The author, in The Den circa 1999, wearing a wig for reasons unclear and not committed to memory.

Beijing has no use for your nostalgia. But when news that The Den was closing reached abroad last week it warranted a moment of reflection.

I have not set foot in The Den since 2002, and from the sounds of reports from Beijing this week, that was for the better. The Den, a European sports bar? That’s what Hidden Tree was for. Then again, Zhang Yimou makes CPC propaganda now.

Early Sanlitun was a dynamic, rogue, multicultural municipal experiment. And The Den, for a time, was its prince.

When The Den opened in 1997 it was a fresh, sexy, low-lights nook that evoked both opium den romance and illegal speakeasy raucousness. Today this bar-with-Mandarin-characteristics design — red lacquer and carved wood — is replicated in countless pubs across China as well as every Shanghai Tang boutique. New York City’s Pearl River Market sells for cheap the design elements that made The Den unique when it opened. In 1997, Beijing’s framed 1920s cigarette girl antique ads were all real and Alan Chan was just some guy in Hong Kong making retro postcards.

The Den combined two things Sanlitun revelers had already proved they wanted. The refinement of Jazzya and the drunken youthful abandon of Poacher’s unfussy dance floor. (This was the first, illegal, fire-trap Poachers on north Sanlitun before it moved into Chaoyang Park.)

The rugby brutes listening to Van Morrison had Durty Nellie’s, and the moody sophisticates giddy to bump into Cui Jian or Kaiser Kuo had Jam House. The horny old men had Maggie’s (and, honestly, 90% of the other bars in Beijing). The expats blinded by the optimism of youth and excited by a future in which their adventure in China was meaningful had The Den.

The Den’s owner, Meng Tong, was the closest Beijing will probably ever have to Rick. A friendly and handsome Chinese rake with a mysterious backstory, Meng was a presence over whom even the foreign girls swooned. (Too bad, ladies, at the time Meng was dating the daughter of the US ambassador.)

I spent no small amount of time with Meng in those early years. My roommate and I launched a monthly networking event — Young Professionals Happy Hour — and often held it at The Den. For a time, The Den also sold some of our hats and bags under the label The Chopstick Factory. More than once I jumped behind the bar and served free drinks to crowds swaying shoulder to shoulder, all with Meng’s blessing. One night, we convinced a traveling Hawaiian hula troop to drop by The Den and perform. To promote the event we “borrowed” a neon palm tree from the theater department at the International School of Beijing (then at the Holiday Inn Lido). The crushing crowd and ensuing half-riot ended with the Hawaiians fleeing into Ernie’s next door (formerly Frank’s).

And the dancing. Oh the dancing. The Den doesn’t have dancing anymore? What good is it then?

Unlike the cavernous, airline hanger dance halls popping up then (Big Ball; Nightman), The Den was tight. In fact, The Den was too small with ceilings too low to really be a dance space at all, which is what made it a perfect dance space. It was before good DJs came to Beijing, so dancers pinballed off each other in the tight upstairs to whatever the terrible hits of the day were, from the Spice Girls to Ricky Martin. If you bet me The Den played “Mambo Number 5” eight times in one night I would hold my money. Santana and Rob Thomas provided the soundtrack for tipsy young lawyers grinding on diplomatic contractors hoping to someday pass the foreign service exam. Nobody could tell what was the sweat and what was the spilled gin and tonics, and nobody cared. When Chumbawumba got knocked down (but got up again) the floor felt like it might collapse. And it being China, it might have been close. And if it did, well, we were going to the downstairs bar for a refill soon anyway.

The Den’s momentum was not sustainable, of course. Even by 2000, its popularity was ebbing, eclipsed by nearby haunts in the shadow of Workers Stadium, like the Havana Club and Vic’s, the latter having been opened by Meng himself.

Fun at the early Den was not just its unpredictability but also its inclusion. Unlike the predator-prey dynamics of most of the period’s expat bars, The Den was home to young professionals both Chinese and foreign. Students who grabbed a miandi (面包车 taxis) over from the west side universities rubbed shoulders with Chinese junior associates at foreign firms, expat interns at NGOs, and China Hands-in-training. Chinese and expat colleagues now often socialize together, but in 1997 that was rare. But not rare at The Den. Unlike the crowds at other Sanlitun nightspots, a surprising number of expats in The Den spoke at least a workable amount of Mandarin. The in-it-togetherness of the early Den created an atmosphere of respect, if a naughty one.

Abe Sauer has lived on and off in China for a quarter of his life starting in 1987. He’s an author and on Twitter @abesauer.

Sunday, December 13, 2015: The Den’s final night

Since 1997 in Beijing, it’s been possible to answer “Where can I get a really nasty Old Fashioned and a 900-gram burger at 5am?” “Who’s showing the goat-wrestling qualifiers?” and “What happened to my phone?” with the same words: The Den. Last weekend, all that changed. Seventeen years after President Jiang Zemin ordered the Chinese military to give up its illegally owned commercial enterprises, local units in Beijing have begun to reluctantly comply (further closures have already been announced). As of Monday,  the city’s only 24-hour all-in-one sports bar, restaurant, short-time hotel, crisis-counseling centre, divorced men’s networking club, Pattaya tribute venue and dipsomaniacal dog whistle is no more.*

The Den… shut?

“A continuing expansion of competition and a slowing economy may both be playing a role in the changing of Beijing’s bar scene,” reckoned the Beijinger when the news surfaced some weeks ago. Competition? Slowing economy? Changing bar scene – The Den? All that seemed grist to its mill. The Den was not only recession and puke-proof, it was the kind of place people went to because they were unemployed. One doubts its patrons gave much of a passing care about “scenes,” artisanal infusions or whatever pop-up concepts make the long, hard-seat journey from the West to Beijing. The craft beer revolution was something that just happened to other bars; The Den was popularizing gastro-enteritis long before the gastro pub humped its way into the local consciousness. To the world outside it may have been 2015, but over in the People’s Republic of Denezuela, it was perpetually 2007.

For a long time I didn’t get the appeal of the place, finding it always populated by aging sports enthusiasts whose faces had exploded. My mistake was timing: I was coming in at sane hours, like lunchtime or 11pm on a Thursday. You needed to hit The Den at a very exact sweet spot. Peak Den was between the clubs closing on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday and the rest of the world getting up and going about its respectable business: say, 4 am – 7 am. This was when the magic happened. There aren’t many bars in Beijing where it feels dangerous to get chummy with the regulars after a certain hour, but The Den firmly ranked as one. For all its friendly aggression, actual fights were rare, though the staff were regularly called upon to remind emotional patrons how to leave. Closing time: You don’t have to go home, but maybe you should, because it’s midday and you’re hitting on barstools and frightening children.

Here’s an Iranian man being helped to the door on a quiet Thursday afternoon

Tributes have been pouring in since the news broke, ranging from pithy (“Wut?”) to prosaic (“Fuck”). What was it about this place that inspired such poetry? What ensured its runner-up success in such categories of the Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards as Bar Where a Lay is Most Likely Followed by Postcoital Triste, Probably Because You Paid for a Hooker (2^nd place, 2012) and Worst Place to Go if You’re Feeling Mildly Suicidal (2^nd place, 2012), before stealing the crown at 2013’s ceremony for Most Likely to Encounter a Cockeyed Sot Who Harbors Bad, Bad Intentions?

What was the Definitive Den experience?

