Southeast Asia: Cambodia and Thailand

Stop one on Josh's magical mystery tour of Asia that will span his final two months out here was Southeast Asia.  After eight lightening-quick days of bouncing around from Siem Reap, driving through the countryside of Cambodia and Thailand to Bangkok and Chiang Mai, I'm even further convinced that the world is simply too big to appreciate fully, and that one must simply be able to enjoy the little packets of travel that we can fit into our erstwhile stationary lives.  My ability to cram as much as I have been able to, both into this individual trip and this year in general, further strengthens my goal not to see everything, but to enjoy that which I am able to see.

The highlights include:

• Ben and Paige.  My travel companions deserve prime position here, as they made the trip possible.  I'm a pretty solid solitary traveler, and have been doing a lot of it for the past year.  Traveling alone is nice.  But it doesn't really compare to being able to share the travel experience with two great friends.  After not seeing each other for 9 months, the three of us didn't miss a beat.  Of course, getting to take advantage of Paige's platinum Starwood hotel status didn't hurt!

• Angkor Wat is a stunning and wildly impressive place.  What may not be apparent to those who haven't been to Siem Reap, as it wasn't apparent to me before going, Angkor Wat itself is just one of many (a couple hundred) that remain in what now is known as the Angkor Wat Park.  The early temples, including Angkor Wat, were built by Hindu worshippers, who settled in Cambodia before the Buddhists took over somewhere around 1200 AD.  The newer temples are Buddhist shrines, distinguished from their Hindu counterparts by the distinctive faces on the four faces of each temple tower.  On the vernal and autumnal equinox, the sun rises directly over the central tower over Angkor Wat, creating what we were told is one of the more breathtaking vistas on Earth.  We had to settle for a less-than-symmetric sunrise, marred somewhat by early morning Cambodian clouds, but still good for an ethereal, pre-dawn glow, intensified palpably by the hundreds of fellow tourists that had braved the 5:30 AM pilgrimage to greet the day in the shadow of the great temple.

• In addition to its physical beauty, Angkor Wat is still a functioning temple, with real monks studying there to this day!

• We rode ATVs through the Siem Reap countryside, which starts maybe 30 seconds outside the heart of "downtown".

• We had a lovely Khmer guide in Siem Reap named Sun, who, after two days of showing us around Angkor Wat, a "floating village", and a temple outside the city called Beng Melea, insisted on taking us out to dinner.  "If you guys want to pay, then I'm not coming," was his way of graciously inviting us.  He took us to a traditional Cambodian joint, with no English anywhere in sight (a far cry from the cute but palpably touristy "Pub Street" in downtown Siem Reap), where we enjoyed juicy and tender (albeit very fatty) cubes of beef paired with herbs, carrots, and a healthy dose of fish sauce (SE Asians use fish sauce generously in their cuisine as their primary source of salt).

• Speaking of food, it was both terrific and plentiful.  Cambodian food was far less distinctive than either Vietnamese or Thai, with the exception of amok, a savory and sweet coconut milk based curry filled with fish and other goodies.  Its lack of distinctiveness isn't to say the food in Siem Reap was bad - far from it - particularly at the family-run restaurant Tuiche, where we were wowed in equal measure by the subtle delectability of the Khmer cuisine and the friendliness and service of the staff (all siblings).  In Chiang Mai we discovered khao soi, a mildly sweet curry served with egg noodles and veggies.  We also took a cooking class in Chiang Mai, which included a tour of the traditional Thai marketplace, as well as the opportunity to choose four Thai dishes to whip up by hand.  I cooked the aforementioned khao soi, drunken noodles, spicy tom yum soup with Thai basil, and chicken stir fry with cashew nuts.  In Bangkok we went on a food tour, which consisted of an ungodly amount of food (eaten directly after a large breakfast, which I ate not realizing that the food tour was happening directly afterwards), from sour sausage stuffed with rice noodles, Thai pork buns, roasted duck with rice, green curry, and a selection of Thai pastries and desserts.
• I chilled with tigers.  No biggie.

• Bangkok is a legitimate metropolis, replete with the hustle and bustle of a city that rarely, if ever, sleeps.  What it lacks is a functional system of transportation.  There are two elevated subway lines, called the Skytrain, and one underground metro line, which combine cover about as much ground as New York City's G train.  The city is, by all measures, huge, and traffic is as bad if not worse as any city of its size, so one wonders how the locals every get anywhere on time.
• We biked through the backstreets of Bangkok, weaving our way through markets, pedestrians, and ferry passengers.

