Trough Uncut.

NSFW promo video for the Melbourne’s club night “Trough X” after the break, wittily pitching the instant pop up gratification of grindr against the earthier attractions of men on the dancefloor.

The dragon…

This weekend the Chinese-speaking world celebrated its Mid-Autumn festival with a crystalline full moon riding high in the Northern hemisphere sky, signalling the Autumnal equinox. Hong Kong celebrated with a long weekend holiday, a giant light sphere pulsating with techno music in Victoria Park (above), an avalanche of ever-more expensive mooncakes and the traditional dance of the Fire Dragon through one of the city’s loveliest neighbourhoods, Tai Hang.

The long, sinewy fire dragon is constructed of straw and decorated with garlands of fat and still-burning incense sticks and paraded through the streets to the accompaniment of more fire twirlers (as above) and drums.  Its a Hong Kong tradition, supposedly dating back to a village in China where it was delivered as an offering to the dragon spirit that had delivered the city from a plague.

Unfortunately for me though, it is also a popular spectacle. On the last of its three days of marching I arrived at Tai Hang to find the streets crowded with tourists and locals squeezed against crowd control barriers. There were fires burning in the street (to light the incense), girls in silk Chinese dresses and fluoro raver bangles ( a nice modern touch) and police holding back irate residents who just wanted to get back to their apartments with groceries and didn’t give a fuck about the festivities.

I pushed my way forward almost to the head of the dragon, where it lay in wait in a sidestreet for the signal that would bring it to life. Sweat was dripping and my feet were aching. An hour later, despite endless speeches from local celebs and dignitaries and a procession of staff with huge bundles of incense to set the fire alight, the thing still had not moved. I could see its twisted straw horns above the crowd’s head but decided to give up…I had other places to be ( a night out at Salon Ten and Midnight and Company, to be specific).

Sao Paulo comes out for Pride

Just one week after Tel Aviv had its Pride party, another red hot gay Mecca hit the streets for its annual celebration. Sao Paulo’s Pride was – as usual –  huge. Three million partygoers marched. But also as usual (puzzlingly) there was a dearth of good pics of the party on the net afterwards. For a supposedly very colourful street festival with three million in attendance, you would think someone would take  a few snaps of something other than ‘outrageous’ drag queens ™ or buff boys in shorts dancing on trucks.

The image below is interesting: skinheads and punks against homophobia, presumably a reaction to the skinhead ‘anarchists’ who went on a stabbing rampage at the event a few years ago, supposedly inspired by “A Clockwork Orange”.

Kylie announces an “Anti-tour”

Fresh from her stereotypically feathered and flashy performance at the Sydney (formerly Gay and Lesbian) Mardis Gras, Kylie Minogue has announced a slightly more intriguing proposition. Her “anti tour” of Australia (perhaps to be extended to Europe) promises small theatres, no dancers and daringly, “no hits”. It is to be a gift to the small cadre of hardcore Kylie obsessives, playing a selection of never-released tracks, B-sides and Kylie rarities for their obscurist enjoyment.

Kylie is an enviable position in her career at the moment. Her last few albums have been modest, if not massive, hits and, coasting on the goodwill from her cancer scare, she gives the impression that she is really beyond caring. Instead, she does things for her own enjoyment, like launching a concert tour of Latin America, recording a rumoured jazz-acoustic album of greatest hits reinterpretations … or singing B-sides to her fans. And she is admired by critics – a long and bitterly fought battle. Once derided for immitating Madonna, recently the tables have turned with the Material Girl pilfering two of her recent looks for her Superbowl Halftime Show (Grecian and cheerleader). Kylie’s influence now stretches far and wide; Hong Kong pop star Joey Yung rips off her looks and moves wholesale:

…Just wait for the “Joey Yung Anti Tour 2013!”

Two tribes

This Saturday, in two different countries, two very different tribes gathered for their own pagan celebrations. Outside Bangkok, hordes converged on the Bang Phra, the famous tattoo temple, for its annual festival. Here, those inked at the temple return for touch-ups and become mysteriously possessed with the spirits of the creatures tattooed onto their skins, rampaging through the crowds in scary and mysterious displays of mass hysteria.

In Sydney meanwhile, under damp and rainy skies, Australia’s gay party people are gathering for the annual Sydney Mardi Gras. It is to be the first party since the controversial and ill-advised move to drop “gay and lesbian” from the event’s title to make it “more inclusive”. One of my facebook friends commented that he hoped “straight mardi gras drowned”. Despite these tensions, it is one of the more high profile Mardi Gras parties of recent years (a study in the law of diminshing returns) with Kylie Minogue jetting in to perform – her third time at the event, but the first in a good decade and a half. She is in town  to launch the K25 promotions to mark her 25th year in the music industry.