The people

Sure, there was the half-price pizza, the five-hour Happy Hour, the football, the fact that it was open. But for many, it was about the people: you’d get the full gamut, and gamut is definitely the word we need here. Tourists would wash up here at 4 am and not believe their luck. Surly Eastern European dancers and Gongti shift workers, Aeroflot crews on layover, aging expats who could remember visiting the Goose & Duck Ranch; Chinese students visiting in the mistaken belief that this was a suitable venue to bring someone you hadn’t slept with yet; visiting scholars; Tier-88 entrepreneurs pressing business cards into the hands of elderly Australian men; borderline schizophrenics; saturnine Germans that arrived at 3 am to watch Munich Bayern battle for the third-place playoffs of the Hofmeister Cup (who drank four pints and spoke to no one); expat sporting societies almost as old as The Den; the entire cast of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet ; angry Russians who’d been exiled from the Russian exile community… all were Denizens.

Denders

Because The Den never closed, it invited the most ridiculous benders: Benders seemingly without end, benders that would leave your taste buds numbed for a week. 24 hours in The Den? Child’s play.

A Russian man expresses his love of The Den

Hookers

Probably the most overplayed aspect of Den life. Sure, in the wee hours, there was usually someone happy to meet your glassy-eyed gaze and steadily hold it; the odd brass; the occasional strumpet or two. But The Den wasn’t exactly the Red Mansion. More a last-chance saloon for Nigerian baby mamas on their way to a sweet retirement gig jacking-off pensioners.

The ‘Denu’

A multipage, pleather-bound tome with a nice heft to it, covering a wide array of, uh, “cuisines,” The Den’s food was part of the venue’s core appeal: No nonsense. Solid. Unpretentious. If you’re down with The Den’s food, then you’re all right with me – you’re OK.

This beef tenderloin, priced at a gentle 68 yuan, was Tao’s last Den meal and supposed to come with mash but they’d run out. He didn’t mind

Unlike most restaurants, The Den’s picture menu was unafraid to dramatically lower customers’ expectations with blurred, two-megapixel shots of congealing sauces atop lonely cuts of meat, captioned with unpunctuated, unadorned prose describing the various ingredients. If a menu could be said to have a “voice,” then The Den was Samuel Beckett reading aloud government warnings from a carton of Mongolian filterless cigarettes. Thus, the actual quality of the grub was a consistent surprise. Hits included the pizza, steak, sausages and mash, and, of course, “Eggs Norway,” the classy European breakfast choice for any true international Denizen. On the other hand, the “Lamb donner pitta roll” [sic] was a diplomatic incident waiting to happen. For my final repast on Sunday, I spun the wheel and chose the Corned-Beef Hash with Sweet Peas for the first time. Like a chef on condemned-man’s-last-meal duty, The Den produced something thoroughly digestible that I would, like the venue, never revisit again.

What are your thoughts, Beijing? Be a true Denizen and have no shame while sharing your best (and worst) Den moments. (Feel free to email.) Whatever your story, it’s not gonna beat this:

*The Den will be back, don’t you worry. But for now, if you see a fifty-year-old bleary-eyed British man tottering about and banging on the locked doors of Gung-Ho Pizza at 4 am, give him a hug.

Only a week ago we were lamenting the dearth of female presence at a UN Women’s event in Beijing; now comes an event that celebrates a plus size of it.

The Miss Plus Size International pageant, to be held this Saturday at a luxury hotel in downtown Beijing, isn’t a contest one would immediately associate with China, but – fuck it, it’s happening, and there’s nothing we can do about it. As 36-year-old contestant Anne Homu told Time Out, “There’s a lot of big-sized Chinese and maybe they’ll get confidence if they see us.”

The current lineup features plus-size (US size 12, UK size 16) entrants from the UK, Angola, Gabon, Egypt, India, Portugal, Rwanda, Greece, Russia, Samoa, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the US — and one from China, “Baby Tiger.” Ditching the swimsuits, the 16 contestants will compete over four rounds — Fashion Casual Wear, Fashion Trouser Wear, Evening Gown, and Talent — to win a top prize of RMB 6,000.

Although beauty contests are seen back home as hip and vital as Donald Trump’s shriveled organs, this one’s about empowerment in a non-judgmental environment and all that jazz. “Curves are in!” the organizers say: “Larger women are often rejected by other beauty pageants and this Pageant is here to change the perception of the world.”

If you have 300 kuai to hand, were only planning to spend it on cheap drinks, and would like to have your perceptions changed, what are you waiting for?

POSTSCRIPT: “Miss Plus Size Beijing is a brain child of Dr Samantha Sibanda a Zimbabwean currently based in Beijing.”

Ed’s note: Tickets to the Bookworm Literary Festival went on sale on Saturday. This year’s program — here’s a downloadable PDF of it – is impressive for both its diversity of content — two journalism panels, stand-up comedy, art, environment, tech, trivia – and the strength of the visiting authors — Chang-rae Lee, Yasmina Khadra, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Willis Barnstone, Victoria Hislop, Michael Meyer. Many events will probably go overlooked. They shouldn’t be.

Festival coordinator Thomas Price picks 13 events — 13 because opening night is Friday the 13th — that deserve a little more attention.

Disclosure: I am also a Bookworm Literary Festival coordinator. If you’d like to see my picks — of 13 “highlights” — pop on over to LumDimSum. [A.T.]

The Queen of Statue Square: New Short Fiction from Hong Kong

Xu Xi | The Bookworm, Sat March 14, 4 pm | BW14D 80 RMB

Thomas says: All eyes were on Hong Kong for much of last year, and for good reason. But while this eclectic cultural hub has long been a global treasure on the cinematic scene, its literary contributions have long gone overlooked — don’t be party to this criminal neglect, and go see one of the most active of Hong Kong’s literati in her element.

Event description: The past year has been one of the most eventful and turbulent in Hong Kong history since the handover. In this event, Xu Xi presents short stories from a new anthology of contemporary Hong Kong fiction, which she edited with Marshall Moore. The stories relate to the ever-relevant issue of Hong Kong identity, written by Hong Kong residents from several walks of life, and cuts to the heart of what it means to be a Hong Konger at a time when such definitions are fluid at best.

Writing Between the Sheets

Faramerz Dabhoiwala, Jemimah Steinfeld, Lijia Zhang | The Bookworm, Sun March 15, noon | BW15B 80 RMB

Thomas says: Hopefully the topic won’t scare too many squeamish readers away — we have some authorities on the topic to talk about defying the taboos and writing about sex.

Event description: Sexual openness is still perceived by many in China as a toxic Western influence, or a flaw in moral character. Yet, increasingly, people are risking disapproval to embrace sexual liberty in its many forms. Why, and how? Join us for a discussion featuring Faramerz Dabhoiwala, author of The Origins of Sex; Lijia Zhang, whose novel Lotus focuses on prostitution in modern China; and Jemimah Steinfeld, whose book Little Emperors and Material Girls examines China’s sex and youth culture. This event is in English and Chinese.

Rainbows in the Night: Chinese Contemporary Queer Writing and Filmmaking

Elisabeth Lund Engebretsen, Popo Fan, Shou Juan; moderated by James Yang | The Bookworm, Sun March 15, 4 pm | BW15D 80 RMB

Thomas says: Always relevant, and never clear-cut, LGBT issues in China remain a talking point the world over. This year’s festival event looks at the state of queer literature and film in the Middle Kingdom, offering insight on one of the most interesting microcosms of Chinese arts today.

Event description: China has a long history of queer literature and culture, from Long Yangjun to Jia Baoyu, the opera The Fragrant Companion to the movie Beijing Story. Recently, many works with strong LGBT themes have emerged, but few have entered the mainstream due to China’s publishing standards. How do authors and filmmakers in this genre push back against institutional challenges? What is their creation process, and how do they obtain feedback for their – as panelist Popo Fan puts it – “rainbows in the night”? Join our distinguished panel of writers and filmmakers for an eye-opening discussion on these and other issues. This event is in English and Chinese.

