China Daily on Obama Win
YESＷＥCAN!!!!!! OBAMA!!!!!!!!!!!
Where to go on Election Day in Shanghai, China?
Vlad and Friend Boris on Palin
Chinglish, Engrish? I dunno. Here's a mix from Shanghai and Wuhan.
The Legend of Bruce Lee
Watch Debate Replay in Shanghai
Soulfire in Nanjing!
Keeping Up With The Wangs???
Where I'm going tomorrow night:
Check Out My New Marriage Blog
Great place to get cheap and good sandwiches in Shanghai
China BOTY Soundtrack
More on today's floods
Floods in Shanghai
This hug was a little too long, Yao...
Olympics is done, but I had fun watching!
LEAVE LIU XIANG ALONE!!!
China's Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics
SOULFIRE IS COMING TO SHANGHAI!!! 8-18!!!
For Those That Wonder If I Still Break...
Typhoon In China
Busy weekends this weekend and next weekend...
My Jeju Review
Redstar interview on Interhiphop
Chinese Drama On Trying to Make It With Hip-Hop
50 Moganshan Lu is the bomb
The Greenwich Village has finally come to Shanghai
Oh snap... Liu Xiang, WATCH OUT!
In Jeju, Korea two weeks from today...
Monsoon Season has arrived!!
No more plastic bags!!!
SOULFIRE IS COMING TO CHANGSHA!! 6-16!!!
Need Studio Space for rent in Shanghai? Soulfire's got your back.
YES WE CAN!!!
DJVibe.CN
Chinese Hip-hop Tune dedicated to the Earthquake
Graff in Shanghai
Take a day off, fool! It's Dragon Boat Festival!
HA HA HA: The Movie
I Heart Beca.
Response to Sharon Stone by Chinese Actor
Hiphop.cn's Xi You Ji Volume 2 Mixtape Is Out!!!
Sharon Stone on China Earthquake
The Last Time We're Going to Kowloon Ice House.
Last Stop - Xuzhou
Back to the Roots @ The Shelter - This Friday
The Forbidden Kingdon (Gong Fu Zhi Wang)
Saved after being trapped for over 180 hours... and gave birth!
How to Dress for Mourning...

SOULFIRE IS COMING TO SHANGHAI!!! 8-18!!!

Watch out, Shanghai... We're coming home!!!

After all this work, research and pulling strings... You can find Soulfire on Shanghai radio everyday on Shanghai's China Business Network (Di Yi Cai Jing) on FM 97.7 starting August 18th. We'll be on at night starting at 9:30PM.

For Those That Wonder If I Still Break...

Here's proof positive....

OK, so a lot of my moves are the same, but I still got it!

This was at the China BOTY 2008 that happened a few weeks ago. If youa re looking for some clips of the performances and battles, scroll though these search results here. You'll be happy to hear that a lot of the perfromances contain quite a few Chinese culturally related themes. Great job, Caster Dance.

Oh yeah.... get the CD.

Busy weekends this weekend and next weekend...

These weeks have been pretty crazy and busy since my lovely time in Jeju with the wifey. But, as they say, the show must go on!

This Saturday, Redstar has a show at Hangzhou's G+ from 10pm-2am. We'll aslo be on FM 99.6 from 2pm-3pm to do a live interview on the air. Be there for that.

Next weekend on the 18th is the China DMC Championship. Find out more here!

The day after on the 19th is China BOTY Final. Find out more info here and don't sleep! (I know I won't!)

SOULFIRE IS COMING TO CHANGSHA!! 6-16!!!

CHANGSHA, ARE YOU READY?!?!

106.1, Changsha Music Station

June 16th, 2008... Soulfire's coming to a radio near you... (We on either at 4pm or 5pm.. something like that...)

Need Studio Space for rent in Shanghai? Soulfire's got your back.

Our engineers are hard at work and are ready to make you sound GOOD!

Find out more here! I'll put up a permanent link VERY SOON!

