A current pulse check on Chengdu, China in the COVID-19 Era

As I write this, Wuhan, China is opening up again. To say it’s been an intense few months would be understating the situation. This is a meandering, overdue re-cap of my last year and a half in Chengdu, China. If it seems a bit all over the place, well, that’s where things are at. My favorite venue in neighboring Chongqing, NUTS Club, briefly opened their doors for a few days, only to be shut down once again. Shortly after, rumblings from Shanghai that nightlife & tourist places had to start closing again seemed to trickle down to Chongqing and other places, just as optimism started to flow. A week later, NUTS is cautiously starting again. Things seemed to change by the hour. Yet in an all too relaxed Chengdu, I headed to an electronic gig just a few days after some places shuttered. Luca, who I saw perform that night, simply said “Chongqing is not as lucky as we are.”

When I first moved here, Sichuan laziness hooked into me deeply. You can read excuses toward the end, but this city is almost too goddamn comfortable. Back in 2013, I was sitting on a patch of grass near water with the band Hiperson, when Sijiang said “you know, there’s a proverb… the young shouldn’t come to Chengdu, and the old shouldn’t leave”. I now know exactly what she meant. That said, this was one of the best decisions of my life so far. For seven years I bounced in and out of this place, first on the P.K.14 tour, back when the small Little Bar consistently had shows. I longed to move here when I was living in Harbin. TAG, a dark and perfectly loud night club, was always a staple in my visits, and where I first saw SHAO play live. I bounced in and out of here for NUART Festival, largely curated by Kristen (Kiwese) Ng at the time. Upon arrival, I was greeted with even more electronic music, quite a few gigs at NU Space, and a ton of things peppered in between at the smattering of smaller clubs and spaces in this city.

“Small Projects” in 2018

After I’d settled in, I was immediately greeted with some smaller gigs by Wu Zhuo Ling and a team of folks who set up “Small Projects”, a collection of low-key afternoon and early night happenings. Wu has been a staple of the inner-workings of Chengdu for a very long time, and time hasn’t seen her slowing down, as she also plays her own music at the clubs around town. These were refreshing days, and coming from a largely music deprived Northeast, always quite welcome to me. Chengdu’s relaxed atmosphere bleeds out into their events, but the staples like NU Space remain, and festivals were always a big part of what made this area special. Festivals like Sound of the Xity happened right before the virus began, and the yearly Chun Yuo should poke its head out again this year, God of shenanigans willing.

TAG in April 2020. We were early. As normal, people trickled in heavier around midnight.

It’s impossible to talk about Chengdu without talking about TAG. For me, it’s the perfect place to see an electronic show. Dark as hell, not too loud, with killer cocktails in their upstairs secondary room called Hidden Bar. From what I can remember, SHAO, an inimitable Shanghai electronic artist, was one of my first gigs here. It’s nestled in the 21st floor of the Poly Center, a high-rise that holds a smattering of other businesses, and at once also held a handful of other electronic venues that have all been shuttered over the last few years. Only TAG has survived. The first time I sauntered in, I went upstairs and began chatting to the bartender, who had a whiskey sour on the menu. He made it with egg whites, which made me giddy as hell after years of tragically bad bar sour mix. He was an excited fellow, and told me he learned how to make cocktails in Japan. I got way too hammered, and sauntered out at an ungodly hour in the morning, in which most of the crowd at TAG were just only beginning to get started. Seeing the sunrise after your night out here is commonplace, though I must be getting old, as I’ve never stayed that long as of yet. When we arrived to Chengdu, we started hanging out paper bracelets on the side of our television. We must have over 100 now. This is a staple that shouldn’t be missed, and I am extremely proud of the quality and consistency they’ve achieved for such a long time. To say I was cautiously ecstatic when they announced they’d be re-opening was putting it lightly.

