We went to Shenzhen last weekend, to watch the game, eat some barbecue, and in my case, visit the electronics market, Hua Qiang Bei (华强北). Located in Central Shenzhen, right by the Metro station of the same name, Hua Qiang Bei is a commercial boulevard with almost a kilometre lined with two or three layers of multi-storied malls, mainly selling electronics, but also children goods and jewellery (like, each entire mall was themed). I was one day impressed with Sham Shui Po and Akihabara, but this is completely out of this world.

Laptops, cellphones, cell phone accessories, fake iPads (running Android, for about RMB600 or US$85), gadgets and all of the rest that has electric/electronic components in it could be found there. If you know that the Pearl River Delta region is currently the world’s factory, it is not at all surprising to find such a place in Shenzhen.

Because I was so overwhelmed, I didn’t buy anything, except a bunch of replacement batteries for my energy-leeching phone. You won’t find crazy deals, but you will find about anything to be found in electronics.

Will be back there with my renminbi later this year…

La trash-télé, c’est pas une exclusivité de l’Amérique du Nord! Sur les 110 chaînes de télé câblée à Taiwan, on en trouve pas mal, de la marde. Chaînes continues de débats, de filles en bikini qui jouent à des jeux, de conseils économiques à l’aide de graphiques sur des planches en carton, en veux-tu, en v’là. Mais une catégorie se démarque particulièrement, et j’ai nommé, la télévision religieuse.

Après une soirée à zapper à Taiwan, finie l’image du moine sympathique à la Dalaï-Lama. Les moines accoutrés de leur tunique couleur orangée sont des têtes parlantes qui déblatèrent 24 heures sur 24, sept jours sur sept. La plus « connue », ou bien celle que je reconnais, c’est la première ci-dessus. Le type diffuse également à Hong Kong, alors que j’ai aperçu ses posters affichées près du quai à Lamma.

Puis pour votre info, il s’agit de Life TV. Le nom du maître m’échappe.

(Étrangement, je n’ai pas vu de chaînes chrétiennes, même si Taiwan a une minorité d’environ 5% de toutes sortes de religions judéo-chrétiennes. Faut dire que les bouddhistes constituent 35% de la population taiwanaise.)

Ensuite, vous avez BLTV, ou Beautiful Life Television, ni plus ni moins. Le maître parlait super lentement, et avait la face en grimace pendant tout le long.

Un autre, dont je ne peux lire les caractères en haut à droite de l’écran.

Non satisfaits de parler toute la journée à la télé, le reste du temps, leurs chaînes jouent ces animations qui donnent de la crédibilité à leur personnage.

Finalement, c’est pas juste les hommes qui font de la télé bouddhistes. Y’avait cette bonne femme avec une grosse monture, qui était entourée de statuettes de Bouddha…

Pâtisserie-restaurant Callia (嘉莉／麵包茶餐聽)

Side of Pâtisserie Harmonie 麵包蜜語

Whereas the Chinese “food scene” (you can hardly call it a food scene when a city lacks quality Beijing and Shanghai cuisine) in 2009 has been dominated with the arrival of numerous restaurants and eateries opened by Mainland Chinese immigrants in Montreal’s new Chinatown, that of the traditional Chinatown on De la Gauchetière (between St-Urbain and Clark) was mostly revamped in the past two years with new Cantonese-owned shops, three of which happen to be bakeries.

Already in the winter of 2008, Harmonie (麵包蜜語) shook Montreal’s Chinese bakery standards by opening at the corner of St-Urbain and De la Gauchetière. Buns left to die on a colourless counter were a thing of the past. Now, Chinese pastries and other bite-size delicacies or cakes would be served in a decor on par with at least what you would see in Hong Kong or other larger Chinatowns of North America: lit-up counters, uniformed staff, floral decorations.

A year later in April 2009, a first competitor Restaurant Callia (嘉莉) was opened (by the family owning Chinese restaurant Keung Kee) across the street. It added the dining space and kitchen that Harmonie did not have, serving Hong Kong’s famed Cha chaan teng-style food of milk tea, beef brisket noodles and Italian noodles in Cantonese sauce, under big TV screens spouting soaps from TVB.

