Dongshan – Dragon Prawns and Tea

东山 – 龙虾和茶

                                Summer has been pretty tough here – Suzhou: hot, humid and a lot of work. Recently I returned to having two days off and the temperature dipped to something slightly more reasonable, although the air remains stubbornly close. Given this somewhat more clement state of affairs Celia and I decided to head to Dongshan 东山on our days off. For me, this was mainly a way to scratch a culinary itch I had; my friend Jason, a Suzhou native, had to my great interest informed me that Tai Hu 太湖, a huge lake local to Suzhou, was the farming place of many fisherman who cultivated and caught crayfish as part of their fishing staple. This particularly interested me because I’m half Swedish, which may initially appear to be apropos of nothing very much. To any Swedish readers it will in fact be apropos of quite a lot, allow me to explain further. The Kräft Skiva (crayfish festival) is a big deal in Sweden, a party at some point in July or August that celebrates the former crayfish season, sadly a now largely non-existent species there since a water borne disease decimated the population to near extinction some time ago. In today’s globalised world this has provided only a small barrier to crayfish based celebrations and Swedes continue to enjoy this annual feast with catches imported from various places, one not inconsiderable supplier being China herself. I fondly remember cycling home with boxes of frozen Chinese delights, ready to be unwrapped from their hard scarlet packets, precariously balanced on the back of my bike and quickly beginning to sweat in the bright Nordic sunshine. Happily, Sweden is seeing a resurgence in the crayfish population and trends are beginning to reverse in a somewhat unexpected fashion as Sweden starts to export chickens’ feet (that favourite Chinese snack, for more on this see my earlier post) towards the orient.

                                It was then with some excitement that I found myself at what was most probably the source of some of the scarlet delicacies so gladly recalled from my youth. But before lunch we had some sightseeing to do. After one very long journey and one much shorter one  on the interminable earthquakes that are China’s buses it was with great pleasure and no small relief that we were enveloped by the silent serenity of Zijin Nunnery. This nunnery was built in the early years of the Tang dynasty (618-907AD) and houses some beautiful Arhat statues and various other pretty pieces of ancient art. Arhat is a term largely attributed to Buddhism, although it was apparently present before Gautama, the founder of Buddhism. It was at any rate pretty humbling to be in the quiet presence of these ancient artworks. The nunnery was also clean, emerald green and almost entirely devoid of people – something of a nirvana following the hellish stint of almost continuous work in the noisy SND 高新区area of Suzhou. We had a little walk around and then rumbled off on a bus towards the banks of Tai Hu, enjoying the view across the countryside and the sleepy little villages punctuating the winding roads. 

Celia at Tai Hu

龙虾

                                We quickly found a lady hawking for trade near her restaurant. She hastily informed us that whilst she currently had no crayfish she could easily go and procure an ample portion for two people from the nearby fishermen. A short while and a broken conversation with some locals later, one of whom was a man of a certain age so typical the world over, a self-proclaimed authority on everything, a steaming bowl of these red treasures arrived. The Chinese experience is somewhat different from the Swedish on, as one would expect, given the vast cultural and physical distance separating the two. Swedish crayfish are normally served cold, having been preserved in a mixture of brine and dill. The Chinese variant were presented in a large bowl and cooked with lumps of ginger, a steaming hillock of scarlet, still having been preserved in brine.

                                Crayfish are funny looking things, painted a deep red by the boiling pot, gangly eyes on stalks and disproportionately large claws hanging clumsily in front of them. They could easily star in a 1950s Ed Wood B-movie as cheap stand-ins for Styrofoam alien invaders. The Chinese call them Longxia 龙虾 (this Pinyin is pronounced long-shee-ah), the characters translating literally as dragon prawns. There is a certain poetic simplicity about the Chinese language I’ve mentioned before, elevators are called electronic ladders for example, and that linguistic feature is preserved by this particular piece of elegant nomenclature. The term can mean either crayfish or lobsters, but it was the smaller cousins that we were to enjoy on this particular day. They are somewhat troublesome to eat, the most succulent flesh being encased in a hard shell around their rear ends. One can also eat the claw meat and even parts from their heads, known somewhat optimistically as crayfish butter by the Swedes. It all requires a total lack of table manners and the will to crack open various parts of these perished creatures to get to the soft treasure within. In Sweden they have a selection of tools for this, but the Chinese are made of stronger stuff and it is left to the eater to puzzle out the best way to crack into their meal. All this means that eating them is not really worth the effort, but like all the best traditions we continue to practice it out of habit and in order to get that implacable sense of satisfaction from doing something unusual, occasional and largely pointless. I certainly enjoyed these salty scarlet treats to about the same degree as their Swedish counterparts, but I won’t be enjoying them for some time as frequency would be the death knell for the enjoyment of this particular tradition.

A bowl of crayfish, notice the pieces of ginger.

...and after the feast there was desolation upon the table.