• Thailand is, for better or for worse, known for, at least among backpackers and bar-goers, its ladyboys.  Those scantily clad cross-dressers (or, in many cases, surgery-aided transgenders) help populate the legend of the debauchery that permeates Thai nightlife.  In Chiang Mai, the three of us, along with several friends made at our cooking class, hit the streets in search for a cold drink. Unsuspecting and without raunchy ambitions -- this wasn't Bangkok, after all -- we opted for a harmless looking Irish-style dive bar called the Shamrock.  In a flash, seemingly out of nowhere, we were surrounded by women offering to serve us drinks.  Except...they weren't women.  As it turned out, the Shamrock was entirely staffed by ladyboys.  Three of us ended up getting challenged to a game of pool by one of them (she/he was terrible, but so were we), and after a beer and a good deal of nervous giggling about the absurdity of the entire scene, we left, not without gawking at the various middle aged men chatting up the bar staff.  Apparently, for some,  this is what coming to Thailand is all about.
• Instead of announcing that they are going to the bathroom, it is custom for Thai people to say "I'm going to pick some flowers" (if they're women) or "I'm going to shoot some rabbits" (if they're men).  We joked with our Thai tour guide in Bangkok, who shared this little tidbit with us, that the ladyboys therefore probably say "I'm going to shoot some flowers."

Next up: Taiwan.

Fixin' a Hole Where the Rain Gets In...

One of the joys of living here -- or, at least, in my particular apartment -- is dealing with the various everyday problems that materialize over the course of living in the same place for an extended period of time.  The lights burn out, the AC doesn't work, the heat isn't hot enough, the hot water can't handle two showers at the same time, the gas alarms rings at 3am -- these are the run-of-the-mill problems faced by apartment-dwellers everywhere, enjoyed by no one, but basically to be expected by all.  These annoying but commonplace hurdles are made significantly more difficult to jump over here, however, because of a few basic facts:

• The language.  This one's obvious, and it's just part of living abroad.  My Chinese is passable, even "good" for a foreigner, but it's still difficult to convey to a maintenance guy that the circuit breaker keeps tripping every time I use the heating at a certain temperature in the living room.  Hand motions are key, which of course means it's even trickier to describe problems over the phone.
• The skill and training of the maintenance dudes.  There's a guy in my apartment right now, fixing light bulbs.  It's difficult to tell if he knows which way is up.  Eventually, one would hope, we will have functioning lights (the current blackout count stands at 8 bulbs), but you never know.
• Mr. Zhang, the primary maintenance dude (though not the one that's here right now) is far more interested in "hanging out" with us foreigners than he is with, you know, fixing shit.  He often looks from me to my roommates, excitedly, and asks us "你们今天晚上去酒吧喝酒吗?" ("Are you guys going out to the bar to drink tonight?").  We used to keep bottles of unwanted, foul-tasting Chinese liquor lying around, which we'd offer to him in small sake glasses.  We've learned that just encourages him, like a hungry seagull at the beach, eyeing your hot dogs.  So now we just pretend like we don't drink.
• When Mr. Zhang does decide to take a look the hood, he almost always comes up with the same answer: "我没办法！" which basically translates to "there's nothing I can do."  He sheepishly will whip out his cell phone, call the "specialist" for whatever problem we're having, and invariably reports that they're "particularly busy" and can't come for several days.  Sometimes Mr. Zhang will generate an excuse that makes no sense at all -- "oh, you see, this air conditioning unit isn't big enough to cool the room down" (it was doing a perfectly fine job three days ago!); "see, the heat isn't working because the circuit breaker is down" (right, I know, I called you because I want that to stop happening), etc. etc.
• The whole thing is almost certainly a scam.  We don't have direct contact with our landlord (we don't even know who he/she is), so all of our issues have to go through the building's real estate office.  They apply seemingly random charges to everything we ask them to do.  And what can we do about it?  Refuse to pay and live without hot water for weeks on end?  We occasionally succeed in strong-arming the maintenance dudes to fix our damn apartment for free, but most of the time we're contributing to the building's "let's fuck with the stupid foreigners" fund.  I used to notice an amused glint in the real estate people's eyes every time I'd go down to the office to pay our monthly rent.  Now I think I understand why.

Anyway, it's annoying, but ultimately just the cost of doing business.  We now have 8 spanking new light bulbs, happily installed by one of Mr. Zhang's more helpful colleagues for only 80 kuai (about 13 bucks).  One wonders when they'll burn out again.

The Beginning of the End

There's been some murmuring across the blogosphere urging me not to allow my little foray into travel blogging to expire with a whimper of "Kosher Showers."