Last Stop - Xuzhou

Exhibit A - Dog Meat

So I am back as of yesterday from Xuzhou located in Jiangsu province. It was really hot over there and the place is surrounded by tons of mountains... Kinda reminded me of Nanjing, but a lot smaller.

Anyway, this was the last stop of the 10 day tour with Chivas 12 y.o. Honestly, I'll miss the people on the tour, the whiskey, the meeting, greeting and taking pictures of people. But one of these things I will miss the least:

DOG MEAT

Xuzhou is know for it's spicy dishes, particulalry their spicy dog dish. There are plently of restaurants that have the sings "GOU ROU" (litterally, Dog Meat) plastered all over their walls and store fronts. No, Zoe and I had no dog meat on our journey, and you will know why if you do a picture search for the words Gou Rou on baidu.com... Sick...

Anyway, Xuzhou was cool and the hotel were were at called the Yingdu New Jin Jiang was a pretty posh 4 star. There was a wedding happening at the hotel and at the lobby they were collecting money for the couple with a machine to check whether the money people were giving to the couple were real or fake. Welcome to China!!

If you are ever in Xuzhou and you want to find a fun time, you can check out Calvin Klein Club... Yes, it's called Calvin Klein (CK Jiu Ba... IPR is going well out here!). They have a cage there for scantlily clad male and female dancers with too much make-up (the male dancers too).

Glad to be back in Shanghai.

Back to the Roots @ The Shelter - This Friday

Freakin' beautiful flyer, Gary.

China's best non-pretentious party is back. Be there.

Redstar Intro on Hip-Hop.CN

MoJo reppin' Redstar for Hiphop.cn

(The following is a translation/transcript by yours truly.)

Ready? OK.

I'm MoJo from Brooklyn, NY, but now, I'm in Shanghai with Redstar, we are a dope hiphop group. Redstar is revolution. We Are Revolution.

We're going to change the shape of China Hip-Hop by giving it more elements, depth and sophistication. This is us, we represent Shanghai, we represent real hip-hop, international hip-hop, China hip-hop, we got it all.

Check it, we were on NPR, and even they wanted to interview us. Take a look at that! Now we're on HipHop.cn. Shoutouts to Hip-Hop.cn for supporting us. We need that support. We need more people like us, more hardworking hip-hop groups.

This makes me think about a picture we have where we were walking down this street and there's this long road behind us in the picture. That picture represents the long road an mc has, a producer has, a band has, particularly a hip-hop band has long and difficult.

But now we're here for the service of the people. The service of China and the service of the entire world. This is our most important and main goal. Holler... Hiphop.cn 4 liiiife!

(Singing "Who We Be" Chorus with Tangking)(Beatboxing)

---------------

Back to the music... Enjoy this tune called "Xun Zhao" (Searching). It's not done yet, but I think you'll still like it.

Nanjing... we back in tha building!

1912 in Nanjing

Once again, I returned to Nanjing and when I arrived, I realized so much has changed. Firstly, the town is a lot greener with more trees. Secondly, there are way more foreigners living there than I've ever seen. Lastly, 1912 has finally become a huge part of Nanjing's dining, nightlife and overall entertainment experience.

1912, as you might know, is called 1912 because in 1912, Nanjing became the capital of China with the country's first president, Sun Yat-sen. (Not far from 1912 is the Presidential Palace.) 1912 was a great time for Nanjing because it shows Nanjing at a time when it was bustling and becoming the true epicenter of China.

Almost 100 years later, it's getting back to that feel from 1912 at the formentioned entertainment district. Full of cuisines from Thai, local Chinese to KFC and more bars and clubs that you can shake a stick at. I perfromed there with Chivas last Saturday night at a place called Fei Bi Club (aka Phoebe Club). The place had a bit too much neon lights and metalic frames for my tasts (which is very common in Chinese clubs), so I did take a trip to Little Scarlet along with my wife, DJ Melkman, along with local friends Yuichiro (my Midd class mate and GT representer), Miki (From F&W and in-nanjing.net) and his girlfriend, and Kai.