Now on my last visit of Chinatown during the Holidays, I noticed that my grandparents’ favourite (and personal longtime favourite, for lack of anything else) M.M. Légende took over the trendy “Asian-style” clothing store next door and hid behind wooden planks as it is undergoing renovations. For the past two years, I believe that it was to become the first casualty of the Callia/Harmonie combination. So instead, it renamed itself as Pâtisserie La Légende (麗晶餅屋) and decided to expand. Follow-ups would be greatly appreciated!

Maybe now this first casualty would be Dobe & Andy (right under of Kam Fung) if they don’t change. I’m now curious to see what is going to happen with this new huge space for a cha chaan teng, in spite of more restaurant space made available with the imminent inauguration of Plaza Swatow (長盛廣場).

Saturation, or serious signs of Chinese Montrealers moving back to Chinatown? My opinion is that this will largely depend on affordable parking space made available in the area from the Swatow building. Right now, paid parking is prohibitively expensive (no incentive as in downtown Montreal) and free spots can only be found four or five blocks away. A pleasure for nearby residents and public transit users, but a chore for a certain class of car-going suburbanites that I grew up with…

This is an unfamiliar sight on a Sunday morning in Exchange Square, in Central, Hong Kong. Normally, these are prime spots for Filipina maids to take on the only day off of the week for many of them.

In Hong Kong, Central (and Victoria Park too) is known as the hang-out places for domestic helpers, who otherwise live with their employers. You can picture it as Hong Kong’s financial heart being transformed into a sort of outdoor bazaar.

The note to make is that it was barely 8AM when I took this picture this morning, which explains everything. However, you could already see a few people preparing their spots, or at least reserving theirs.

The Beer Bay, Discovery Bay Pier

Si ça se trouve que vous attendez un traversier pour rentrer sur votre île, la meilleure façon de tuer le temps, c’est de vous prendre une pinte de bière importée du Beer Bay. Le Beer Bay est un établissement légendaire avec ses deux adresses situées l’une à côté de l’autre à Central Piers, les quais pour la plupart des îles et ports en pourtour de l’île de Hong Kong. Ces destinations étant des lieux de résidence privilégiés d’expatriés occidentaux, le Beer Bay est en effet majoritairement fréquenté par ceux-ci.

Beer Bay, Lamma Island Pier

The Beer Bay importe donc une bonne liste de bières, incluant beaucoup de noms obscurs d’Angleterre, comme la Doom Bar, une douce ale fruitée, en fût (20HKD la pinte – 3CAD) ou la Green Goblin, un cidre fermenté dans des tonneaux en chêne brassé par Wychwood (40HKD la grosse bouteille de 600 mL – 6CAD). Les mardis soirs, la Doom Bar et les autres bières en fût (c’était la Heineken et la Hoegaarden l’autre soir) sont 15HKD (2.25CAD!) la pinte.

Comme en font foi les photos ci-dessus, le Beer Bay n’est ni un bar, ni un dépanneur, en fait. Puisque c’est une pratique acceptée de boire en public ici à Hong Kong (de plus qu’il n’y a pas de lois contre cet usage comme en Amérique du Nord), les escaliers à côté du Beer Bay se transforment en terrasse extérieure lors du Happy Hour. D’ailleurs un dépanneur 7-Eleven dans un quartier de bars, on appelle ça un Club Seven ici.

…and during the day.

One of my most popular posts ever on Comme les Chinois, was when in March 2008, I re-posted on a friend’s article on a friend’s impression (as a passerby) of Shanghai Street in Kowloon.

Why was it so popular? Because Shanghai Street, along with Portland and Reclamation Streets in their Mong Kok and Yau Ma Tei portions (between Shantung and Dundas) are often synonymous with the sex trade and is home to one of Hong Kong’s most well-known red-light districts. Day or night, as seen in the previous pictures, brothels operate as if prostitution was legal in Hong Kong. You walk around these streets at any time, and you will notice lit-up signs in flashy pink, or the red/pink neons hanging outside on the street or inside the staircase leading up to the establishment.

