Last night all of us performed at the same club. It was pretty similar to the previous night except for a few details; I played Baby Got Back while the girls did their dance and I finished with Santeria by Sublime. Also, ten minutes into my set (which was mandated as house/breaks) a Tibetan approached the booth and handed me a piece of paper. I folded it open and it nearly perfect english it said:
“Can you please play hip hop, PLEASE. IT’S A REQUEST”
It was scribbled in huge letters on a bar receipt with a pencil. I will keep it until the end of time. I met a few more Tibetans who spoke fantastic English (in addition to Chinese and Tibetan). Another fun show – the last one will either be tonight or tomorrow. Monday morning at 10:30 we take the hour long bus ride to Lhasa airport and return to Chengdu. This Monday will mark exactly two weeks until I return to Los Angeles from Beijing. I’m trying to make it to Vietnam before that, we’ll see how it works out. I asked Tingting to check on flights for me today when she can; in return I’m bringing her cool stuff from Tibet.
Today Dave and I returned to the monestary surrounded by the Tibetan market looking for a Chupa. This is the traditional Tibetan jacket/robe that we’ve been looking for several days for. It’s difficult to find at the moment because we’re in the middle of the Tibetan new year celebrations, which don’t include keeping your shop open. We got much closer today than we had before, but couldn’t find exactly what we’re looking for. Kim has reassured us that we can find what we’re looking for in the Tibetan district of Chengdu with the help of her Tibetan husband – it might be the best shot that we have now.
Last night after the gig the 5 of us returned to the hotel but weren’t really tired. Dave and I went with the two Chinese jugglers (Mr Wu and Mr Gu!) to the internet cafe that I’m at now. This place is enormous and constantly packed – I’d estimate at least 400 people at any time of day. They were anxious to compete against us, we think of national pride. Warcraft 3 was a close match, but counterstrike was even closer. For anyone who’s never been to China, counterstrike is nearly a religion here. People play it everywhere, constantly. At first Dave and I were losing badly, but after an hour or so we were able to refine our strategy. By the second hour the competition was intense and the game was neck and neck, but we were always one or two games behind. We finally caught up on the 95th game – we ended on top, 48 games to 47. It was a tremendous victory that we didn’t reach until 5am. When we walked back to the hotel the path back to our hotel was still lined with prostitutes and we saw several large pools of blood on the street. First one, then another 2 blocks down. We couldn’t figure out what had happened, but it was a lot of blood.
It’s a request!