If you're looking to move away from the 1912 spots, I would sugest two more places also worth checking out:

Nanjing's Underground Mall (aka Fashion Lady)

You want sneakers, high heels, dresses, shirts, hats and sunglasses for cheap (or relatively cheap), you got it all here. There's like 2-3 floors ful of tiny stores where you can bargain for all your clothing needs. I find that the fit for most of the clothes here is a bit small for me, particularly in the shoes department, but otherwise, it's great if you are a gal looking for a bargain and different styles that, chances are, other people won't have.

The place is full of people, I would recommend going on Sunday afternoon where it is a little easy to walk through. The spot is not far from Xinjiekou across the street from Dong Fang Shang Cheng Shopping Mall (which now has the real Gucci and Armani stores???) near the Jinling Hotel.

Planta

Planta is a Thai food/lounge/bar/club in Nanjing. It's pretty far away from other clubs and kinf of hard tofind because it's way behind some science building. When you areive at Planta, you'll find plenty of couches, dimmed lights and chill music. When I was first there with Aric in '06, there was noone there. Last Saturday, When I was there with Zoe, I thought I was at Glamour Bar on a Friday night. It was packed with people, Chinese and foreigners alike, all dressed in black with downtempo and acid jazz playing and folks schmoozing. Call it pretentious, call it cool, but this is a change for Nanjing, finally, an alternative for all.

Anyway, that's all for now. This Friday is Hangzhou at Lin Ping Ben Se.

More on Ningbo (aka Ning-bizzle)

Damn! That's a looong bridge!! (Hangzhou Bay Bridge)

Ningbo left a pretty darn good impression on me this weekend. Maybe it's because I spent a whole two days checking out the city rather than an overnight where I see more of the club and the hotel than the actual city. There are three things that stuck out in my mind while I was there...

Ningbohua = Shanghaihua

Ok, Ningbo and Shanghai dialects aren't exactly the same, but apparently, 70% of Shanghai dialect comes from Ningbo dialect. My wife understands Ningbo dialect even though she's never been there, but she could essentially speak Shanghaineese to the people there and it would sound the same... For me, that doesn't matter much because I'm like a guy from Beijing... I don't understand what these people are saying and my Mandarin is too proper.

Ningbo Guide

I'm really impressed by this magazine. They are located in all the right spots in Ningbo, they notify you on all the good deals in Ningbo and it's in both Chinese and English. Nice to see a full bilingual magazine and not just something catered to lost lao wai in this country. Craig, way to go. if it wasn't for this mag, I wouldn't know that Crowne Plaza Ningbo has an all you can eat barbecue for 68 kuai (10 Bucks! It's a steal!)

Hangzhou Bay Bridge

(both of the pictures above)

It's long and convenient. Supposedly the longest bridge in the world... (I think only in China, but they say the world in China...)

Anyway, it's way quicker to take a trip to and from Shanghai to Ningbo by the bus. We took the train over and it took about 3.5 hours (and that was the fastest train). We took the bus back and it was about 2.5 hours, and buses are torture to sit through in this country.

When we first got on the bridge, everyone stood up to look and took pictures and talked about the history of the bridge and what they heard about it and so on.. very excited...

Then... We were still on the bridge..

It kept going... With the sea all around us... Now I know how it feels being a sailor lost at see with water all around you... BORING... hehe

Anyway, that's not the point of the bridge... It's all about from point A to point B and now traveling from Shanghai to Ningbo and back has gotten a lot faster. I see a lot more manufacturing and travelling happening between Ningbo and Shanghai.. Does this mean that Ningbo will surpass Hangzhou in city development???

(I still think Hangzhou is prettier! Sorry, Craig.)

That's all folks. This week... Wuxi and... I'm going back home to Nanjing!

