Big in China Page 8

  I was happy to see Mr. Dou waiting for us. Everything looked grayer and dustier than I remembered, but it felt good to be back and I smiled when we turned on to the crazy Jing Shun Lu. We inched up the road, wedged in between buses, with electric bikes zipping by on each side of us, past the guy selling giant vases and clay pots on the side of the road. It all looked at once exotic and utterly familiar, and I saw the boys were also peering out the window, anxious to turn into the Riv.

  When we got home, Jacob and Eli jumped out of the car and immediately joined friends playing in the street. With Becky at work and Anna off with Ding Ayi, I carried my new guitar up to my office, eager to tune up and play a few “welcome to Beijing” licks.

  I opened the case and recoiled at the gruesome sight in front of me: the headstock was dangling off the neck, held on only by loose, flapping strings. I placed the instrument back in its case, which I closed and shoved under my desk.

  Chapter 12

  Can’t Lose What You Never Had

  With both of our fortieth birthdays approaching, Rebecca and I planned a big bash at the Orchard featuring a great African band. I marked my actual birthday by joining a weekly hike led by a friend. We drove two hours northwest of the city, up and over a tall, twisty mountain pass and down into the countryside, arriving in a little village filled with elderly people. Virtually every resident under fifty had left for the city.

  Our driver went off in search of the local party leader to hire a guide, returning with a tiny, gnarled man who looked seventy-five but said he was fifty-two. Just outside the village we came upon a beautiful old temple. Unlike many similar places, it had survived both Japanese occupation in the 1930s and 1940s and the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Our guide, who smoked constantly, said it had not been an active temple since his childhood, but the center building still contained faded Buddha statues. A back room stored coffins, including several large, decorative caskets festively painted bright red and orange. They were used for elderly people, he said, “happy funerals,” marking the end of a long life.

  We bushwhacked our way up a ridge, passing donkeys grazing on the end of long leashes and old men and women tending their crabapple trees. At the top, we sat down for lunch before heading down, with the guide beating the shoulder-high grass with a large stick—to scare off the many snakes, he explained. We walked down the other side of the mountain where we followed a twisty country road into a tiny village. We visited the crumbling courtyard home of an old woman whom the hikers had met on an earlier trip, bought handwoven straw baskets and walnuts from villagers, and headed for the only shop in town.

  Entering the general store was like stepping into 1963, with a faded poster of Mao overlooking the merchandise from a back wall. The store sold everything from hoses and rakes to giant bags of rice and cans of cooking oil. They also had cold beer—never a given in China, especially in rural areas, because of the cost of refrigeration—and I bought a twenty-ounce Tsingtao for a quarter and took a welcome, refreshing swig. Two others in my group also bought beers, and we clinked bottles as I silently wished myself a happy birthday.

  Many people had been asking if I was struggling with the big birthday, wondering if I was feeling depressed or concerned about getting old. These questions were starting to bug me because I kept thinking about Cathy Davis, who was thirty-nine when she died and would have given anything to see her fortieth birthday. It would insult her memory to view getting older as anything other than a gift, or to take a single moment for granted. I was especially committed to taking full advantage of every day we had in China, even if doing so required a complete reassessment of our routines.

  As we began our second year in Beijing, our primary challenges had shifted 180 degrees, from establishing normalcy to battling complacency. Our weekends largely revolved around the same things they do for countless suburban American families—kids’ soccer and baseball games, Sunday school and birthday parties, dinner in friends’ backyards and occasional nights out on the town. I didn’t want life to become too normal. We were Americans living in China for a few brief years. Should status quo suburban living really be our goal?

  With China beckoning, we needed to strike a balance between a nice, stable existence and taking full advantage of this unique chapter in our lives. Soccer games and birthday parties would be around for years to come, while the Great Wall, the terracotta warriors, and Beijing’s labyrinthine, ancient hutong neighborhoods would not—at least for us. A new year was starting, and I had an acute understanding of just how fast it could pass. I heard a clock faintly ticking in the background every day and was determined to make the most of my time in China.

  When Kathy Chen and her family returned to the United States, we hired Hou Ayi, their longtime employee, and an incredibly warmhearted, efficient woman who was a tremendous cook. A former accountant who would probably be running a corporation if she had been born two decades later, she operated in the kitchen like a Swiss clock. She shopped with similar precision, rooting through a pile of scallions in search of the perfect one, and I loved going to the market with her and watching her shop and haggle.

  Kathy had helped Hou Ayi learn many Western dishes, translating from American cookbooks into Chinese, but we told her to stick mostly with Chinese cooking. We enjoyed eating it every day. And when I really wanted a taste of America I visited one of several restaurants or fired up my barbecue and grilled meat purchased at the excellent German butcher.

  At one neighborhood gathering, I spent much of the night speaking to my American neighbors Dave and Katherine Loevinger, as gangs of kids ran around playing with one another. Dave was the U.S. Treasury Department representative in Beijing, deeply respected in the economics community, but we were talking about music. He had spent years playing saxophone with a popular Washington R&B band.