茶

                        After our crayfish feast we headed back to the non-descript one horse (or, less poetically, one motorised tricycle) town that is Dongshan proper. Non-descript and somewhat grimy it was but explore it we did anyway. After a deliciously thirst quenching fresh lemon iced tea we came upon a small covered market. There were several small stall owners hawking local fruit, strange miscellaneous items and two parallel lines of hawkers perched behind small hillocks of various kinds of tea. I managed to identify some as local Dongshan tea with my rudimentary Chinese reading skills. I started to negotiate the sale of some of this to me, during which time some confusion ensued due to the impossibly cheap price of the tea. The exchange led quickly to a somewhat bemused reaction from the stall owner. I’m often faced with this bemused reaction when I try doing all the silly things I like doing that westerners probably have no real place doing in the middle kingdom. Buying tea from stalls in the middle of nowhere, going to hidden local vegetable markets, taking buses to random outposts of cities, getting lost in industrial zones, etc. The reaction is not so much unpleasant as almost endearing in the confusion it barely hides behind the ubiquitous Chinese saving of face. Clearly westerners did not often chat to this chap in Chinese, and his stock of reactions did not cover this particular situation. The expression is something of guardedness mixed with eventual admiration for your dogged attempts to communicate. Also, somewhat pleasingly for me, people off the tourist trail are generally too busy being bemused to try to rip you off, indeed it generally seems not to be the done thing for stall holders selling comestibles. The confusion was furthered by the misunderstanding of his pricing. He gave me the price of forty kuai (the unofficial name for Yuan, a bit like quid for pounds) a jin 斤 (a jin is 500g, a standard weight in China), but tea is often sold in liangs 市两 (50g[1]), since teas like Longjing 龙井 and Biluochun 碧螺春 are rather expensive. I therefore asked for a liang and tried to hand over forty kuai. He gave me the common reaction saved for this kind of situation, a look that seems to be searching for obvious signs of mental deficiency or even lunacy, but then quickly gives way to the understanding that you’re not stupid or pathologically wasteful, just foreign. It’s not really your fault that you’re wasting his precious lounging time – you were born this way and deserve more pity than anything else for your national shortcomings. The transaction ended cordially however, and I decided to take some photos, which he though was absolutely hilarious and told me I should take some pictures of the “beautiful lady (mei nu 美女)” – the owner of the neighbouring stall. These sort of endlessly entertaining interactions almost always end up in good humour and someone complementing my inevitably somewhat broken Chinese. This is a common experience for me in China, an apparent abruptness that belies a friendly national psyche brimming with good humour that rests just beneath that tough surface. It was a fun end to what had been a pleasant day in Dongshan. I’m happy to report that I’ve been drinking the Dongshan infusion, and that, whilst not the highest quality brew, it is a good everyday green that unfurls in an ever aesthetically pleasing fashion when steeped. A fine souvenir from another satisfying Chinese experience.    


[1] Note this is the standardised post 1959 measure, before which it was about 31g.

Cuppa, anyone?

And finally a picture of some lily pads on Tai Hu to leave you with a pacifying view of Chinese summer.

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Waxberries

A quick post about a favourite Chinese fruit of mine. It's called a waxberry, also known as a Chinese barberry or Yangmei 杨梅. It's dark purple and looks as though it has an inedible skin and one would expect it to be difficult to eat. However, the skin is soft and the interior succulent and delicious. The flesh has a pleasant softness to it whilst also offering enough resistance to give it a pleasingly solid consistency. It tastes rather like a cross between a grape and a blackberry, so by all accounts completely delicious. I can happily report, after experiments in the field by my baking expert Celia, that this fruit works well in crumbles. The season is relatively short and I usually rely on street sellers to buy from here, of which there is no shortage during the season. The season seems to be from around May to June and thankfully the aforementioned expert thought to freeze a tupperware box full. I wonder, could one make fruit wine from these? Most probably yes.

Ethan's music and some other stuff I've been listening to

                          Well I've been stupidly busy and hot recently, which is the norm for an EF employee in China during the summer, so I've not been getting much of a chance to post. Just a quick one then to talk about what I've been listening to of late. My music collection was beginning to stagnate so it was with great joy that I recently remembered to start checking Soundcloud.com again and that I started to check out my workmate's music that he kindly gave to me. You may remember I mentioned a chap called Ethan who definitely has more than a passing interest in garage, punk and various other kinds of mainly guitar related stuff. I've continued to explore the plethora of things he gave me, so here's a few. I really like The Cruel Sea, an Australian band with an eclectic sound which is definitely tinged with blues, funk and soul influences. Some of their tracks have some great piano work and every track has varied percussion, the track I'm currently listening to, "The Right Time", actually has an African sound. I'm not really sure that they fall under any definite genre and every track is quite different, but it's all really catchy and really well produced and difficulty in pigeon holing is a selling point for me. On a similar tip, but with a more defined blues influence are The Shadows of Knight, a band from the USA hailing from the 1960s. Their music has a hard rhythm and blues sound and is certainly something to get your groove on to. I've also been enjoying The Razors of late, much more on the thrashy punk side of things and definitely to my tastes, but a little elusive. I shall have to ask Ethan for more information and report back.

The Cruel Sea with "Black Stick"

The Shadows of Knight with "Bad Little Woman"

And I foud The Razors for you! A track called "Dope Maniacs". It turns out they are a German punk band from the early 80s.  

                        On Soundcloud I've been somewhat addicted to a certain Derrick May mix, a great soundtrack to lesson planning: https://soundcloud.com/clubbonsoir/sets/derrick-may-club-bonsoir-29-09 It's got the real soulful and jacking funk that I see as the hallmark of Derrick May, and his clean as anything eq manipulation that keeps bringing me back to his mixes. I've been loving Fat Hop records, the hip-hop imprint which Jerome Hill is involved in, himself an excellent hip-hop, techno, electro, old skool and, well, anything with groove DJ. In particular I listened to "Stand Up" by The Criminal Minds , prior to this known to me for their track "Baptised By Dub", a classic piece of old-skool hardcore excellence. I also really enjoyed "Skorpio Dope Jam" by Itsu Uno, a top quality fast paced slice of party breakbeat with some catchy horn samples. To be honest I've enjoyed all of the Fat Hop releases I've heard, but I don't have time to talk about all of them just now. Suffice it to say Fat Hop earns it's name, whilst delivering a pretty eclectic sound it's all based around big fat hunks of juicy breakbeat, making you want to get up and dance every time you listen. I've also been catching up on some mixes by The Black Dog, techno artists who have been around since the first days of IDM in the early nineties - you can see a review of one of their releases in an earlier post. The particular mix I've been listening to is named "Darkwave Vol. 13" and is an atmospheric mix of techno and electro, at times a little cheesy for my tastes (vocal techno - no, just no), it is for the most part a good soundtrack to working on the computer, so nothing too earth shattering but also pretty solid. I've been enjoying the sounds of Mark Hawkins, a very well established techno artist known for his Chan 'n' Mikes label. The particular track I've enjoyed recently is called Sudeikiai Dub 3 and is actually a remix by Orpha Castles. It's a driving track built on foundations of gorgeously smooth string pads and a wobbling bass line. No link for this one as it's a private one on Soundcloud, but it might be available if you search around. 