To be fair, the thought had crossed my mind.  There wasn't really any reason for the blog's gradual decline in frequency of content.  From a September and October filled with new and funny, and outrageous experiences, to a March and April and May filled with exciting travel plans, decisions about the future, and trepidation about leaving this crazy wonderful new home and life, the notion of blogging about my day to day thoughts and observances just started to seem too...both big and trivial, simultaneously, I suppose.  As the idiosyncrasies of living in China -- the real ethos of this blog, in my opinion -- became more normal, so too did the weight of knowing that life here was inherently temporary and, to a certain extent, un-real.  I've made real friends, forged real memories, and made my mark on a small section of the Shanghai landscape -- a mark I won't ever forget, and, if I'm lucky, one that won't soon be forgotten by the Shanghai I'll leave behind in two months.  But it was the act of leaving it behind, the admitting to myself and others that this was always a temporary excursion, one that I am blessed to have had the luxury to take -- it was all of that, which I didn't know how to express in a way that would stay "bloggish".

And so I won't.  At least not yet.

Instead, I'll dive into the beginning of the end in the hopes that when I'm invariably rueing the speed with which these last few months in Asia flew by, this cyber database will help slow everything down in memory.

So here's what's been happening!

• The end of March was marked by the arrival to Shanghai of two very special redheads.  Judith and Ken, affectionately known to yours truly as Mom and Dad, eagerly (but not without some anxiety about the food, water, and air quality) made the trip around the world to visit their idiot kid, who happened to also be turning 25 years old at the same time (makes a girl think!).  From Shanghai to Beijing to Guilin to Hong Kong to Macau, I was able to share a small slice of my life here with my parents.  It was the first family vacation that I felt responsible for -- something that instilled in me equal portions of pride and anxious concern that things might not go as planned (which, in turn, provided me with a greater sense of appreciation for the myriad vacations they have planned, without anything but expectation of a good time from me and my brother).  I think it's safe to say that a good time was had by all (though you'll have to ask them...there was the whole food/water/air quality thing to contend with...)

                             

Far less sweaty than my last trip to the Great Wall

                                           

The above picture demands some explaining.  In 2008, when I visited Beijing for the first time, I took a picture of a long, narrow corridor in the Forbidden City with a small girl holding a red umbrella that matched the red of the walls.  Having very few discernable photography skills, it came as a surprise to me when that photo received widespread praise from friends and family (It's on the cover page of this blog, shrunk down to fit nicely on the page).  This picture here is my return to that long corridor in the Forbidden City, and look...well...philosophically demented.

We went on an e-bike tour of Beijing.  I think I look like a natural, if I do say so myself.

The folks on the Lijiang River in Guilin

• After the folks left for home, I pushed on to Singapore, where I discovered that 95 degree temperatures and seemingly infinite humidity indices make for difficult urban touring.  It's a very cool (not temperature-wise) cultural hodgepodge, far less dominated by Chinese than I had been led to believe.  The linguistic potpourri rivaled that of Queens, and the culinary delicacies (particularly those found in outdoor street markets) ranged from Hainanese chicken and rice, to Indian samosas and fried chickpeas, to thai noodles, to arabic halal kabobs.  The skyline at night from atop the massive (and massively ugly) Marina Sands hotel was also something to see indeed.

These two beasts are "merlions", Singapore's official national...well, not exactly an animal now is it?  National figment of collective imagination?

Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore

• I went to Indonesia for a day.  Just hopped a ferry and headed to a beach on the island of Batam. Just to be able to say "I went to Indonesia for a day" is pretty cool.

• The Horde has enjoyed continued success, coincided by my continued enjoyment of the managerial role.  We're currently in the process of producing a music video for "IKEA Love Song," which can be heard here.
• I started working from home, which, as people who have been domestic employees before had forecasted, tends to lead to hardly working at all.  After a week or two of "catching up" from my vacation with the folks, my "full time" job at J.D. Power quickly faded in prominence from my daily life.  Not that I'm complaining.  I've managed to create a unique symbiosis in which the higher-ups at my company think they're getting free labor from me (they don't pay me very much) and I think I'm getting away with highway robbery at their (albeit limited) expense.
• I officially decided to enroll at Harvard Law School this coming fall.  I'm very excited indeed.  Further thoughts on said decision are fodder for a separate post.
• I went to an all-day barbecue competition on the Bund.
• I became a fan of Yongkang Lu, a bar street in a residential district near the center of town.  This wasn't a novel discovery - it's been a favorite destination for expats for over a year now, replete with a hodgepodge of watering holes and restaurants.  The future of the street is in question, however, as the residents of Yongkang have grown fed up with the nightly cacophony that permeates up from the bars below.  The street is popular primarily because everyone gathers outside to enjoy their nosh and drink, but this has led to a showdown with the locals.  Two months ago, it came to a heat, with residents angrily chucking gallons of water at the revelers below.   I wasn't there (I wish I was), but the news quickly spread through the expat scene.  Of course, Yongkang became even more popular after the incident -- one has to see what all the fuss is about, after all -- but the residents have at least mustered a small, albiet potentially pyrrhic, victory.  The bars are now forced to close at 10pm, rather than stay open into the wee witching hours of the night.  This merely intensifies the party in the hours leading up to the early closing time.
• I was told, for perhaps the 8th separate time in my life, that I remind someone of Josh Lyman from The West Wing.
• I bought an orange ukulele for Franco for his birthday.  Who knew ukuleles came in orange?
• Some exciting travel has been planned: Cambodia and Thailand with Ben and Paige for 8 days; Taiwan, in part to visit my old Chinese professor from Penn, for 5 days; South Korea with my roommate Franco and our friend Justine for 5 days; and, with a little luck, hosting the guys from Fieldston in Shanghai at the end of June, before heading out to the wilds of Yunnan province for about 10 days.  Pictures to come.
• I finally booked my flight home.  I'll be flying back to New York on July 25, connecting through Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (which should be an experience in and of itself).

