Xiamen Subtlemob

Rain, rain, rain. Spent much of the day praying it would stop before tonight's event - of which more anon - but it was incessant. Nevertheless, an interesting morning on the small island of Gulangyu, a 5-minute ferry ride across from my hotel. Xiamen, and Gulangyu in particular, have a strong colonial past. The Portuguese arrived here in the 16th century (when it was known as Amor), followed by the British in the 17th Century, and later by the French and the Dutch. The island is distinguished by the fact that there are no cars but lots of pianos. We visited a museum which has 100 of them and it is said that the streets are alive with piano music, though we didn't hear any, possibly because of the rain. Anyway, a pleasant, verdant, relaxing place.

Back on the bigger island, we went from meeting to meeting until finally we made our way to Zengcuo'an, the location for Duncan Speakman's Subtlemob event. I've taken part in two of these before (see posts in Tokyo 2010 and Edinburgh 2011) but this was the first time it's come to mainland China. Essentially it's a sort of secret - but ironically very public - outdoor piece of theatre. You register on-line, select a character, download a 35-minute MP3 file (with Chinese or English voiceover), are told to go to a street somewhere in the city and, at 7.00pm, you and your partner press play. Hundreds of other couples do too. You can spot them of course. It's funny being part of a throng of people, some of whom are in-the-know, others who have no idea what's going on. You carry out certain actions, separate, re-unite and, to cut a long story short, it ends with a slow dance. So I ended up waltzing down the street with my colleague Angus, which was all over Weibo (Twitter) within minutes. It was a kind of risky project to do on the mainland, and we held our collective breaths when a police-car drove by, but it didn't stop.

We celebrated in a great little bar run by 'Dave', a Chinese guy, who also DJs. As does Duncan. So together they did a great double act of an electronic set while we downed several Tsingtaos. Oh, and I forgot to say, it stopped raining just before the Subtlemob started. The gods must have been smiling. 

Dire Straits

Off to Xiamen on the south east coast. It's an island in a delta, connected to the mainland by a few very long bridges and an even longer tunnel. It reminds me a bit of Hong Kong - hilly, built up, but not that built up. And Taiwan is just 180km away... Or rather, it is just 10km away. I didn't know this before, but there are two Taiwanese-governed islands, Jinmen and Xiaojinmen, which are within full view of the mainland. So close, yet so far.

Butter

I have this (fairly) funny butter issue with the young lady who runs the German Cafe in my office block. I have lunch there two or three times a week. It's not very adventurous of me, but it's convenient and I like a hearty bowl of soup - and you also get a really good mixed grain or muesli roll thrown in... although they're a bit dry, hence the need for butter. So sometimes she has butter, for which I'm charged an extra 1 yuan (10p), sometimes she doesn't. Of late it's been a Lurpak, Anchor & Kerrygold free zone. So today I brought my own butter in - filched yesterday from another cafe (where obviously butter wasn't a problem). The look she gave me: it encompassed so many signals within the space of a second: Why do westerners eat so much butter? How could you possibly bring in your own? Why do you force me to lose face? Whereupon, she produced a slab of the stuff and, with an exaggerated flourish of the knife, deposited two portions on my plate. I handed over my 30 yuan for the soup... A pause... Ah yes, and that all-important extra 1 yuan. The soup - courgette & noodles - was delicious. The butter? Worth all the cross-cultural angst.

Manami

My ex-colleague Manami Yuasa is in town and joined us for our regular Monday night Japanese dinner. Manami and I worked together in Tokyo from 1999-2005, and we still bump into each other every year or so. She is one of the hardest-working arts managers in the British Council; could organize Edinburgh Festival like that (clicks fingers). The last time she saw us all together was in Bangkok some four years ago, so she was taken aback by how the girls have grown. Nice to see her. We ate udon tempura.

Foreign Babes in Beijing

Foreign Babes in Beijing was a Chinese TV soap opera in the mid 90s, a sort of pre-Sex & the City, watched by an audience of some 600m. One of its stars was played by a young American PR consultant called Rachel DeWoskin who had never acted in her life and was paid $80 per episode.  She plays a seductress who lures away a married Chinese man, which was culturally quite controversial but people also liked the fact that she seemingly preferred Chinese men. She became one of China's most famous resident 'laowai' (foreigners) and later wrote a book about the experience. 
I just read it. It's interesting in that it's both an account of the cultural differences played out in the soap, as well as in real life. Real life reflecting art reflecting real life etc. DeWoskin has since returned to the States. There was talk of a  Hollywood movie version but the production appears to have been shelved.

Temple Food

Food food food. Pancakes for breakfast followed by a much-postponed and enjoyable lunch with our landlords in a nearby Mongolian restaurant - a first I think. Lots of mutton with cumin, cold glutinous rice with what looked like yellow lentils on top (but was apparently millet), beef pasties and potato noodles in broth. Wondered whether the girls would like it but they tucked in.
And then a work dinner at Temple Restaurant, out in hutong-land. It used to be a - you guessed it - temple, then a small factory producing China's first B&W TV sets, and now a very nice restaurant. My Education colleagues have been running a big, nationwide design competition and the dinner was the culmination. The guests included the comp's five judges, all of whom, coincidentally, I knew from some time ago. So very nice to catch up again with graphic designer Michael Johnson, Donna Loveday of the Design Museum, Tony Dunne of the Royal College of Art, Catherine McDermott, Head of Design at Kingston University, and the Science Museum's Creative Director, Tim Molloy with his stripey shirt and big plastic-but-probably-very-expensive specs. Also there was the young fashion designer Henry Holland with his gravity-defying quiff. 

The Big School

Next year, Alyssa will move up to secondary school. In advance of this momentous event, Liz and I visited the most likely one, which is out in suburbia, to talk to the teachers and check out the facilities. Alyssa was there too, with a bunch of her class who are also considering going there, but she stayed well clear of us. "Hey Alyssa, it's your parents!). It's a nice place. Big, new, well equipped, swimming pool, theatre. How different from Chi High 1972-79...