New Year Monsters

All over Bali, in temple forecourts and on verandahs, we saw giant papier mache effgies of ogres, monstrous men and women (usually headless). Our driver explained that these were preparations for the Balinese New Year, Nyepi, in March. On New Years Eve, the grotesque figures known as ogoh-ogoh are burned, which symbolizes evil leaving the earth. The next day, all activity on the island ceases. Fires cannot be lit, and cars stay off the road. The New year is welcomed with complete, contemplative silence – yet another way in which Bali does things its own way.

Welcoming in the Year of the Rabbit, Thai style

For the Lunar New Year celebrations, Chinatown’s Yaowarat Road is closed off for a massive, and jam-packed Carnival of loud drums, lion dances, over-excited children, mafia-imported Khmer “snakemen” (leprous beggars crawling through the streets wearing little babies like backpacks) and excrutiatingly slow ambling couples. And food.

The crowds were, naturally, insane. My least favourite part was when some bright spark decided to drive through this:

Amd of course in Thailand, its not a party until there is a drag queen – this one playing “Country road, take me home” on the ukelele.

Temple fair: neon opera and carousels

The highlight of the night happened, as it so often does, when I got lost. Heading back from the crowds of Yaowarat I came across a blocked-off street with crowds on either side. A dragon procession I thought, but it turned out to be something even more spectacular, royalty. The motorcade of Crown Princess Sirindhorn glid by, (I glimpsed her through a window).

Looking to get away from the blocked off streets and crowds I headed into the sidestreets, ending up hopelessly lost until I stumbled onto a brightly lit temple fair where worshippers drifted by, old people dozed in front of an open air fluoro-lit stage of Chinese opera and kids played on a garish carousel.

New Year at the mall: Chinese Fashion Now at Centralworld

Chinese New Year: It begins!

This week a billion and a half people went on holiday and the greatest human migration on the planet began, with 230 million crowding into trains across China headed back to their hometowns for the Chinese New Year.

The effects of the celebration are felt across Asia, not least in Bangkok which is after all, one of the great Chinese emigrant cities. With some 50% of Bangkokians (including the Queen Mother, and therefore, the King) claiming some Chinese blood the Chinese New Year is celebrated here with equal gusto to the Western version, and the later Thai version, Songkran. (How many other cities ring in the new year three times?)

I went to the carpark (glamorous!) of the Central Chidlom Department Store to see the kick-off for their annual Chinese New Year sale season (in which retailers rake in billions of dollars). Thai celebrities on hand included Chin, the  cheesy half-French R&B singer currently endorsing Pepsi in Thailand, and the gorgeous actress Araya “Chompoo” Hargett who caused a paparazzi sensation when she emerged out of a giant paper lantern that “floated” ten metres into the air.  There was also a hip hop B-Boy versus lion dancing dance battle (!) and a gorgeous willowy hostess dressed in blood red (as was everyone) MCing the event with frequent and annoying thanks to the corporate sponsors, HSBC.

Thaipusam – empty handed.

Today is Thaipusam, the Tamil celebration marked by the ascent of the star “Pusam” in the month of “Thai” (no relation to the country). In Hindu Tamil communities around the world it is a major celebration, and nowhere more than in neighboring Malaysia. There, a million pilgrims converge on holy sites like the Batu Caves to witness gruesome scenes of self-flagellation. Pilgrims dance themselves into a trance, then spear their faces with skewers or pull gigantic chariots with hooks in their own flesh.

I was curious as to whether the festival was celebrated among Hindus here in Bangkok too. There was nothing about it that I could find online, or in the daily English language papers. I decided to drop by the florid Sri Mariamman temple in Silom this afternoon to see if anything was happening.  There were festive banana branches over the doorway and a black BMW had been sprinkled with orchid petals ( part of a procession?) but no giant chariots, firewalking, or blood-splattered trances. Either it doesn’t happen this far North – or I missed it.

STOP PRESS: I’ve figured it out. Apparently they do do the self-flagellation rituals here but at the temple’s own annual festival in October, rather than in Thaipusam proper.

The King and I

Flicking through the “Bangkok Post” at breakfast the other day I noticed there was to be a celebration of the coronation of King Taksin, two centuries before.  It was that night at the city’s monument to the former ruler in the slightly out-of-the-way suburb of Thonburi, across the river and near the (newly extended) terminus of the Skytrain at Wongwian Yai, an untouristy, working class neighborhood. I decided to go and investigate.