And so, all things that come to end must also begin to come to an end.  I've dodged that beginning for as long as I can, urging friends along with myself to focus on the time I have left here rather than the fact that I'm leaving.  The reluctance to face the beginning of the end head on perhaps contributed more than anything else to the hiatus of the blog.  It's back now, in whatever frequency I can muster, fully committed to seeing through the final two months in this no-longer-strange land to which I am no longer a stranger.

Kosher Showers

Out of the woodwork they came, one by one, then in larger waves, like those ants who went marching or the teddy bears arriving at their picnic in the woods.  If you arrived a mere five minutes early, as we had done, the place was empty, tables neatly set for people that clearly weren't planning on showing up.  Show up ten minutes late, and you were fighting for a seat.  Before long, what started by feeling almost as if we were trespassing on something small and private, had turned into what must be one of the best kept secrets in town:  Shabbat in Shanghai.

Where did all the Jews come from?

Such was the first question I asked my friend Michelle upon sitting down to dinner after Shabbat services at the Shanghai Jewish Center.  We'd been talking about going to Shabbat here for a couple months now, primarily to appease Michelle's Jewish-guilt-flinging grandmother.  We weren't really sure what to expect, since neither of us know that many Jews in town.  It turns out, there are a lot, perhaps not in terms of relative numbers, but certainly in terms of cultural enthusiasm.  At least 70 people showed up to the services tonight, if not more.  Some of them live here, some of them were passing through -- all of them, however, were welcome and welcoming.

Like the telltale smell of grandma's matzo ball soup, wafting through the kitchen before a Seder, feelings of Jewishness, and the pride at our ability to share a festive meal with friends and strangers alike, came rushing back tonight.  The service was long enough to feel meaningful, and short enough to keep my limited attention span for these kind of things.  The singing was loud, exuberant, and almost entirely in tune.  The food was delicious and plentiful.  And most of all, the people were exactly as I remembered "them" -- it feels as if I left my Jewish self behind when I came to China, and found it again at dinner tonight.  They greeted me like an old friend, and asked where in New York I was from (before telling them I was even from the US).

Some highlights from the evening:

• When I arrived at the shul, it was empty.  I told the Chinese receptionist that I was there for Shabbat services and dinner, and he said, pointing to the staircase to my right, "Okay!  The show is downstairs!"  I assumed this was the Shanghai Jewish community's response to "Book of Mormon."  I descended to the sanctuary, and awaited the start of the "show."
• Chicken soup was served as part of the meal.  It tasted eerily like wanton soup.
• I forgot to pay for my meal when I arrived, and by the time I remembered it was already Shabbat, so I was barred from paying (not allowed to do business on Shabbat!).  I promised to pay next time, and I actually think I will.  Good to support these kind of things, I think.
• The rabbi, your classic big, burly, and bearded fellow, was your classic Jewish politician, roaming the room during dinner.  He greeted everyone with two bottles -- one whiskey, and one vodka -- and said, "And for you?"  When the guy across from me shook his head in decline, the rabbi said, "I wasn't asking yes or no, I was asking whiskey or vodka!"
• After the first round, however, the rabbi (who was awesome, and I don't begrudge him for this one bit) was way more interested in filling and re-filling his own glass than he was with making sure everyone else was full.  I must've said "le'chaim" about 10 times with an empty glass (and on each one, the rabbi took a shot).
• The rabbi interrupted the meal every now and then for prayer, song, and talk.  At one point, he had everyone new to the congregation stand up and introduce themselves.  I thought this was a particularly nice touch, and made me feel even more a part of the community than I already did.
• During another interlude, the rabbi quipped: "In response to all of the disturbing news about the contents of our river here in Shanghai, I have been asked a very troubling question in recent days: is it no longer kosher to take a shower in Shanghai?"

I'll be going back.

Bay of Pigs

Well, this is patently disgusting:

Pigs, Pigs, Pigs!