Evident: Spoken-Word Poetry Performance

Zohab Zee Khan | The Bookworm, Sun March 15, 8 pm | BW15F 80 RMB

Thomas says: Poetry is getting more and more popular among youth in Beijing (thanks in part to regular poetry events, including those at The Bookworm). Here we have the opportunity to witness young, raw talent at its sharpest. Zohab won the Australian Slam Poetry championship last year, and so mustn’t be missed by poetry fans or those wondering what it’s all about.

Event description: In a rousing set, Zohab Zee Khan combines poetry with hip-hop to enthrall and entertain, giving listeners a new outlook on the possibilities of the spoken word. Khan is the 2014 Australian Poetry Slam champion and 2014 International Poetry Slam finalist. He is also a proficient didgeridoo player, harmonica beat-boxer, and percussionist.

Dogs at the Perimeter

Madeleine Thien | iQiyi, Sun March 15, 8 pm | IQ15A 60 RMB

Thomas says: Madeleine Thien is one of those brilliant writers whose works become critical darlings but fail to grab too large a foothold in the popular consciousness. Here she talks about her latest book, a haunting novel set in Cambodia after years of conflict and horror.

Event description: Award-winning Canadian novelist Madeleine Thien has written a powerful and starkly beautiful novel about Cambodia, Dogs at the Perimeter, which was a finalist of the 2014 International Literature Prize awarded in Berlin. Investigating the long-term damage of conflict and grief on life and on the mind, she weaves these ideas into luminous prose. She talks about her deeply moving new novel.

The Unbearable Dreamworld of Champa the Driver

Chan Koonchung | iQiyi, Mon March 16, 8 pm | IQ16A 60 RMB

Thomas says: While it’s impossible to pick favourites, this book has been a surprise hit amongst the Bookworm staff, who got to preview this year’s festival books ahead of time. At first unassuming and not too attention-grabbing, those who take the plunge and pick up the book are unlikely to be disappointed. This event promises the chance to hear and converse with the author of this and The Fat Years.

Event description: Chan Koonchung, whose first novel, The Fat Years, was a dystopian sci-fi thriller about a society enslaved by consumerism, has returned with another work to test the boundaries. The Unbearable Dreamworld of Champa the Driver follows the life of a young man from Lhasa who takes a driving job for a Han businesswoman. Cosmopolitan, car-loving, and Mandarin-speaking, he embarks on an affair with his older, status-conscious employer. When he leaves for Beijing, the relationship unravels along with his boyish dreams, which crack under the weight of endemic racism.

Child of War

Kim Thúy | iQiyi, Tues March 17, 7 pm | IQ17A 60 RMB

Thomas says: In a festival stuffed with unique multicultural voices, Kim Thuy’s is one that still demands attention. The Vietnamese Quebecois author has seen both success critical and commercial in French, and her works translated into a variety of languages. Her novels Ru and Man are available at the Bookworm, and the woman herself will be here to discuss her works, her themes, and what her unique voice offers us as readers.

Event description: Born in 1968 into war-torn Vietnam, Thúy was one of the boat people who fled the country when she was 10 years old. A former seamstress, restaurant owner, interpreter, and lawyer, she now resides in Montreal as a full-time writer. In the prologue of her first novel, Ru, Thúy wrote: “In French, ru means a small stream and figuratively, a flow, a discharge – of tears, of blood, of money. In Vietnamese, ru means a lullaby, to lull.” Find out what she feels it means to her in this talk about displacement and identity.

Research, Inquiry, and the Writer’s Work

Faramerz Dabhoiwala, Stephen Mooser, Steven Schwankert, Simon Denyer | The Bookworm, Tues March 17, 1 pm|BW17B 80 RMB

Thomas says: At first it sounds like the kind of lecture first-year undergraduates dread — but on second look, this might be one of our most fascinating and insightful panels. So much of a writer’s work is research, to help fiction ring true or keep non-fiction honest, and our writers for this event are old hands at the process. This event sheds light on perhaps the least-known part of the writer’s work.

Event description: Contrary to what some might think (or hope), a writer’s story rarely emerges from the mind fully formed. Indeed, it’s often pieced together through research, requiring patience, resourcefulness, and painstaking attention to detail. In this talk, four writers known for pursuing very different subject matters discuss their working process.

I Am China

Xiaolu Guo | The Bookworm, Fri March 20, 1 pm | BW20B 60 RMB

Thomas says: Xiaolu Guo is a story-weaver comfortable on both the page and the screen. Her fascinating A Concise Chinese Dictionary for Lovers captivated audiences the world over, but especially in the Chinese expat scene, given its cross-cultural relationship subject matter. Her latest book is her largest and most ambitious to date, and attendees shouldn’t miss this talk by the engaging and vivacious author.

Event description: I Am China is the new novel from Xiaolu Guo, author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, inspired by Allen Ginsberg’s poem “America” – a look at rock and roll youth living in exile. The book is “a multilayered exploration of politics and culture across three continents,” writes The Guardian. “Cultural references, from Johnny Rotten to Erik Satie, are refracted through a lens of Chinese politics.”

The Writer’s Life :: 作家生活

Will Buckingham, Zhi An | The Bookworm, Wed March 18, 6 pm | BW18C 80 RMB

Thomas says: A down-to-earth but not rose-tinted look at the reality of life for writers of many stripes, both past and present. Zhi An, biographer of Lu Xun’s brother Zhou Zuoren, joins contemporary British novelist and philosophy writer Will Buckingham to discuss the many-faced beast that is the writer’s life.

Event description: Oft romanticized but just as often misunderstood, what actually constitutes life for a writer? Chinese author Zhi An and British author Will Buckingham discuss the realities of this no-collar job. Zhi is the author of a biography about Zhou Zuo Ren, brother of Lu Xun, China’s greatest modern writer, while Buckingham writes novels and philosophy, and is the author of a guide for aspiring novelists called Write a Novel Course. This event is in English and Chinese.

Pathlight Magazine: Creation, Translation, Publication

Eric Abrahamsen, Dave Haysom, Nicky Harman, Sun Yisheng | iQiyi, Mon March 23, 8 pm| IQ23A 60 RMB

Thomas says: The process of writing a short story can itself be a tale worth telling. But throw in the subsequent journeys through translation, editing, and publication and you have a talk not to be missed. Again, this is one of those that seems like work at first glance, but is sure to be an engaging and eye-opening look at a part of the writing process we usually try not to think about. Retaining an author’s voice while communicating the same meaning is a delicate balancing act, and one that our panelists are more than qualified to illuminate for us.

Event description: This event will focus on a single short story — tracing its progress from the original composition in Chinese through the entire process of translation, editing, and finally publication — with local author Sun Yisheng, translator Nicky Harman, and Pathlight editors Eric Abrahamsen and Dave Haysom. This event is in English and Chinese.

The Reward of Complex Literature

Dorothy Tse, Xi Ni Er, Guadalupe Nettel | The Bookworm, Tues March 24, 8 pm | BW24D 80 RMB

Thomas says: Suggest sitting down with some James Joyce or Shakespeare are you’re likely to meet with groans in a teenage classroom – but for those of us who know better, young or old, complex literature is an immensely rewarding experience. Whether an avid literary bookworm yourself, or just contemplating dipping your toe into the vast sea that is Literature with a capital L, this talk is worth a second look. Our speakers are themselves old hands at delving deep into meaning and metaphor, while keeping their writing accessible even to those for whom reading is more of a fond, occasional hobby than an all-consuming passion.

