How is a month in this city? I’ll do my best:
I walked in from Di’anmen Waidajie, I thought, but the neon I wanted wasn’t there. I slid through couples, behind a car as it pushed into the last space in the lot, up to an ankle-wall of concrete, and stepped up. Men in button-down shirts and slacks and women in evening dresses strolled alongside the foreigners and the kids with sharp hair and black cell phones, cut through by bicycles and rickshaws. The greens, yellows, and reds of characters, roman letters, and lines without meaning hit the water through the trees, pushing the shadows into thick pools.
There is a string of lakes just northwest of the Forbidden City in the center of Beijing, around which are strung glowing bars, clubs, karaoke decks, restaurants, and massage parlors. Generally people tell the cabby, “Houhai,” because that is the de facto center of this nightlife district — though just south through the channels across the road is the famous Beihai Park, with its White Pagoda and temples. Houhai is better than Sanlitun, people say, depending on what you want. I was scanning the lights for “Jazz” in green. After a few minutes I called out to a man with his wife and son:
[Excuse me, do you know what lake this is?]
His roundish son, [Hey, a foreigner!]
The corner of my mouth turned up. [Yeah, a foreigner. I'm a foreigner.]
Dad laughed. [This is Houhai.]
He told me how to get to Qianhai, just south, and I walked off in the crowd. Fuwuyuan stood outside their buildings across the lakeside path, stepping beside foreigners, with “You want drink?” or “Pretty girls!” or “Bar, bar!” Music pounded out of open windows, and glasses glittered in the light.
A bridge looked familiar, finally. Through a cloud of cigarette smoke I saw the cafe, and climbed the stair three steps at a time. Steph, Max, and Max’s old friend Kendrick had been waiting for me for a while, but their champagne was still chilled and the band was just tuning up.
I love the East Shore Jazz Café, and I love it because of that second time I went. The Golden Buddha Jazz Unit cut it up, and the four of us laughed and talked when we weren’t leaning back into the sound. We almost (well, they almost — I wouldn’t have) left before the second set, but we stayed, and a Brazilian singer climbed out of the audience. He told stories in the middle of his songs, in a voice that was about to be hard but changed its mind as it left his lips. He played Girl from Ipanema for an encore, and disappeared. Then I remember the piano player’s reflection in the window.
I’m in a romantic way; forgive me. It bears mentioning that the single bottle of champagne the four of us shared cost half a month’s salary for a schoolteacher in Anhui, or forty-odd dollars American. I am the son of empire, and this is still a far province.
After the set Max, Kendrick, and I talked to the drummer, Izumi. He looked like Johnny Depp minus fifty pounds, and the two smallest fingers on his left hand didn’t work. “You play sax?” he smiled. “Bring your horn, jam with us!” It is a small jazz community here; when I went to D22 to see the Red Hand Jazz Band a week and two days later, their sax player said nearly the same thing.
I can’t remember if I’ve said it here, but Beijing is exactly what I need right now.