  I invited Dave and Katherine to our birthday party the next week and told him to bring his sax. I had no idea how good he was, but he seemed to know his stuff and I had never played with a saxophonist. It sounded like fun.

  With my new guitar broken, I took my old Fender Stratocaster over to the Orchard and checked in with the band, which featured two Africans, an American keyboardist, and three Chinese who could nail the beats perfectly. I wanted to sit in for a few tunes and lead them for one—Bob Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go,” the only song I felt comfortable singing in public. We ran through it once before I went out to greet arriving guests.

  A few hours later, with the party in full swing, I joined the band, kicked off the song’s three-chord opening, made sure everyone fell in, and started singing. Surrounded by friends, I felt surprisingly comfortable. I saw Dave over by the side, adjusting his reed, fiddling with his sax and looking tentative. As I began the second verse, I nodded, silently inviting him to join. He walked up to a mic and played a couple of tasty fills.

  As I finished the final verse I signaled him to solo, and he began blasting out a soulful statement that lifted and launched the entire group to a new level. Nothing focuses a band like an inspired soloist, and Dave was fantastic, putting himself into every dynamic note. I dug into my Strat, putting my all into the rhythm as I felt my heart beat faster. Every lick he played made me happier and more confident.

  A few weeks later, I was invited to perform with one of Beijing’s top jazz bands. I would be in over my head, but the evening was part of Danny Pearl World Music Night, an international celebration of the Wall Street Journal reporter who was slain in Pakistan shortly after 9/11. I was being invited in part because I was a WSJ columnist. I didn’t want to say no but was scared as soon as I said yes.

  I asked Dave to come along, feeling much more confident knowing he would be by my side. We took the stage together, and I led the group through three blues numbers. Learning Chinese had liberated me enough that singing in public no longer terrified me, and the positive feedback when I walked offstage was a thrill. The owner
of the club, camped out in back with a big cigar and a tray of green tea, raised a toast to me and gave me a thumbs-up. “Very good,” he said.

  Now I wanted more. I wanted to play with Dave again. I wanted to figure out a way to jam regularly. And I wanted my broken guitar back. My gear gurus at Guitar World assured me the problem was completely fixable—if I could find a competent repairman in Beijing.

  Chapter 13

  Cast Off All My Fears

  Feeling a new urgency to get my guitar fixed, I sent out an e-mail query to a few friends and received two replies with the same advice: Woodie Wu could help me. The young Chinese guitarist was just back from a three-year stint in Australia, fluent in English and running Purple Buzz, a guitar repair shop and music management company.

  I had always been hesitant to mention my Guitar World affiliation when dealing with guitar shops. It felt pompous and name-droppy and led salesmen to launch into one-upmanship. But this was different; I was in China and wanted to make sure that I got good service from the guy with the cool name.

  Dear Woodie. This is Alan Paul from Guitar World magazine. I am in Beijing with a broken Epi 335. I’ve been told that you can fix it. Let me know if I can bring my guitar down for you to look at.

  His reply came quickly:

  I looked you up online. You have interviewed many of my idols. I would be happy to fix your guitar.

  Woodie and I set a date for me to bring him both the guitar and my long-busted amp. Mrs. Lu drove into the large gray Maoist apartment complex filled with identical, bland brick structures where his office was located. Woodie directed her to his building and said he’d meet me at the door. He appeared as I got out of the car wrestling with the gear.

  The perfect picture of a Chinese rocker, Woodie was wearing ripped jeans and a worn jean jacket over a faded Beatles T-shirt, with long black hair obscuring his face. A wallet chain rode around his right hip, Tibetan turquoise glistened around his neck, and his feet were clad in scuffed black Doc Martens boots. Woodie smiled and extended his hand to shake—not always a given in meeting a Chinese friend. He grabbed the amp out of my hand and motioned for me to follow him up the dingy staircase to his office.

  In a back workshop, Woodie introduced me to “Eric,” the thin, bespectacled repairman who worked for him. We took the Epiphone out of its case and Eric carefully studied it, a cigarette dangling between his lanky fingers. He turned it over, eyed the cracked headstock, then looked up and spoke rapidly to Woodie in Chinese.

  “He says he can fix it,” Woodie told me. “It will take some time but be as good as new.”

  Anxious to hear some tales about my years at Guitar World, Woodie invited me into the outer office to have a Coke. Sitting together at a little table, we talked about my interactions with some of the guitarists he revered and about some of the shows I had seen over the years. But I was more interested in quizzing him about the Beijing music scene, which I had barely begun to explore. I didn’t know what kind of music Woodie himself liked or played until I saw the unmistakable face of Stevie Ray Vaughan peeking out from under his left sleeve. I had never been more surprised or excited to see a tattoo.

  Woodie’s arms were covered with tribal tats, but that distinct image belonged to the American blues guitar great whose presence had loomed large over my Guitar World career. I couldn’t believe that I had found a Chinese guy with an SRV tattoo. Woodie couldn’t believe that an American Guitar World editor who had been intimately involved in archival Vaughan CDs—I had written lengthy essays for two prominent releases—had walked into his Beijing office.