STOLEN @ Nuts Club in 2018

We headed to Chongqing by train. Barely a 90 minute trip, this neighboring city is essentially a polar opposite. Brash, hilly, confusing as hell by foot. Most bands that play Chengdu also head over to NUTS Club, a long standing staple, for mirrored gigs. NUTS reminds me of The Empty Bottle in Chicago. Lots of black paint. Small, but big enough to house larger acts and get rowdy. The best White Russian in China. It’s a crazy city, but still extremely friendly. The vibe is totally different, and you feel it as soon as one walks out of the train station. Our first visit was to catch STOLEN, but we headed back to explore the different-but-same culinary aspects, and a hardcore festival. I spotted Wu Wei from Wuhan’s SMZB in the crowd, and sat down with him for a quick drink. He moved south a good many months ago, taking a break from Wuhan Prison, a decision he’s probably grateful for these days. This last year, I’d meant to try and go to Chongqing at least once a month, but the comforts of Chengdu kept me nestled in place, largely because there’s just so many options on what to see, hear, and experience in the city. This will be rectified once the train travel opens up again, and freedom to move is fully restored.

The Passenger - Sound of the Xity Festival - Chengdu - December 2019

Local bands in Chengdu seem to be growing. When I arrived in 2018, it was October. Just a few weeks before the annual NUART festival. I was giddy. There was a slew of good bands on the bill that year, including some staple favorites I hadn’t seen in a long time, like WHITE+. What came as a nice surprise, was a chunk of new-to-me local Chengdu bands I’d never heard of before. Sonicave, Long Travel, The Or. (These bands have music on the app Xiami if you can connect to a Chinese server.) Brooding rock and roll and roll, shoegaze and some post punk vibes. There’s a heavy feminine energy in this city’s scene right now. I made every effort to come and support shows at NU Space. The size of the venue is fairly big, and the footprint and bills to be paid have to be quite astronomical, considering they converted their smaller first space into a coffee shop and art space, and now had a larger venue to play with. Many of the shows were under-attended, so extra beers were bought in support of them all. Seeing local bands get their own excited had me quite hopeful for the community here, and the fact that most were younger, or in Long Travel’s case, still in university, added excitement to the mix. When I first came to this city and caught Stolen and Hiperson, they were both still in college, and both acts have continued pushing themselves forward and reinventing their sound in amazing ways. Even though a year quickly crept by, I felt I’d only just started to begin wrapping my head around all the things I’d seen, all the different new electronic venues that would pop up, and places to see in between. There were sporadic shows at tiny places like Jah Bar and nearby Steam Hostel. Large-scale electronic shows peppered throughout the city. Really, there’s a lot to do, and a solid amount of players involved to keep things fresh. Chengdu Community Radio was born. I have no doubt the growth in this city will continue, and flourish from here.

Luca @ Cue Club - April 2020

Before the virus broke out, Chengdu welcomed three fresh venues to the fray. 13 Lounge, a small but comfortable bar and art house, as well as electronic venues AXIS, and Cue Club. Both are great, and different enough to hold their own. Both are now reopened and having events. Cue has the vivid neon colors that have brainwashed me so long in Asia, great sound-proofing, and a blocky, bright interior. I’m working on booking a small gig at 13 Lounge, and the lineup is almost finished. Cue Club is a vastly different layout to most of Chengdu’s other electronic clubs and I’m quite excited to see what they can bring to the table. This is Luca at Cue Club. One night I went to TAG and was already drunk when I got there and just started hammering away beers, which I guess is typical for a place where people don't stop until sunrise. On came Luca, she ended with something that sounded out of the Double Dragon era NES jams, and I left TAG a very, very big fan. I've tried to catch every single set she's played since then, and I think I've only missed a handful. Luca rules, and she’s but one of the many mainstay electronic artists circling the rounds of the city’s spaces here. Atop all of this new movement, a club called AXIS will host a 20 artist electronic festival this weekend, at a time where the rules on things being open seem to change by the hour.

13 Lounge is tiny, but should make for some great shows (Goodbye party for Frank - late 2019)

On came the Corona Virus. Jesus Christ. What the fuck happened? I’ll stray from speculation and too much anger. I was in Thailand with my lady and her family. When we were leaving, we were aware something was going on in Wuhan. My partner grew up in Guangzhou, so she was all too familiar with this scenario, having scene how SARS played out. I remember being a hotel room, asking her to try and not dwell on it too much and to try and enjoy the Chinese New Year. We were in Koh Lanta, and island, at first, when things started to get shitty. When we headed north to Chiang Mai, there were still very few masks being worn on the street. We stopped into a store to buy a box, and within 24 hours, they were sold out. Everywhere. All across Asia. Simply just gone. We did some major walking and finally found a couple stragglers left over, and we bought them. I was staying a few weeks longer than they were, as they all thought they had to come and return to work. I’d also thought it might be a good idea in general when things started to get really bad in the Mainland. Little did I know that I wouldn’t even be able to return to my house on the university campus when I’d returned.

