(no subject)
We're leaving for the States on Tuesday and I've managed to pack quite a bit into the last week before our departure. Finally about finished with all the work I have to do: only one little interview to write up - a good one I had this afternoon with Shao Yibo, founder and chairman of Chinese auction site EachNet (now eBay EachNet post-acquisition). He's one hell of a cool guy: child prodigy from Shanghai who graduated suma cum laude from Harvard and sold first a third of his company to eBay in March 2002 for what, 25 million dollars or so if I remember correctly, then the rest earlier this year for a cool 160 million. I knew him socially back in the late 90s through Eric of ChinaNow.com. His wife Jenny - a lovely woman and Bo's intellectual equal or better they say - is expecting their second child, a boy, late this year. Their 17-month-old daughter gives my Guenevere a good run in the cuteness sweeps. All around good person, Bo is: sterling rep, well loved and now fabulously wealthy. And he's what, all of 31 years old. What a stud.
I got interviewed by China Radio International for a couple of shows, one a live Webcast mostly about the music biz in China and goings-on with my band, the other just to harvest some sound bytes for various pieces on music-related topics. Met some very nice folks over there but missed a chance to tell that fuckwit Rick O'Shea - the cheesiest, lamest DJ ever to have existed and a sore embarrassment to any English-speaker - what I think of him. Ah, well. I also did a spot with CBS News that's supposed to air on Sunday morning after Thanksgiving: I was talking about various Sichuan dishes in this wonderful Chuancai guan across the street from our new digs, explaining lazi ji and shuizhuyu for the folks back home. Try out this place if you're up near Yayuncun some time: it's called Shunanrenjia (蜀南人家）and you should feel free to ask me for directions. The CBS crew then accompanied me to Nameless Highland, where my band played just now, and shot us doing Tianxia. The show went very well, I think, and there were a bunch of young American English teachers in the crowd with whom I spoke afterward; they all seemed to like us quite a bit. We played first, and were followed by this interesting Mongolian band with a throat-singing frontman who looked to be just out of puberty but had a voice like a Klingon baritone; there was a Mongolian horsehead fiddle player as well, who played that thing like no one I've ever seen. The guitar, bass and drums were competent but painfully introverted. They need a makeover, but the music was impressively executed. I believe they were called Han Gan.
Of course with so much fun going on - a brunch with good friends tomorrow morning, practice with the AC/DC cover band I'm playing bass for tomorrow afternoon, dinner with Daming and then a party at Betsy & Mike's tomorrow night - I'm sure to get homesick for Beijing when I'm there in the States. But I'm still psyched to watch Fanfan reacting to America.
I got interviewed by China Radio International for a couple of shows, one a live Webcast mostly about the music biz in China and goings-on with my band, the other just to harvest some sound bytes for various pieces on music-related topics. Met some very nice folks over there but missed a chance to tell that fuckwit Rick O'Shea - the cheesiest, lamest DJ ever to have existed and a sore embarrassment to any English-speaker - what I think of him. Ah, well. I also did a spot with CBS News that's supposed to air on Sunday morning after Thanksgiving: I was talking about various Sichuan dishes in this wonderful Chuancai guan across the street from our new digs, explaining lazi ji and shuizhuyu for the folks back home. Try out this place if you're up near Yayuncun some time: it's called Shunanrenjia (蜀南人家）and you should feel free to ask me for directions. The CBS crew then accompanied me to Nameless Highland, where my band played just now, and shot us doing Tianxia. The show went very well, I think, and there were a bunch of young American English teachers in the crowd with whom I spoke afterward; they all seemed to like us quite a bit. We played first, and were followed by this interesting Mongolian band with a throat-singing frontman who looked to be just out of puberty but had a voice like a Klingon baritone; there was a Mongolian horsehead fiddle player as well, who played that thing like no one I've ever seen. The guitar, bass and drums were competent but painfully introverted. They need a makeover, but the music was impressively executed. I believe they were called Han Gan.
Of course with so much fun going on - a brunch with good friends tomorrow morning, practice with the AC/DC cover band I'm playing bass for tomorrow afternoon, dinner with Daming and then a party at Betsy & Mike's tomorrow night - I'm sure to get homesick for Beijing when I'm there in the States. But I'm still psyched to watch Fanfan reacting to America.