                                 Blackmass Plastics has been offering up a slice of shuffled up grimey four to the floor action, a slice of dark garage funk, spiced up with a growling bass line and the occasional fearsome synth stab. The track is called "Itchitup" and I think it's an old tune, it's age shows - but in a good way, with some of that pounding garage funk that seems to have all but disappeared in today's world of wobbly dubstep. There are so many more tracks I want to talk about, but unfortunately I do not have all the time in the world, so just a final one from the mighty Boards of Canada, ambient legends who have well deserved international fame, hailing from the IDM side of things, what one might be tempted to call "ambient techno", although I always thought that something of a contradiction in terms. The track I recently heard is called "Reach for the Dead", a medley of haunting arpeggios and a slow rise of light break beats, extremely well produced and providing a luscious cinematic atmosphere. 

Right, that's it for now, hope you enjoy the tracks, much more to come soon from The Four Matters, Scheme Boy, Dawn Penn and many more besides. 

Chinese music and dance at the Garden of the Master of the Nets （网师园）

                    My family recently visited me in China, which was great fun, and I felt compelled to take them to a night of performances at the Garden of the Master of the Nets, a famous garden in Suzhou. During the peak months from spring to autumn they hold performances there every night, which I'd been waiting a while to have the excuse to see. The Garden of the Master of the Nets was a garden made for the entertainment of aristocratic families, but is now open to the public and beautifully preserved. We were treated to a curious mixture of a guided tour and a sort of pick and mix of Chinese music, dance and theatre, each performance lasting about 5-10 minutes. We saw some theatre first, which was, well, interesting-I'll leave it at that. We were then treated to some great dance by a lady in an interesting outfit with very long sleeves, used to accentuate her fluid movement. We were also shown a couple of performances of music, which deserve a bit more of a mention here. The first was a performance by a couple of ladies, one of whom was playing on a san xian 三弦 and one on an er hu 二胡, both stringed instruments, one plucked and one bowed. The san xian looks a bit like a guitar or a lute and sounds fairly similar, albeit with an oriental twang many will find familiar, the er hu (by the way, this is pronounced "are who") is a two stringed instrument played upright, a little like a cello with the stature of a violin. We were later taken to an area that doubles as a shop, thereby being surrounded by Chinese arts and crafts, where a trio of musicians delivered a fabulous performance of san xian, er hu and some sort of zither, perhaps a guqin 古琴 . Unfortunately they were joined for the last song by a lady who brought the traditional cat murder style of Chinese opera to the table. However much I try to convince myself that this kind of singing must have cultural merit I just can't stop thinking of bags full of cats whenever I here it. Maybe it's an acquired taste, each to there own I guess. Finally, we were treated to wonderfully peaceful selection of solo performances by the lake in the middle of the garden, one on some sort of flute-perhaps a ba wu 巴乌, and something a bit like a recorder (perhaps the instrument I mentioned in an earlier post, except I may have been wrong because this is apparently held to the side-perhaps someone can shed some light on this). I really enjoy Chinese instrumental music, it has a really well developed air of subtlety to it and accurately reflects the ancient continuous culture present here, whilst also expressing the precipitation so ever present. Music is always a great way to experience the real emotive power of a place and the evening described was no exception, and all for a tenner. I definitely recommend it if you're ever in Suzhou.

The dancing lady in full spin.

A chap playing one of the aforementioned wind instruments.

Here is a video. Sorry about the lady behind the tree!

Music in the bushes

                       I recently notices an odd phenomenon near my house, the Chinese practice of playing music in the bushes. I was wandering down to the exercise yard by the Grand Canal near my house (the largest man made waterway in the world, as it has been since it's completion around 600AD) when I noticed a strange thing-a man standing in the bushes, facing a large wall and furtively tootling on a trumpet. Well, as furtively as it is possible to play the trumpet, which is not very. I stopped and listened to it for a while, it was enjoyable to stand in the spring sunshine listening to the powerful brass reverberations. It was a little like the wall was his audience and he was in some way in a private meditation with this concert dedicated to the inanimate. Recently, I was walking through my apartment block park when I heart the dulcet tones of a flute or a recorder. It turned out to be a man serenading the world at large on a Chinese instrument resembling a clarinet, although it didn't sound like it was reeded, something like a recorder. I believe it may have been a bawu ( 巴乌 ), although according to Wikipedia this is an instrument with a single metal reed, so perhaps I was wrong. In any case, it sounded rather lovely. This also reminds me of when I lived in Hangzhou and whilst cycling across one of West Lake's beautiful causeways I saw a man praising West Lake with beautiful operatic dedications. It was such a wonderful sight and sound to behold that I stopped, dismounted, listened and applauded at the end, at which point the gentleman in question understandably looked rather pleased with himself. 
                           This all just reminds me of one of the reasons I love China: it's little eccentricities. People love to perform publicly here, playing music in the streets and dancing in groups here and there at different times of the day. They do it for no material gain or because they are being watched, seemingly just for the pure love of the actions themselves. It's a great thing to behold and a lovely reflection of one of the pleasing elements of this often endearingly eccentric place. 

Easing back into the bloggeration

                                    So I've been very busy recently with my family visiting me in China, working a silly amount and attempting not too liquify in the extreme Chinese heat and humidity. What I have been doing however is listening to lots of music, as per usual. I thought I'd ease myself back into blogging a bit by just telling what's been on the headphones recently and a little bit about some of my favourite artists. A new member of staff recently started working at our school, a chap named Ethan from Perth who, it turns out, loves garage and punk music. This pleased me immensely as he introduced me to a shed (or a garage?) full of trashy guitar music. I use trashy in the most complimentary terms possible-I mean that DIY lo-fi sound you get in garage music (not of the UKG variety-rather that of the punky ilk), the sound that says,"we love making this shit and we'll do it even if the extent of our materials are a garage and some fourth hand instruments". The fact is I'm sure a lot of these artists eventually had pretty good equipment, but they held onto that raw sound I love so much. The artists include everything from Blondie to Joy Division to Ian Dury and the Blockheads to X-Ray Specs. "Stop", you might say, "that's not really garage and punk!", well whilst I agree in theory I believe they all have that DIY feel, lending a real inventiveness to their sound and they therefore exude artistic integrity-making their sound however they can for whatever small income it might produce. The band that have most piqued my interest are probably The Deviants, they are incredibly inventive and their music seems to vary from the pretty punky to stuff verging on poetry to the downright experimental. I've also enjoyed MC5, representing Detroit and showing off quite how eclectic one city's music can be, from motown (named after Detroit I believe, it being motor city) to the invention of techno to blues to the hard rocking guitar sound of MC5 themselves, and embryonic punk of a sort, way before the Sex Pistols. They had it: the DIY ethic, the radical political affiliations and the devil may care approach to authority; but never mind that, the main thing is that there music makes you want to bounce around like an ADD afflicted pogo stick. There's lots of other stuff too, but more on that later, probably in more detail. 

