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Interview with the rapper

A Q&A with Beijing hip hop luminary Nasty Ray

 

Nasty Ray is a Beijing rapper straight out of the hutong. He was born in 1988, and lives in the west of town with his mum. ("Welcome 2 da hood, this is Tuanjiehu / I live in 20Two", goes one lyric.) His walls are covered with basketball posters and his own sketches, and one room is a shedload of vinyls and decks. For a taste of his music, go to his Douban page. And for an open sesame to more Chinese hip hop, also check out Yin Cang, Yin San'er and Hei Yun.

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Chinese Tuesdays: 铁公鸡

 

The phrase "iron rooster" 铁公鸡 (tiěgōngjī) is used to describe a very stingy person. It can be followed by the chengyu 一毛不拔 (yīmáobùbá), a saying meaning too stingy to pull out even one hair, or simply said on its own.

I guess as an iron chicken can’t be plucked, it symbolises stinginess.

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Chris Patten on China (video)

A 2008 perspective of China that holds true in 2013

 

This is a clip from an interview I did with Chris Patten in Oxford back in 2008, shortly before the Olympics when I first came to live in Beijing. Rewatching it now, the two minute clip makes as much sense in context five years later as it did then. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

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Chinese Tuesdays: 起身饺子, 下车面

 

Leaving Beijing after a short visit, my Chinese Auntie said she would cook me dumplings, and asked me if I knew why. I guessed it was because she knows I like them, but that was wrong.

She said there is a saying, “起身饺子, 下车面” (qǐshēn jiǎozi, xiàchē miàn), which means when a guest arrives you should give them noodles, and when they leave you should cook them dumplings. Then I realised that every visit over the years she has always cooked me noodles when I arrive, and dumplings for my last meal.

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Photo essay: New Youth

Twelve photos from young China

 

Between 2008 and 2010, I took a series of photos for The China Beat blog (R.I.P). The theme was China's "new youth", also the focus of my then blog. To capture the experience of being young in today's China in a handful of images is a hopeless (but not fruitless) task, not least for a point-and-shoot artist like myself, who thought SLR was the name of an X-factor winning boy band. Still, it threw up some interesting images, in the course of my life in Beijing and travels out of it.

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