What’s great about this tea in particular is that it’s completely free of any chemicals or pesticides, due to being grown and picked outside of the industrialized tea industry. The price of this tea was 80 yuan (about $12) for half a kilo, and the small silver bags are samples of different kind of green tea grown in the same region.

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This band, Wild Nothing, was formed in 2009 in Blacksburg, Virginia. I didn’t know about this band until I got their 2013 EP, which this song is on, titled Empty Estate.


Sounds very much inspired by Talking Heads, which is a good thing. I grew up hearing my father listen to Talking Heads and have vivid memories of the 1986 David Byrne film True Stories that was released alongside a Talking Heads album released with the same name.

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I was recently interviewed by China Daily and the article was published yesterday. I’m frustrated that they inserted so many fake quotes that they claim were said by me, many of which aren’t even correct English. I’m quite certain that what they did was speak to me and them approximate my words with quotes, in many cases completely changing the meaning of what I said.

Note that I don’t entirely blame the author, what with China being ranked #173 out of 179 countries on the Press Freedom Index. The problem is institutional. To be fair, I should add that I have done dozens of interviews of this type and this is the first time that I’ve noticed blatant misquotes throughout the text.

This article came to my attention when a stranger in another region of China emailed me saying that he read it. Upon reading the article I contacted the reporter and he responded within several hours saying that he would help me amend misquotes in the online version, which is appreciated.

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I heard this song a few days ago and have had it stuck in my head since then. It’s like Portishead and Nancy Sinatra collaborated to make pop music.

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I visited for the first time yesterday and ordered a pair of custom cotton shirts which I should receive in about two weeks. The selection process was a little overwhelming – hundreds of different fabric types, in addition to shirt styles. I took about 10 minutes to finalize everything, choosing a pale blue and patterned white shirt, totalling about $80 US. They offered cheaper synthetic shirts but I’m willing to pay more for cotton.

Tailor Made Photos

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Having many of my own projects to attend to, my approach was to assemble a cast of collaborators to cultivate a venue to host events throughout the summer. After weeks of trying to pull together all the pieces, it looked like it was going to fall apart.  But at the last moment, it came together and we signed a contract on the house.

Now that house is called Dojo, and last weekend we hosted our second event there, which we have been calling Mega House Party. In a nutshell, it emulates the American house party experience in Western China, usually with stunning accuracy.

Some Dojo Highlights

• There are three areas of music, and 8+ DJs who perform at each event. Chengdu’s best, of course.
• A VJ on a projector casts a large image upon a white sheet on one side of the house
• Barbecue and live graffiti outside
• A monster sound system in the main room, with two 15″ subwoofers
• Chinese, Laotian, and locally-brewed beer
• Fire poi is a regular fixture
• We prepare and sell food, include homemade pizza and deep fried Oreos
• So far each event has drawn 300+ people

The May Party Flyer

I’ve been designing and printing event flyers for years, mostly for Disco Death events. When everyone was making A4 size posters, I begun making one meter-tall feature film size posters, which were 300dpi Photoshop files that were multiple gigabytes in size. In 2013, big posters are pretty common in Chengdu. So once again, I’m taking the next step and doing something new, that’s never been done before in Chengdu: digital-only, animated flyers. This will be the first of many.

It will be interesting to see how many people will be doing this by summertime 2014 – I expect it will be a lot. However, since there are few flyer designers in Chengdu, the technical hurdles of creating this kind of flyer are a bit higher. This month’s flyer is around 70 frames, which demands a new workflow that I haven’t yet mastered.

At the May Event

At this event, we cooperated with the Natooke fixed gear bicycle shop in Chengdu to host the after party for their Kill the Hill event on Longquan Mountain. In layman terms, Natooke hosted a fixed gear and single speed bicycle race up a mountain (meaning no mountain bikes allowed) and held the award ceremony at the house.

Around 6pm a mass of 60+ rainbow-colored fixed gear bicyclists swarmed to Dojo like bees to the hive. Everyone had a blast. The next event is in two weeks on Saturday, June 15th.

Photos from the Night

Fortunately I had my camera with me at this months event and had the opportunity to capture a lot of photos. As it got later into the night and I started playing music and drinking more, I stopped messing with my camera. With any luck, next time I’ll get photos that span the entire night instead of the first few hours. Still, I look at these photos with great satisfaction. The two Dojo events that we’ve hosted so far have been the best parties that I’ve seen in Chengdu in my seven years here. I’m proud to be a part of it and share American house party culture with an international audience.

Here are a handful of photos, with more at the link below:

More photos here: Dojo May Photos

Bonus: Fire Poi Youtube Clip

I captured a brief clip of one of the fire poi performers and uploaded it to Youtube:

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Effect created by the Action Movie FX app on iPhone.

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It’s been years since the last album from Scottish ambient duo Boards of Canada was released – eight years, in fact. I had no idea that a new album was coming out this year, nor that this song had already been released, until it was brought to my attention in the 2013 New Music thread on the Chengdu Living.

Not only was I actually listening to Boards of Canada upon realizing this (Happy Cycling, Song of the Day #98), but I have fond memories of discovering Boards of Canada.

In in the early 2000′s, I went to South Beach Miami for a week during the Winter Music Conference a handful of times with my good friend Esfand. It became a ritual for us, enjoying sunshine, like-minded crowds, and non-stop DJ related parties for a week in one of the most beautiful places in the States.

One year while in our hotel, Esfand suggested with urgency that I listen to Boards of Canada. But when I heard it, it didn’t make sense to me. It was bizarrely minimal and had a vintage sound to it, unlike anything I had heard before. I stuck with it, and like Esfand, I grew into a passionate fan of the perhaps the most understated group in electronica: Boards of Canada.

In the early days of listening to Boards, Esfand described it to me as handshake music. It doesn’t just come to you – you meet it halfway, and an exchange takes place.

I always loved using this analogy for abstract art, music, or culture that when first approached doesn’t immediately make sense to the casual observer.

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Cycling back to Chengdu yesterday from Flower Town, with the Banana Boat (the tricycle) in tow. We attached bicycle tire tubes to the side as handles to help it get up hills. Cycling on that thing when it’s filled with cargo is tough.

In this photo, from left to right: Chris, me, Larry of Natooke, Justin, and Mandeep. Photo taken by Adrien (who took this photo on his birthday) of Fun and Bike.

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