                                  What else have I been listening too? Well, I received a lovely birthday present from my girlfriend Celia of erhu （二胡）music. This instrument usually has two strings and no fingerboard as such and is played like a violin or cello. It is held in the position of a cello, but is about the size of a violin and, like most bowed instruments, if it's played well it is manna for the ears, if it's played badly it sounds like feline mass murder in a bag. You often see old blind men playing it by the road in China, being one of their only possible job prospects besides being a blind masseur, and their performances are at best variable. However, listening to this CD I was inspired, a truly beautiful sound filled my house with it's tremulous delicacy, and the CD also had a good variation between the orchestral and the more folky. According to Wikipedia the erhu was conceived well over a thousand years ago and was made of a combination of materials that could be obtained along the silk road. The strings themselves were in earlier times usually made of wound silk, viewing the instrument, like so many things in China, starts winding you into the immense history of this huge country, pulling you along the old silk road and imagining the wranglings that went on to make these beautiful instruments. At this point I feel myself getting inexorably pulled into a Sebaldian psychogeographical mental ramble, which I would love to further entertain, but unfortunately another cultural aspect of this land now forces me to leave my explorations-the intense work ethic. Thanks for reading, it's good to be back on the blog, I'll be writing more about Chinese music soon.  

An example of The Deviants-although as I said their sound is very varied.

Here is some MC5, a sound a little like Iggy and the Stooges I guess, if you like them check out New York Dolls as well.

Some rather lovely erhu music, with some other Chinese musical accompaniment.

Breakcore

When you see the suffix core in anything musical it produces the assumption that it’s going to be some pretty aurally challenging stuff. Breakcore is no exception to this rule, it’s a fast and furious style of music characterised by frenetic breakbeats. It harks from jungle music, which is a style of dance music that ranges from about 150 to 170 beats per minute and is identifiable through a looped breakbeat that comes from a track called “Amen, Brother” by the 1960s funk and soul band named The Winstons. This roughly eight second loop was sampled and has been looped in many styles of music from hip-hop (see for example “Straight Outta Compton” by NWA) to techno and, of course, jungle. Jungle originally took this break, sped it up and cut it up, this can be heard in many tunes such as “Not 4 U” by Remarc (and many other Remarc classics besides) and the 1991 classic “We are I.E” by Lennie De Ice. Later on digital hardcore creator Alex Empire got hold of this Amen sound and made the move towards the frenzied end of the spectrum when he released “Bass Terror” in 1993 (you might remember this from an earlier post). The idea is roughly the same as jungle, it takes this breakbeat and cuts it up, but it starts getting taken to ever more extreme lengths. The pace gets faster and the cutting gets more complex.

                        It’s worth mentioning that, as with all genres, what I’ve mentioned above is a tendency but not a rule or a law. Breakcore is often characterised by broken Amen breaks, but really it can use any broken up beat that’s been sliced up beyond any kind of degree considered humane by listeners of the less challenging and more mainstream (or, to use a more apt adjective, boring) music. Breakcore started being known as a genre in the late nineties, but much earlier jungle was getting so cut up that had it been faster it would have been almost the same thing. I believe genres can almost always be better understood as spectra than as solid definitions, so looking retrospectively much faster jungle and digital hardcore could be seen somewhere on the breakcore spectrum. Towards the late nineties people like Nasenbluten (Bloody Fist Records) and DJ Scud (Ambush records) started releasing records that were to jungle what hardcore techno and gabber were to “normal” techno. Of Ambush records it says on discogs.com, “it stands as a hopeful flash point in the micro-conservative landscape of electronic dance music”, so essentially it seems to have been an underground reaction to the world of super DJs and commercialisation. This was a continuation of the constant tension in the dance music scene between the DIY culture found at free parties and the financial gain ethic followed by creators of the rave scene in England and later just about everyone who wanted some cash from the massively popular dance music culture of the nineties. One of the positive outcomes of this popularism and commercialisation was the encouragement of a strong and vibrant underground scene as a reaction to it. So came creative music trying to be ever more ground breaking, not just for the sake of creativity, but also as a cultural and political project.

                        So, breakcore was staunchly hardcore and stood as a reaction to the commercialisation of the entire dance music scene, it was some pretty serious and ground breaking stuff. Creative seriousness also came from better known producers from the intelligent dance music scene (IDM), most people who have had any interest in modern dance music will have heard of Aphex Twin and Rephlex Records. “Come To Daddy”, with its highly disturbing video, is perhaps not quite breakcore, but again it’s certainly on the same spectrum, it has an experimental edge and is characterised by frenetic breaks. Around this time Squarepusher was also releasing material like “Come On My Selector”, another frenzied attack of cut up breaks. The scene continued to churn out material, and I first got interested in it through the London squat party scene and the underground parties of a sound system called Headfuk. Headfuk were a collective of artists and musicians who were interested in pushing the boundaries of non-commercial dance and had their own record label (Headfuk records). They mainly released breakcore and hardcore techno, notably artists such as Ronin and Ely Muff. A lot of their music was more on the hardcore techno side of things, but there’s definitely a strong thread of breakcore madness there, and they are firmly and even ideologically rooted in DIY culture, the music flowed from a creative ethic rather than a financial one. Ely Muff is interesting because although he is largely known as a hardcore techno producer his music is characterised by cutting up of beats, something very familiar from breakcore and hardcore techno (and, earlier, digital hardcore). Later on other sound systems and collectives followed similar ethics, like Pitchless industries and Ill Fm.