King Taksin was one of Thailand’s great historical heroes and most colourful monarchs. He rallied the Siamese troops after the disastrous sacking of the old capital Ayuthaya by the Burmese, and founded a new Thai dynasty in Thonburi, a precursor to the Bangkok of the Chakri dynasty, still in power today.

Unfortunately, he then went mad. After tolerating his erratic behaviour for some time, it was decided  by the nobility to get rid of him.  It was considered sacriledge for royal blood to touch the ground, so he was treated with all due respect, placed in a velvet sack and  beaten to death – fragrantly – with a sandalwood club.

And the local community was throwing him this party  two hundred years later to show there were no hard feelings – a magnanimous touch.

The focus of the event was the equestrian statue of the king, which stands quite impressively in a traffic island in a circular Thonburi intersection. It was flood lit for the occassion and crowded with milling worshippers offering whole cooked chickens and ducks, marigold garlands and sticks of pink incense.

And all around this was a constant stream of buses, cars and blaring horns.

On the other side of the street a major-looking thoroughfare had been closed down for a street fair with (more) milling crowds, vendors selling multi-colored glowing Mickey Mouse ears, little dragon puppets on sticks with flashing eyes, rubber masks, toys, food (of course) and cheap clothes and jewellery.

There were drummers and dragon dancers moving through the crowd. But the most interesting thing for me, which I had never seen before, was, a troupe of teenage acrobats in tiger masks and striped tiger costumes, prowling through the crowd pulling stunts and mock “attacks”.

I missed a golden moment at the end of the night when one of the “tigers” still in mask and full costume hopped on the back of his girlfriend’s motorbike and they both sped away in the traffic.

Chile celebrates 200 years of independence – at Sandown Park.

Little noticed in Australia, 2010 has been a banner year for much of the developing world. Half of Africa celebrated (or not) the fiftieth anniversary of independence – Cameroon, Togo, Mali, Senegal, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote d’lvoire, Chad, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Mauritania and regional giant Nigeria all held celebrations this year.

China had its expo.

And meanwhile, a good many Latin American countries were marking the bicentenary of their freedom from Spain. Colombia, Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela all remembered their independence (or at least the start of the struggle for it) in 1810.

Chile too, fresh from the worldwide explosion of joy over its freed miners, is celebrating its 200th year as a nation, and in Melbourne the Chilean community is planning its largest ever cultural event. The Chileans make up the city’s largest Hispanic group, stemming from refugees in the 1970s, and some 25,000 people are expected to attend the Chilean and Latin American Fiesta at Springvale Community Centre on November 18th. I would go too – except that I would be on public transport and don’t really want to hanging around train stations at the ghettoish outer suburban location, (the local station Sandown Park is where revheads rioted earlier this year after a promised car race was cancelled, and the next stop Noble Park also has a bad reputation for bashings).

Movie world

Melbourne’s International Film Festival ended a few weeks ago, and since then there has been the Russian Resurrection Film Festival, and the Indonesian Film Festival. But as if that weren’t enough, the city is now playing host to Italian, Israeli and Singaporean film showcases too, as well as “the other film festival” a series of films “about, for and by” people with disabilities. On top of that, the new “blockbuster’ from New Zealand (if that is not too absurd to say for such a small market) has opened, “Boy”.

I guess this rush of celluloid offerings is an attempt to cash in on the end of the cold weather. Spring is around the corner and balmy outdoor evenings will be here again. Until then, its off to the movies!

Film Festival comes to an end

Melbourne’s International Film Festival came to an end last week, with a packed day of some of the fortnight’s “greatest hits” rescreening at the beautiful old Forum theatre.

The mock-Moorish domes of the Forum make it one of the city’s most flamboyant landmarks, and inside it is just as special, with a blue floodlit ceiling (obviously to represent the sky) and fake Roman statuary.

Screenings at the Forum on the last day of the festival included Thailand’s Cannes d’Or winner “Uncle Boonme who can remember his past lives”, an encore screening of the amazing “Enter the Void” and the classic 1960 thriller, “The Housemaid” (the festival had also screened its 2010 remake).

I was surprised to see the theatre full at midday on a clear-skied Sunday for a black and white Korean film. I must say, however, that it was excellent – an atmospheric thriller about the beautiful, amoral and conniving young housemaid who seduces her boss and then uses blackmail and threats to completely overpower him and his family.

