Continuing on this discussion, let’s look at the environment where the music is played; the venue.
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China is a nation of skyscrapers, huge public works and enormous constructions. Cities the size of New York City are considered to be “small” communities. When the Chinese live in the cities, they often live in the huge towers that dominate the skyline. Living in these structures can be just simply amazing.
With this understood, let’s have a look at what it is like.
Life in a Chinese Apartment…
For those of you who haven’t a clue, this chick is in an apartment located in Shanghai. You can see the towers in the distance and the Pearl Tower off to the left. This is pretty much what it looks like if you live in Shanghai, China. All the buildings are tall, and most of the views are spectacular.
The song that is played in the micro-video, is of course Chinese Pop, and I personally think that it fits the venue. Shanghai is a Westernized Chinese city. In my mind the way that you can tell if a city is Westernized is by the prevalence of Western restaurants, as well as a rather high cost of living to live there.
Speaking of Shanghai…
Being Shanghai, you can get real American food there. For instance, you can get real American hotdogs. They look and taste like the real thing. The only thing is that they aren’t cooked properly. I like them cooked over an open flame outside in the campfire until they are blackened.
You can get all kinds of authentic, or near-authentic American food. Food, mind you, that is pretty difficult to obtain outside of the country. Do youse guys have any idea just how difficult it is to get a decent omelet in China? Well, it’s not easy, I’ll tell you what.
Life in Guangzhou
Here in the next micro-video we can look at the view of a different girl. She is listening to Blackpink which has taken China by storm and is dancing on the deck of her apartment. The view is also pretty much typical. It’s not so urban, but awesome never the less.
This is what the South East portion of China pretty much looks like. If you are near the industrial areas, the sky is pretty much white, it turns blue from time to time, but those factories gotta keep churning.
It reminds me a lot of San Antonio, Texas.
You even can go to a Texas bar in Guangzhou. It is almost like the real thing. You can drink real American beer and whiskey there and listen to Country and Western music as well. It’s all pretty amazing. If you close your eyes, you can almost imagine that you are back home.
But, I’ve got to tell ya, their accents are just atrocious.
Genesee Cream Ale , Iron City beer there, but that is just me.
Speaking of Texas…
You know what I haven’t had in a while? A Whataburger. That’s what. These are the most awesome hamburgers that I used to get when I lived in Texas. I don’t know what they did, but they had this special sauce that they would put on the burgers that made them particularly awesome.
Anyways… I’m sorry about all this.
When I get to thinking of hamburgers and then I get to thinking about icy cold beer, and then singing and friends. It’s been a while since I was in Texas to to enjoy this, and while I do enjoy China, I do get home-sick from time to time. I guess, I’m gonna have to put my foot down and get back to the subject at hand.
This next girl is exercising in a gym. Like many of the gyms in the United States, they play music to exercise to. Physical fitness is important and a fundamental part of the Chinese culture. It is one of the reasons why the older Chinese tends to live longer than their American equivalents.
Exercising in China
Here, the gal is exercising in the gym and the song that is playing is pretty much typical. I can attest that this song is great to do pushups to and arm curls. Just watching her makes me want to do a set of reps, I’ll tell you what.
I have discussed how the Chinese government has provided venues for people to dance in public, and how they have addressed the rising issue with weight gain. I have discussed how they implemented dancing as part of the exercise routines in schools, well here is how they implement club and house music in exercise gyms….
And here’s another gal doing pushups. She is in a different gym. The thing about gyms in China is that they do not have air conditioning. The idea is to sweat out the bad water, and replenish yourself with good fresh water.
Shanghai
When I was in High School, the music that we listened to defined our life and our culture. At that time the top song was Peter Frampton’s “Do you feel like we do”. I guess to kids now a days, this song seems silly, but that was what it was like for us.
It was all a kind of relaxed haze. I’ll tell you what. It didn’t matter if you were hanging out with your buddies outside of a gas station, or cruising inside a van, getting high and listening to Boston’s “More than a Feeling”. That was what it was like.
That is true for the generation of kids today.
Maybe you all were into grunge back in the 1990’s and listening to Stone Temple Pilots and Plush, or Pearl Jam, Sound garden, and Nirvana. That music defined your life at the time.
Growing up in Middle School, we listened to Alice Cooper, Deep Purple and of course Led Zeppelin. We used to have these square dances that all the girls would come and get us boys to dance with them. I loved doing it. That continued for a spell until some religious fanatic got it terminated because of some obscure rule in the Bible or some such thing.
Well, I am in China, and I am trying to give this kind of perception to what it is like being here, and how the Chinese people socialize. So, since Shanghai is a major first-tier city, and it is Western to boot, let’s use that as our frame of reference.
Let’s spend some time chatting about the city of Shanghai for a spell. There are many Americans who really don;t know anything about Shanghai they think that it must be a little like Detroit, or Cleveland. Yet, in reality, it is something else all together.
This is what Shanghai looks like from a window in a business building. The night skyline, most especially from a Shanghai hotel room is absolutely amazing. It really and honestly is.
This is what Shanghai looks like from the plaza in front of the hotels in the central section. this is the street-side view. You can pretty much recognize this as the norm for Shanghai.
The Mood of China
As I have mentioned that music is a reflection of the mood and pace of society at that period of time, let’s look at what the mood is in China. During The Jimmy Carter years, we were listening to “I Robot”, Kraftwerk, and Yes. During the Bill Clinton years, we were listening to STP, and Massive Attack. Here, these videos pretty much sums up what the feeling is in China today…
And…
And…
Chinese Crowd Control
Anyways, you have to hand it to China. They have some great crowd control methods. Don’t ya think?
Let’s move on to the next part of this post…
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