As we told you earlier, the pop song My Little Apple is now very popular on the Chinese internet with several spoof videos circulating on social networks.
However, one foreigner of China has endeared himself tremendously with the home crowd by making a tribute video inspired by that other Chinese pop trend that refuses to die, Journey to the West.
As explained on his Youtube page, Shaun Gibson made an English version of My Little Apple to tell a well-known story from Journey to the West: when Tripikata gets captured by the Queen Mother of the West as part of a forced marriage, and disciples Sun Wu-kong, Piggy and the rest must rescue him.
Part of the charm of Gibson’s Liverpool-based adaptation is in using costumes from the classic 80s televised version of Journey to the West, and the rest can be seen in the use of anachronisms as well as an overt Stephen Chow reference.
On the video’s Youtube page, comments were mostly positive. They include “I cant believe how incredible you are!!!!!!”, “WOW!!! that was AWESOME!”, and “Okay. Mr. Gibson, you win!!!!!”
Perhaps to make this Chinese pop song stay Chinese, the chorus has been left in the original Chinese, but the subtitles don’t provide any English version aside from pinyin. So in the efforts of making My Little Apple achieve the juggernaut cultural status of Gangnam Style to which it aspires, here’s the chorus in English so you can follow along:
You are my little apple
I can’t love you enough
With a face of red, you warm my the cockles of my heart
and ignite the fire of my life, f-f-f-fire
You are my little apple
Like the most beautiful cloud in the sky
When spring comes and flowers bloom all over the mountainside
I will reap the bounty of the seed of hope I had planted
We wonder what’s next for Shaun Gibson, but if he is to continue to curry favor with his Chinese audience, we’d imagine it would have to involve pandas, the waving of a Chinese flag or shouting “This is real Chinese kung-fu!” at the top of his lungs.
Here’s the music video, and here’s video again on a local video provider:
Photos: Screencaps from Youtube
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Let’s hope the weather stays nice as it has been for the last few days. Not too humid, not too rainy.
Here’s what’s happening this weekend in Shenzhen:
June 5th – Thursday Frisbee Throwing Training by the SZUPA – The SZUPA is an organization with the goal of spreading the sport of ultimate frisbee to Shenzhen and China. Join them Thursdays if you’d like to learn the basics of throwing and catching a disc.
June 5th – Argentine Tango Party (Milonga in Sports Bar) – Spend the night dancing with girls eager to find a dance partner. Come with a partner or find one there. It’s time to tango!
June 5th – Raps Open Mic Night – One of the liveliest open mics in town that runs late into the night. Great for blowing off some steam.
June 6th – The Village Bar & Grill 4 Year Anniversary Party – The Village Bar & Grill will be offering great food deals and great live music to commemorate four years of being open. If you’re in the area, check it out.
June 6th - MUZIK BOX LAUNCH PARTY featuring MIZ KISHI (UK) – Friday night marks the beginning of Muzik BoX in Shenzhen. Lots of local DJs will be performing in the line up that includes Miz Kishi, an English DJ visiting from HK. Expect lots of Drum N Bass. And what’s the biggest selling point to me? Mario Kart and Street Fighter on the SNES. 10% of all proceeds go towards the Bonfire Heart Charity Bike Ride to India.
June 8th - Ultimate Frisbee in Futian – The meet will take place on Sunday 2:00pm at Lianhua Middle School, and then food and drinks will be had at Frankies American Bar.
If you attend any of these events, please email me at [email protected] and we may include some of your reviews in a future post. Let’s keep your event organizers working to provide better and better events!
Editor’s Note: We’re looking for dining and nightlife writers in Guangzhou and Dongguan. If you’re interested, please get in touch with us at [email protected]
]]>Feb. 27th – Thursday Frisbee Throwing Training by the SZUPA – Join the SZUPA Thursdays if you’d like to learn the basics of throwing and catching a frisbee.
Feb. 27th - Open Mic Night @ Raps – One of the liveliest open mics in town that runs late into the night. Great for blowing off some steam.
Feb. 28th - Open Mic Night @ XPATS – Open Mic is every Friday at XPATS. Come enjoy a beer, and keep drinking those beers till you have the courage to go up to perform.
