Night Life In Hangzhou

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So, I have been studying quite a bit, but as we all know, I do occasionally go out on the town… and this post is dedicated to the most interesting two nights I have had in the first month or so that I have been here.

My First Chance at Stardom: Josh as the Lead Singer of a Chinese Rock Band
I have a Chinese friend named Tommy who I met at a bar near my house. Tommy is a student also but on the side he is the singer in a Chinese punk band. He is also friends with another band that plays in one of my favorite bars called Fire Cicada. This band plays a mix of Chinese folk songs and classic western rock songs. At some point during most nights that we would go to the bar, the singer would call Tommy up on stage to sing a couple of songs. These nights were a lot of fun because my friends were playing in the band and there was cheap beer. I would usually think dive bars cannot get better than this… How wrong I was.
On one drunken occasion, I yelled out to the band to play Guns ‘n Roses. The lead singer looked at me and in Chinglish (it’s a language of combining Chinese and English together where neither party can understand the other and most of the communication is done through body language) said for me to come up and sing. Now, first of all I don’t sing well at all and second I don’t know all the words to any song except happy birthday. All reasonable conclusions would have had me turn down this absurd invitation. However, I guess it was the right mix of cheap beer, friends encouraging me to go up, one of the girls Tommy brought that I was trying to impress and the slightest glimpse of stardom that made me go up on to that stage without knowing what I was supposed to sing. The band started to play Knockin’ on heaven’s door, which was great because most of the song is the chorus.
So there I was standing up on stage next to the lead singer in the band in front of close to 50 people singing my heart out. Although I wasn’t that useful because I didn’t know any of the words except the chorus, I still had an amazing time. I thought it was a onetime thing, and I was so bad that they would never invite me up again. But I had a good time so I didn’t mind the rejection.
However, the day before national day (October 1st), Tommy calls me up and says we are going to Fire Cicada with his band and he wants me to meet them. So we get there and we are hanging around waiting for the band to start its set; and the singer of the band comes up to me to say hi. He sees me and immediately asks if I would come up again and sing the same song. I wanted to make up for my last performance, so I readily agreed. However, I still had not memorized the words. Luckily, I had looked them up on my iPod touch which I had with me so the lyrics to the song were on it.
This time, the lead singer left me in the middle of the stage all alone and he was the backup singer off the left of the stage. Tommy’s guitarist was also making a guest appearance on stage with me. I got my other friend Bruce to take a video of this soon to be disaster. So I have posted it for you to see. I warn you, I have posted this for entertainment and self ridicule only… and I am not promising anything. But it is pretty funny.

Second Chance at Stardom: Josh Gets an award for Getting’ Jiggy with It
Hangzhou is a large city by any means; it has about 6.2 million people in the city itself. However, the expat (expat is short for expatriate or foreigner) community is quite small because most expats live in Shanghai. So when you go out to the places that cater to expats, you tend to run into the same people over and over again. This can be best described by the best rejection line anyone has ever given me. I met this German girl who was over hear doing something which I forget for an amount of time that I cannot recall, but she was German, I am sure of that. So after a night of hanging out and trying to find her drunk friend who disappeared, we were saying goodnight. I asked for her number but as most foreigners in China, no one knows their number off the top of their head. And her phone was out of battery, so while I was pondering if it was worth the effort for asking for her email, she says “Don’t worry; this city is small enough we will run into each other again.” I just smiled laughed and went home. As stated above Hangzhou has about six million people, and she tells me the city is small, hahaha. At least I give her points for creativity.
So the point is that when you go out in Hangzhou, you go to the same places and meet the same people. Right now, the only club that seems to be popular late night is a place called Coco. As hard as I try not to, I seem to end up there every weekend (I try to not end up there by never remembering the address or taking a business card to give the taxi driver, but my efforts are futile because at least one of my friends wants to go, and another friend will know how to get there). So last Saturday night, my friend Romani, one of my classmates from France, suggests we head to Coco and the group agrees. So we get there and get a drink (the one good thing about Coco is the drinks are as cheap there as they are at the bars, unlike US Clubs). I end up seeing and talking to one of the owners, a Nigerian named Jeff, who I met the week previously. He was really nice to me because we first met when we were standing in line to get street meat (lamb Kabobs) and he almost got into an altercation with a Korean guy. I had separated them and got him back inside, and then he invited to me to his table for the rest of the night which included free drinks (yippee!!). So, right after I finished talking to him, he clears the dance floor and asks for four girls and four guys to come up on the dance floor. He signals for Romane and I to come up, so we do (again I get up on to a stage without knowing what I am going to be doing… this seems to be becoming a habit). Jeff announces that there is going to be a hip hop dance contest and each guy and girl should pair up. I thought Romane was going to be my partner but some other guy, one of Jeff’s Nigerian friends, came up and swooped her away (I don’t blame her, a choice between a tall goofy looking white guy or the smooth talking friend of the owner - I think she went with the right choice if she wanted to win). So I got paired up with a Chinese girl. The routine was they would play three songs for us for about 30-45 seconds each and there were two heats, with two pairs going at one time. My friend Bruce and his girl were up first against Romane and Jeff’s friend. Bruce put on an impressive performance and won. Now it was my turn. I was scared shitless…
In addition to my lack of singing ability, I also lack the ability to dance or hold any sort of rhythm. So I thought I was going to lose the first round… Apparently, the crowd did not think so and voted me over the other couple. So now I was in the finals of contest, which was two more songs we had to dance to. And somehow I won that round too, which gave me a free bottle of vodka!!
I think me winning this Hip Hop contest is more of a testament to the nightlife in Hangzhou than to my dancing ability. But hey, I will take whatever I can get!!
There is also a video, with some parts sped up or slowed down for effect... remember this is for entertainment valu only!!!

I’ll add more about my experiences with going out with my Chinese friends later this week. By Chinese friends, I mean the ones that unlike Tommy, speak little or no English. Hope Everyone is doing well.

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Comments

[jocelyn]

new career
sounds and looks like you were having a great time, however you really might consider staying with being a lawyer. i really enjoyed your performance. great job! seems like hangzhou is a lot like paris. meaning like the lounge @ the best western. it was wonderful to see and hear from you, take care. love you

[ryan]

HAHAHAH
Your karaoke was unbelievable. I can die now.

[monica Zappa]

got a message?
i dont know that many rock stars that check their text messages during a show (unless it was the lyrics written on a post-it).... either way, that was fun.