Faye’s comeback continues

Faye Wong will hold a press conference in Beijing tomorrow, amid mounting excitement for her comeback tour. Ticket sales are breaking records, and sales of the shampoo she began to endorse earlier in the year – in the first sign of her imminent return – have increased 35 per cent.

Faye has also landed a new endorsement deal with luxury brand Celine, and will appear on the cover of Chinese “Elle” in September.

An album is supposed to be on the way with a “secret” video shoot already underway. Chinese web sites last week excitedly ran “leaked” pictures of her new “alien look” in the video, but is it real?

The speculation, and the excitement, keeps mounting …

Burundian Independence Day

On Saturday Melbourne celebrated the arrival of one of its newest immigrant communities, as local Burundians celebrated their country’s independence day. Fifty years ago in 1960, independence swept Africa with Cameroon, Togo, Mali, Senegal, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Benin, Niger, Burkina Faso, Cote d’lvoire, Chad, the Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Nigeria and Mauritania all forming new nations. This year, on the fiftieth anniversary of the birth of that new era, Africa will take a sometimes sober, sometimes celebratory look back. Was independence really the answer to Africa’s problems when for so many countries, life has gotten worse?

The tiny, mountainous, densely-populated republic of Burundi followed its larger neighbours to independence in 1962. Few in the outside world knew anything of the country however, until the tragic events of the 1990s when a plane carrying Burundi’s president was shot down, helping to spark the horrific genocide in neighbouring Rwanda; a tidal wave of savage violence that shocked the world. The wars that ensued sent refugees fleeing in their millions, including about 500 Burundians who ended up in faraway Melbourne.

On Saturday, virtually the city’s whole Burundian community gathered in an old Italian social club hall in North Carlton to watch drumming and dancing. Kids ran around blowing vuvuzelas and hitting balloons, men in white cloaks chatted to women with babies on their back in slings. There were speeches in English and Kirundi. It was a glimpse into a whole other Melbourne.

王菲（Faye Wong）- 《傳奇》（Live）（2010年央視春節聯歡晚會）

She’s back. Faye Wong appeared on a Chinese TV Variety Special to mark the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), unveiling another of her nu-age Buddhist ballads (something of an acquired taste, I must admit). But the spectacular color-morphing stage was a clear winner.

Lent

The Carnival in Rio (and the upcoming Mardi Gras in Sydney) have ushered in the season of Lent. At school we celebrated with a mass on Ash Wednesday, and the daubing of sacred ashes on the forehead. And this weekend I saw flowers laid out on a plaque dedicated to the woman who almost became Australia’s first Saint Mary McKillop (she was “beatified”, one step away from sainthood but I don’t think the Vatican could find the two requisite miracles to go all the way).

I also saw, more soberly, a praying vigil outside an abortion clinic which left me feeling very sad and confused; I actually felt pity for those praying, trying their best to do what they think is right even if I totally disagree with them.

Meanwhile, my Lent has been a decadent extravaganza of dinners out, funky bars, clubs and parties.

On Friday night I had dinner with my friends Rita and Maria and then they took me to a new city bar called “New Guernica” (named after the famous Picasso painting. There is a copy hanging in its lounge). But the rest of the club has a totally different theme – like a trip to grandmother’s house, with a “kitchen” dancefloor (complete with corner stove and cabbage-and-carrot motif wallpaper”, indoor trellises and a wood-pannelled “cubby house”. Interesting.

From there it was Chasers, the notoriously cheesy/lame nightclub on Chapel Street where I crowded in with 700 drunk Chinese secretaries and the boys who love them, for “Asian Night” with special guest star, Tila Tequila! It was hot, and too crowded and everyone was really drunk, and Tila came on late and sang a short shitty set, and her songs weren’t very good.

The next night I went to the John party (my favorite Melbourne event), this time being held at the men-only “leather bar”, the Laird. The venue had scared off all the fashiony, hipster boys who usually attend (or maybe they decided to skip if they couldn’t bring their chicks along) so it ended up feeling much more “laird” than “John”, but I still had a fun night.

Brazil: Unidos da Tijuca triumphs with a dazzling show of Carnaval magic

The Unidos da Tijuca samba school clinched their first victory since the 1930s at Rio’s Carnaval this week, with the help of a nifty magic trick that changed the colour of their dancers dresses – (how did they do that?????) In the space of about a minute, dancers’ dresses changed colour five times. A truly impressive trick.

The Carnaval was well-attended by celebritities (Madonna, Beyonce and Alicia Keys among them) and relatively peaceful, as the city celebrated its Olympic win of last year.

Chinese New Year