Perhaps most shockingly comes the “price list“, where the Chinese girl goes for HKD250 (CAD35) and the Malay or Filipina girl will make your wallet lighter by HKD200 (CAD28).

Langham Place

The Mong Kok red-light district is in fact just one or two blocks away from flashy Langham Place, a commercial complex that opened in 2004 and whose unavowed goal was to “sanitize” the neighborhood west of Nathan in Mong Kok. In terms of urban renewal, Hong Kong has used this stratagem before, in the early 90s with Times Square (時代廣場) in Causeway Bay and more recently with the apm shopping mall in Kwun Tong, which opened in 2005. While Times Square was a huge success, developing a largely residential area into the location to be for brand-name shopping in Hong Kong, it is still to early to tell if this would have the same effect on Langham Place’s surroundings.

A walk in the neighborhood (during the day) is quite uneventful. The area mostly has home renovation, and construction material, and metal shops, with a brothel at about every 50-100 meters. Ah-suks (uncles) working in the businesses look at you funny, but what seemed to be pimps, left you alone as you took a quick picture of their premises (without them in there, of course).

As it provides an “essential service” in a city of about 7 million souls, the Hong Kong government should leave this part of the city alone, as long as the triads don’t start shooting each other in broad daylight.

Home renovation and green light

Chinese BBQ

And now, on a cultural note… In Chinese, “ordering chicken” (叫雞), like in getting chicken from a Chinese BBQ shop, is slang for patronage of female prostitutes. So, “ordering goose/duck” (叫鵝) is the patronage of male prostitutes…

I’ve known Chris DeWolf mostly for his pictures and written press pieces in Montreal, but now here’s what’s his first video documentary that he made as a HKU student.

It’s about the Jamia Mosque in Mid-Levels, Hong Kong. If you take the Mid-Levels escalator, one of the more peculiar “touristic” attractions of Hong Kong Island, the Mosque can’t possibly be missed. In fact, on my first visit to Hong Kong, I had a pic of this said Mosque, taken on my “tour” of the Escalator-To-Almost-Nowhere:

Hong Kong is in fact a more “diverse” society than any other in East Asia, as could be seen in movies like Chungking Express (that also contains a few memorable scenes off the said-escalator).

Read the review published with the video on Urbanphoto.

La nouvelle d’aujourd’hui sur le tourisme obstétrique dévoilée par la télévision de Radio-Canada risque de faire couler pas mal d’encre dans les jours qui viennent.

Ça me rappelle énormément une histoire semblable qui avait enflammé le territoire de Hong Kong à la fin 2006. Les journaux de Hong Kong avaient alors montré que de plus en plus de mères résidant en Chine continentale venaient dans la zone administrative spéciale dans le but de bénéficier d’un accouchement à prix abordable et de la résidence permanente (right of abode) à Hong Kong donnée à leur bébé.

Le site de l’école de journalisme de Hong Kong University a quelques articles là-dessus en anglais:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=site%3Ajmsc.hku.hk+mainland+mothers

ainsi que le China Daily:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2006-12/22/content_765079.htm

et le International Herald Tribune:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/17/news/hong.php

(Dans l’article du IHT, on souligne aussi le cas des mères mexicaines aux États-Unis…)

Bon, on va dire que je vous pose une question ouverte. Que pensez-vous des conséquences au Québec d’un tel reportage? Que pensez-vous de la réaction à Hong Kong?

À Hong Kong, la controverse s’est éteinte lorsque le gouvernement a annoncé en début 2007 que les mères étrangères enceintes de plus de sept mois (on visait les mères de Chine continentale dans les articles que j’ai lu) devront prépayer $USD5000 avant d’entrer à Hong Kong pour leurs soins médicaux anticipés ou seraient refoulées à la frontière.