                        So, there was a large creative movement existent on the underground scene, still vibrant and alive in the 21^st century. Many artists are at least affected by breakcore-see Broken Note, Badsekta, Phuq, etc, etc, etc. There’s also the less serious side of breakcore, which is very rooted in the mash up style of production, mixing and blending things like metal, familiar reggae and ragga tracks and jungle. It is of no less creative value, but certainly has a different mood. There are artists like Arron Spectre and DJ Scotch Egg (the latter being known for throwing his snack name sake into the audience), there music is sometimes less cut up and less experimental, but is very danceable and often very well produced. There are many modern permutations of the style, following the same creative ethic. Artists such as Counterstrike and Panacea have injected the breakcore ethic into straight up drum and bass, creating a style known as tear out, an extremely frenzied version of drum and bass/jungle, but that is produced in such a way that it mixes well with drum and bass DJ sets. There are also many tracks that are more danceable but follow a similar ethic, such record labels as Big Kat and Aural Carnage are great proponents of this. Injected back into the dubstep style we see the formulation of such things as drumstep, less frenetic but continuing to create and distort existing paradigms, giving nerdy genre describers like me new challenges. Breakcore has moved on to continue to sow the seeds of its ethic in the fields of many different genres, giving many interesting new and ground breaking forms of dance music. Though many of the artists I've mentioned might not be classically considered to be breakcore, I believe the scene is characterised by a scene and a wish to cut up breaks to create a fresh experimental sound, and I believe all of these artists comfortably sit on this wide spectrum somewhere. 

                        There are of course too many artists and tracks for me to name, but here’s a few more of my old favourites, who are not necessarily breakcore per se, but exist on that spectrum: Bong-Ra-“Ragganaut”, Hanin Elias-“Nizza”, Christoph de Babylon, Nasenbluten-“No Sex”, Ely Muff-“We're The Musicians”, Bazooka-“Bassdrum Korrekt”, and possibly more later when I have some more time!     

DJ Scud-"Mash The Place Up"

Bong-Ra-"Ragganaut"

Hanin Elias (of Atari Teenage Riot)-"Nizza"

Aphex Twin-"Come To Daddy"

A Short Interlude from Food and Music

 A Warm Spring Morning or Up a Hill and Down Again

Foreword:   I decided to take a short break from my usual blog content today, since I wrote a little report of one of my favourite activities recently. That is mindlessly going up and down hills on foot-a remarkably calming interval between fairly stressful and thought filled days at work. I’ve been reading a book based in 16^th century England recently, so this probably affected my writing a bit.

                                It was a warm spring morning when I awoke, a mite earlier than perhaps one might hope on a day of rest, but no matter, more day to be enjoyed then. It was with not a slight disappointment that I discovered my honey bee was still in the throes of an irksome malady. I did my best to rouse her from her malaise with some Chinese medicine and a cup of steaming and indeed most energising and delicately piquant lemon and ginger tea. However, it was to no avail, this low weather was not to be cleared with such ease. Had I considered the significant lack of will for the pungent aroma and wakeful bite of her usual steaming mug of coffee, I would have realised slightly earlier the thickness of the clouds over her health.

                                Upon the discovery of this unfortunate state of affairs she settled back into her bed and made a comforting nest of pillows, blankets and a game of the Sims, a game that mirrors reality in a most post-modern sense; one builds one’s own family and house as a paradigm of suburban reality. I felt I could not with good disposition miss such a spring day, hence I set off for Mudu 木渎. Being so familiar with not owning a bike in this city I struck out for the well-ordered coolness of the underground. I strolled up Bin He Lu 滨河路, the hot sun enveloping me in its penetrating rays. I dodged between the murderous traffic and past the liang mian 凉面 man concocting his cold witches’ brew of noodles and other Chines accoutrements in a metal bowl, thronged by a small crowd of hungry onlookers. Then I escaped, plunging into the dark tunnels to catch the train to the hills.

                                Out I came, into the unforgiving midday sun, as hot as mid-July back in my green and pleasant land, and dodged some more killers of metal and rubber. I surmounted the noisy belching bus and headed towards Lingyan Shan 灵岩山, whereupon I was greeted by the usual Chinese attempts to employ as many of its fine citizens as possible-some stalls, a ticket office and a separate man taking tickets, and almost terrifyingly sprightly old man of a pleasingly helpful disposition. He informed me that I should under no circumstances dispose of my ticket, but should store it in safely in my pocket of some other relevant safe area. I was then allowed to enjoy a rather small and empty little garden for 20 yuan and, after something of a short stroll, came to an exit gate where I was informed that the reason I should keep my ticket was to re-enter the tiny area of vague prettiness upon my return from the hill-which one can in fact enter gratis from around the corner.

                                As I began my walk up the hill, through an emerald tunnel of spring greens illuminated by vernal rays, I ruminated upon what Celia should least prefer: a congested head of mucal concrete or this sweaty stomp up a large hill-the latter I decided. Up, up I went, past crowds of laowai 老外 braying locals, panting and perspiring-for it was seldom that I felt I could run in the sticky polluted air of Suzhou 苏州 . At the top I came upon a temple with a much more reasonable 1 yuan entry fee. I willingly passed the happy old monk a 10p note and headed in.

                                It was a calming place, somewhat weather beaten in a charming sort of way. Inside there was a yard, a fine looking pagoda (closed to climbers) and a few gardens. In the garden at the back I was greeted by a wonderfully apt cultural display. No, not someone spitting on the ground and slurping soup, more the displays you hope for. There was a small group of about five practitioners of martial arts, practicing to a soundtrack of Chinese flutes, they were all clad in silken garments, loosely fitting to suit their flowing acrobatic arts. One man was clearly the master, and his fluid dance was a triumphant example of true human endeavour to behold. After some time observing this spectacle I felt it was the moment to continue my wander. As I reached the bald head of the shan 山 I walked through the usual rabble of hawkers one finds in these places, stopped at the top, took a few pictures of the surrounding verdancy and headed down. On my way down I was distracted by a delightful Ugwei (turtle) artfully constructed of dried plant matter that I felt I had to buy to bring some sweetness to my honey bee’s day. I purchased it and continued my lope down the hill. As I left the chattering mob I was suddenly left alone and, filled with vernal joy, I broke into song. However, not for long, as I once again to run the gauntlet of the laowaing masses.

