the beijing big easy

8/9/2019 The Beijing Big Easy

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The Beijing Big Easy

David Moser

August 21, 2000. Turn of the millennium. New Orleans, China: Im sitting in

a pseudo Louisiana-style restaurant called the Big Easy, near Chaoyang Park. Thebuilding looks like a miniature American southern plantation, an architectural non

sequitur plunked down in the east side of Beijing. Tonight Im sitting in with the

house band, replacing their regular guitar player. The music is a mixture of blues,

Motown, and pop-jazz, performed by a mixture of American expatriots and local

Chinese musicians. During the break we all sit around and talk, munching on the free

meal the club provides us. The drummers name is Danny California (stage name,

Im guessing), a weathered middle-aged American wearing a cowboy hat, work shirt

and striped pants. He looks a bit like Don Imus. The Chinese musicians sit there

trying to eat their stuffed eggplant NAwleans style and Po boy sandwiches.

This is real Cajun food, Danny says to them slowly, in a loud

voice, as if they were deaf. They nod politely, even though they havent understood

him. Huang Yong, the bassist, says to me in Chinese, This is awful stuff. Why is

Western food so tasteless? I have to agree with him. Danny continues to talk to

them in uncompromisingly idiomatic American English. Whats wrong with the

groove tonight? he complains. I dont feel like its really in the pocket. Its like we

keepshifting gears up there. And I think the bass amp is about to croak. The two

Chinese musicians stare blankly at him, then at me, waiting for a translation. We talk

a bit more about the music, with me acting as interpreter. Huang Yong asks me why

the club is called the Big Easy. I tell him that this is the nickname for New Orleansor maybe the state of Louisiana?but I dont really know the origin of the name.

Huang Yong finds it amusing that I cant answer his question.

Youve learned so much about Chinese culture, youve forgotten your own,

he laughs. After a while the Chinese guys go outside to smoke cigarettes, and Danny

and I continue to talk. Though the two of us have almost nothing in common, there is

nevertheless a kind of easy affinity I feel when talking with another American. Its

like switching from dialup to broadband. Every nuance is registered, reflected or

deflected. Danny tells me that in addition to playing music, he also repairs

motorcycles in Beijing. He takes me out to the parking lot to have a look. Sure

enough, in the parking lot there are a couple of Nazi SS-style sidecar motorcycles,

both reconditioned, with plush padding on the seats and gleaming chrome. Beijing,

Nazis, California, James Brown, New Orleans. No such thing as a non-sequitur in

this day and age.

Why motorcycles? I ask. He eyes me with beady annoyance.

Why anything? he growls. Why do I play jazz? Why do I fuck women

instead of men? I nod sheepishly. Silly question.

One of Dannys Chinese friends spots Danny and walks over to him, giving

him a high five. They have a strange conversation, with Danny speaking in English

and the Chinese man speaking entirely in Chinese. Its not clear they understand eachother at all, but it seems not to matter. We go back inside.


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Danny is one of those self-exiled Americans, a member of an ever expanding

group of permanent expatriots living in Southeast Asia, all escaping failed marriages,

midlife crisis, deep depression, hopeless debt. I ask him if he plans to go back to the

States. Nah, Im through forever with the American thing, he says. America is

supposed to be the land of the free. I tell you, I never felt free for one minute while Iwas there. I was a slave to everything. To the traffic, to the job, to the companies, the

taxes, even to the TV. I was being herded like dumb goddamned cow, walking around

in circles in the corral, waiting to get my head conked and my guts pulled out to make

someone elses sausage. Here in the Far East I feel really free. I never know what

tomorrow is going to be like, but at least Im in control of today. Danny has

wandered Asia for the last decade, first living in Thailand for many years where he

had (or maybe still has) a wife, then working for a time in Hong Kong, where he

organized musical gigs on cruise ships. Now hes in Beijing. I ask him how he likes

it here.

I tell you, he says, Its no longer a matter of where I live. Its a matter of

how I live. I dont care about getting into the life here, understanding the people, the

culture. The longer I live the more I feel like culture is boring and pointless. It just

gets in the way. I like to connect with a person as an individual. I dont care if hes

Chinese or Martian. If we can hook up, get something going, fine. If not, I just move

on. Life is too short. What can I say? Beijing has food, it has taxicabs, it has

women. Its a city. I live in it. What else do you want to know?

Its time for the second set to start, and the musicians slowly assemble back on

the stage. Louis, the pianist, a balding black fellow in his late forties, is the nominal

leader of the group and takes care of the perfunctory MC chores. Each set beginswith a few instrumental numbers, and then they bring on Jacqui, Sugar Mama

Staton, the vocalist.

And now, straight from St. Louis USA, please put your hands together for

Sugar Mama! The crowd, about half of them foreigners, applaud enthusiastically.

Many have seen Jacquis act before, and are coming back to see her again.

Sugar Mama steps on the stage and the band kicks into an Aretha classic,

Respect. Im immediately impressed with her professionalism and natural stage

presence. Jacqui is large. Not fat, exactly, just LARGE. Like a Cadillac. To many of

the Chinese here she must seem almost like different species: the black skin, the

imposing lioness mane of hair, the extravagantly extroverted body language, the

fearless interaction with the audience. So different from the other professional female

vocalists in Beijing, who stand nearly motionless at relaxed attention, like a musical

Ming vase, crooning soft pop tunes in cool, polished tones. Jacqui is more like a

firecracker. She begins to work the crowd immediately, introducing each number

with a relaxed, improvised rap. Shes soulful, funny, a bit self-deprecating, and a little

off-color. She wails, bumps, grinds, sweats. She scoops up the low notes and nails

the high notes. Since Ive never rehearsed with the group, I have a little trouble

keeping up. There are no charts for the songs, so Im watching Huang Yongs fingers

and occasionally asking him for the chords to a bridge section. I keep quiet when Imnot sure about a chord change, and let loose when given a solo. During an intro to


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Georgia on My Mind, I happen to play exactly the same dominant-7-flat-9 chord as

Louis the pianist plays, and he smiles beatifically. But Jacqui is so much in charge,

that I just follow her for beginnings, endings, rhythmic interludes. The crowd loves

her, and by the end of the set, they are standing on their feet and cheering.