Apologies to those who were eating while reading this post (or, you know, were ever planning on eating or drinking ever again).  Alas, it's better to face the truth head on rather than avoid it: there are dead pigs in the Huangpu River, which not only meanders through downtown Shanghai, creating the coastline that forms the famous Bund, but also provides for the vast preponderance of Shanghai's water supply.  Now, it's not like any of us were drinking the water to begin with.  It's gross, and even the natives don't really mess around with the water too much if they can avoid it.  But it does make you wonder about, say, cooking food with the water.  My roommate, Serge, uses bottled water to cook with, which always made me raise my eyebrows in environmental sanctimony.  He used to work in the clean water industry, and isn't shy about citing the arsenic content in Shanghai's water, which never actually evaporates, even when the water is boiled (Dad, if you're reading this, please don't fret.  You will survive your trip to China.  I promise.).  I've always been happy to use the tap water when I cook (arsenic, shmarsenic, I always say!), but now....well, I dunno.  The government, bless them, says the water is safe again, now that 6,000 of Porky's cousins were fished (pigged?) out of the Huangpu over the past few days.  I'm not sure I buy it.

I must admit that I'm not sure which is more disturbing -- the fact that the Huangpu is hogtied with pig carcasses, or my reaction to hearing of the news.  I was pretty unmoved by it.  I believe my first response was "Oh.  Well, that probably shouldn't be the case."  But it certainly wasn't surprise.  Or outrage.  It was more like, "Yup.  That sure sounds like China!"  In just over six months of living here, I've already become quite desensitized to the seemingly endless parade of "China is gross" examples.  It just doesn't make me raise my eyebrows anymore.  And part of the reason why is because I know I won't be living here permanently.  Tolerating things like swine in the drinking water is just something I'm trading in exchange for an adventure -- not something I have to live with forever.

This is kind of a problem, isn't it?  China is acutely aware of and concerned by the slowing down of its economy.  While the absurd levels of growth that it enjoyed for the last decade or so certainly weren't sustainable in the long run, the maintenance of world-power status is priority number one for the newly inducted regime in Beijing.  But I'm not so sure the economy is the biggest issue that China must address.  Rather, I wonder whether it's more about maintaining the country's appeal to the rest of the world.

China can make it as hard for its own citizens to leave as it wants.  But as long as expats view the country as merely a temporary stomping grounds to have some fun, make some money, and wait out the economic troubles in the West, China's position as a major player in the world stage is at risk.  And as it stands, there are serious environmental and lifestyle barriers that predispose foreigners to write China off as unworthy of planting firm roots.  There are exceptions, to be sure.  My friend Tom, the Horde's guitarist, has been living here for over 5 years, has a Chinese girlfriend with whom he lives, and has no plans of leaving any time soon.  But when we were discussing the pigs-in-the-river kerfuffle this morning, his response was, "Yeah, I just assume I'm going to die from a really awful form of cancer at some point" thanks to living here for so long.

China can't really afford to cultivate that sort of outlook in its foreign residents.  I met a middle-aged teacher last month named Sean, who loves China.  He's been living here for 12 years, before Shanghai was Shanghai, back when there were only 3 Metro lines (there are 16 now) and Western food was very hard to come by.  He doesn't really travel abroad -- he spends the bulk of his free time exploring China itself, making his way through the endless countryside, villages, and "small" towns.  He has no interest in leaving.  But he has a five year old daughter now, who he was content raising in Shanghai until the pollution became too much of an issue for him to ignore.  The notion of his child growing up breathing air that equates to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day is too bitter a pill for him to swallow.  After seeing two colleagues die of esophageal cancer, which he says is the most prevalent form of cancer in China, Sean is moving his family to Moscow at the end of the school year.  "You think I want to go to fucking Moscow?!" I recall him shrieking at me.  But go he must, after building what he had assumed was a permanent home in China.

The River of Pigs incident will, surely, soon yield to another aspect of life in China that is abhorrent to Western temperaments.  And people like me, and Sean, and Tom will probably just shrug our shoulders and say "That's China for ya."  Until the proverbial "that" is no longer "China for you", China will have a hard time holding onto its already-tenuous position as a serious actor on the global stage.

Women's Day

This Friday is national Women's Day in China.  All women get a federally mandated half-day off from work. What the fuck?

The Release Party

When I look back, ten or twenty years from now, on my time living in China, I'll likely have retained various long-term memories about my experience abroad, grappling with the culture and language, the eclectic assortment of people I met, and the infinitely enticing travel opportunities of which I was able to take advantage.  These larger thematic memories tend to stick, with specific, singular, watershed events sprinkled throughout our recollection of yesteryear, in decreasing quantity as they fade away over time.  This Friday night was, I think, one such watershed moment.  It was The Horde's debut album release party at 390 Bar in Shanghai.  At the risk of hyperbole and cliche (that disclaimer should accompany this entire post, now that I think about it), it was an evening I will not soon, if ever, forget.

