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Okay, you can be honest with me. Spit it out. You did not come halfway across the world for this, how they call it, “Banana Pancake Trail”? I know exactly how you feel. I can tell how much you would like to throw a chair at that guy who’s mesmerizing a full table of other exemplars of the backpacking species with his bragging rights, just over there. His tales of having seen this and that tourist attraction on the ultra-cheap contradict with the reality that his clothes would pay for two months’ worth of food for a local family.
You feel like you would be better suited outside, grasping for a change of air, like an amphibian in dire need of a habitat change. At least, back home you would know where to go bang your head, turn your anti-social behavior into loud drunkenness, and raise the horns to the Devil’s music.
But how can you do it in Asia-town? My friend, today is your lucky day because I’ve been there, and done that, and I am going to give you six places to find the rock underbelly in some of East Asia’s sprawling cities. If you thought they didn’t rock, well, you should get back into that hostel lounge, sit next to the bragging guy, and start clapping your hands.
1) Soundmaker, Penang, Malaysia
Literally hidden at the second floor of a tattered building along Pengkalan Weld, about half a mile down the road from the Jetty, this is the place to rock in Northern Malaysia. Check their show listings before you go because this place is not a bar, therefore, it is not open when you want. Rather, this is a real do-it-yourself underground venue,where heavy metal, punk, death metal and alternative rock spray the walls with sweat.
The showroom is decently sized and the sound system is quite good for an underground enterprise. The fact is that in Malaysia — a country who forced a ban on metal music in 2001, and whose Islamic party has given a hard time to Elton John because he is openly gay — you cannot really get much better than this. Soundmaker is the place to rock away your sleepy weekend afternoons and early nights, as no show can go on after 12 a.m. As a tip, buy some beer at the Chinese food court downstairs, as there is no bar inside.
2) Yuyong Yishan, Beijing, China
Beijing had an amazing alternative rock and punk club called D-22 in the Wudakou student district where the Chinese bands of the ’90s made the history of Beijing punk. Unfortunately, it closed last year. D-22 an institution for Chinese underground rock, and has been the backdrop of many of my more interesting Chinese nights. Now, the megalopolis’s new focus of rocker attention is Yuyon Yishan.
As a reflection of the cosmopolitan and never-sleeping Beijing art scene, the club offers a mix of proposals coming from the realms of rock, electronic music and much more to keep your feet moving and your head banging. And in case your recent activities included Great Wall hiking, be warned, this may not be the best place to rest your aching legs.
3) The Overstay, Bangkok, Thailand
With Bangkok’s reputation for vice and all sorts of other mischievous evils, it comes quite as a surprise that its music scene is so dead. Luckily enough, not too far from Khao San Road tourist enclave, you can find a pretty particular example of postmodern subculture in Pinklao: the Overstay.
This 6-story building functions as a rock/alternative venue, and a very cheap hotel with artsy character and an alleged ghost haunting the upper floors to spice things up. Come to enjoy live bands from all sides of the rock/alternative/electronic spectrum, and bring along your instrument for the occasional jam sessions. And if you’re hungry, you can try out the open kitchen to cook up some vegetarian food for your new friends.
4) Rumah Api, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
In a place called the “fire house,” you may expect amplifiers to burst out sparks of white heat and set your eardrums on fire. If you know what a real punk house is, and I mean an independent space where DIY is the law, welcome to Rumah Api, one of the places in Kuala Lumpur that dares to object to the city’s rampant, over-constructed technologic wealth and high-class loving youth.
A stone’s throw away from the Ampang LRT station in the northeastern part of the city, Rumah Api is to Kuala Lumpur what CBGB was to New York during its heady punk days. Catch a dose of local and international punk, hardcore, crust, thrash and grindcore bands sweating — literally, as the only wall fan provided resembles a World War II airplane’s engine — on the nonexistent stage, and mingle with the most alternative youth in the capital. This place has plenty of character, but you gotta have some to enjoy it too. Otherwise, please keep on reading your book at the guesthouse or do not sway too far from Petaling street, I have warned you.
5) Sharky Bar, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
The self-described “longest running Rock ‘n Roll bar in Indochina,” Sharky’s Bar has been entertaining Phnom Penh for the past 17 years. Which, let me tell you, is a great accomplishment in terms of having given a space for rock music to a country that had seen many of its best musicians exterminated by the Khmer Rouge’s genocidal fury.
Situated not too far from the riverside at Road 130 in the Kahn Daun Penh district, Sharky is a cosy, American-style bar with pool tables and plenty of beers on tap. Come for the fun “beer pong” every second Tuesday, and expect to find local and international bands playing their brands of bluesy, rocking or rolling fury on stage.
