Tag: Xinjiang

No Air – 2nd March 2023

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

When there’s no air to breathe
I must learn to hold my breath
Each precious gasp to push against
The certainty of death

Black lungs are better than black hearts
I just want to breathe
Not in control of my coming time
But now’s too soon to leave

Today I’m feeling:

Relaxed and happy but have a headache from the bad air quality.

Today I’m grateful for:

Fon and her sourdough bread that she dropped at mum’s house for me. This one is not as delicious as last time but still delicious!

The best thing about today was:

An easy day for myself and students both, so that everyone was happy. The little bit of work that I asked them to do for me was just right to keep them involved whilst also letting them chill a little.

What was out of your control today and how did you handle it?

I’d been advised to contact another teacher about grading our students this semester and was hoping, as happened last semester, that I could just hand over my final grades and they would do whatever magic it is that they do in the system.

Anyway, I finally saw the teacher today and they said that if I had login access, which I do, then I can enter the information myself.

Instead of thinking about the extra work it would mean for me I actually thought that this would be useful for me to learn so at least I have done control over the data before it gets adjusted to make everyone look good.

Hopefully, the two teachers who know the system can help me and I can get on with doing it next week.

Something I learned today?

A fair percentage of the world’s tomatoes come from Xinjiang, where they only started farming them in the recent past.

As some dumb countries sanctioned businesses in Xinjiang they are now facing shortages. The UK is said to have introduced rationing and people can only buy two at a time!

Meanwhile, the farmers now sell into new markets and their businesses are booming.

The whole Western narrative around Xinjiang is such unrealistic bullshit.

What are some things that I need to let go of in order to move forward?

The only things I need to let go of are the things I can’t control. Staying attached to them is useless. In general, I am letting go of many of these things and feeling better for it.

I took this picture because I was picking up ice cream at LungChom and these flowers were showing off in the parking lot.

Travellers – Traveller – 23rd September 2011

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Cat #: 074TZM

Traveller is a world music collective started by Wu Junde in 2008. Their style draws heavily from contemporary folk music from western China. In addition to Wu Junde himself, collaborators and members of Traveler are some of the most prominent artists in the domestic folk scene, including Zhang Zhi, Wen Feng, Chen Zhipeng, Zhu Fangqiong, Wan Xiaoli, Zhou Laoda, Zhou Shengjun, Wu Buli, Hugjiltu, Da Song, Wang Xiao, Xiao Zhou and others. 

Their musical backgrounds are ample and quite diverse; lead singer Wu Junde played bass in Tongue, IZ, and Hanggai before founding Traveler; Zhang Zhi is an expert at guitar, dombura, bass and keyboard and plays various other instruments, was the lead singer and bassist for psychedelia band, and once organized 9 Songs Music Festival in Karamay, Xinjiang. In 2010, breakout performer Wen Feng received Los Angeles KAZN FM1300’s Best Drummer Award, and in the same year participated in the American Music Awards’ Ribbon of Hope ceremony. Da Song gave up his work as a fine arts teacher in favor of a nomadic musical lifestyle, allowing him to develop his interest in African drumming and to introduce this form to Lijiang, Yunnan. 

Traveller’s sound synthesizes a wide range of genres and influences. With traditional styles as their starting points, they add the timbres of dombura, Mongolian sanxian, Xinjiang hand drum, and other distinctive folk instruments, producing an amalgamation of folk ballads, world music, Kazakhstani music, and Chinese classical music, to name just a few. The group’s releases include a self-titled album, “Traveler,” “Nikele” with Zhang Zhi; “Son of Dark Horse River” , with Wang Xiao; and “Far Away”, with Xiao Zhou.