Feb. 28th – Performance by DRAM @ XPATS – British Folk Funk Rock Poets DRAM return to expats for another fun performance.
Feb. 28th – AfterGlow @ Atmosphere presented by White Cat – Live Standup comedy is back and in Futian. Voted the best entertainment in Hong Kong and a hit here in Shenzhen, too.
Mar. 1st - Improv Comedy Workshop – Play some games and learn some acting skills from some aspiring improv comedians.
Mar. 2nd - Ultimate Frisbee in Futian! Sunday Pickup 12:30PM @ Bianfang – The SZUPA meet every Sunday to play Ultimate Frisbee. This week we will meet 12:30PM at the Bianfang football pitches. Afterwards we’ll have food and drinks together at Frankies American Bar.
If you attend any of these events, please email me at [email protected] and we may include some of your reviews in a future post. Let’s keep your event organizers working to provide better and better events!
(Editor’s Note: We’re looking for dining and nightlife writers in Guangzhou and Dongguan. If you’re interested, please get in touch with us at [email protected])
]]>Oct. 11th – Open Mic at XPATS – Drink enough liquid courage to come up on stage.
Oct. 12th – Saturday Salsa Night @ Curv Bar – Make your way down to Curv bar for some Salsa with the Fun Salsa Club.
Oct. 12th – Tunnel Rave by The Real Deal Inc – The Real Deal Inc has some party ideas that feel like those of back home. Their Tunnel raves have been a hit in Shenzhen since the first one about a year ago. Check it out.
Oct. 13th - Songwriting Surgery @ Xpats – A new night for the struggling songwriter. Come with your music and work on improving it with experienced musicians. if they can’t salvage your song, at least you can drink until it sounds better.
Oct. 13th – Sunday Ultimate Frisbee by the SZUPA – Join a growing group of expats and local Chinese players play the fast growing international sport: Ultimate.
Oct. 13th – Luna Sunday Cinema: Zombieland – Enjoy great food and classic movies at one of Shekou’s best bar’s, Luna Bar. This week: Zombieland!
If you attend any of these events, please email me at [email protected] and we may include some of your reviews in a future post. Let’s keep your event organizers working to provide better and better events!
(Editor’s Note: We’re looking for dining and nightlife writers in Guangzhou and Dongguan. If you’re interested, please get in touch with us at [email protected])
]]>The students all hail from Huizhou but most study in other parts of the country. They decided to get together and do this so their summer holiday would be more interesting. You can watch them in action here:
The lyrics of the song you can hear in the background translate as follows (the catchiness is somewhat lost in translation):
Let’s all get together and participate in this zebra activity
Remember that you stop at red lights and go at green lights
Respect traffic laws, safety is number 1
Raise your thumbs to show you agreeZebra, zebra, zebra crossings
4+4 wait at zebra crossings
5+5 wait at zebra crossings
6+6 Oh, yeah!Zebra crossing, I’m a zebra crossing
Traffic police have struggled to enforce the laws in recent months and need all the help they can get.
]]>To wrap the event, The Nanfang sat down with Mr. Magnus, who performed at Fringe events organized by RealDeal, a local events company. Mr. Magnus talked about why he’s in Shenzhen, what he thinks of the Fringe Festival, and how he’d characterize Shenzhen’s music scene.
Firstly, do you like to be referred to by your DJ title or real name?
I usually do not refer myself as a DJ as I am mostly do live remixes using computers and controllers mostly instead of spinning vinyls and CD’s, so I go under Mr. Magnus, my stage name.
How long have you been in China?
I arrived to Hong Kong in early 2009, and a bit more than a year later I relocated to Mainland China.
What brought you to Shenzhen, and do you like it?
I wanted to start performing and organizing in China to push electronic dance music forward. As I am deeply in love with Hong Kong, Shenzhen was the closest and best option for me. Anything is possible in Shenzhen, it’s a city that is just constantly growing and changing.
Mr. Magnus
How would you characterize Shenzhen’s music scene?