  Our talk turned to blues and I got my second pleasant surprise when Woodie, twenty-nine, told me that after a decade of playing lead guitar, he was now focusing on harmonica and lap steel guitar. Lap steel is a form of electric slide guitar, a sound for which I have always had a deep affinity—it is at the core of the Allman Brothers music, which captivated me so long ago and continued to cast a spell.

  We talked about seeing some bands together and getting together for a jam, and I headed home dizzy with the possibilities of not only getting my guitar back but maybe having something really fun to do with it.

  Woodie and I e-mailed regularly for six weeks, then I received this e-mail:

  Guitar is ready. I am playing with a band called Sand Friday night. Do you want to come pick it up there?

  Woodie was sitting with his bandmates in a booth in the back of the Get Lucky Club sharing large bottles of Tsingtao. He rose to greet me and apologetically said they were having a band meeting. “The guitar is right over there.” He nodded toward the stage. “Have a look.”

  I opened the case and picked up the guitar, which seemed as good as new. As I played it, Woodie walked over. “Looks good, right? Want to try it out tonight with a little jam?”

  “Sure.”

  There was a bill in the case, underneath the guitar, but Woodie did not mention it or seem in any hurry to get paid. This stood out in a culture where everyone generally fears getting ripped off and payment is always expected up front.

  In the middle of a swirly Pink Floyd–styled blues song, which Woodie was bringing alive with atmospheric slide guitar textures and overtones, bandleader Liu Donghong motioned me to the stage. I plugged in, adding some concise fills and playing a short, decent solo. I remained in the background for one more song and thought I heard Woodie say they’d call me back later as I walked off.

  I watched alone from a front table, nearly choking on a sip of beer when Liu suddenly said my name, pointed at me, and walked away clapping. He was turning the band over to me. I made my way onto the stage, which suddenly looked very large. As I adjusted my guitar, I looked out into the house and saw the eyes of the small Chinese crowd squarely upon me. I glanced at Woodie, hoping for a suggestion, but, like the rest of the band, he was impassively waiting for me to call a song.

  I rifled my brain for something I could sing with a simple, repetitive chord structure and started strumming the Rolling Stones’ “Dead Flowers,” a country-tinged song ready-made for lap steel. As the band fell in, I leaned into the song’s vocals just enough to wobble off the ground and take tentative flight.

  The rhythm section was digging in, the lead guitarist was playing fills behind me on his white Strat, and as I finished the second chorus, I nodded at Woodie, who played a pitch-perfect, well-constructed solo. As soon as he took off, I felt exactly as I had the first time I played with Dave: inspired. We brought the song down for a surprisingly smooth landing, and everyone looked to me again.

  I yelled out “E!” and dug into the hard-charging country swing rhythm of “Deep Elem Blues,” a traditional acoustic blues from the 1930s later popularized by the Grateful Dead. It’s a fun song to play, with lots of room for wide-open soloing, and everyone fell in behind me. When the band urged one more song, I launched into a simplified version of the Allman Brothers’ “Southbound.” Afterward, the guitarist and bassist came over to shake hands, and Woodie and I drank beers and promised to stay in touch.

  Over the next few days, I kept hearing a sound in my head with Woodie’s slide guitar in one ear and Dave’s sax in the other, and my own guitar and voice in the middle. I wasn’t sure it made a lot of sense, but I had stumbled onto two dynamic musicians who were interested in playing with me. I had to see where I could take this.

  I half expected Woodie to make up excuses to not get together, so I was relieved when he quickly responded to my e-mailed band suggestion.

  I really enjoyed your singing and playing and would be very interested in playing together. The saxophone sounds like a great idea. I will find bass and drums.

  With that long-discussed Orchard open mic offer on the table, I suggested we start out as an acoustic duo and see how it went. Woodie and I met up in a tiny basement studio downtown for two hours, running through Bob Dylan, Grateful Dead, and blues songs—the choices dictated simply by what I could sing somewhat c
omfortably. It went well and I set up a date at the Orchard, in just three weeks.

  Needing a name right away, I made a list of my favorite blues songs and performers, hoping something would click. Then I wrote down our names, searching for a play on words, and there it was: Woodie Alan. How could I not use that? A smile crossed my lips and a thought flashed through my mind: we were fated to do this.

  I compiled an e-mail list of fifty names and sent out an invitation:

  Hello Beijing friends.

  I am performing at the Orchard next Saturday. I have a great musical partner, the wonderfully named Woodie Wu. We had no choice but to call ourselves Woodie Alan.

  We’ll start around 7 pm and play some blues, some Dylan, and anything else we can remember. It should be fun.

  It is our first performance, so please make sure to have a few drinks with dinner. It is also an open mic following our performance, with people invited to join us or take over the stage for a song or two.

  So please come. Leave your rotten tomatoes at home, but bring along that mandolin, guitar, bongo or fiddle that’s sitting in the back of your closet.

  I hit send and almost immediately felt a surge of panic. On the basis of one rough rehearsal, I had just invited virtually everyone I knew in Beijing to watch our debut performance at one of my favorite restaurants. Why hadn’t we anonymously played a few open mics downtown? We needed more rehearsal.