MMM (More Mainland Madness) pt. 1

Ni men hao ma? Ok so I just got back from another trip to the People’s Republic.

Apart from wallowing on the eastcoast, I finally had the opportunity to see what the Southwest is all about.

Took the border-crossing 45 min. busride from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, which is like a transfer to another dimension, for those of you who don’t know.

On the other side of the border, Anarchy is written with a capital A.

So I was using my spare time to spit like a lama, throw mad cigs on the floor and hijack a copcar on the way to the airport (sort of) before I boarded a plane to Chengdu.

Chengdu is the capital of Sichuan province, famous for its unique cuisine.

Food in China can be supergnarly, especially for a veggie like me.

In Sichuan, however, there’s plenty of  amazing veggie options around.

I can see where this post is gonna go, it’ll prolly be all about FOOD.

Rewind. So I arrived in Chengdu, getting picked up by my homies Jovian and Charlie,

hella cool cats and awesome hosts btw, and we picked up a belated 5pm breakfast on the dusty streets of Chengdu. These little things here made my day, 1 RMB (10 Eurocents) each.

Right after ingestion, it was time for a lil’ eduploration walk around the city with my hosts. Even though me and the mainland are having conflicts from time to time, I do like Chengdu a lot! It’s just much more peaceful, calm and friendly than any other city in China I’ve been to. Other than that, culture rolls deep over there and it’s actually quite an interesting and beautiful place.

It was time to meet up with the club promoters for dinner. Being informed about my veggie-ism, they’ve chosen a vegetarian restaurant in Chengdu’s old town, Huanglongxi, to take us out to. Wowsies!

Now, a vegetarian restaurant in China is not quite the same as most Gwai Los know it. Basically, the menu is full of meat dishes. But. Those are actually meat-replicas made of soy and tofu. Huh!

Not quite my thing, since they put the illusion into your head that you're chewing animals.

Anyways, we ordered a whole bunch of  those dishes and they actually all turned out to be well decent.

Chengdu is also THE home of the Panda. That’s right, big, fat, fluffy bears that look like killer whales.

Entry-level pandas look more like this:

Enough of food and fluffy bears for now, it was time to explore the level of sub-culture. Charlie took me to DEF, (Rabbi, gimme the goddamn link to your website if you see this, I can't find it anywhere) the local streetwearshop/hangoutspot/scratchlab.

A cool spot for the ying young youth to hang out and interact. On my arrival I ‘ve been received with open arms by the locals, being the first international turntablist ever visiting Chengdu. Obviously, I HAD to throw in a lil’ scratch session with those cats for a minute.

Then we went to meet up with the local promoters at their office. A friendly posse/collective of DJs, VJs and graphic designers. Unfortunately, communication turned out to be very difficult, due to my still weak ass mandarin skills. Fortunately, Charlie did a great job as a translator. Shame on me I can’t remember any names, except “Bobo”, who was the “dude in charge” for the upcoming 3-gig-mini tour I was up to.

The mission: 3 gigs in 3 cities in 3 days. Chengdu, Chongqing and Guiyang.

More stories about that Uebertrip coming very soon.

Btw I left my wallet, including cash, ID, creditcard, octopus card and drivers license in the backseat of a taxi that nite. To that lucky mofo who found it: ENJOY!

To be continued..