Shenzhen’s music scene is very young, and mainly controlled by the bar/club owners and the “show” factor. It’s not about the music, it’s about “face”. But the locals and expats are starting to see more and more events with professional musicians and various unique electronic dance music. I have big hopes for the future, even though it might take some time.
What do you think of Shenzhen’s Fringe Festival?
I was happy to see something like this happening in Shenzhen, to showcase different performances and art to the public. It is needed.
What is special about the audience at Real Deal shows?
The passion and spirit of the crowd we usually have is the best part of the Real Deal parties. It gets us going to see all those people dancing and enjoying the music.
What do you hope the audience at the Fringe Festival got out of your set?
To see what a real dance music event is all about — not about sitting all night drinking and playing games. It’s about dancing, the music and meeting people that share the same passion.
Can you summarize your background in music?
I got into music as a young child. I learned music theory, singing, some instruments and (live) performing. At age 14 or 15 I started collecting Hi-Fi equipment and time synthesizers, which I shortly hooked up with a mixer. At age 18 I was out getting myself a set of turntables so I could DJ my own tunes. After getting my new DJ gear I had a break, but have been focusing on DJing only now for the last 10 years. Just recently I have started to work with music production again.
Luckily I got the hang of DJing very fast and started to work with other music enthusiasts to create outdoor events such as raves in the forest, where we mostly dropped Psychedelic Trance until sunrise. Shortly afterwards we moved into the clubs and started to have international visitors from England, Germany, Spain, Holland and more.
Before leaving Sweden for Asia I managed to dig myself into the music scene in Germany and Holland, mainly the big stage events such as Trance Energy, Defqon and more. I was asked to perform at after-parties and pre-parties. Sometimes the main events had between 10,000-35,000 people attending, so the after-parties were from time to time pretty big.
In 2009 I left Sweden for Hong Kong, where I took one step back in performing and focused more on supporting the local Hong Kong scene, like the clubs and the events. There are many skilled musicians and event organizers there and I was lucky to learn from some of the best such as DJ Frankie Lam, PUSH, Yumla and many more.
Going over to the China mainland scene was very different from the HK scene. With many big clubs there was a lot of potential but almost no focus on the music and no dance floor! I have been working hard these last few years in the mainland to push this scene into Shenzhen by creating events and by only playing proper electronic dance music.
I started with events under the name “PLAY” at Plush Bar in Coco Park. I managed several successful events where I started building a crowd of dedicated music lovers.
Since then there has been a huge amount of events, organized by me or other skilled organizers already located in Shenzhen. “Beats of Mass Destruction”, “Techno Techno Techno!”, “Techy Techy” were some of the events created, mainly to push out the electronic dance music, especially Techno, Minimal, Tech-Deep House and more, and I invited local DJ’s to perform for a wider range of style and music genres.
Early in 2012 “it’s The Real Deal Inc” came to life, created together with a couple of friends who were also tired with the club scene, which was still not providing proper electronic dance music and dance floors. Even with the effort from before, the local Electronic Dance Music scene was not big enough to make any real impact; it really took off once we dropped our first “Real Deal” party. It was amazing to see so many people attending our parties, even though it’s sometimes tricky to get to the various outdoor locations.
Which venues do you usually go to?
At this moment I am performing strictly at our own “Real Deal” events, as I am kind of picky with what venues I like to perform at. A good venue has a good dance floor and a great ambiance. But now it’s the end of the year so I am looking forward to taking some time to perform in some of the hottest clubs in Shenzhen and greater China.
What kind of music do you like to play, and what’s your inspiration?
I like music that makes my body move, music that makes the crowd get into the spirit of good music and loving vibes. My music comes from European Techno, House and Trance and my remixes/live performances are about creating something new by remixing music that contains something special like a good baseline, melody or just a good flow that I wish to remix with something else.
What do you want to accomplish in future Real Deal shows?
In one way I think we already accomplished a lot, but what I would love to see in the future is for us to keep going on with our events and let more people in China know what the Real Deal is all about, what real dance music events are all about and hopefully influence the clubs to see what’s missing in China at this moment.
More Information:
- Nanfang Insider: An eclectic music mix the highlight of Shenzhen’s Fringe Festival (November 28, 2012)
- Shenzhen Fringe Festival
- Real Deal