Field Life--Filled Life

Lets get personal.

I must first apologize for my unintended web hiatus. It was more or less provoked by a number of items which we can file under "Field Life"--that bizzarro-gap of time-space where I am neither researcher nor participant, but some gooey amalgam of Jamel, the naive American in Beijing, and Jamel, China night-life tourguide sensation. Some days I even had to get up early. The effects have been dizzying.

In the past few weeks I've had two friends from high school, Jaysen and Jimmy visit from Shanghai and New Zealand respectively; Jaysen works as a teacher in Shanghai and is hoplessly infatuated with the Shanghai EXPO, and Jimmy is in the middle of a world tour with his girlfriend Kristen, and just biked across Southern China. Jerome, a mainstay of my life in China and professional college home boy popped up from Nanjing to catch a glimpse of Beijing springtime. I also got the chance to kick it with Tekupu, a globe-trotting Maori hip-hop documentarian, emcee and activist from Aotearoa (the settlers call it New Zealand). Tekupu was finishing up a 6 part rapumentary series about hip hop and political activism in 20 countries around the world--so I gave him a hand finding the right people in Beijing to talk to. And then theres Mom dukes, a globetrotter in her own regard, has travelled to at least a dozen countries in the past 5 years, and decided to take down China, and had three days of a two week tour to see her (not so) darling son.

Tekupu AKA D-Word

mom, barry, and the goldmines crew

To add to matters, the apartment I left isn't tumbling down as soon as I had anticipated, which now, according to the real estate company, puts me at fault for breaking lease. "But other rooms in the apartment building have already started being blown out, and the destruction of the stairwell windows is waking me up every morning at 7." Dizzying. Told you some days I had to get up early. I literally thought that I'd be walking home to dig out my Supras from underneath a pile of rubble. "Forget that", they said, "YOUR apartment is still intact, you CAN still live there." Forget about getting your deposit back homeboy, in fact, they want another two months rent (excluding what you've already paid in advance) because you 'suddenly left'. The real estate company also claimed the destruction company never contacted them, when ironically enough, I played the middle man for that exchange, so I'm pretty sure they got the message.

I guess leaving that apartment was a bit of an inconvenience for them. Now what seemingly fat-pocketed sucker will they get to rent a room in a building thats clearly about to be torn down? Waitaminute...

So here I am, in some sort of real estate political exile. There are worst things to be afraid of. Like wasting tax payers money in an economic crisis. Can I pull a patriotism card on this one?



Gentrification, and the destruction of the old hutongs and old buildings in Beijing is a driving force of social cohesion for many youth--the KABOOM destruction of courtyard lifestyle pushes the same social dynamic into towering apartment buildings, making communes out of two-bedrooms. I mean, I've only been here a year and already its pushed me out, and has had me pulled into a rap commune led by my homeboy Jahway. Hip hop offers a unique critique to capitalism and gentrification, and the ways to cope with poverty (see: hustle) and decadence (see:bling), I doubt the mutual dependency of these processes, gentrification, destruction and my lifestyle now as a live-in with Jahway, would be as apparent had I not been studying hip hop. As an ethos, hip hop has helped me in more than one way to understand the phenomena i see (and am a voluntary part of) around this city.

Now its time to put more of this science to paper.

Peace Peace Peace