I have returned. No parades, no celebrations, no fireworks – never any fireworks, not in So Cal. But I’m back. This gets one wondering in reflection. What am I coming back from? And where am I going?

I am coming from China, Beijing, fantastic places I’d only seen in pictures, smiling strangers, watchful Big Brother, keeping the crayon between the lines, dozens of people each with a life and a story that’s worth listening to, endless nights, senseless regulations, crowded subways with TVs showing the Olympics, late-night cab rides, a tireless mass forever striding forward, millions who can never be lost but must struggle to be found, people who want to enjoy their lives just like everyone else in the world, late night pancake breakfasts, my pointing fingers as a means of communication, answering 98% of questions with “yeah” or “dway” though I haven’t a clue what I’m being asked, great food and cheap beer, pretty Chinese girls, other pretty girls, Olympic medals and medalists, having a blast haggling, a great many forms that must be signed and stamped and picture attached and seal added and signed by official, a city that never sleeps, guards and volunteers, stark contrasts, official deceptions, intertwining and blending cultures, and a very, very fun summer.

I have a few weeks of sun-soaked afternoons.

I go to new challenges in life and school, rainy weather, FOOTBALL!, possible acquaintances, possible acquaintances of acquaintances, small places with big stories, bad food, fish and chips, cars on strange sides of the road, big red buses, hot old subways, my financial destruction, awakenings, and my future man, my future.

But let’s not overdo this. Too much thinking is a terrible, wasteful thing, Humphrey van Weyden.

Oh, dear friends, it was amazing. On Saturday night we went to a reggae “festival” (it was really just one band, and then some DJ setup), and did I mention it was amazing?

I’d listened to reggae before only occasionally, and I think mostly on crappy laptop speakers, and never really was into it. I think that is about to change.

The band – Long Shen Dao, “The Way of The Gods” – is 7 Chinese dudes (three of them with dreads – badass), the instruments as such: two electric guitars, bass guitar, drums, keyboards, saxophone, and a traditional Chinese string instrument – I think it was a guzheng. The way they blended all of it together was beautiful and, slightly surprisingly, entirely natural. The guzheng gave their music a very unique sound that managed to seamlessly blend traditional Chinese music and reggae. During one song, one of the guys rapped into it, and this too blended very well with everything else. It was magical, mon. They were great performers as well, gave it their all and the small crowd loved it. I would guess reggae is not particularly popular in China; about half the crowd were foreigners (this meant that this time around I would not be cool just for being white, like in a couple of the other places we’ve gone). Here is a bit of sad news, though: they’re pretty new and don’t even have a CD yet. Bloody hell, how they managed to sound that good so quickly I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that these guys will make it big. I will follow them online.

Their concert got the groove on, but what happened after was also very cool. This was the DJ set outside, with a smallish grassy area as the dance floor. I gradually came to an understanding about reggae that surprised me, since I’d never felt this way when I listened to reggae on my computer. As far as I can tell, reggae is completely about total immersion and enjoyment of the music – which, one could argue, is what music should be about in the first place – much more than any other type of music. Not rock ‘n roll, which I love, not classical music, not trance, only blues guitar solos have come close to me. This is influenced by my tastes of course – maybe it’s what all music is, and different people feel it towards different genres. But I’ve never seen it so clearly. When you stop and look at the individual people dancing, maybe take a step back, it’s probably going to look like an amusing little tip-toeing moron awkwardly trying to “feel it”. But you probably won’t stop and look like this, because you’ll be doing the same exact thing, thinking about nothing but the music. This I felt at least until I realized that it can be kicked up a notch – and this I realized when I saw a guy dancing, eyes closed most of the time, by the side of the crowd all by himself, in a circle three meters in diameter. And boy, was he using all of it. He was rocking out like I’ve never seen before. Dancing to reggae has no form, no style, no rules. It needs none. All it needs is the music, and the feeling that comes with it. It’s beautiful. It’s natural, it’s soul, it’s primordial, it’s oblivious; it’s what dancing should be. You could see in the smiles – the smiles of the dude from Turkey, the dude from Australia, the girl from Austria, the dude from Italy, the girl from New Mexico, the dude from South America, the dude from the Czech Republic, the forty-year-old Chinese lady, the dude from Belgium. Oh, it was great.

To take a step back, maybe it had to do with the setting; maybe if that Chinese band wasn’t so good, or the people around so chill, it would have been nothing like what it was. But that’s what it was, and that’s all that matters for now, isn’t it?

I will post some of the pictures taken with Jacob’s camera when I get them from him (I didn’t want to lug around my DSLR at a festival..).