I got a phone call when my girlfriend touched down, at 1AM. “They won’t let me into the fucking campus!” … I was a bit bewildered. Opting in no way shape or form to stay in a random hotel for weeks, we ended up having to get an AirBNB for a month, which we’re quite lucky, considering it’s officially banned as a means of housing. I missed the utmost gnarly weeks, but when I returned, the streets were completely empty. I’d never seen anything like it. A popular shopping area I go to for its grocery store, always bustling, was totally dead, at rush hour. Totally nuts. I was hearing stories from friends in Shanghai, Harbin, and Beijing, about their apartment buildings getting totally locked down, and only being able to leave a few times a week. Chengdu, despite its emptiness and vast temperature checks, seemed pretty relaxed about it all. Bigger grocery store chains remained open. Everyone wore masks. I can only suspect the massive toll this took on commerce here, and the emotional hits all around the country. That said, we just stuck at home. Went out every other day or so, watched a shitload of movies and television, cooked a lot, and started to go a bit stir crazy. Over the weeks, things slowly began re-opening. I’d peer out the window to people playing badminton in the sun. It was then when Europe and America all began to go to shit.

Cue Club crowd in April 2020

I remember being confused by photos of Europeans and Americans still going out and doing things. My brother sent me a video of him at a Shellac show just days before numbers began to skyrocket. I told them to stay home. I made a Facebook post asking people, kindly, what the fuck they were doing, and to just cancel all of that shit, and self quarantine. I knew it was about to get bad. I didn’t think it’d get this bad. It really sucks to say “well, yeah, of course" when one thinks about it. I get it. Things are different in America. We’re stubborn. Muh freedom. We don’t wear masks. Our president is a fucking asshole, rapist, piece of scum television star who sits on Twitter all day making disgusting jabs at people. It’s all so extremely disappointing. I’ve been consistently worried about my family, friends, and everyone I know who was already just scraping by paycheck to paycheck. This is a world-wide cluster fuck, and I almost feel guilty sitting here comfortably in Chengdu. I get to zoom around on my motorbike, bear the fruits of Asia’s endlessly excellent delivery culture, from food, to masks, and whatever else I need. Sit and watch the numbers rise everywhere else, because they just didn’t take it seriously, in time, have the infrastructure. In some cases, many of these assholes outright just didn’t care at all. I know you know this. We all do. I’m going to halt on the negativity, and just to to continue putting out positivity. China, and I knock on wood daily when I think this, seems largely recovered from this whole goddamn mess, in a time when the United States has recorded the most deaths. Things are so broken, and I’d love to believe this would be a wake-up call, but I fear not much will change. I actually went to Indonesia at a last stop before I came back. They had one falsely recorded case of COVID-19 in Bandung, which turned out negative, as I arrived. I met with Prabu from Saturday Night Karaoke. We drank beers, and reflected on the last year or so since we’d gone on tour with Korea’s DBGC, back when the plan was to live in Indonesia for at least a year. Before the noise and worry of the almighty dollar swallowed me and I hopped ship back to, what I truly yearned for, Mainland China. I didn’t see a single person wearing a mask at that time. Now, the situation is different. This isn’t accusatory. Really, this whole update is just to tell you where I’m at with things, puke out some feelings onto paper, and give you an insight into where Sichuan stands as a scene. I feel bad for Wuhan. I fucking love that city, and it was always brash, untamable, dirty, loud, swelteringly hot. They definitely didn’t need to add this to their resume.

