AnDa Union

Back in November of last year, a group of Inner Mongolian musicians - AnDa Union - came through Lawrence, Kansas and Kansas City, Missouri on their US tour. The group performed at the Lied Center on the campus of the University of Kansas. In addition to their live show, there was also a screening of a documentary about the group at a library in Kansas City.

I want to share AnDa Union and their music here on my blog. They're awesome.



I'll first talk about their show and then the documentary about the group.

AnDa Union's show was unlike anything I'd ever seen before. They use instruments unique to the grasslands of northern China, belt out "Mongolian throat singing" for their vocals, and select their songs from a catalog of ethnic folk music from the steppes of the Mongolian plateau.

To get a taste of what they're about, here is a YouTube video of the song "Derlcha" from a performance they gave in January, 2011:



Very unique stuff. I'd never seen anything like the bowed instruments most of them are playing. That's not an er hu. It's an instrument native to ethnic Mongolians (that I don't know the name of). I found it interesting that, as you can see from the video, they're not pressing down on the strings when they play that instrument. Instead, they're pushing their fingers onto the fret board next to the string.

Here's a photo of what I'm talking about:



Below is another video of what was probably my favorite song of the show - "Galloping Horses." This song was the finale of the show we saw in Lawrence:



This song, and their whole show really, is so high-energy. In addition to unlike just about anything else in the world, AnDa Union's music is simply a lot of fun. I personally think having a good time is what going to see a music performance is all about and felt very happy after the show had ended.

I regret not getting this post written a few months ago when they were still on tour in the US so others would know about the group. Looking at their website, their next several shows are in Australia and New Zealand and they will be playing in London this summer. Their website also says that they'll have a UK and European tour this summer and autumn. If they're coming near where you live, I'd definitely check them out.

If AnDa Union isn't coming to your area, you should look out for the soon-to-be-released documentary about the group - AnDa Union: From the Steppes to the City.

I was lucky enough to help organize the first North American screening of the film on November 2, 2011 at the Plaza Branch of the Kansas City Library. Several musicians from the band and the director/producer of the documentary were there to watch the film with us and then answer questions afterwards.

The premise of the film is to introduce you to the band in the city where they all live - Hohhot, Inner Mongolia - and then take you to each one of the band member's home towns/villages. If I remember correctly, all of the members of the group are from the countryside of Inner Mongolia (if they all aren't, most of them are).

Inner Mongolia, traditionally, was a nomadic place where life revolved around raising animals and surviving the harsh seasons. Now, there are big cities are popping up throughout the autonomous region. The growth rate in Inner Mongolia is one of China's highest as the region is flush with an abundance of natural resources. A lot of the traditions and culture native to the region are being lost due to the homogeneousness that comes with economic development.

The footage of going back to each group member's home and meeting their families is a wonderful thing to see. The viewer gets to meet their families, see the food they eat, and see the homes where they live. Seeing all of these things is not something you can experience through too many other mediums.

Between visits to different home villages, there's footage of the musicians in the group practicing their songs, teaching lessons to young Inner Mongolians interested in learning traditional music, fine-tuning their instruments, and performing their songs. The film shows how the music is intimately intertwined with the places that they are from.

I really liked "AnDa Union: From the Steppes to the City." Not only is it great to see the group doing things related to their music, but it's even better getting to see the culture from which their music is derived. Being invited into homes deep in the Inner Mongolian countryside is not something that many will ever get to experience.

The Screenings section of the movie's website gives a number of film festivals that the film is being shown at in the coming months. If I ever see anything about the film's wide-spread release in the future, I will be sure to post it here to my blog.

I got a huge intake of AnDa Union back in early November. It's so cool that they - and a number of other China-related acts - came through Kansas this past year. The only thing I missed seeing during AnDa Union's stay in Kansas was their jam with local Lawrence musicians at a local coffeeshop. I couldn't make it to that night. I'm sure it was a sight to see.





Edit: Thanks to fellow blogger Ramesh for sharing that AnDa Union was featured on the BBC World Service on 2/14/2012. This is a really good interview with the producer of the film and one of the band members.

