I’ve been in China for about 3 months where I did 60 showcases in Hangzhou (population 7 million) a city near Shanghai (population 22 million) China is nothing like I expected, when you live in Europe or the western world for that matter the media will show you a different picture, yes there is communism but it’s below the surface, I expected to see a lot of police or military on the streets and people living by strict rules, there’s none of that. What you will see here is capitalism, I’ve been to a lot of major cities in the world but never seen skylines and cities as big and rich like I’ve seen here.
The Chinese economy is booming and it shows, new skyscrapers are being build on a regular basis and the streets are filled with Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s, Bentley’s and more, in most cases young males and females driving them. One of the guys I met here is in his early twenties and head of a international trading company making 10-15 million US dollars a year, and he’s one of many. And talking about cars, the traffic over here is crazy, I’ve been in a taxi that jumped the curb because the car in front of him didn’t move fast enough. Don’t ever think that when the light turns green that it’s safe to cross the street because it’s not, pedestrians don’t have any rights here. The taxis are quite cheap, it took 35 minutes to drive me to a club where I had to perform and the fare was only 15 RMB that’s like 1 Euro 90 with the current rate, same goes for food and drinks, I’ve had a 3 course meal in a upscale restaurant for 12 Euros, in the traditional restaurants you won’t spend more than 5. The Chinese are all about service, at places like the Pizza Hut and Haagen-Dazs they open the door for you and bring you to your table, imagine that in Europe or the States.
Of course there’s also a flipside to their growing capitalism because the gap between rich and poor is also growing. Another thing I noticed, it’s all about classes here, the Han Chinese are on top of the food chain and most of them are obsessed with being white, when the sun is out you’ll see them with their umbrellas trying to avoid as much sun as possible. If you are brown skinned it means that you work in the field where you’re exposed to the sun, they’re looked at as lower classes. I guess it also has something to do with the fact that some cities and territories of China used to be colonized and people were made to believe that the white race was superior. But by the amount of people I met and think differently I have no doubt that mind state will change in the near future. When I first got here I also had to get used to the stares, guess some never seen a black man in real life, at some places I was being stopped every minute by people that wanted to take a picture, I should have asked money for that, I would have been rich by now;)
Back to the communism, I had a interesting conversation with an elderly Chinese man that’s teaching foreigners Chinese, he explained to me that most people don’t like the communist regime mainly because of the lack of human rights, but they also know that if democracy sets in there is a big chance of heading towards civil war, the reason, all the different regions in China would try to aim for power, that’s a big risk in a country with 1.4 billion people and somewhere it made sense. I’m not saying that I condone communism but if you have to choose between that and a chance of an all out civil war the choice is easy. But don’t let me get all political on you, will save that for another blog.
I have no doubt that in the next few years China will be the biggest market , next to the United States, when it comes to entertainment. The club scene in China is booming, they are open and packed every day of the week, Chinese people work hard and party hard. Most clubs here are based on ‘VIP’ tables, you can make reservations in advance or when you arrive, most have their own waiter or waitress and they will serve you for as long as you have that table, it’s all about image, the bigger the table the more respect you have and when someone orders 8 bottles of champagne the table next to him will order 9, just to show that he can, they will always leave a few bottles unopened when they leave just to show that money ain’t a thing.
When they asked me to do showcases and MC Gigs over here I didn’t know what to expect, it’s not like let’s say Japan or South-Korea where they have big Hip Hop scenes. But being here made it very clear that they will surpass the aforementioned countries very soon. Same when it comes to dance music, most dj’s in the big clubs are from Europe, United States and Canada. Performing here has been a trip because I never knew what to expect from the crowd, a lot of Chinese don’t show emotions so sometimes it was hard to tell if they enjoyed the show or not, and at some shows they just went crazy from the first moment I touched the microphone. At certain nights I had to make sure that I talked slowly since most don’t understand English that well but music is the official international language so they felt what I was saying anyway. I don’t know if it’s common, but after every showcase women came up to me and asked me for my phone to put their number in , still don’t know what they expect since 9 out 10 don’t speak English, but oh well..I was being a nice guy about it;)
And to the artists thinking about coming over here, don’t think because Hip Hop or Dance for that matter is still kind of new that you’ll win them over easily, it can be a tough crowd to please, especially when the audience consists of 99% Chinese, but when you do you’ll have fans for life, they will ask you to join them at their vip table, have dinner with them or showing you their city. Chinese people are very proud people and love to show you all about their culture, and by the way most of them are very straight, they either like you or they don’t.
And talking about culture, it’s beautiful seeing senior citizens doing Tai Chi in the parks early in the morning, a lot of senior citizens in the western world should try to live more like they do instead of relying too much on medicines, you’ll see 80 year olds jogging and stretching like it ain’t nothing. If you’re into history and culture China is a great place to visit. I loved every minute being here and there’s no doubt that I will be writing another ‘China’ blog very soon because I’m definitely going back!