Since "officially" becoming the manager of the band at the beginning of 2013, I've developed a profound sense of ownership of my role in our little musical family.  Even though my managerial title is sort of silly -- my Rolodex of contacts in the musical scene here in China isn't nearly full enough to really call myself a "manager", though that is starting to change -- I do think the guys genuinely appreciate my unbridled enthusiasm for the music along with my eagerness to help with the logistic and financial side of the operation.  I have, from the very beginning, felt like a welcome member of the team.  Recently, I've even started saying "my band" or "we" when referring to the Horde's various conquests and exploits.

At the same time, the Horde has been around for a while -- three years, to be exact.  They've written over thirty original songs, and have performed them at various venues around Shanghai, the surrounding suburbs, Beijing, and even Mongolia.  They've been in the process of recording several EP projects for over a year.  The vast majority of their oeuvre and success was founded long before I came onto the scene.  Because of this, I've been eager to assume as much responsibility for the band's present activities as I can, particularly considering I won't be living here forever.

I therefore inserted myself directly helping to produce and releasing of "Considering Yourselves Conquered," the Horde's first studio album.  This process, which took over a year of recording, mixing, and mastering (none of which I was around for), as well as the designing and printing of the album copies themselves (which I negotiated with a production company in Shenzhen), culminated in an album release show this Friday night.

The week leading up to the show was marked with palpable twinges of anxiety and self-consciousness on the part of the band.  We had 1,000 album copies printed - when they arrived, and we all realized what 1,000 CD cases actually looks like, we were blown away.  There was no way we would ever be able to sell (or even give away) all of them!  We had decided to eschew an opening band at our show -- most music gigs in Shanghai of this ilk have at least two, if not several bands -- so that we could have time to play 3 full sets ourselves.  Were people really going to show up for over 2 hours of Horde music, without any other bands?  We had set the ticket price at 50 RMB (about $8.50), which is on the high end for this type of show, and even though we were throwing in a free copy of the album, the guys convinced themselves (and me) that the price would deter people from coming.  Even though all of us had gotten the word out to friends and various event websites, and had a lot of good press leading up to the show (interviews and music reviews), all of us, I think, arrived at the bar for sound check on Friday night with a slight sense of impending doom.  Images of an audience of only 10 people, half of them significant others of the band whose attendance was required by relationship laws, flitted through our minds.  The Horde has played sparsely attended shows before, and it didn't matter.  But for the album release party?  We wanted it to be epic.

And it was.  The pre-show jitters were entirely unwarranted.  Before they played a single song, the bar was abuzz with congratulatory hugs and anticipatory cheer.  Dozens of people flowed in, most of them friends and colleagues, but more than a few new faces as well.  And when I stepped on stage to introduce the band (the manager agreed to say a few words as the manager to kick off the show), people actually left the bar area and crowded the stage and dance floor to listen.

Halfway through the first set, Tom, the guitarist, broke two of his strings.  This happens to him literally all the time (something we give him a lot of shit for...he brings a whole knew meaning to the term "shredding a guitar"), so he was prepared with spare strings.  But it necessitated a fifteen minute lull in the show, risking the amazing energy that had been pumping through the room since the first song.  But the audience didn't budge.  Some got drinks, some made conversation, but all  of them just waiting for the band to start playing again.  We had expected people to leave after the first set, to carry on with their nights elsewhere rather than spend the entire night in one place.  Nobody left.  By the end of the show, some three hours later (that only felt like 45 minutes), you got the feeling that the crowd would've stayed for at least another hour.

All told, over 250 people came to the show on Friday.  The proceeds from the ticket price paid for the entire cost of the album printing...twice (we had hoped to just break even).  But far more important than the money (even to me, the Suit) was the euphoria that dominated the room for the entire night.  The Horde's music -- a combination of folk and bluegrass -- is incredibly easy to listen to.  It is happy, and optimistic, and fun -- proven on Friday night by the dozens of people who came primarily just to show support, and who ended up toe-tapping and head bobbing throughout the performance.  Normally, I take a lot of pictures a

For the five Horde members -- only one of whom, Nick, is a full-time musician (he plays for several other bands, and only occasionally with us) -- it was a night celebrating three years of playing music together.  None of them has earned any money for their efforts.  All proceeds from shows in the past have gone towards band-related endeavors, as will the roughly $2,000 we made on Friday night.  They do it because they genuinely love it, and that is apparent in their music.

For me, it was a humbling reminder of the pride that comes from seeing friends succeed, and have hard work pay off.  It offered sobering evidence of how lucky I am to be bouncing around the world, living in a place where strangers become close friends in literally seconds, and how a guy with virtually no business or music experience can become the manager of a bona fide band of talented musicians in less than six months.  There's a very good chance I won't be here in another six months.  Shanghai was never a long-term solution; it was always just part of the ride.  There are times, Friday night being one of the more powerful, when I'm just floored by the whole thing.  I'll look back at the release party at 390 one day, and not be able to remember how I ended up there.  But be pretty darn happy that I did.