Event description: A talk about the stories of humans and human societies, featuring authors who impart powerful messages and contemplate complex issues through their writing: surrealist Dorothy Tse, master of metaphor Guadalupe Nettel, and realist Xi Ni Er. Join them in a conversation about literature as message and messenger.

British Short Stories

Zoe Gilbert, Adam Marek, Rachel Trezise | The Bookworm, Sun March 29, 2 pm | BW29C 80 RMB 

Thomas says: More than a little bias went into this choice, I admit. Here we have a trinity of British short story writers whose prose is excellent, but who may fly under the radar for readers who tend to just go for bestsellers and book club choices. Literature is still something most people associate with Britain (despite a century dominated by incredible American writers), and these modern writers from across the isles are all names worth knowing.

Event description:  Superhero dictators, East German opera lovers, dreamers and hunters… a restaurant for zombies, Wales’s Rhondda Valley, a taxidermy class… these are just some of the characters and settings in the short stories of Adam Marek, Rachel Trezise, and Zoe Gilbert, who’ll share their works and introduce other imaginative, riveting, mordant works of contemporary British fiction.

Thomas Price is a Bookworm Literary Festival coordinator. Tickets for the Bookworm Literary Festival are available at The Bookworm.

Okay folks, here’s your final reminder that Flash Fiction for Charity is happening this afternoon at 2:30 pm at Great Leap Brewing’s Original No. 6. All the details you need are here. On a semi-related note, while Beijing Cream will still post over the summer (Beige Wind on Thursdays, in particular), I’ll personally be scaling back for about two months starting next week (travel, etc), so come by and say hi and I’ll let you know how you can help us keep going.

For now, below are the profiles of the five selected readers at this afternoon’s event. We’ll give listeners a chance to vote for their favorite, so begin familiarizing yourself with them now. The top two get great prizes sponsored by GLB (it’ll probably involve beer; we hope that’s okay).

In addition, our celebrity readers, Susan Barker and Kaiser Kuo (who should need no intros, but click here if you must), will regale us with their original work.

Daniel Tam-Claiborne

I am a currently a student at the IUP program at Tsinghua University, and will spend 10 months on a Gruber Fellowship working on a microfinance initiative with the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation (中国扶贫基金会) in Beijing. I have lived here for exactly one month, but have spent about 2.5 years cumulatively in China. My first book of fiction entitled What Never Leaves based on my travels and work in Asia was published in 2012 by Wilder Voice Press.

Story: If Not for the Melon

William Wang:

William Wang is a Canadian guy who came to Beijing because someone once told him that China is the best country. He’s been here for seven years now, presently working as a guy who makes videos for China Radio International. Yes, he knows you can’t watch videos on the radio.

What do you like best about this city?
It’s really hard to piss people off in Beijing.

Story: The Antecedents of a Rodent

Qing Qing Chen:

Born and raised in Tianjin until age nine, Qing Qing considers New York City and Beijing her spirit homes. A stint in journalism proved she’s bad at putting out volumes on command, and, at solitude. She’s now Managing Director at a creative agency, assigning commands. Writing has been the way since spiral Mead notebooks, and it’s done out of instinct, like a more perfect, capable, emotional human. In her “Why I’m Leaving Beijing” after two-and-a-half years column, she cites “conscious uncoupling,” “masochistic behavior,” and “infidelity” only to conclude with “oh baby… I want you back!” by Jackson 5.

Story: Reckoning

Rosalyn Shih:

Been working in Beijing as a college counselor for about a year and a half. She is the only sibling of three who doesn’t currently live in Hong Kong. She also enjoys dancing in unusual contexts.

My favorite thing about Beijing is watching old men write calligraphy with over-sized brushes.

Story: Taishan No. 20

Jacques Qu:

I came to Beijing when I was 15 and lived seven years here before going to the US for graduate school. I came back in 2010 and now work in Apple as a sales operation manager. Writing is the only thing that makes me feel fully engaged. I love the feeling of creating moments that may touch people’s hearts and capture the elusive truth of life.

Story: Delivery

Flash Fiction for Charity is July 13, 2:30 pm at GLB Original No. 6. 50 RMB gets you free beer, with all proceeds going to Educating Girls of Rural China. Direct all inquiries to fiction@beijingcream.com.

We’re two days away from Flash Fiction for Charity at Great Leap Brewing’s Original No. 6 (friendly emphasis: that’s the courtyard/hutong location). The doors will open at 2:30 pm, with the event kicking off shortly thereafter. If you’re interested in a seat, we have just a few spots still available for reservation: please email fiction@beijingcream.com. (We’ll also take walk-ups, but you might have to stand/lean.) The 50 RMB ticket gets you a free beer, with all proceeds going to Educating Girls of Rural China.

Over the past week, judges read 29 anonymized entries and did the agonizing deed of choosing only five. All the caveats of these sort of subjective appraisals apply here: don’t be disheartened if your submission was not chosen. Be the opposite: we’re hoping a vibrant crowd of fiction lovers will gather this Sunday; we already know representatives from several fiction circles in town (a reading group, at least two writing groups, an online writers colony, etc) will be present, so let’s mingle and have fun.

While we had to choose five readers, how happy we are that these are our five:

• William Wang, The Antecedents of a Rodent
• Daniel Tam-Claiborne, If Not for the Melon
• Qing Qing Chen, Reckoning
• Rosalyn Shih, Taishan No. 20
• Jacques Qu, Delivery

In addition, Kaiser Kuo – rock star, Sinica host — will be reading a story about a dishwasher’s coming-of-age in early-90s Beijing, and Susan Barker will be reading an excerpt from her acclaimed novel The Incarnations.

We’ll have two more posts before the event, including a Q-and-A with an EGRC advisor and some mini-profiles of the readers. For now, here are the first lines of the winning entries:

The Antecedents of a Rodent. “I had a dream last night. Mother says rats don’t dream, but I do.”

If Not for the Melon. “We discussed it, and after a time decided on the watermelon.”

Reckoning. “The faintings started on the subway.”

Taishan No. 20. “I didn’t smoke my first real cigarette until I was twenty-five.”

Delivery. “6 AM, I wake up on my upper bunk in the company dormitory with a lingering happiness from a dream.”

Flash Fiction for Charity is July 13, 2:30 pm at GLB Original No. 6. Direct all inquiries to fiction@beijingcream.com.

Meet the writers here:

• William Wang, The Antecedents of a Rodent
• Daniel Tam-Claiborne, If Not for the Melon
• Qing Qing Chen, Reckoning
• Rosalyn Shih, Taishan No. 20
• Jacques Qu, Delivery

In addition, Kaiser Kuo – rock star, Sinica host — will be reading a story about a dishwasher’s coming-of-age in early-90s Beijing, and Susan Barker will be reading an excerpt from her acclaimed novel The Incarnations.

Update: We’ve extended the submission deadline to July 6. Click here for some inspiration.

Attention, writers of Beijing: we’re holding a flash fiction reading on Sunday, July 13 at Great Leap Brewing‘s Original No. 6 location (Doujiao Hutong No. 6). Space is limited, so we’re asking those interested to register by emailing us – spots will be reserved on a first-come, first-served basis. The cost is 50 RMB, which includes a select GLB beer, with all proceeds going to the charity Educating Girls of Rural China. Also, importantly: we’re seeking readers!

Until Friday, July 4, email us (fiction@beijingcream.com) stories between 500 and 700 words that fit the theme “Beijing.” Entries will be anonymized and read by our judges…

• Alice Xin Liu, managing editor of the literary journal Pathlight
• Alec Ash, founder and editor of the writers colony the Anthill
• Leslie-Ann Murray, MFA-Rutgers, winner of the 2013 Literary Death Match in Beijing and host of the biweekly Bookworm event “Writing on Walls” (check out her blog)

…who will select at least five winners based on literary merit. These people will be asked to present their work on July 13, alongside “celebrity readers.” For your efforts, all readers will be rewarded two GLB beers each.