                                I remembered the little spot of calm, and was suddenly quite satisfied with my purchase as I was blanketed with a deep calm, far from the braying. I strolled for a little while more, allowing my feet to relax upon the welcome flatness. I came to the bottom of the garden, whereupon a little teahouse presented itself from behind the ornamental features. Therein I had a short discussion with the proprietor about her old teas and new teas from this year. I then settled down with a new green tea from this year and, for the first time in many moons, put pen to paper. I sincerely hope that this is but the first of many such fulfilling occasions.    

A less gluttonous blog

Just a quick one so say if you'd like a less gluttonous report of my experiences in China you can have a look at my Celia's (my girlfriend) blog here: http://celiathetravellingbee.blogspot.com/
There's also archived blog material about last year in Hangzhou.

Dongbei Cuisine （东北餐）

                                Another hard week at work done and we were all hungry teachers and needed some sustenance, we were all fading fast. Luckily we had all organised to go to a north-eastern Chinese restaurant that one of my workmates knew. Off we went, up Bin He lu for the ten minute walk to the restaurant, whose name escapes me right now, although I’m sure I’ll go there again at some point, so check back for an update if you happen to be in Suzhou. The restaurant had a family feel, it was medium sized and the space was shared by the family that lived there, we had a sweet chubby cheeked little baby keeping us company on the adjacent table.

                                In any case, we sat down and perused the biblical picture menu. You need to be pretty good at choosing things when you’re eating in China because the menu is inevitably about half an inch thick and full of things you want. This is partly because they are almost always picture menus (pleasing for us westerners) and partly just because they seem to love food in China more than anywhere else I’ve been in the world. Perhaps you’re starting to see why I like living here. Dongbei is the area of China bordering Russia in the north east, think of places like Changchun (长春) and Harbin (哈尔滨), think of temperatures like -30C in the winter. The food here is of a hearty, meaty and often more wheat laden character; it involves lots of dumplings, hunks of meat and, to my absolute delight, stews. It’s very different from the sweet, fragrant Chinese fare we are used to in England, some of it is actually a lot more like northern European food. We ordered a lot of things, (hen duo dongxi-很多东西) of which I can remember a reasonable selection. The most notable dish was a simple dish of beef joints that Cliff (my Bahaman workmate in China-more confusing globalisation) suggested, seemingly knowing quite a bit about 东北餐. Now I don’t mean a joint as in a roasting joint, oh no. In China they bring you a pile of bone joints with plastic gloves so that you can gnaw them like a famished beast. As you can imagine I was in some sort of gluttonous ecstasy at this point.

                              After this we were presented with a dish of spicy wild mushrooms that were fried in plenty of oil, a prodigious quantity of chopped chillies nestling therein. There was a steaming plate of curious lemon chicken cutlets fried in batter, some incredibly spicy (chou la-抽啦) fried cabbage and enough dumplings （jiaozi-饺子）to feed a small army or a few hungry teachers. A dish of real note was the beef stew-lumps of beef with no bones, which is somewhat of a rarity in China, and potatoes in a delicious beefy stock, this dish is enough to make anyone who misses northern European food well up with pure joy. Finally they brought us a fried rice dish with a twist-it had bacon in it, well any savoury dish (and some sweet ones) is improved by bacon, so I was most approving. As a side order we had a pile of sweet corn fritters and some delicious thick pancakes. These sweet corn fritters seem to be available in almost all Chinese eateries of a certain stature, and this time they came covered in a dusting of sugar and sprinkles of the hundreds and thousands type. I know that sounds strange, but it works really well with the sweetness of the corn and the oily batter.  

                                                It is no inconsiderable compliment to the quantity of food served that I could not finish it. Yes, I was defeated by this meal, I was incredibly satisfied and, as I write this the next morning, I’m still not very hungry. The whole thing came to 320RMB (about £34), but thanks to some financial wrangling by our Chinese workmate Tiana we got it for 300RMB, or 50RMB each (so about £5.50). I asked her about how she got the discount and she told me she said we didn’t need a stamp (they always stamp receipts here), so I came to the conclusion we were probably involved in the kind of shady tax evasion that helps cash businesses thrive the world over. But who was I to argue? They had just stuffed me to the gills with delightfully hearty Dongbei food for a bargain price. All that remained was to go home and enjoy my food lull.

The Pizza Cone

                                Celia and I were out on 平江路 (Ping Jiang Lu) the other day and both had a bit of a belly rumble. We walked down a little side alley and stumbled upon a little shop that sold snacks of various varieties, but what really caught our eye was something that looked a little like a savoury ice cream. We’d seen pictures of these things before, but had never had suitable appetites to try them. Well this time the fortunes of appetite had smiled upon us and we went ahead and ordered one each, I got a ham one and Celia got a chicken one. We both bit into them and were not disappointed, a flood of cheese filled our mouths, followed by a more than adequate seam of hot pizza topping. The cone wasn’t really a pizza as such, just sort of thin bread, but the filling was actually really good, not Italian pizzeria good, but for being a 15 kuai Chinese street snack it was pretty delicious. Something I like about ham in China is that it’s called 火腿 (huo tui), or fire leg-so essentially baked leg. I always find the Chinese language pleasingly elegant in this way, it often gives very literal translations that sound quite amusing in English. Some of my favourites are: 电脑 (dian nao-electronic brain-computer), 电梯 (dian ti-electronic ladder-lift/elevator), 手机 (shou ji-hand machine-mobile phone) and 火车 (huo che-fire vehicle-I’ll leave this to you to work out, but suffice it to say Fred Dibnah would have liked this particular piece of etymology). Anyway, following my mildly Joycian mental diversion I decided I was still hungry and went and got a more typically Chinese pancake with egg, vegetable, pickley sauce and chilli. Delicious and the equivalent of about 50p. I highly recommend all the different kind of pancakes you can get on the street here, they are all tasty, delivering varying degrees of mouth-watering succulence. More on that later, thanks for reading and for heaven’s sake pressure your local culture to introduce pizza cones into its edible vernacular. 