Franco and Tom (from left to right) in the foreground.  Johnny, sitting on the cajon drum between them, and Nick on the accordion to the left.  Not pictured is George, standing to the right of Tom, wailing away on his harmonica.

For those interested, the album is available (for free) online here (I'm listed in the thank you section, as "Pajama Josh.")

BurgerWeekly Post: Smile Burger in Kyoto, Japan

In keeping with tradition, here's a copy of my contribution to BurgerWeekly on Smile Burger, a hole-in-the-wall burger shack to which I spontaneously offered my patronage in the middle of a sunny, long walk in Kyoto last week.

The original post can be found here: Smile Burger!

Also, burger lovers in NYC should consider going to BurgerWeekly's "Burgerversary 100" party at Blue Smoke in April.  Were I not 12,000 miles away, I'd surely be in attendance.  Burgerversary!

Burger Ordered: Smile Burger

The Experience: A hearty 新年快乐 (xin nian kuai le – Happy New Year!) to all of the Little Meisters out there who celebrate the Chinese New Year. After partaking in the New Year’s revelry (which lasts more than a week) for a few days, Burgermeister Josh escaped the firecracker-bombarded streets for the much more tranquil confines of Japan. Thoughts of juicy burgers had taken a temporary backseat to temples and tempura.  Until, that is, Josh stumbled upon Smile Burger, a little hole-in-the-wall nestled comfortably amongst the storefronts of a busy thoroughfare in downtown Kyoto. Despite the early hour (it was barely 11 AM), and the fact that hamburgers aren’t exactly on the top of the list of local foods to sample while in Japan, Josh decided to honor his title as Burgermeister and give Smile Burger a try.

The dulcet tones of Avril Lavigne greeted the Burgermeister as he walked into the one room shop, not exactly the artist he expected to hear during his vacation in Japan. The place was tiny, as most establishments are in the Land of the Rising Sun, with only three tables and a take-out counter, behind which the lone proprietor – a young and cheerful Japanese guy – does his burger-flippin’ magic.

The Taste: Burgermeister Josh was initially tempted by the picture of Smile’s “Q Burger”, which appeared to be a quintuple-patty burger stack. However, discretion being the better part of valor (and hoping to save room for more traditional Japanese fare later), he settled on the classic Smile Burger. Josh had walked in hoping that the patty would be made with Kobe beef (this was Japan, after all), but was disappointed, if not unsurprised, to see that it was 100% Australian ground beef, seasoned in salt, pepper, and nutmeg. What the burger lacked in adornments (only lettuce and tomato), it more than made up for in condiments (ketchup, honey mustard, and Thousand Island dressing, all of which were already applied to the burger when it was served). A small portion of pickles and potato chips were served with the Smile Burger, which was presented rather nicely on a wooden board.

Despite somewhat low expectations, Burgermeister Josh was more than a little impressed with the Smile Burger! His initial doubts about the over-saucing of the burger were proven unwarranted, as the Thousand Island and honey mustard combined to create a tart relish flavor, with the ketchup providing its standard tomatoey sweetness. Not to be outdone by the sauces, the sweetness heartiness of the patty itself was readily apparent, the nutmeg in particular emerging in each bite. Josh doesn’t subscribe to the purist notion that burgers should be unadorned with seasoning lest they taste more like meatloaf. The Smile Burger was distinctly sweet and nutmeggy, and, Josh thought, all the better for it.

The Verdict: The Smile Burger had its shortcomings. The meat was slightly overcooked for the Burgermeister’s liking, which he was able to chalk up to his inability to convey his temperature preferences in Japanese. It was also quite greasy, though a burger of all things can be forgiven for a little grease. The pickles and chips that accompanied burger were by no means offensive, but Josh has always been of the opinion that French fries are the only suitable sidekick to a hamburger. These small demerits were not, however, nearly enough to dislodge Josh’s high perception of the Smile Burger. Overall, it was a tastier, more satisfying burger than any of Josh’s middling burger experiences in Shanghai. Shanghai may have glitz and glamour going for it, but, at least with this minimal sample size, Kyoto may indeed have the better of the burger scene!

Smile Burger is located on Higashi Oji Dori Street in Kyoto, Japan.

Japan Part III: The Food

It was a dark and stormy night.

