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chinese musicians in shanghai

shanghai city nights

Its close proximity to Mongolia made China an almost inevitable choice for our post-Mongolia travels. The fact that the two countries used to be united, and that the train would pass through Inner Mongolia (now part of China) was also an attaction. The idea of continuing the train journey we started at Yaroslavskiya Station in Moscow, back in April 2006, was the final deciding factor. And so, on Thursday 24th May 2007, we boarded Train #24 from Ulaanbaatar to Beijing, embarking on 30-hour journey through the remainder of Mongolia and on into Inner Mongolia and China, bound for Beijing. At least at first.

Beijing, formerly Yan Jing (now the name of a popular local beer), is home to some 13 million Chinese, and would seem like a good place to begin our "China experience", so to speak. Plus, of course, we will be able to visit Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. We will then be travelling on to Shanghai, amongst other things to check out the contemporary jazz scene that seems to have blossomed there at a place called the JZ Club in the old French Concession area. It seems that a group of American and Chinese jazz musicians have opened a school and a club and are performing contemporary jazz 7-nights-a-week. And they've also expanded to Hangzhou with another 7-nights-a-week live club. Why wouldn't I want to check them out?!

Pentatonic scales are as essential to Chinese music as they are to Mongolian. My ears, having been attuned to Mongol 5-note melodies for a little over a year, are looking (or listening?) forward to soaking up some fresh sounds in the coming months.

We are also desperately in need of something resembling a holiday after our time working in Mongolia! As always, I've kept a diary of our travels and experiences, and please take a little time to have a read, in between ordering your copies of my CDs of course...