Breakfast in Suzhou

The other night me and Celia introduced ourselves to the local street fruit peddler, a very bright and friendly man who was most impressed by our Chinese, as we were by his pointing at his goods and saying "apple, banana". We bought a pineapple and a pomelo (a sort of giant grapefruit thing) and went home to add it to our already bought dragon fruit. This morning I got up and decided to eat some fruit and cut up the pineapple and the dragon fruit and was so delighted with the results that I thought I should share it (see the picture below). The pineapple here is really sweet, much nicer than back home and about 80p for a whole pineapple. It seems to be the season, the streets are riddle with people hawking pineapples at the moment. I'm not complaining.

Bonkers Food of the Week

Wuhan Duck Neck

                     This food is a little bit bonkers, but I found it pretty delicious. Me and some work mates were on holiday in Suzhou during mid-Autumn festival last year in Suzhou (China), which is a city just north of Shanghai. The streets were heaving with Chinese holiday makers, taking a break from their tough work ethic to tread the streets of what is, with just a soupcon of poetic license, known as the Venice of the east. I saw there one of the common street food sellers peddling her wares on a pretty little street called Ping Jiang Lu. I couldn’t tell what she was barbecuing, but I thought it looked like sausage-you can imagine my excitement at having found barbecued sausages that didn’t look like the sludgy red little sugar laced Taiwanese nightmares so unfortunately ubiquitous to China. I trundled over and bought some, she asked “la de ma?” (do you want it spicy?), to which I replied “dui” (emphatically yes). I bought the food and took a bite. What’s that? A crunch? Yes, the crunchy resistance of barbecued cartilage, the tasty crispiness of duck skin and the delicious smokiness of the barbecue itself. Not what I was expecting-an extremely common occurrence when getting food in China-but a very tasty snack nevertheless. I can imagine it would be a great spicy accompaniment to a glass of ice cold beer. Having enjoyed Suzhou so much last year I now live there and work at EF with my girlfriend Celia. It was here that one of the Chinese staff named Jojo reliably informed me that the streets of a city called Wuhan in Hubei province are virtually paved with barbecued duck neck. The alleys are nigh on permeated with the neck laced smoke of the multifarious barbecues. I shall endeavour to visit this place one day and chomp upon the necks of many of these unfortunate creatures.

                        I wish now to give a quick explanatory coda to this description. As an Englander and being familiar with breeds such as the Mallard I would expect a duck neck to be disappointingly short. However, the ducks in China have necks more akin to that of a goose, they are good and long and thus are able to provide more than adequate sustenance as a snack. I thought this was a necessary explanation as I did not wish you to denigrate the nutritional capacity of the aforementioned piece of Chinese tapas (or xiao chi if you prefer-pronounced sh-aow chu). 

The Great Full English Breakfast

I’m currently sitting in China being cooked fried eggs and ham by our extremely welcoming housemate Wynand. It reminded me of something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while. Something that will no doubt make me hanker for that greasy and pleasant land again in a few months’ time. Something that no one else does quite as well as England. Yes, that wonderful symphonic production of morning calorific exuberance, the English breakfast fry up. What follows will be an exposition of my love for the art itself, a quick description of what a good fry up consists of and finally a few reviews of some places I’ve recently tried.

                                 There’s nothing I love more than getting up on a Saturday morning (or any working week equivalent thereof) and not eating breakfast for a long time. This probably sounds a bit odd, especially to those readers who know me. Allow me now to contextualise this a bit. I will patiently wait until my stomach is growling at me a little, lodging a complaint at the lack of sustenance, and at that point start preparations for cooking my own fry up. Either that or I wait until my stomach is behaving more like a pack of angry wolves and then plot a trajectory to my nearest frying emporium. It is then time to set off, minding the vague dizziness arising from the pure desire for pre-noon calories. I often have a partner in this activity and I have to say my personal favourite is my good friend Dan, he simply understands the subtleties and more brazen parts of this wonderful fatty assa(u)lt (sorry-I couldn’t resist). We will walk into the aforementioned purveyor of greasy manna and peruse the plastic menus, on which there’ll be a selection of set breakfasts and single fried items. Dan is a true connoisseur and will therefore inevitably infuriate the short order chef by endlessly customising his order, I will admittedly often accept his wisdom and swiftly copy him.

                                How does the breakfast decision making process proceed? Well, there are the basics. There must be bacon, eggs, beans and a side order of toast as a bare minimum. These are the struts on which this great structure is not so delicately balanced. I then would usually need further pork input in the shape of a sausage. A word about this sausage (me and Dan have held several working committees on the subject, usually over an enormous pile of freshly fried delectation): the sausage should not be of excellent quality. This is not in keeping with the mood of this particular symphony. Neither should it be so bad quality as to taste like offal mixed with shredded wall insulation (you know the ones-the Walls have ears and all that). It should be of medium low quality, so as to provide adequate offal resistance and give your jaw the challenge it needs in the morning, but also not provide too many complex flavours to deal with at this inhuman time of day. The eggs should be fried with a medium amount of yolk-al wobble, so when the toast (or chips) is (or are-I am an English teacher after all) inserted it bursts with a pleasing eruption of golden cholesterol. They should not however risk giving you salmonella, no golden eruption is worth that. The bacon should again not be too fancy and, I believe, should not be crispy but more on the back bacon side of things, arriving with a clear seam of fatty goodness on one side. Ideally the beans should be Heinz, but this is not essential, the main thing is they should be in one self-contained pool, possibly bounded by, to paraphrase Steve Coogan’s Allan Partridge, a breakwater being provided by the sausage. There should on no account be a tomato sauce inundation occurring, we wouldn’t want our wonderful orchestra drowned. The toast again should not be particularly high quality and butter is preferential but alas a rare treat at your average friary. Now the extras, and these are much more up for debate. Dan is not a fan of chips, but I think they have their place from time to time and provide an interesting alternative to soldiers for the eggs-also, a vessel for salt and vinegar is always welcomed by me, a bit of acetic acid could well stop immediate heart failure too at this point. Bubble is another welcome potato based addition, as long as it’s well made with a good golden crust from frying and some shredded cabbage to add some sort of illusion of health to this whole affair. I always like fried mushrooms, but they must be cut up to a good size and fried well (preferably in butter), until the outsides are sealed but the inside still yield a good juicy reaction to one’s ravenous bites. Hash browns are the other alternative and they are of course delicious, though there is not too much to say about them as they are generally from frozen and are thus pretty homogenous in their quality. Essentially the carbohydrate element should provide not just sustenance but also a sponge for all the various liquid like elements of this meal. They should underpin it, they should provide the bass and percussion section to this particular experience. One other thing that is always welcome is a fried tomato-not, I would hasten to add, a gooey pile of tinned plum tomatoes defiling your plate, and this is wholly unacceptable. It should be a half tomato fried so that there is a slight hint of golden crust and a membrane giving way to a delicious vegetable explosion as you bite into it. A word about beverages: I will always get coffee if it looks like it won’t be muddy dishwater (have a quick look at their coffee making devices before ordering), otherwise I will order tea and, because it will probably have all the subtlety of a brick to the face, soften the blow with a sugar or two. Delicate Dragon Well tea this is not.