6) Bad Monkey Bar, Dali, Yunnan, China
Dali keeps transforming since I first visited, and Bad Monkey Bar is one of the better improvements to the city that I’ve seen. This club brews its own beers and sits in the main center of the Old Town, a perfect location to break your journeys to and from the mountain side and the lake. The setting of Dali itself is awe-inducing, and a night out here is a great way to top your stay with some doses of unhealthy international and Chinese rock, punk and more.
By Marco Ferrarese
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marco Ferrarese has visited 50 countries and lived in Italy, the United States, China, Australia and Malaysia. He started vagabonding as a punk rock guitarist in Europe and North America, hitting the most famous and infamous stages across the two continents. In late 2007 he relocated to East Asia. He is currently a PhD candidate at Monash University, Kuala Lumpur, researching the anthropology of punk rock and heavy metal in Pacific Southeast Asia. He posts a weekly column at Rolf Pott’s Vagablogging and writes about hardcore Asian travel and extreme music in Asia at MonkeyRockWorld.com.
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Compassion comes in many forms. You can give away your life savings, some extra change in your pocket, or a bottle of water to a thirsty child. It’s easy to change one person’s life, but much more difficult to change many. In fact, I think it’s probably near impossible to change everyone’s world, spreading yourself like a thin layer of butter on a large piece of toast: everyone gets a taste but most are left hungry. Sometimes we can — to reform the cliché — teach a village how to make butter.
As travelers (an observed middle-class + decadence) we are inclined to go abroad with a purpose, and we feel a desire to contribute from our excess. In Argentina, I remember feeling pangs of guilt when nibbling on bizcoches — lard cookies –while talking with a group of Norwegian exchange students doing volunteer work. I was self-conscious that I did not give an equal amount of energy to what I graciously received from the cultural experience in while there. Today, however, I look back with no regrets, just happiness that I got to share moments with people, to listen to their stories, and to learn from them and experience a change.
Reading this recent article in The Toronto Star, I can relate to the inner torment of the author who was struggling with these very same feelings of guilt while in Phnom Penh. A couple of years ago, some friends and I got to spend some time there, mostly just to see Angkor Wat. I remember getting off the plane, slammed with a wall of humidity, and being terrified at how different the atmosphere was.
I had never encountered “the hustle” before, and I felt like I was on the edge of a cultural waterfall. Stepping out of the airport doors, we were drowned in hollers for tuk-tuk rides. The one we bartered for took us to three different hotels, each belonging to a “cousin.” Walking the streets at night, we were followed by kids with knockoff best sellers and saw old, Western businessmen dining with young, Cambodian girls. As the article observes, “A cynic might dismiss the expressions on the beggars’ faces, the sadness in their eyes, as a well-honed skill calculated to rip at the heart and thereby induce giving. In our case it worked, and the looks in their eyes still haunt.”
Yup. Any person with half a compassionate heart would agree.
Still, we did not give money, afraid that we would be inundated with waves of needing mouths. We would give a bottle of water to one girl and her cousin would show up. One book-selling boy we came to know quite well was given the equivalent of USD$0.25 from us for a Popsicle. Within 30 seconds he returned, asking for more to buy his cousin one. We found ourselves struggling to say “no.”
Still, to this day, I do not feel guilty for saying “no” the second time around. This might sound silly, but my only hope is that for one moment — perhaps the time it took for one girl to down a two-liter bottle of water or the 30 seconds it took for that boy to enjoy his Popsicle — these children were relieved of something. I had only so much to give, and I think that even the little bit that I did was something. I’d like to think that compassion can also come in the form of understanding.
[Photo via stock.exchng]
By Brit Weaver
About the Author
Toronto born and based, Brit is an avid leisure cyclist, coffee drinker and under-a-tree park-ist. She often finds herself meandering foreign cities looking for street eats to nibble, trees to climb, a patch of grass to sit on, or a small bookstore to sift through. You can find her musing life on her personal blog, TheBubblesAreDead.wordpress.com.
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Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, is as fascinating and steeped in history as it is chaotic, and is now just picking up the pieces from its disastrous history over the last few decades.
Narrow, potholed back streets run off frantic roundabouts and wide European-style boulevards, a mark of the French who ran the country from 1864 to the 1950s. Driving becomes a game of scooter dodgems with the added diversion of finding the two-wheeler most loaded down. At last count, the winner was eight people — and a cow.
But as this New Zealand Herald story reports, from the regal Royal Palace (still the King’s residence) to the heart wrenching Tuol Sleng Museum (which chronicles the horrors of the Khmer Rouge), there is plenty to see in Phnom Penh.
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