There’ll be a fun little competitive wrinkle that we’ll introduce later. (Or we’ll tell you now: audience members will vote for their favorites and the top two vote-getters will face off in a to-be-determined game to see who goes home with an all-you-can-drink voucher good for you and a friend. As if you needed incentive to read your own fiction.)

Get writing, people. Here’s all the above info packaged in millennial form:

WHAT: The Beijing Cream Flash Fiction Contest / Reading at Great Leap Brewing
WHERE: Great Leap Brewing Original No. 6
WHEN: Sunday, July 13 (afternoon; exact time tbd)
WHY: For literary fun and to benefit the charity Educating Girls of Rural China
COST: 50 rmb
AND: Reserve seats by emailing fiction@beijingcream.com

ALSO: Submit stories between 500 and 700 words to fiction@beijingcream.com by July 4 that fit the theme “Beijing” for a chance to participate in this event, receive free beers, and be toasted for your literaryness.

Download podcast | Size: 52.9 MB

On April 16, Alec Ash of the Anthill gathered eight writers (technically nine) to read stories at Cu Ju, a rum bar in the hutongs owned by the somewhat legendary Badr Benjelloun, who paired each writer with a rum. The result was glorious. Alec graciously allowed us to record the entirety of that event, which we now present to you as an episode of The Creamcast.

The audio has been edited to remove Badr’s rum introductions. (Update: per request, the unedited version is here.) Below is a table of contents for those who want to skip to specific writers.

6-min mark: Anthony Tao poem, “Broken Scotch”

10-min: Steven Schwankert on the British navy and rum

20:30: Nick Compton, “Baijiu, Baby”

28-min: Hannah Lincoln non-fiction about teenage love

34:30: Carlos Ottery, “Big in Beijing”

Alec Ash’s “Drinking Alone” about his London days was written specially for the night and has been kept out of the podcast by request.

43:30: Stephen Nashef, a creative translation of a Li Bai poem, “Let’s Drink!”

48-min: Amy Daml, “Peng”

56-min: Tom Pellman, selections from The Trip to Echo Spring: Why Writers Drink

Download Episode 14 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

You’ve probably heard the rumors of 4corners’s demise, but are they premature? “Forced renovations” is how owners Tavey Lin and Jun Trinh describe their popular bar/restaurant/livehouse’s impending (temporary?) closure.* What this means for the rest of us is two huge parties, today and tomorrow. To get a preview, I sat down with Tavey and Jun on Wednesday. In addition to looking ahead, they couldn’t help reminiscing a bit about everything, from parties to concerts to bathroom sex.

THE FIRST PARTY

4corners opened in December 2011, and its first party, that very month, was called Bar Breaking Party, which coincided with the first of what would eventually be three renovations. (Fourth forthcoming.)

Jun: “We were supposed to be more of a restaurant space rather than a bar space in the beginning. So the idea was that the bar would be here [in the center] and accessible from all the different rooms.”

Tavey: “We invited all of our friends to come here and take sledgehammers and smash the whole bar because we were gonna do renovations.”

The new path that was carved out, from the front area to the back bathroom, Jun called “hookup lane.”

Jun: “If you can’t hook up with somebody by the time you get to the bathroom, we can’t help you.”

THE FIRST (and only?) FIGHT

Jun: “There have been a shit ton of parties here. At one point they all merge and become one giant party and we can’t really discern the differences between them anymore. Well, there was one time I had to knock out a drunk customer because he was trying to fight me after walking through the courtyard door. He bumped into it and he got angry, so he started to beat the courtyard door up. In the process he cut up his hands pretty badly and we tried to help him, but when I got to him he thought I wanted to fight him.”

BJC: “You were the door fighting back.”

Jun: “Yeah, exactly. So in the midst of it all at one point I couldn’t really control him anymore, so I had to head-butt him in the face. Then we were able to apply bandages to him before his friend showed up. His friend asked ‘Did you do this?’ and I say, ‘No, man, he punched that door!’”

BATHROOM SEX

Jun: “Besides that incident, in the two and a half years we’ve been here we haven’t had a single fight. Like an actual fight. We haven’t had an actual fight in 4corners in two and a half years. We’ve had more people probably having sex in the bathroom or whatever else.”

BJC: “Yeah…”

Jun: “You say ‘yeah’ very confidently.”

Tavey: “Yeah! You’re asking us about crazy stuff that’s happened, but…”

BJC: “Haha, yeah, well — I know a pair who’ve had sex in your bathroom.”

Jun: “God! Well, it’s a good thing we got that all out in the open.”

BJC: “How often does that happen? And what do you do?”

Jun: “From the tapes, uhhhh, probably six or seven times.”

BJC: “You can see??”

Tavey: “There’re no tapes!”

Jun: “Haha, anyway, well, we don’t actually know.”

Tavey: “It’s the real way we make our money. We put these tapes online.”

Jun: “We help couples have affairs, too.”

Tavey: “Oh yeah, well there was that guy who proposed to his girlfriend here. We had a goddamn wedding here!”

THE FIRST CHINESE NEW YEAR

The bar’s capacity was put to the test at a Chunjie party in 2012.

Jun: “This one showed us how many people we could get in — it was massive. We had a huge dinner that night.”

Tavey: “Yeah, a big buffet.”

Jun: “Huge buffet. It was over 100…”

Tavey: “Nah, 80 people. I was there, I was selling tickets: 80 people for the buffet. Then just a shitload more people showed up later and just partied. People later went out to the back and on to the roof and watched the fireworks over Gulou.”

Jun: “And nobody hurt themselves, which was a miracle.”

Tavey: “It was our friend, or maybe his twin brother, that fell while climbing the wall up to the roof. He landed perfectly on his ass and he was just sitting there looking up at me, ‘Wow, I can’t believe I’m not dead!’ He got back up and climbed back on to the roof again.”

Tavey: “It was our first huge party.”

Jun: “We used to always say like 300 people were there.”

Tavey: “It was one of those times when people couldn’t get cabs late at night so people just like started accumulating until the morning when people could take the subway.”

Jun: “Did the cops come that night?”

Tavey: “No they did not.”

BJC: “Is that a success?”

Tavey: “Yeah…”

Jun: “The cops haven’t come here in a while actually. Months actually. Its been months and months. I wonder who I should be giving money to.”

Tavey: “Apparently you’ve already given them the money. Or done something.”

MOST MEMORABLE/RANDOM EVENT

Party-hosting can take its toll. At times it can take 300 neuroscientists and a bucket of water to mix things up — which, of course, actually happened.

Tavey: “The night of the 300 neuroscientists. Our friend Jing Mei hooked us up with this friend who organizes a neuroscientist conference — a brain-scanning imaging conference. They go to different cities all around the world and this year they were in Beijing. The conference hosts 300 neuroscientists from all over the world and they’re taken to  different events and parties.”

Jun: “She asked us, ‘Do you think your bar can handle 300 people?’ and we were like, ‘Yeah! Sure!’”

Tavey: “On a Monday night? Yeah! And then all of these buses of neuroscientists just come in and it turns out that scientists can drink. They partied really, really hard. So the place was just crowded and packed with drunk scientists. The neighbors start complaining because the courtyard is chock-full of people, and then that’s when the guy gets up on the roof. The next door guy. There’s a neighbor, his parents live there, and he’s very protective of them, so if it gets noisy… He climbed up on to the roof with a bucket of water and then poured it all over everybody in the courtyard and they came rushing out.”