                                So there we have it, I hope in its entirety, although I may have missed some bits out, I’m sure Dan will comment if so. I couldn’t build up your hunger like this and not give you a few suggestions for where to calm the baying the hounds, so for those of you in London please have a try of the following four places:  The Workers Café (172 Upper Street), Kigi Café (322 Caledonian Road), Nico’s Café (299 Cambridge Heath Road) and Alpino Café (97 Chapel Market). I went to the Workers with a friend I’d lived with in China and essentially did it to reacquaint myself with an old friend called the big breakfast. This breakfast was neat and well-presented and the service was good, but for me it missed the point. I want a wobbling mass delightful fried flavours, what I do not want is lots of white ceramic spaces staring blankly up at me. No, I desire it to be full to the brim and none too neat, although the components should be clearly defined. The quality of the food was reasonable and it was by no means a bad breakfast, just not quite the perfect one for me. The price was pretty reasonable, at about £5.50 for a big breakfast and coffee (and the coffee was pretty good, the real stuff-no unmentionable instant atrocities present), but somehow it lacked the real punch to be a heavyweight breakfast. So, on to Kigi. Kigi has extremely friendly staff and an amazingly effective short order chef who seems to work almost solo in the kitchen. Again, their breakfast was pretty neat, a good size and a good price, this one is a great option by those unfortunate people who are afraid of grease as it was a lot leaner than the usual offerings. Again, it had excellent coffee for a friary and also a wealth of Middle Eastern dishes to choose from-but therein lies the problem for me, they are not devoted to the way of the frying pan and therefore it comes as no surprise that there is something lacking. I feel a little bad if this turns you off eating there, as it is very good value (again, roughly £5.50), the staff were lovely and the beverages hot and strong, so do give it a go if your tastes are on the less greasy side. Alpino is another one of the above types of cafes; good food, nice staff, good coffee, a reasonable price and a big breakfast. Again great, but something lacking. It will always hold a special place in my heart, though, for it was my last fry up before moving to China with my girlfriend Celia, a final punctuation to power me through the challenge of moving eastwards once again.

                                For the real heavyweight you need to go to east London. There, nestling next to Bethnal Green station, hidden on a noisy junction is an unassuming eatery named Nico’s. I’d heard tell of this place through legend as professed by Dan, but I just couldn’t believe such a breakfast could exist. A breakfast that Dan claimed even seasoned eaters such as us would struggle with. It was therefore with some excitement and trepidation that I awaited my friend’s arrival on a drizzly day in this multicultural hub of east London. I’d built myself up for this one-the hounds were no less than howling for blood in my stomach, and anyone who knows me knows this is in no way a hyperbolic description. Dan arrived and we proceeded into the steamy depths of Nico’s. I perused the plastic menu and was initially slightly concerned as the amount of items didn’t look like anything special (apart from the two eggs) and at £6.00 was at the more expensive end of the scale, but if there’s one thing I have faith in it’s Dan’s ability to display well informed gluttony, treating it as a sort of art form. So I ordered the desired breakfast, if my memory serves me correctly it was something like: bacon, eggs, sausage, beans, chips, toast and coffee. I sat down and waited. A tower of steaming buttered toast arrived. This was promising. I waited a bit longer, nibbling on a bit of toast by way of a starter. And there it was. If a plate could groan under the weight of food this one would be. The first thing that pleased me was that, as if having understood my psyche, they had chosen a plate which was a little too small, making sure that this magnum opus was filled to its brim. The sheer quantity was simply amazing, two eggs, a sausage of just the right low quality, a small hillock of chips and all between two jaunty speech marks of beans sitting on either side-a parted sea of beans thus requiring no pork breakwater. “Where is the bacon?” I hear you cry, a note of desperation no doubt creeping involuntarily into your voice. This was probably the best part of it. As I made an excavation (apologies for my mixed metaphors, one simply won’t cover it) down through the outer breakfast crust I probed for the missing pork seam, and there, as I hit the plate and had nearly given up hope, there was a curious spongy resistance. As I parted the top layer of breakfast I discovered that this particular masterpiece was painted on a canvas of bacon. Yes, the whole bottom of the plate was covered in this pork manna. What fabulous idea. Cover the entire plate in bacon and use the bacon to provide structural integrity of the whole thing! A move of pure creative engineering genius-had Brunel run a greasy spoon I feel certain he would have made his breakfasts in such a fashion. What a brilliant conclusion to a perfect breakfast. And here ends my love letter to the fry up.

Bonkers Food of the Week

Another delicious Chinese snack. You will love this. We have cheese and onion crisps, they have... Chilli flavoured chicken's feet! Mmmm. You can enter a corner shop anywhere in China and buy this lovely poultry  based snack. Me being me, I simply couldn't resist. They are pretty crunchy but also a little slimy at the same time, I don't think they are as bad as most westerners make out, but I also don't really understand the culinary gusto with which Chinese people enjoy them. Amusingly enough, I read a little while ago that the enormous population of China is so keen on this snack that countries in Europe are currently looking at exporting this particular poultry off cut toward the middle kingdom. Could this be a reverse in the usual flow of primary goods signalling the changing nature of the globalised economy starting in the poultry feet industry? One can only hope.