Zooming on a silent electric bike - April 2020 (Salute, Mao)

I’ve been going out. Last weekend’s show with Luca was the first. I half expected it to not happen after the NUTS Club closure. Is that stupid? It didn’t feel stupid. Sure, we’re riding on the edge right now. We’re trusting China’s numbers that there are no new cases. Yes, something could happen. I don’t know the protocol in this new era of life. We’re masking up and doing things, cautiously, but when people get inside of where they’re going, it’s almost like nothing is wrong at all. That’s what the vibe is like. It’s a slippery slope, and I’m no expert on any of this, but it seems to me this gradual upward trend of positive traction will start spreading out across the world in short order. Things are dark right now outside of China, and I can’t assume to know what the rest of the country is like. From what I hear, Sichuan province is very relaxed, comparatively. China has just recently banned the entry of foreigners in an effort to control things better. China has color coded apps that turn from green to red if you visit high risk areas outside of the city you’ve quarantined in. It’s attached to your phone number and knows exactly where you’ve been. If that sounds dramatic, well, it is, and for good reason. In reality, I cannot even leave this city if I wanted to have a job when I returned. Traveling to even neighboring Chongqing would probably put me back into quarantine for a few weeks. That said, I don’t want to leave. I’ve talked a lot about the comfort level here, and this is one instance where it has been an extremely positive thing.

Delivery people are the true heroes - April 2020

I know things are going to get better, and I believe it will be soon. Some sort of awful hindsight may come of this article, but if what I’m living now becomes everywhere else, I’m not sure we’ll have an intensely horrible second wave as some speculate. China always felt like the safest place in the world once I returned, even when things were toward their peak here. I watched as the toilet paper hoarding, the disbelief, and the mania all came into play. I woke up to financial markets melting down, Bitcoin halving in price while I sat on Binance, mouth wide open. Extreme fear is a hell of a thing, and I just simply feel terrible for those who don’t have the means to get through this without major hits on all fronts. If you have extra cash, please seeks out ways you can help others. I see a lot of fundraisers by restaurant and bar folk, people with kids who are struggling, whatever you can do to lighten the load of someone, if things are comfortable enough for you. It’s going to go a long way to rebuilding across the world, and I’ve been impressed by so many who’ve done great things. I won’t offer some sort of blanket statement, but I do pray and give thanks for those making a big impact during all of this. The hospitals. The doctors. Delivery people. Those who have to go out and get shit done or the entire damn thing would just collapse right in front of us. For the people who tried to do the right thing, we see you. As for life in Sichuan, things almost seem completely back to normal today, despite many places still being closed, cinemas not running, and a majority of public spots still just waiting for the green light to begin again.

Has it really been over a year since I’ve written anything on this website? For that, I apologize. It’s crazy to think it’s been nearly two years since I moved to Chengdu. Settling into Sichuan dug its claws into me almost immediately. This is, despite its sprawl and amount of people, a sleepy city that simultaneously busts its ass. The vibe is laid back, and my biggest priority when I got here was to make sure I did a good job at the university I was working at. We went out quite a bit, and I’ve amassed quite a large back log of photography, and a bit of video. This was high-risk jump for me. When I was briefly living in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, I quickly realized I was eventually going to run out of money, not really being able to work and do this project full time, and I wasn’t quite sure anyone was going to really give enough of a shit in the end. A change had to be made. I was bouncing in and out of Guangzhou at the time, and the position opened up for me to work an extremely low amount of hours, for sustainable pay, and also simultaneously have a large amount of paid holiday per year, of which I thought would be perfect to work on the project sustainably. The city wrapped around me like a warm, familiar blanket, and the months flew by. My editing computer started to gag and spit, unable to edit video well, and the wait was weeks to get it looked at. Things just fell by the wayside. I’m going to try and do better, and get back on the editing horse.

Thanks for reading this. I had to get something out there. It’s been too long, and I’m going to make an effort to bring more life into this project this year. There’s a ton of backlogged stuff hanging behind the curtains, and I’m excited to start putting more content out there. I hope you’re doing okay, and can stay healthy, sane, and positive during these ridiculous times. I hope this update gives you some hope. As I hit the final save button on this, I’m drinking a Redbull / Vodka, and heading to a 20 artist electronic festival at AXIS with many of the people in this article. I think everything’s going to be okay. Take care out there.

- Yingling

Ana (Cue Club founder) - April 2020

Life goes on - April 2020

Kaishandao @ Steam Hostel - 2019(?)

WUME (NZ) - NU Space - 2019

Chongqing in 2019

The most 麻 (numbing) chicken on the planet. We couldn’t even eat much of it.

Meikadeer - Sound of the Xity - Chengdu - December 2019

Chinese Football - Sound of the Xity - Chengdu - December 2019

Guangzhou’s DIE! CHIWAWA! DIE! outside NUTS Club in Chongqing

This kid. A home dumplings restaurant in Chengdu - 2018