Jun: “Before that, we were about to get everyone out of the courtyard. We were in the midst of doing that, and that’s when he started throwing the water. That’s when I lost it.”

Tavey: “Jun gets up on the roof and tries to start fighting him Jackie Chan style.”

Jun: “But no, instead of actually fighting him it breaks down into a childish shouting match. Where I say, ‘Get the fuck off my roof!’ and then, ‘This isn’t your roof, this is my roof!’ ‘NO! This is obviously my roof! You are on my fucking area right now — this is my roof!’ and he says, ‘Oh yeah? Oh yeah?’ then he jumps back and says, ‘Well, this is my roof!’ Ugh. This went on for quite a while. He goes and starts pouring more water, then my guys come along and are pouring water…”

BJC: “Meanwhile, neuroscientists are…?”

Jun: “They’re happy.”

Tavey: “They got a story.”

Jun: “OMG this is China!”

BJC: “Neuroscientist drink of choice?”

Tavey: “Tsingdao beer.”

MOST MEMORABLE CONCERT

4corners and live performances go hand-in-hand. Shows happen basically every weekend, and the stage is used for karaoke and open mic nights throughout the week. Countless DJs and bands have taken the 4corners stage, so picking the most memorable proved challenging for Tavey and Jun. They eventually decided it was either Fête de la Musique (Beijing Music Day, June 2013) or Marcopalooza (June 2013).

Jun: “Marcopalooza was crazy.”

Tavey: “Marcopalooza was our friend Marco’s birthday. Basically he drums in half the bands in Beijing. So we got three bands that he’s in to play and another band that some of his other band members are in. Four bands and he played drums for them (Beijing Dead, The Groove Collective, Not There (RIP), Tavey Lean and the Solid Gold Dream Machine).

“At one point the police came and I think they stopped outside so I walked out there, and they said, ‘Hey, where’s number 11?’ And I just pointed down the hutong and they just kept on going.

“Someone filed a noise complaint. It turns out the noise complaint was for a place that was further down the hutong. Some of the members of Not There got in a fight. So it actually wasn’t for us, somehow. That was the biggest concert that we’ve had.”

THE MOST DESTRUCTIVE EVENT

Surprisingly, 4corners has held up and remains basically unscathed after all the concerts, drunken debauchery, and water fights. Also, it survived a fire this spring festival.

Jun: “Somebody went outside and that’s what happens. Set fireworks off outside and they shoot out — one hit me!”

Tavey: “I got hit with one of them.”

Jun: “Yeah, my jacket’s burned. One of my Chinese jackets.”

Tavey: “I got hit in the mouth by a piece of flaming something.”

Beijing Cream published a video of this fire (which I took — sorry about the crap quality, we’ll crowdsource next time!), which began when someone shot a firework at a large tent. Luckily, no one was inside the tent at the time.

Jun: “Every year they’re supposed to take [the tents] down, but this year they just didn’t. So the property company that may be interested in buying this area might be the same guys who left the tent there.

“That was the first fire. The second fire was a few days afterwards in the kitchen.”

BJC: “The same week?”

Jun: “The same fiery week.”

BJC: “Are those the only fires you two have seen here?”

Tavey: “Besides in the fireplace.”

Jun: “Yeah, besides in the fireplace. We’re usually pretty good with fires that we make. Those ones are great.”

~

* 4corners is split into two sections, a front and back, which are owned by different landlords. Tentative plans for the future include a remodeling that will return the front of the house to the original tenants. A slice of the stage area, all of the courtyard, and the backroom will make up the new bar. It’s a big cut, so be sure to hit up these two parties that put the full floor plan to use.

Shannon traverses Beijing by bike and with a camera. She is saving money for that fancy DSLR, but until then, follow her on Instagram at Earth is Boring.

From the 4corners newsletter:

Friday, April 11

SONGS OF ICE AND FIRE
Game of Thrones fantasy cosplay party with kickass live music to boot! Don’t worry we’re not going to Red Wedding you. Headliner The Groove Collective rips it at midnight after a fun jam session with the Avengers of Music and other 4c stage regulars! Fun starts at 10:00. Yes, Jun and Kristin are dressing up as Kal Drogo and Khaleesi.

Saturday, April 12

SATURDAY TEAR THE ROOF OFF
The Beijing Dead at 10:00pm followed by Tavey Lean & The Solid Gold Dream Machine at 12:00am. Four Hours of quality music by the bands that have brought you the best moments on the 4corners stage. One for the history books, no doubt.

Spring switches us from latent to active, and spring being the season of festivals in Beijing, it’s one more reason to get up and busy (and stop marathoning shows on Sohu). Beginning next Tuesday, April 8, the six-day Beijing Improv Festival returns with shows and workshops featuring greater China’s finest improv crews. Knowing almost nothing about the art, I spent time with the local bilingual group Plus One during one of their weekly Sunday rehearsals to get the scoop.

Each week, Plus One chooses a different comedic dungeon master to set scenes, facilitate interactions between players, and organize group games. The leader on Sunday was Paul Creasy, who you might know from the Beijing stand-up circuit. His theme of the night was focus.

Like musicians tuning their instruments, the crew began with warmup exercises. Gathered in a circle, they started with a send/receive clapping game, where, you know, “you’ll want to catch the clap and then pass it round the circle.” As with all things one can catch, this game went on for four rounds with varying degrees of confusion, ultimately ending with red hands and giggles. Insisting that the game is “not good for hands, but good for focus,” Paul moved on to an onomatopoeic knife-throw game. Standing in a circle, group members mimed knife throws at others while supplying martial sound effects. Eyes darted, with ninja focus, as participants wondered who’d stab whom.

The collective was diligent in its effort to showcase individual members. After a few rounds of exciting word associations, the rehearsal began in earnest with scenes. Collaboration happens through eye contact and gestures, with stronger personalities typically leading the way — at times gracefully, and other times not so much. All skits end with someone saying, “And scene!”

This was rehearsal, so missteps were teachable moments for next week — and some skits, the troupe discovered, were better left buried. In one setup, created by Wu You, Peter, and Kelvin, the members mimed digging a grave for their deceased father. It got really trippy, with Wu You standing up to say, “I don’t know what I was doing, it just got weirder and weirder.” Annnnnnd scene.

Bilingual does not imply all members are fluent in English and Mandarin, but a good number of Plus One’s members fit the bill. Being an invite-only group, each person has been able to adopt comfortable roles. The playful tone of the group also makes language fluency less of a necessity. (Beijing improv groups are happy to invite those interested in joining to first check out the Wednesday workshops at Hot Cat Club.)

Overshadowed as they might be by bigger troupes like Beijing Improv Group (BIG), Plus One will be a short-form show to see. Veteran members like Jay Wang, Emily Foate (who will participate in three performances during the festival!), and Paul Creasy are seasoned performers. It’ll appeal to anyone looking for some dramatic inspiration. Don’t worry, you can always catch Game of Thrones later.

And scene!

The Improv Festival runs April 8-13 at Penghao Theater. Plus One will perform on Thursday, April 10 at 8 pm.

Shannon traverses Beijing by bike and with a camera. She is saving money for that fancy DSLR, but until then, follow her on Instagram at Earth is Boring.

Event schedule:

Reese sends a clap across the circle. (Clockwise from Reese: Jay, Liz, Emily, Wu You, Kelvin, Paul, Summer, Peter, Nathan)

Group scene suggestions include, “Hell!”

Paul Creasy sets up the next game.

