Toadcast #106 – The Sinocast
Mrs. Toad has been away in China for the last week or so and, frankly, I am jealous. I am wedded to Edinburgh now, for fairly obvious reasons, but I have always been something of a gypsy, as have my parents, and as such China has held a pretty significant fascination for several years now.
I spent three years in Singapore between the ages of eleven and fourteen and I absolutely loved the place. Not just Singapore, but all the travelling we did in South East Asia – I was absolutely captivated.
Honestly, if it were not for you musical muppets I would be pestering Mrs. Toad for us to move to China already.
Toadcast #106 – The Sinocast
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01. T’Pau – China in Your Hand (5.12)
02. I Am Oak – Ohayo (10.49)
03. Django Django – Love’s Dart (13.27)
04. Django Reinhart – China Boy (22.49)
05. Clem Snide – Wal-Mart Parking Lot (31.22)
06. Frightened Rabbit – Fun Stuff (33.51)
07. The Shop Assistants – Somewhere in China (41.07)
08. David Bowie – China Girl (46.26)
09. Lincoln – Great Wall of China (51.47)
10. Snapline – S2 (65.31)
I’ve had a chinese filled saturday today. We bought some cutlery from the chinese supermarket on Leith Walk, and have ordered some chinese food from the criminally under-rated Golden Bridge on Henderson St.
That’s all I can contribute to this. Oh and I’d love to visit China one day.
I’d love to visit China. Beautiful place. Kinda scary though.
My husband and I went to China last May when his daughter was still working there. She had contracted to teach English at a school just outside Beijing for a year. A Chinese lady my husband worked with was also there part of the time we visited, and she helped us plan our trip. We were there 15 days, sight-seeing around Beijing, taking trains to Xi’an and Chengdu, and using other regular local methods of transportation to get around. No tour groups, no American food. We stayed in youth hostels, which I highly recommend.
My husband speaks some Mandarin Chinese from his Air Force days in Taiwan, and his daughter traveled with us and did a lot of the negotiating for us. I learned to say “Hello” and “thank you,” and that, along with hand signs and drawing pictures, got me everything I wanted or needed–I went out shopping by myself a couple of times. In general, people were very nice. We encountered no safety issues. Outside of Beijing, it was fun to have small children point at us in awe!
It was the trip of my lifetime. You should go, Matt. It is awesome. I can even tell you where the best club for rock music in Beijing is; it is called simply “Mao.” Chengdu was fantastic–I would definitely go there again. I posted photos from our trip over at my blog several months ago.
What part is Mrs. Toad visiting?
Blimey Linda, that sounds amazing. And speaking some Chinese is a bit lucky. I am always a little irritated by films where people surmount the language barriers as fast as they do, because having travelled a lot I seem to remember far more futile gesturing, pointing and waving of arms. And that often just in Europe, never mind somewhere as far away as China.
LOL, because he used to speak passable Mandarin, hubby was alllll uptight about speaking proper Chinese, and he dragged his books and flash cards around, sometimes spending precious sight-seeing time in the hotel lobby studying.
Meanwhile I had no hang-ups whatsoever about pointing, pantomiming, and otherwise making an idiot of myself. I was determined to make the most of being there because the only other foreign country I have been to is Mexico, and that was only Baja.
I surprised myself by being quite comfortable with my ignorance. Example: I went by myself to a shop in Beijing where a lady made hats and purses to order. She spoke about two words of English, luckily one of which was “color.” I managed to order two hats and a purse in the styles and colors I wanted, negotiate the price, give her a down payment and agree on the amount still owed, and the date I would pick up the order. And the order was completed perfectly by the day I went back.
Well, that’s a lovely track by Clem Snide, isn’t it! Thanks for the shout out too. I didn’t get an interview when I saw them last spring here in Chicago but I did hear the first public performance of this song. I scribbled down some lyrics and then tried to recreate the set list and discovered it was an unknown song. So I asked DC to inquire, he was in contact with the band and got word of the title and the facts surrounding it. So, that’s the story, and that’s some insight on how Eef graciously and with understatement just sort of slides new material under the radar…. it was a cool show! Thanks again for mentioning Love Shack, Baby xoxo
I remember it happening actually. Nice song – just starting to get into the album.
Linda – that’s one of the reasons I’ve always functioned reasonably well in foreign countries: no shame at all. It’s not easy, and I really get uncomfortable being shit at things, but really early on I realised I had to force myself to stop caring about looking stupid and just try and communicate somehow. Consequently I’ve been in situations where I end up doing the talking for people with far more knowledge of the local language than I do, just because they are still uncomfortable looking a little silly.