Red Color New Soldier

Li Zhensheng was a photo journalist during China's cultural revolution in the 1960s and 70s. Li, a young man originally from Shandong Province, was relocated to Harbin, the frigid northern city on the edge of Siberia, to be a photojournalist for the newspaper there.

Although the Chinese Communist Party employed him at the state-run paper to take photos that would glorify the Mao's radical revolution, Li took it upon himself to document more than just the propaganda that his bosses asked him to emphasize.

Li knew that something had gone horribly wrong as Chairman Mao exhorted China's young red guards to bully their teachers, to kill intellectuals, to destroy cultural relics including the "four olds," and to make Mao himself into a god-like figure.

Determined to record all aspects of the chaos going on in Harbin at that time, Li captured the darkest aspects of the decade that China was ruled by a senile madman. He risked his life by shooting what he did and hiding the negatives so that his work would be preserved for history's sake. In 2003, Li published a collection of these photos in his book, Red Color News Soldier.



The book's format is: a short introduction from China historian Jonathan Spence, a few pages of writing from Li, photos from the time period he'd just described, more writing from Li, more photos, and so on for more than 300 pages. There are also a number of newspaper front pages mixed in throughout the book to give the reader a feel for what the official Party mouthpiece was spewing as well.

While the writing in the book is at times illuminating, the reason the book exists is to display Li's extensive photo collection. The photos in this book are not light reading. There are photos of property being destroyed, young children and working people declaring their love for their dear leader, and intellectuals and Party enemies being tortured, humiliated, and killed.

The following few photos aren't necessarily the "best" in the book, but they're ones that I could find on a quick internet search:










These photos speak for themselves. There are a couple hundred more like them in the book.

I'm glad I added Red Color News Soldier to my library. It's difficult to get through. But it is an important perspective on the madness that China descended into less than fifty years ago.

CNY, Foxconn, and Baijiu

Happy Chinese New Year!!



I love that video. So happy and joyful. China is a wonderful place to be during the days leading up to and the days following the lunar new year. Qian and I have missed China a lot the past few days.

Now that you've finished reveling in the awesomeness that is China in wintertime, listen to this hour-long This American Life podcast about an American guy visiting the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen. This is worth your time.

And then finally, to all of you capping off this taking-in-some-Chinese-culture-session with a shot of baijiu, I say to you ,"Gan bei!"

A Collection of Yue Baoqun's Photograpic Works

I found one of my favorite books while moving last month, a photo book of the Chinese countryside - A Collection of Yue Baoqun's Photographic Works.



A man I knew in Xi'an arranged for a folk arts festival in his home village, about two hours west of Xi'an, every year. He planned a day of cultural activities - including Qin Qiang (Shaanxi-style opera), puppet shows, and a tour of the recently opened art gallery - to give his 10,000 person village an annual shot of activity and money from outsiders. The man I knew is big in the voluntourism industry in China. TV cameras, newspapers, government officials, and a couple minibuses full of foreigners were brought in to the village every spring for the festival.

I went to this festival in 2006, 2007, and 2009. I have very fond memories of going to this event. The mental image that is most strongly burnt into my mind is watching Qinqiang with several hundred villagers laughing and smoking pipes as the performers belted out their songs from the stage. I didn't spend tons of time in the countryside during my time in China. I really cherish the times that I did spend there.

On my second trip, I saw Yue Baoqun's book for sale at the art gallery's gift shop (hardly any village in China would have a gallery like this one has, it only has one because of the voluntourism aspect to the village). After flipping through the book, I was immediately convinced that it was worth its 68 kuai (about $10 or $11 at the time) price tag and got it.

Yue Baoqun is a photographer from Baoji, Shaanxi Province. Baoji is about a two hour intra-provincial train ride from my old home, Xi'an. Yue's book highlights photos of people from the countryside of Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Gansu Provinces. Yue's photos of the Chinese countryside are some of the best I've seen anywhere.

Here are a few of my favorites (I took these photos of the book myself, sorry about the quality, they really don't do the book much justice):


A man playing an erhu in rural Shaanxi Province

I remember seeing a huge blown up poster of this photo for sale at the gallery. It was 250 kuai (about $40). I regret I didn't get it. I love art featuring musicians performing.