L’équipe chinoise de Radio Centre-Ville présentera son émission spéciale du Nouvel An chinois ce dimanche matin de 8h à 11h. L’émission durera trois heures, et j’aurai de mon côté une dizaine de minutes vers 9h pour parler de ma célébration du Nouvel An avec mes amis ce vendredi à partir d’extraits sonores reconstitués. (voir détails de l’émission)

The Radio Centre-Ville Chinese team will present its annual Chinese New Year special program this Sunday morning from 8AM to 11AM. The show will last for three hours and I’ll be having some ten minutes to discuss how a zuk sing like me celebrates the Chinese New Year with friends from sound clips that I will have recorded. (see show details)

Écoutez l’émission / Listen to the program

8-9AM:

9-10AM:

10-11AM:

Qian HE (Mandarin team Sunday host) and Yvonne LO (Cantonese team Wednesday host)

La qualité de l’émission quotidienne présentée pendant les Jeux sur la télé de Radio-Canada m’impressionne grandement. On est à l’occasion critique envers la Chine, mais on le fait toujours vec les grains de sel qui s’imposent. Vraiment un chef-d’oeuvre de journalisme. (lien vers les émissions intégrales)

Dans l’émission d’aujourd’hui, Don Murray nous raconte bien comment les choses ont évolué en Chine, sans que ça ne soit tout à fait la totale libre expression. Dans la même veine, le blogueur de ESWN, me disait un peu en blague que si on choisissait dix articles sur un forum de discussion quelconque en Chine, et qu’on les postait sur un forum d’il y a 10 ans, sans doute que 9 sur 10 se feraient arrêter.

J’aurais bien aimé entendre parler du travail fait par le Southern Metropolis/Weekly, mais ça ira pour un autre reportage sans doute. Par exemple, ils ont récemment rencontré le fondateur sud-africain de Danwei.org, l’un des sites en anglais les plus lus de Chine, et prennent soin de rencontrer les gens qui font les news, comme le secrétaire de parti au Sichuan qui s’est promené à genoux, ou les supposés accusés dans l’affaire de Weng’an.

Et puis comme “observateur” des médias, je trouve que ça clenche bien la couverture en marge des jeux que fait les cousins de la CBC (en tout cas, de ce que je peux observer via le web).

Ceci est une traduction d’un texte que j’ai écrit pour le blogue de Bande à part, publié le 8 août 2008.

—

Last April, I was in East Asia to attend a rock music festival in Kenting, Taiwan, and then made a stop in Hong Kong, where I discovered small record stores.

During the same trip, I also spent two weeks in Beijing. My musical adventures started off quite ironically, as my hosts, an American-Chinese and a Briton, took me to see a concert fronted by You Say Party! We Say Die!, a party punk band from Vancouver, that happened to be touring China at the time!

The venue was called the D-22 and is located in the area close to Beijing University, where its founder, a Newyorker, also teaches finance. We were probably a crowd of a hundred-something people, half of which were foreigners, and the other half, presumably locals, on that Friday night, to fill the D-22, a bar just slightly larger than a closet (at most 10m of width).

Steven O’Shea of YSP!WSD!

YSPWSD, who played on the previous evening at the Mao Live, a venue located at the heart of Beijing, told me their amazement in front of this overcrowded, ever-changing megalopolis, and the fun they had performing in it. “Crowds are very receptive here! We didn’t have to prompt them to mosh: they took care of it for us!”, said Stephen O’Shea of YSP!WSD! before the show.

The opening show only started after 10:30PM, and the main act only came to stage after midnight. The local bands opening for YSP!WSD! were Candy Monster, Guai Li (see top photo), and Ourselves Beside Me (sic). Judging from the exodus of Chinese spectators from the front of the stage, after Ourselves Beside Me’s performance, we quickly took note that they were probably more well-known to locals.

After some research, I realized that one of its members, bassist Yangfan (see photo), was once a member of Hang On The Box, an all-girl punk band, and one of the most well-known to ever come out of China. Separated since their last album, in Fall 2007, which Yangfan already wasn’t part of, HotB was one of the bands followed in the documentary Beijing Bubbles. The German production also introduced us to other well-known bands of Beijing founded between 1996 and 2001, such as Joyside, New Pants, Sha Zi and T9.