Peter, Wu You, Nathan, Kelvin

Peter, Jay, Liz, Emily

Emily and Summer

Emily, Liz, and Nathan

The bawdy and good folk of That’s Shanghai have published the three winning entries from its erotic fiction competition held earlier this month at Glamour Bar as part of the Capital M Literary Festival. (You might remember Jacob Dreyer’s review of the event for this site, which was heavy on Bai Ling.) As That’s editor Ned Kelly so delicately summarizes:

Sam Gaskin, champ in 2012, got all Tang Dynasty sex texty with us, Eric Fung Chen did it in a hospital, Jamie Fullerton imagined scenes of intimacy happening at the Camel Pub Quiz, Aymeric Fraise had a thing for a tattooed lady and Shanghai soul man Carlton J. Smith talked about anal sex in threesome done in relationships (and got away with it, but only because he is Carlton J. Smith…)

…Best Story was a shared between Danielle LeClerc, with a tale about Sapphic love, and Anthony Tao, with a tale so revolting you’ll just have to read it for yourselves.

But the big winner of the night – the huge throbbing winner of the night – was Meredith Yarbrough, whose Invasion of the Ferns was a tale of intergalactic automaton love coming a cropper in Shanghai, earning her Best Performance and People’s Choice, and two vibrators (and probably Best Story had we not felt the need to share the honors out a bit).

Danielle LeClerc’s “Pink,” Meredith Yarbrough’s “Invasion of the Ferns,” and my story, “The Biwalkers,” are all on the That’s website, so go on over there for a read. The Biwalkers is also republished below with permission. “So revolting,” says Ned Kelly.

~~

The Biwalkers

We are simple, we are persistent, and we are like you in every way except one. We are spirits unafraid to transgress, to truly love those who are different. We are biwalkers. Or, as the world calls us, beasts. I prefer that designation. Save the linguistic flounce and ribbed crepe for Valentine’s Day poems. We’ve been driven from the traveling circuses of the American south, the ranches of Mexico, and the petting zoos of northern Europe. We’ve offended Russian mobsters, been banned from temples, and beaten up by Southeast Asian sex workers. There is only one place left on this earth that would harbor our kind, one enclave where we can safely express our malformed rapacity and harpy lust: Shanghai.

Through one of my zoo connections, I was introduced to a woman known as Madame S. I arrived as instructed, at a back entrance precisely ninety minutes after closing, along with Hector Madagew, a friend I met on a SHEXpat online forum. As we waited, he nervously flicked cigarettes, half-smoked, onto the pavement, where he crushed them to embers with the tip of his boot. Eventually a rotund figure, like the shadow of a blimp, appeared out of the leafy shades.

“I’ve been expecting you,” she cooed in Chinese. I imagined her breath smelled like tar. A wicked smile like a knife wound spanned her pudgy face.

I grunted and walked ahead to indicate we were not men for words.

I felt her ghastly, vile smile directed at me. She caught up and overtook us. We were guided off the main path, through bushes. She snapped on a flashlight, likely for our benefit – I suspect she’d made this trip before. Finally, she put out an arm to motion us to slow. We had reached the edge of the pen.

We lowered ourselves down the embankment, grabbing at the bamboo to keep steady. I don’t know how, but that whale of a woman deftly, soundlessly joined us. Her light directed my vision toward a back wall, where I saw them, closer than in dreams: the brown of their eyes rippling with the water of desire, their snouts wet enough to sniff our warmness, soft like a gentle uncoiling, hard like a spring-loaded release into the pleasurable and unspeakable. One of them was turned to a side, its rump like a sumptuous moon ten thousand miles from here to nowhere. I imagine they must have shivered, sensing the eruption of our pheromones as we approached.

“This one is Cao Cao,” Madame introduced. “And that one over there is Sao Sao.”

“The little one is mine,” I said.

“Now, now, you have all night.”

“Which I’ll need.”

“Goodness, you biwalkers are as they say. Your lust is as imponderable as the jungle.”

Was she teasing, that bloated beast?

“Would you prefer the boy panda or the girl?” she asked.

I grimaced.

“Do you prefer one hole or…”

I hastily waved off her question. “No need for such vulgarity.”

Hector shifted where he stood.

“You have arranged the payment?”

“Yes, yes of course.”

“Good,” Madame said, again contorting her face. Normal people turn the sides of their lips upwards to smile, but hers went the other way. “Give me a smoke, now that we’re friends.” I elbowed Hector and motioned at his cigarettes, and he obliged. She took two. “We will go inside, where your suits are, and you will give me the money. Cao Cao and Sao Sao will then be let off their chains, per instruction. And then” – this next part she said in English – “the hunt begin.”

~

I know all about you: you who retain, in your immaculate marrow and God- or death-fearing bosom, traces of humanity. But imagine, for a moment, your heart not as an 11-ounce pump of life and blood but a caged gerbil you both loathe and adore. Watch it run. Watch it pursue its reflection in the glass, for otherwise shame seizes it and drowns it with unqualified love.

Ah, the hunt.

“Put out that cigarette, Mad,” I snapped. He did so. We hardly breathed as we tiptoed in our panda suits.

A rustling made us freeze.

Hector switched on his torch: the shaft of light landed square on his mark’s face. “Ah-ha!” he shouted, his voice like a pistol shot. He rushed off, and I knew better than to follow. The next five minutes were a mad scramble. I was assaulted by scents of displaced twigs, damp leaves, and the sound of scurrying feet. Just as quickly as it started, it stopped, again with Hector’s voice: “I got you now, ha ha!” There was a sharp, ursine cry, some punching or pounding, a bout of heavy breathing, a squeal, and then Hector again – “OW! ha ha!” – before he and his prey – lord help that panda – found their rhythm.

My ardor gained expression then and there, a fire blossoming into conflagration. I aimed my light in all directions with no discretion. It passed like a flash, or a delirium: a muzzle, a mat of black and white. I imagined moist marbles for eyes filling with resplendence upon my entrance. I took four quick paces, dropped my light, and leapt.

The panda resisted only perfunctorily, oddly silent. I dragged it to the base of a massive tree on an incline and bent it across the bough. “You like it dirty, I hope,” I crooned. And then I began.

What has become of me? What transformation? Is it possible to become what you so desperately seek? I am a panda, I said. I am a panda. I am a panda. I am a panda. Three minutes or so later, we were done. I rolled off that mound of fur and flesh and exhaled into the crisp night’s cover.

“That was a lot of fun.”

I froze.

I listened with my eyes, hoping my other senses could undo the mistake of my ears.

The silence persisted. Blood flushed into my cheeks. The gerbil in my chest ached for breath.

“But,” I began. I did not know what I meant to say. I heard the click of a lighter. Once. Twice.

“You’re…”

Squinting, I rubbernecked, my nose twitching, and in that antic dark which concealed everything, even desire, one pall of moonlight swept across like revelation over a hairless surface: copper, peach, lustrous like saliva, or the calk of plastic bamboo, her dermis glabrous and sickly like that of a… biwalker. The smell of tar infested my nostrils before I could see: cigarette smoke; an aslant, grotesque grin.

Download podcast | Size: 57.5 MB

Blogging China was a March 18 Bookworm Literary Festival panel discussion moderated by Anthony Tao and featuring Jeremy Goldkorn (Danwei), Alec Ash (the Anthill), Mia Li (Sinosphere), and Tao Stein (WeChat: 石涛讲故事 / shitaojianggushi). In front of a full house, we talked about the characteristics of bloggers (journalists without credentials? writers without agents? mavens without business plans?), the purpose of blogs, particularly in relation with traditional media, censorship, curation / aggregation, Sina Weibo, and whether WeChat is the future of blogging — among many other topics.

