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Category Archives: music

The Devil Went Down to Qinghe

If you’ve been in Beijing long enough to escape the cacophony of the Imperial Palace and the Badaling Great Wall, you’ve found yourself wandering through some regular old city park, serenaded by wisps of patriotic or traditional music. Here’s a sample from two years ago:
[Audio clip: view full post to listen]
The description back then was [...]

Posted 18 September 2011 † syz § ‡ Comments (4) °

Soundbites: Xi’an music in the park

[Another episode in Tourism, the series. Other parts here]
On this summer day in Xi’an, the old plaque in the BJS studios was again sounding overly cynical.
Tourist, n. One who favors packaged over live, who inches squeamishly past the teeming fauna of his own backyard — with its outrageous comedies, its epic contests, its tawdry intrigues [...]

Posted 13 October 2009 † syz § BJS Daily § Tourism Series ‡ Comments Off °

Zhonglish for two-year-olds

On how English messes with even the kids’ Mandarin

After months of exile in Minneapolis, Siberia, the nominal proprietor of Beijing Sounds now has concrete plans to return to the main studio location in beautiful suburban Shàngdì in the northwest outskirts of the capital city. The mood surrounding this semi-permanent move, to take place around the [...]

Posted 25 January 2009 † syz § linguistics § personal § recipes § society § street § teacher § tones § wàidìrén § zhonglish ‡ Comments (8) °