Poster of Beijinger Zuoxiao Zuzhou / 左小祖咒‘s 2001 album (左小祖咒在地安门), Overseas version. Seen at the Sugar Jar, for 100RMB.

The scene’s history cannot be told without mentioning Cui Jian, the one dubbed the godfather of Beijing rock. Cui, whose songs were once chanted by the students of Tian’anmen Square in 1989, fled to the mountains of Yunnan, in the country’s Southwest, slightly after the events of June 4th, like many other rockers at the time. Since then, he has been rehabilitated, and now gives concerts in sold-out stadiums around the world, like in San Jose, California, in early May. Tang Dynasty and Black Panther are other well-known names from this period of the 1990s. Other bands in the meanwhile, like Brain Failure, regularly toured Europe and the USA.

Local bands touring around the world: not too rare (when will they decide to make a stop in Montreal?). Lee Clow, an American expatriate, who lived in Beijing for 8 years, explains that the rule is that if they are popular in the West, generally, they would be in only one country! “Joyside, it’s in Germany, and Brain Failure, good for them, it’s in the US!” Clow has himself been part of a band called End of the World, practically the only ska band in Beijing, because of longevity.

In the last days of my stay in Beijing, we talked about the most important music festival in the country, the Midi Music Festival, named after Beijing’s contemporary music school being reported. Usually held around the May 1st public holiday since 1997, in Haidian park, in the universities district, “Midi” gets between 40,000 and 80,000 spectators each year. But this year, as it was the case in 2003 (because of SARS) and in 2004, police asked the organizers to delay their event until the October 1st national day.

Rockland 摇篮 music store and its owner, Xiao Zhan, in Houhai since 2004.

Before leaving Beijing, I went wild at local music shops. More accessible from the city’s centre, there’s the Rockland, established in 2004 in Houhai, a lake around which were built bars and restaurants for tourists and young rich people.

I bought a number of safe bets, like Joyside’s latest, and also the current new hot property Carsick Cars‘ (they were in Time Magazine’s July 17th, 2008 edition) only album. Both were published by the Maybe Mars label. I also picked up an electro compilation, and an album from a folk rock signer named Wan Xiaoli of independant Modern Sky. You might also this type of good self-made albums circulating at 100 copies.

One of the best-known independent record stores in town is the Sugar Jar, located in the 798 art zone, old military warehouses recycled as an art and design zone.

Jewel case wall at the Sugar Jar.

Aside from selling CDs, tiny Sugar Jar may also be fitted as a performance room. That’s where Joshua Frank, a McGill student who spends the rest of his year in Beijing, and the experimental rock band Hot & Cold that he completes with his brother, occasionally plays. His brother also happens to be in a band with Carsick Cars’ Shouwang, frequently lauded as China’s new guitar icon.

On the electronic music scene, the name that circulated in conversations and promotional posters was Sulumi (real name Sun Dawei), a chiptune musician. Shanshui, the label that he started, just organized an Asian tour with other Chinese and Japanese artists. Among recommendations in this genre, there was an interesting electronic mix of Yi ethnic minority music.

Pleasant to the ear / Lies!

After throwing all these names at you, what can you do to discover more Chinese indie music? The first thing to do is to look at a Chinese site called Neocha (in English: New-Tea), or listen to its Next web radio.

Random graffiti at 798 – the only place in Beijing you will see graffitis!

Ça ne va pas très fort pour Mega Brands, compagnie de jouets et papeterie montréalaise fondée en 1967. En mai dernier, j’ai fait un voyage de deux jours du côté de la province du Guangdong en Chine, et en ai profité pour visiter l’usine de Mega Brands, pour laquelle travaille mon cousin.

Je suis arrivé en début de soirée à Shajing, un district (plutôt une ville en elle-même) qui fait partie de la ville de Shenzhen, aussi une zone économique spéciale, qui ne l’est plus tellement dans la Chine d’aujourd’hui. Shajing est dans le nord-ouest de la municipalité de Shenzhen. Comme c’est souvent le cas dans les secteurs industriels, les boulevards sont larges, et le voisinage plutôt inintéressant.

