The Dali Blues
I spent the weekend attending the Dali Music Festival, an event co-sponsored by a local guesthouse business supposedly interested in purchasing and developing land in the Dali old city. Several of my favorite Kunming bands, as well as a couple of acts I hadn't seen before, played in front of an old temple on Friday and Saturday night.
The promotion couldn't have been better; for a foreigner, that is. The organizers, wishing to attract foreigners to their event, offered the first 100 applicants free transportation and accommodation in the old city. Chinese people weren't necessarily excluded from this event, but the fact that the promotion was publicized entirely in English acted as a limiting factor.
Meanwhile, back in Kunming, a new disco has launched a promotion in which foreigners can literally drink as much as they want for free as long as they sit in the front row. The idea behind this scheme, whether or not is works, is that the mere presence of foreigners will attract more Chinese people.
Quite a few people I've spoken to in Kunming are uneasy with this sort of "affirmative action", if you will. A long-term resident married to a local Chinese woman has vowed to boycott the Kunming venue, citing discrimination. This is a sensitive topic and I can certainly see his point.
But discrimination does exist elsewhere. A beautiful, young woman has a far better chance of being admitted into a choice club in New York and London than does a middle-aged single man. Celebrities, to my knowledge, are often paid large sums of money just to show up places. Private nightclub owners should have some say in controlling which clientele frequent their establishments.
The easier way to handle these issues, I think, is letting the market decide. A far amount of foreigners I know in Kunming don't want, necessarily, to associate with the sort of atmosphere that emerges when foreigners are given free alcohol.
Anyway, Dali was fun. Lots of sunshine, cafe lounging, and nice walks in the countryside. It's easy to see how people find it so...difficult...to leave.
China Travel Feature Up
A piece I wrote over a year ago about "kite jumping" in Kunming, as an example of the sort of lifestyle choices available in this city, is the feature travel story on the Chinatravel.net website. The link to my piece is here, as well as a few photos contributed by friends of mine here in the city.
I like the title of the piece, as well: Optimus Prime China. (I didn't choose it but it fits).