This Motown stuff is like a universal language, Louis says to me as we walk offthe stage. Wherever we go, people dig it. The Chinese cant get enough of it.

Jacqui hangs out with the band in the break room, stealing nachos off the plates of the

Chinese musicians, much to their annoyance. She is gregarious, relaxed, and playful

with everyone. She chats with me for a while.

Damn, your Chinese sounds good, Dave, she compliments me. (In a place

like this, Im always Dave it seems.) There must some reason you speak it so

good. Did you spend time in prison here, or what? I tell her Ive studied the

language for 15 years, and the process did seem a little like being in prison at times.

Well, thats something. All I can say is, if youd spent that much time and energy on

that guitar, youd be goddamned Segovia by now, and wed be paying money to see

you. Shes right, of course. And seeing how these westerners are living and playing

effortlessly in Beijing without a single phoneme of Chinese in their vocabulary, Im

suddenly wondering if my 15-year quest to learn Chinese was more Don Quixote than

Marco Polo.

Jacqui used to sing backup behind Ike and Tina Turner, honest to god. Shes

got stories. Shes also been floating around Asia for more than a decade. A firebrand

onstage, offstage she begins to take on the mannerisms of the 60-year-old African-

American woman she is. Ah, Dave, she says to me, massaging an aching back, If I

had known how long I was going to live, I would have taken better care of myself.When Jacqui goes off to get some food of her own, Huang Yong and asks

Danny and me Can you understand everything Jacqui says? Doesnt she speak with

some kind of dialect? We can all speak some English, but we can never understand

anything black people say. I tell him her accent is indeed different from the one they

had learned in school, but I can understand it perfectly well, because what she speaks

is not really a dialect (in the sense that Cantonese is a dialect of Chinese), but merely

a regional accent. Danny snorts at my hoity-toity English-professor explanation.

Hell, you dont need to listen to her words, he says to Huang Yong. Just

listen to her sing. The singing is communication, all the communication you really

need. Huang Yong grins and nods.

I sometimes think Danny is a genius, he says to me in Chinese. But a real

jerk. Hes always having arguments with Louis. And he criticizes my bass playing all

the time. Some Americans are so blunt and crude. They dont take into account the

dignity of the other person. I dont mean to say youre that way, but a lot of

Americans are. Yes, I tell him, I know exactly what he means. My attention drifts to

a pudgy foreign woman at a table next to the wallI assume her to be American

wearing a University of Michigan sweatshirt and reading a bible, the kind with a

sturdy black leather cover. Whats she doing in a club like this? I wonder. But

then, Im not sure what Im doing here myself. Maybe Danny is right. What are anyof us doing here? And what does it matter?


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I have been ignoring the ubiquitous TV mounted in the corner of the ceiling,

but suddenly I notice on the screen a commercial for Tide detergent, in Mandarin. In

a format mindlessly copied from classic American commercials, a dozen frilly-

aproned Chinese housewives (who dont look anything like real Chinese

housewives, but more like 1950s American June Cleaver clones) dance ecstatically ina flawless green backyard, amidst fluffy white sheets flapping on clotheslines.

Wow, I say, tapping Danny California on the shoulder. Do you sometimes

wonder where you are?

At my age, Im more confused about when I am, he says. Ive become

unstuck in time. He seems unaware of the reference to Vonneguts Slaughterhouse-

Five I never care what year were in now. I lost a whole decade to cocaine. Im

living in the future now, and I dont even know how I got here. I nod in agreement,

still staring at the screen. Yes, I somehow got transported to the free-floating future,

as well. The Tide commercial segues into a commercial for Kentucky Fried Chicken,

with an animated Colonel Sanders speaking in giddy Mandarin about the astonishing

bargains available at his restaurants. Huang Yong makes a vomiting noise, making

fun of the Colonels cuisine.

God, I miss drugs, Danny says to me. But for the Chinese, food is their

drug. Theyre fucking junkies. I can take or leave food. They gotta get their fix

every day.

As if on cue, Huang Yong says to me Lets go out and get some realfood.

There is a Xinjiangese guy in the alley outside selling yangrouchuanr, a kind of

mutton shish-kebab cooked over a charcoal fire, and we all head outside to buy a few

dozen skewers. As we stand there wiping grease from our chins, the Xinjiang guy,who has surmised that we are musicians, asks what kind of music we play.

Blues! says Huang Yong, though he says it with the usual string of Chinese

morphemes, BU-lu-SI.

Motown! adds Danny. Do you know who Aretha Franklin is? I smile and

wait for the Xinjiang guys reaction. It seems unlikely that he understands any

English at all, much less that he listens to Aretha Franklin.

To my surprise, the Xinjiang guy laughs and shouts Aretha! R-E-S-P-E-C-

T! I nearly drop myyang rou chuanr. My sense of disorientation is deep and dizzy.

Danny California seems unfazed.

My man! he says, biting off a piece of cooked mutton with such force that

the flimsy wooden stick breaks. My mind seems to travel out of my body and swirl

into the sky along with the charcoal smoke and mosquitoes, where I look down from a

birds-eye view at our little group of world citizens, communicating with a million-

year-old language of hands and eyes and vocal grunts saying were still here, were

still evolving.

And I think: Culture is dead. Long live culture.

the beijing big easy

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