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No trumpets allowed
They do not like trumpet players in China. Sorry Walker. So we started classes yesterday, and I realized that I won’t be able to spend all my time in Beijing just wandering around the city, which is probably good because eventually I probably would have taken a picture of the wrong place and spent some time in a Chinese isolation room. But I did walk around on Sunday and look for a guitar. The road I am living on, Xinjiekouwai, has a district a little south from where I am living that has a lot of music and clothing stores. I had googled “guitar shops in Beijing” and got the addresses of a couple shops in that area, so I decided to just walk down there and browse the stores. It turns out that the place was packed with guitar shops, and they were all almost the exact same. On one block I walked past at least seven music shops in a row, and there had to be about fifteen stores that all seemed to be cut from the same mold on the street. Here is a description of the mold for you:
Take two dudes who look pretty hip, have them sit in a small shop that is
Rock and crane
This is a strange statue that is behind my dormitory. Of course, there is also an unscenic crane behind my dorm, but those are pretty much everywhere in Beijing. about 15x8, stock the store with rip-off guitars, some of which are made with the craftsmanship of a 2x4 and all of which look like they have strings that were put on last year. If anyone walks into the store, have both of the guys be incredibly polite, and watch the
waigouren (foreigner) wander around the store, and then quote ridiculously high prices for all the guitars.
Of course, most of the guys I met were actually really friendly. I asked a lot of questions about local music, and I got enough answers that I think I will be able to go out and see some authentic local bands. I also got a sense of the quality of guitars in china (bad but cheap… if I was able to take one back to the U.S. I would probably just buy a dirt cheap electric, but I think that might be a little inconvenient) and what kind of music is popular among Beijing musicians (heavy metal. Pretty much all the posters I saw on the walls were for American heavy metal guitarists). Only one guy I met was actually rude, but that was because he was trying to work on
Classroom
This is my classroom. The chairs are really uncomfortable. a guitar and I kept distracting him by asking stupid questions in awful Chinese and trying to take the Les Pauls off the wall to see if they were fake (I think they probably were, but it was the nicest store I went to so it is possible that they were actual Les Pauls). Overall it was a pretty fun experience. I’m not sure if I am actually going to buy a guitar while I’m in Beijing, because it would be really hard for me to take it home, so really I would be buying a guitar to just give it away in a month. We’ll see. Of course, I would really like to have a guitar or some sort of stringed instrument because otherwise I will lose all my chops.
Classes are pretty interesting, but besides the professor of the history class who works for the Carter Center and who said that it is possible he is being followed by the Chinese equivalent of the FBI, there is really nothing to talk about. The classrooms themselves are very different from what I’m used to. The chairs are small, and kind of uncomfortable, and, when compared to the building where we are living, the school buildings definitely look like they need a little bit of care, with paint peeling on the walls and basically very Spartan decorations. The assistant program director of the Emory program said that buildings in China are not really designed to last that long, which kind of corresponds with the interior of the school buildings where we have class. Another example is the pedestrian bridges which cross above the streets. When I’ve been walking around town I keep noticing these dudes who are pouring new concrete into the steps. Apparently the structure itself is made out of steel, but the surface is a quick-drying concrete substance that wears away with time. So it’s easy to fix, but you have to repair it every so often. I would guess probably about every 5 years, but I really have no clue.
Also, the weather has finally improved, and now I can see the sky and most of the Beijing skyline. I was starting to wonder if Beijing was just clothed in permanent haze. The only problem is that it is getting really hot, but compared to Memphis and Atlanta it still isn’t that bad. I’m sure it will eventually get bad, but so far I can walk around outside without breaking a sweat. Another interesting and random thing is that people over here really like to drive Jeep Cherokees, which is one of the few cars I recognize. It’s good to see a reminder of home. It is also nice because their jeeps are almost as trashed as mine. Almost.
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jon c
non-member comment
guitar shops
I'll actually be heading to Beijing in the next couple of days. Did you by any chance see any Fender basses in the music shops there? If yes, were they expensive? I'm looking to get a bass, but they are pretty expensive where i come from. Thanks!!!