up the songs and I was more comfortable playing along with a drummer. Phil and I played some stuff solo and together, and also the guy from whose name our band’s name was derived (Harry Wang) did a few tunes. Harry has a great voice.

Alas, the Hairy Wang band will be down an important member. Phil headed off today: first on his travels and then he’s heading back home for good.

It’s weird sometimes that at the end of something, you always meet some interesting or cool people, and alas it is too late! If you knew them at the beginning, life would have been that bit more interesting. The drummer (who I’d met at the previous open mic night) is unusual among Chinese people. He’s mad into British music. Man, he probably knows more about it than I do! He seemed to know every band we could throw at him.

Later we went to Dave’s bar and sat outside with a few beers and played a few tunes. The drummer dude played guitar too, and he even knew that old nordie classic Teenage Kicks by The Undertones! ‘Twas some craic, I tell ya!

Here’s a pic of last night’s Hairy Wang Band line-up*


Left to right: me (guitar, vocals), Philip (guitar, vocals), Jason (drums) and Harry Wang (guitar, vocals).

* If you live in the Chinese mainland, you probably can’t see that picture, cos our friends in the government have seen fit to block flickr.com. However, you can get around this by installing Firefox (you should be using Firefox anyway) and using the Access Flickr extension.

My New Chinese Blog

If anyone is interested, I have started an MSN Space in Chinese. I did it cos I wanted to find a way to practise my written Chinese. The Chinese have a word, “Chinglish” to describe how people speak English with a heavy influence from the Chinese language. Anyone who has been to China knows what Chinglish is!! Since my Chinese blog would contain the reverse: gibberish-sounding Chinese influenced by the English language, I called “Englese Corner.” The word Englese doesn’t sound as good as the word Chinglish (which conjures up the notion of gibberish), but I couldn’t think of anything better. All my creativity was used up when thinking of the name of this blog, “Great Blog of China!”

For anyone who wants to look, it’s at http://englesecorner.spaces.live.com.

Noticing Things

Sometimes I don’t think I am observant enough in China. I read other peoples blogs and it seems that they see all manner of wonderful things. Maybe I am so used to China that they just sort of seem normal to me. Some of the things that people notice are better off not being noticed, like the kids with the slit cut into the back of their trousers shitting on the streets! I haven’t seen that one myself but others have!

Yesterday, while in a restaurant, I saw two rather amusing things. The first was 2 ladies arguing over the bill. Now in China, there is usually a charade over who pays the bill, and people will pretend to argue over it. However, these two women were liberally pushing and pulling and wrestling each other over the bill! New one to me.

The second thing I saw was cute but strange. One of the waitresses in that small family-run restaurant has a little toddler. He waddled over and gave me a big smile and then stretched out his hand offering something to me. I saw he had a red packet in his hand; I thought it might be sweets. Turned out to be a packet of cigarettes! They must start ‘em smoking young in China!! If only I had my Camera!

Shangri-la Aftermath

The Shangri-la Hotel had its first open mic session last night. From our point of view, it was ok but could have gone better. Time was very tight, so we only got to do maybe 20 minutes in total. Phil played a song by himself, which sounded fine. We did Slide Away together, which was a bit iffy! I think its cos we hadn’t practised for the thing. Most of the song was fine but we were a bit ragged for some of it. I sang a few songs then, which I thought went fine. I think the Slide Away thing annoyed us a bit cos we felt we let ourselves down. Not to worry, not like there was much of an audience! It was more like a jamming session than a gig. Cos it was on around 7:30pm, the bar was practically empty, so it doesn’t matter.

We could have gone on again later but the organisers decided against it in favour of playing hip-hop music over the speakers. Never mind. We might go back again and have another go; this time better prepared!

The Hairy Wangs Rise Again

What is he talking about? Our "band" is what*!

The Shangri-La hotel (one of the nicest hotels in Dalian) has an expat night every Thursday night in its F2 bar. They usually have DJs and a Filipino band. Today they have decided to have an open-mic night, so I got a call from Wayne, one of the organisers, asking me if I wanted to play. Yeah, why not- I’ll grab any opportunity to play and sing in public!

So, myself and Philip will be re-united yet again as "The Hairy Wangs". Maybe our last public appearance in Dalian, as Phil will be heading home after this semester. So I hope the Hairy Wangs can attract some of the crowd (dunno if there will be much of a crowd at 7pm: prob just friends and well-wishers) away from the usual Filipino-band music!

* We have a Chinese friend here in Dalian called Harry Wang. Seems that Americans pronounce the words "Harry" and "hairy" in exactly the same way! So some smart-arse said we should form a band called the Hairy Wangs! Harry Wang wasn’t too impressed with that!!