Okay - that's certainly a bit cliched and dramatic.  But it was dark (what kind of night isn't?), and it was raining.  It was also cold, and there wasn't a sole to be found on the streets of Okayama.  It was my first night in Japan.  I had taken the train up from Takamatsu, where I had landed that afternoon.  Okayama wasn't my final port of call, nor was it the city I was most excited to visit.  But it was my first night in Japan, dammit, and I was going to see what Okayama had to offer in terms of food, drink, and other excitement.  The answer was quickly discernable: not very much.

The streets of Okayama were cold, rainy, and, most perceptibly, empty.  One of the main drags, through the middle of a which flows a rather nice canal, was as quiet as a snowy mountainside in midwinter.  One could imagine it being a nice place for a stroll, but on this particular night it was just a cold place for a stroll, with very few, if any, enticing places for sustenance.

My exuberant traveling spirit somewhat dampened, I eventually turned back towards my hotel, hoping against hope that I would find somewhere - anywhere - to grab a quick dinner.  All thoughts of an authentic, amazing Japanese culinary experience had yielded to the desire for two things: food, and warmth -- perhaps not in that order, but as quickly as possible.

I ducked into what I hoped was a restaurant, and found myself in a small room, with just a countertop bar, and (of course) nobody in it.  An older woman was futzing about in the kitchen preparing food for the evening's patrons (why she needed to prepare was beyond me, given the lack of street traffic).  She came out and smiled, gestured me into a chair at the bar, and said in Japanese what must've been "What would you like?"

I looked around, decided that there was no way she would have an English menu, so I just shrugged my shoulders in an attempt to convey that I was indeed hungry, but didn't know how to describe what I would like to eat and also didn't care that much as long as it was hot.  In China, this probably wouldn't have worked.  Miraculously, however, she nodded, smiled again, and glided back into the kitchen from where I soon heard the sizzling of food being prepared.  She came out with some tempura style somethings (not meat, perhaps potato or some other root vegetable, I'm not really sure).  I managed to reason out the Japanese for "hot sake", which she gladly poured for me, along with a beer for herself.  And I started to eat.

The tempura was followed by some soup called oden, with all sorts of fun vegetables and meat inside it.  After that, she fried up some yakisoba noodles, prepared on the hibachi grill with soy sauce, cabbage, carrots, and other veggies.  Each "course" was filling enough (and delicious enough) to satiate my appetite, but after each I made the "mistake" of clearing my plate (I couldn't help it), which signaled to her that I wanted more.

That was my introduction to both food and hospitality in Japan.  That one meal changed my entire perspective on the trip -- I'm sure I would've come around anyway, after a good night's sleep in Okayama and a train ride (everyone knows how trains can cure any depression for me) up to Osaka the next day.  But her willingness to just cook for me, without being able to ask what I wanted to eat, made all the difference for a cold, tired traveler on a rainy night in Okayama.  Throughout the meal, she sat with me, sipping her lager as I nursed my sake.  She tried to make small talk, but most of the time we were both content just to sit, understanding that we couldn't really communicate with each other effectively.

That was, as they say, the tip of the iceberg.  From Okayama I went to Osaka, where I embarked on a mission for okinomiyaki, an Osaka speciality sometimes known as Japanese pizza.  The joint I had been directed to by the New York Times travel section had been, to my chagrine, torn down.  But I quickly found another buzzing "pizza" hut, frying up delectable and large saucers of cabbage, potato, egg, veggies, pork, some barbecue style mayo sauce, and crunch fish flakes.  It was, hands down, the best thing I had in Japan (along with the other, much cheaper, okinomiyaki I found in Nara a few days later).

Other culinary highlights included the Nishiki Food Market in Kyoto - a long, narrow open market full of fish vendors, tofu donut makers, and other oddities that I couldn't even figure out.  I sampled some "street sashimi", several yummy nuggets of raw tuna marinated in two different ways.  This was, surprisingly, the only raw fish I ate in Japan.  I perhaps naively assumed that sushi was more ubiquitous in Japan than it was elsewhere, but it's just as much of a delicacy there (if not more so) than it is in the US.  So unless you're prepared to fork over a large wad of yen, sushi is probably not the ideal meal, even in Japan.

I went to Honke Owariya, a noodle house in Kyoto that has existed since 1465.  The cold soba noodles were served in 5 small bowls, stacked on top of each other, along with a dish of eight or so "toppings" including egg, shitake mushroom, spring onion, and shrimp tempura, with which one could make five little "make your own" noodle plates.

These are takoyaki, balls of dough and octopus in a tangy sauce.  They didn't appeal to me at first, but after trying them at a mom and pop shop in Nara, I can say I'm a fan.

Some gyoza and ramen near the train station in Takamatsu.  Sprinkled in between were random restaurants stumbled upon in the same ilk as the first one in Okayama, as well as a dinner of fried meat and veggies (delish, but heavy) with a Japanese friend of a guy I met at the hostel I stayed in Kyoto.  All in all, the food was terrific, if not initially a bit difficult to find.