Pour se rendre au travail, mon cousin prend une navette privée le matin, avec les autres expatriés de la compagnie.

Les chaines ne fonctionnent pas toutes 24/7, et en effet, plusieurs d’entre-elles étaient déjà arrêtées pour la journée quand je suis arrivé. J’ai vu les lignes de fabrication de pâte à modeler : saviez-vous que c’était juste de la farine et du colorant ? Bon, et en plus, il y avait des crayons de cire, dont on voit les différentes composantes:

Pour quelqu’un qui n’avait jamais vu une usine opérée par une compagnie d’outre-mer, c’est bien sûr plutôt impressionnant. On allait d’un bâtiment à un autre, passant parfois via des passerelles, voyant en accéléré, parfois à reculons, les différentes étapes de la fabrication d’un produit.

La main-d’oeuvre n’est pas chère (même si elle le devient de plus en plus dans le sud de la Chine), alors le bottleneck n’est pas dans les tâches manuelles, comme l’empaquetage des crayons, par exemple, mais plutôt chez les machines, comme celles qui servent à couler la cire de ces crayons. Mon cousin travaille en général six jours / semaine, ce qui est idem aux travailleurs sur le terrain.

Après au moins six mois à être bloqué en Chine, le site web de Radio-Canada était à nouveau accessible aux internautes basés en Chine continentale. Une semaine après l’envoi d’une lettre par Hubert T. Lacroix, président de CBC/Radio-Canada, à l’ambassade chinoise à Ottawa, les Chinois pouvaient à nouveau cliquer sur Radio-Canada.ca et CBC.ca (voir article).

Voilà qu’en voyage de deux jours dans la province du Guangdong, j’ai remarqué à Shenzhen hier (7 mai 2008 – vers midi, HKT) que Radio-Canada.ca n’était plus accessible. Un “server not responding” apparaissait en pointant sur le portail de Radio-Canada ou son site de nouvelles, tandis que CBC.ca répondait encore à l’appel. Une défaillance du routage? Un blocage temporaire automatisé par mot-clés? Le pare-feu qui tombe à nouveau?

Deux amis vivant à Beijing m’ont confirmé plus tard aujourd’hui (8 mai 2008 – le soir) qu’ils ne pouvaient pas accéder à Radio-Canada.ca non plus.

Mise à jour (2008-05-11): Bruno Guglielminetti rapporte dans le carnet techno de Radio-Canada que le site serait re-bloqué depuis dimanche, d’après des commentaires venant d’internautes en Chine. Vu que je ne suis plus en Chine, je ne suis plus en mesure de vérifier personnellement si le site est encore bloqué aujourd’hui. (Mon article a été référencé par InsideTheCBC.com.)

Just like three years ago when I bumped into the annual Establishment Day march (July 1st), I again bumped into another march, this time for Labour Day, May 1st. I was walking in Wan Chai, near the small basketball court (nor Southorn), when I saw the local police cordoning off the left-most lane of Hennessy Road, one of Hong Kong Island’s main artery (where the tram circulates). I first thought that they were doing some sort of repetition for today’s Olympic flame march, but it wasn’t the case, clearly as I saw the people with loudspeakers chanting familiar labour union slogans in Cantonese.

>> Listen to the march passing in Wan Chai (~25mins – 11Mb)

I would say that a good half of the marchers were migrant workers, usually what seemed to be domestic helpers as they are usually called. Can’t quote a number for this entry, but a majority of middle-class families employs domestic helpers in Hong Kong. They typically come from the Philippines, but based on the posters I’ve seen, also from Nepal, Thailand, and Indonesia. On this public holiday, they took the street on their day off (who aand chanted “ga yaan gong”, for “raise salary”.

It was a small, peaceful march. I am going to see the Olympic torch today in Wan Chai, the last leg of its passage in Hong Kong. That is, if I can get even get near the path!

Flickr set of the event

On the last picture, these tourists were taking photos with this public security car, parked in Tian’anmen Square.