Two portraits of Shaanxi farmers


Two photos of ethnic minorities from Gansu Provice


Yellow Hat Buddhist monks in Gansu Province


A farmer on the Yellow River in Shanxi Province.

It was hard for me to narrow down my favorite photos to just five. Just about every photo of this 80 page book is special.

The parts of China that Yue features in his book are some of the poorest in China. The people on the loess plateaus and imposing terrain of northwest China live lives unfathomable to those who've only seen the wealth of Beijing, Shanghai, and other large cities in China.

Yue's book gives the reader an intimate glimpse into a world that is often ignored when discussing "rising China." I think that seeing how people live outside of China's major cities is an important thing to understand. Not all of China has the luxury of being crazed over the new iPhone 4s.

I just did a few searches for Yue Baoqun (岳宝群) on Google and Baidu. I found his blog, but could only find this book for sale on the Chinese internet. If you can read Chinese, you can buy his book here. At 30 yuan (about $5), this is a steal. Yue Baoqun's photos and his book are incredible.

Mr. China

The introduction page to the book, Mr. China: A Memoir by Tim Clissold, is one of the most captivating pages of text I've ever read:

My jaw dropped when I got to the end of that paragraph. I felt like Clissold had written this page just for me (with the Edgar Snow reference and all).

I can relate to the fantasizing of becoming "Mr. China" so deeply. China over the past few years has taken over my life. I lived there for a few years and even now living in the US read about it constantly. If I'm not keeping up with my China-watcher stream on Twitter, then I'm probably reading a book or a blog about China. Expanding my knowledge of China is my most time-intensive hobby. Whether I consciously pursue it or whether it's something going on beneath the surface, becoming a "China hand" is something that I'm really quite obsessed about.

After reading this ridiculously awesome introduction to Mr. China, I was so pumped to devour the book.



Mr. China is a memoir from a foreigner who participated in the first wave of foreign investment in China from after the country embraced Deng Xiaoping's liberalization policies in the early 1990s. Tim Clissold is an Englishman who was introduced to China for the first time through visiting Hong Kong as a young man.

China infiltrated Clissold's person almost immediately after arriving in the country. He quit his job in England to return to Beijing to study after a brief exposure to China. After a couple years of Chinese language study and getting to know the culture, he was re-hired by the firm he quit in England in the first place, Arthur Andersen, as a China specialist in 1992.

It's only a few pages in and is not an integral part of the book as a whole, but reading about Clissold's first experiences in China is another highlight of the book for me. He fell in love with China quickly like a lot of foreigners, including myself, do.

The following passage from pages 12-13 really struck me:

Just like with the introduction paragraph highlighted at the beginning of this post, I was completely taken with this passage. Reading Clissold's thoughts on "willful infatuation" really made me think about the nature of my obsession with China.

Mr. China, a business book, stopped me in my tracks twice by the time I had reached page 13. You really can't ask much more from a book than that, can you? Tim Clissold is a freakishly good writer.

There is a lot of good stuff in Mr. China after page 13 as well. There are a plethora of funny, maddening, and insightful business stories. China in the 1990s was in many ways more of a wild west-like frontier than the country is today.

Reading about corrupt factory owners, two-faced investment partners, and capricious government officials is often times comical. The stresses of working on multi-million deals with the uncertainty that underlines China's legal and business culture are intense.

There are several nail-biting scenes where Clissold and his partners appear to have been taken to the cleaners. I nearly got light-headed and butterflies in my stomach as I read of cleaned out multi-million dollar bank accounts and maniacal factory owners. The actual toll taken on Clissold is seen very prominently when, in his 30s, he has to leave China due to a stress-induced heart attack.

Everybody in the world today hears about "the Chinese economic miracle" and the robust year-after-year growth in China. Few have seen the inner workings of those processes as intimately as Clissold has, though. Getting to see such wheeling and dealing from almost twenty years ago is special.

Mr. China is a very good book. It took me on a much harder and more turbulent ride than I was expecting. It's ostensibly a book on business in China. It's much more than that, though. Few books cut to the heart of China's culture like Clissold's does. Clissold, a financier by trade, is a dazzling writer. Any starry-eyed dreamer thinking of becoming Mr. China needs to pick up Mr. China.