One of my favorite guitarists visited the east coast of China last October to promote some of the gear the he endorses. Sadly, he did not have the greatest experience.
Hopefully, some might find this of interest, or thought provoking.
**What's it like being in China?**
China is not a place i would go to vacation!
Beijing and Shanghai are interesting cosmopolitan cities but Ive been to many smaller and less familiar cities that ive had to travel over dirt mountain roads in buses full of slaves and chickens to get to. toilet paper doesn't exist..you do your biz in a whole in the ground..the cities are filthy..not in a cool dusty sense..but in a heavily toxic and polluted sense
Its also obviously a communist country and I've had negative experiences with the authorities because they consider some forms of art...including rock music..to be subversive..
Ive also experienced what I consider to be racism there..There's a lot of anti -western, especially anti American, resentment..i was not allowed to go certain places because of that. I sometimes had to sit in segregated areas of restaurants. I was not allowed into pool areas at hotels. Chinese men have a way of showing they're distaste for you by spitting at your feet and bumping into you as you walk by them on the street!
And lastly the food is friggin crazy..nothing like what we think Chinese food is..picture a whole un skinned bullfrog with a tomato in its mouth and a spoon..that's dinner..with a side of crickets! and to drink? a bottle of chines wine with a dead snake coiled up inside of it...mmmmm! just want a snack? how about black moldy 100 year old fermented eggs or pickled chicken feet?
I actually ended up in a hospital in China by accidentally drinking the water. The hospital was full of people with no limbs, screaming and crying, walls with holes punched into them and splattered with blood, etc. they called my wife to ask her where to ship the pine box!
other than that China's awesome
My response:
I'm sorry to hear that George had such a rough experience in China. It made me angry to hear how he was treated by people, and the authorities.
I live in Kunming, Yunnan- a fairly rural and less developed area in the southwest of the country. As an American, I have rarely experienced the kind of racist behavior that George mentions. Most Chinese I encounter follow the Socialist principle that all people are equals, not lesser or greater.
There is however a percentage of "low class bone heads," and by the numbers, even if it accounted for only 1% of the population here, that is still more than 13 million people!
The pollution is a real problem, especially on the east coast of the country. It is quite sad, and there doesn't seem to be an answer on how to clean things up.
And if you thought foreigners are treated poorly... the bribery, police abuse of power for money, and organized crime here directed at ordinary citizens will make you cry.
The saddest thing about George's visit however is that there is a vast audience here eager to hear more from him. The guitarists here that I have introduced George's music to have dropped their previous convictions that Satriani, Petrucci, Vai, and Malmsteen were where it is at... and have become die-hard Lynch fans! The guitarist here can play their asses off, but never think about their tone from what I have heard and seen so far.
I jam with one virtuoso music teacher in Kunming and his favorite songs to play now are "Don't Close Your Eyes," "It's Not Love," and "Kiss of Death." Man, we have a blast! The guy can play any instrument you can think of, but his true love is guitar... as it is for many musicians in China.
So George... don't give up on China so fast. You owe it to the world to teach Chinese guitarists about tone research, and of course the social etiquette of not spitting at foreigners feet, or bumping into them. Although, they commonly do this too each others in daily passing...