(This one's for you, Miki... IN-NANJING.NET!!!)

This weekend in Shanghai... Which I will miss...

Whatcha gonna do when Yiwu goes wild on you!

Yiwu: The Wholesale Market Capital of the World!

So I took a trip with Chivas 12 y.o. to Yiwu this past Saturday. Heard a lot of things about this place... actually... not so many... but I know that there's a HUGE wholesale market there with a lot of stuff for cheap.

Of course, you have to try to find things you like and buy a lot of it before you can go on and say how much of a great deal all of this is. Clothes, bedding, silverware, utensils, they got it all there for cheap.

Saw tons of Middle Eastern, African and Easter Europeans there getting their deals on for their business... Sometimes, it felt like there were more foreigners there than in Shanghai.

Now only if they work on their social scene...

Overall, in between my trips to Shaoxing and Yiwu, I realized something... A good number of folks in Zhejiang province are really well off.. why? because they got into their businesses early and made something out of nothing. From selling a lot of cheap stuff, making millions off of zippers, or even manufacturing... Zhejiang is loaded.

Shanghai Jazz

This guys's got it...

Wanna know how I know so much about Jazz on Soulfire... Here's my origional teacher, JQ Whitcomb. He's been involved in the jazz scene in Shanghai for YEARS and he knows what's up... SO, if you wanna know about the jazz scene in Shanghai (as well as the rest of China...) Check out Shanghai Jazz Scene.

For those that don't know, Shanghai has a pretty rich jazz history, from swingin' at The Paramount back in the hey days, to vibin' at The Peace Hotel, to jamming out at JZ Club, Shanghai is all about jazzing it up...

I'm still looking for folks to work with me on a jazz/hip-hop collabo!!

MoJo in Shaoxing

Waterways and canals can be found throughout Shaoxing.

My wife and I are in Shaoxing located in Zhejiang province, for one stop on a nine city tour for sevan weekends through Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces for Chivas 12 y.o. I'm mcing and beatboxing the shows, which is fun. When ever I do these kinds of shows, I get to see bits and pieces of these cities, but it's never long enough...

Anyway, my wife's family is originally from there (Father-in-law's side, grandfather...) and it's been nice to see it... There are a lot of canals and waterways, much like Suzhou, but I find Shaoxing to be more quaint, at least at first glance.

Next up, Yiwu. Looking forward to it!

Faxing in China is really annoying...

And Dated!!

I work... and we all do.. Sometimes, we gotta send things, and sometimes those things need a signature... And one of the best ways to do it (if you don't have a scanner) is via fax... If you don't have one at home, you can go to a center to do that for you...

I've found faxing in China as a chore... and it's tiring and it can be costly.. Hong Kong, although is a part of China, is still included as an international number so even for sending to certain parts of the country.. It's more expensive...

I would like to see a Kinko's in Shanghai who can just take your stuff, send it away, and do it all for one low and great price... "Yi Tiao Long" (One Long Dragon... which is kind of like everything in one place...), that's what we need... I'm tired of sending from business hotels and spending more than I have to!

Note to self... Buy a scanner...

Second note to self... develop a perfect fax machine, bring it to China and rule the world... MUAHAHAHAHA... ummm... I think I'll keep my day job.

Outcome vs. Process

If you want to do business in China, You have to know about Process...

I've lived in China for more than three years and studying China for about eight and there's something that I hear about all the time, but have a tought time geting some time.

Outcome vs. Process

Outcome (Jie Guo) is of couse all about end result. Process (Guo Cheng) is about what it takes to get to the end result. In the west, we see out come as a higly important thing, where as in the East, and particularly in China, you'll find more value in the Process.

This can be diffuicult in business, particulalry for multinational companies... Deadlines, negotiations, executing plans are totally different... I find that this can affect every office and business.

There is no real solution to it all except a hope for more open communication as to what works and what doesn't both have their advantages and disadvantages.

Will Chinese Hip-Hop ever take itself seriously?

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