Special thanks to literary festival organizer Tom Baxter and Bookworm GM Peter Goff.

Download Episode 13 of The Creamcast here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

This is it: your final reminder that I’ll be joined by three docents and five poets tonight at the Bookworm to celebrate poetry in Beijing. The event will feature Peter Behr, Stephen Nashef, Edward Ragg, Emily Stranger, and Yuan Yang (and Gower Campbell) reading selected works, as curated by Canaan Morse, Eleanor Goodman, and Helen Wing. (The curators and I will present a little something as well.) The festivities begin at 8 pm. Tickets are available at the door.

Let’s turn it over to the curators for some quick words. (For previous coverage, check out these interviews with Helen Wing and Eleanor Goodman.)

Canaan Morse

I saw things I liked in the poetry of everyone who was eventually invited to read, but I put Stephen [Nashef] forward specifically so he could have a chance to read “Tennis Balls.” That poem possesses a few fresh central images, and articulates them well. It’s good sculpturing done on quality marble.

The incredible number of people who submitted has already given me reason to rejoice. When Anthony and I thought up this thing, I said more than once I didn’t expect more than ten people to submit. I found it very hard to believe that there were more than a small handful of English-language writers in this city who were committed to poetry. But the poems we read numbered in the hundreds.

Care to offer a one-line preview of your own poetry, which you’ll be reading? May it be worthy of burning in a year’s time.

Eleanor Goodman

Helen Wing

I had always suspected that there are far more poets than the world thinks there are but actually even I was surprised by the sheer number of entrants. It was very hard to pick the finalists. I would encourage all of those who entered not to be discouraged and to continue consorting with the daemon!

There were many accomplished poems but in the end I chose the poems whose voice seemed somehow unique and that moved me. I found that when I asked about the more formal elements of image, rhythm and style my initial response was confirmed. I also picked poets who were very different from each other so that tonight the audience can enjoy a range of voice and theme.

One-line preview of your own poetry: “You lie! Stop the blister wind!”

Poetry Night in Beijing begins at 8 pm tonight at the Bookworm. (Top image: Column 1: Eleanor Goodman, Canaan Morse, Anthony Tao, Helen Wing; Column 2: Peter Behr, Stephen Nashef, Edward Ragg, Emily Stranger, Yuan Yang.)

The lovely judges (from left to right) Bai Ling, Monica Liau, and Linda Jaivin (photo by Anthony Tao)

It’s not just every night that I walk into Glamour Bar and hear someone talking about figs mixing with the juices from their crotch. Well, all right, pretty much any time that I went I could hear that, but it’s too expensive for my nightly apertif. Still, an old friend was in town and wanted to meet there, and after all, it was only five minutes from my office, so I found myself at 3 on the Bund listening to all of the erotic fictions that Shanghai — and even one from Beijing – has to offer.

Boredly gazing through the crowd, next to That’s editor and emcee Ned Kelly, who was wearing a suit made out of red tablecloths, and judges Linda Jaivin and Monica Liau, I noticed a familiar face: actress Bai Ling, a pioneer of Asian erotic journalism — in fact, the first Asian woman to appear on the cover of Playboy [NSFW]. Some friends of mine who do fashion are obsessed with this person, partly because she has a face from outer space. My evening immediately gained coherence: I would take a goofy photo with Bai Ling and send it to my friends in New York. The stories continued… about pandas, about whores with hearts of gold who nonetheless give corrupt cops AIDS, marking this on the mirror with lipstick (so basically, a page from the copy of “101 urban legends” from the middle school library, plus Hengshan Road in the 90s), and most vividly, about aliens who had sex with strangers in M1NT. As the competition heated up, Danielle Leclerc and Anthony Tao got physical, playing rock-paper-scissors to resolve a tie for the rights to a vibrator. The writer of the story about aliens, Meredith, rightly won the performance and audience prizes (both vibrators); although I would have liked to hear the famous shark tank in M1NT get a shout out.

Things wrapped up, my dream of Bai Ling giving me a photo op came true… J. and I headed to the burlesque club where she’d danced for years, as I began, ever the romantic dreamer, to send Weixin messages to Bai Ling. And on to another year of erotic fictions…

Jacob Dreyer’s first book, The Nocturnal Wanderer, is upcoming from Eros Press. You can reach him at jacobaugustusdreyer@gmail.com.

The author with Bai Ling

That’s editor Ned Kelly in his very red suit

“Festival Fever,” declares the cover of relentlessly upbeat Time Out Beijing. Coming at the end of what might just be China’s worst week in recent history – starting with a massacre in Kunming and ending with 230 people, including 140 Chinese, seemingly disappearing into the Twilight Zone – it’s hard to share their enthusiasm.

Symptoms of festival fever must include disinterest, lassitude, and a creeping sense of impending doom. The festivals themselves are even more lackluster than usual. The Bookworm’s International Festival barely includes any big overseas names; plenty of interesting people talking, but most are expat types you could run into down at the pub. M is also running a drastically reduced schedule in Beijing and Shanghai.

Nevertheless, there are a few good talks, including some that you may not have picked up on. Here are our picks:

Will China Dominate the 21^st Century? – March 12, 1 pm, Bookworm

One should avoid absolutist rhetoric on China, but this question is really aimed to sell tickets. Fenby’s worth a listen, but if you miss this one, you can catch it on Sinica later.

From Her Neighbours’ Eyes: Japanese, Indian and Russian journalists on China – March 13, 1 pm, Bookworm

A chance for a different, but no less important, perspective regarding China.

Translation Slam – March 14, 8 pm, Bookworm

Two translators pitted against each other. Watch out for the hecklers. (Disclaimer: this might also end up being the height of China Hand wankiness. But Alec liked the sound of it.)

Boom or Bust: Projection’s for China’s Economy – March 15, 4 pm, Bookworm

As far as we can see, this is the only panel that’s likely to see some major disagreements, and the topic should really be of interest to everyone. It’s the economy, stupid.

Blogging China – March 18, 8 pm, iQiYi Bookworm [Ed's note, 11:22 pm: high demand has necessitated a venue change, confirmed just this evening]

Four well-known local bloggers and Tao Stein rap about “protests [and] expat rivalries.” If Chris Devonshire-Ellis shows up, that RMB65 ticket will pay for itself. Disclosure: Alec and Tao are on this panel about the Chinese “blogosphere.” Jeremy Goldkorn and Mia Li are the others.

300 Shots – Derek Sandhaus on Baijiu – March 19, 6 pm, iQiYi

Derek Sandhaus is always amusing, and especially so when he’s drunk. Bring a bottle of erguotou and try not to throw up.

Killing Fairfax: Pamela Williams – March 20, 1 pm, Bookworm

Masochistic media types will be glued to the details of Fairfax media’s self-inflicted death throes. Interesting fact: Fairfax’s previous correspondent in China, John Garnaut,was probably the best foreign correspondent in China. Read his book about Bo Xilai.

Orwell, Burma & Literary Pilgrimage – March 22, 2 pm, Capital M

Emma Larkin on Orwell’s Burmese days and literary beginnings.

Timothy Garton Ash – March 23, 5 pm, Capital M

The Guardian journo has an hour or so to riff on China (hopefully) with Kaiser Kuo. Disclosure: he’s Alec’s dad. But that’s not all that’s interesting about him, promise.

Finally: if you have RMB250 to spare and are a struggling freelance hack (an admittedly rare demographic), former Time Out editor Adrian Sandiford is dispensing pearls on How to Pitch at a workshop at the Opposite House on March 16 at 2 pm.

That’s enough about festivals.

RFH is BJC’s editor-at-large. Alec Ash runs the Anthill and drinks whisky.