How Soon is Mao?

March 7
We arrive in Shanghai at nine in the morning, having left London the day before at 1.30pm. Shanghai is eight hours ahead so it is one in the morning for us. Perhaps this was the reason I left the bottle of Jameson I bought in duty-free on the plane. We take a taxi to the Kerry Hotel which gets stuck in gridlock and takes nearly an hour to reach our destination. First impressions? I’ve never seen so many high-rises in my life. It’s like driving through a hundred Ballymuns except each tower is 10 times taller. Our hotel rooms aren’t ready but we’re told we can help ourselves to breakfast at one of the biggest buffets I’ve ever seen. Everything from waffles and maple syrup to dumplings and pork scratchings is available. A 6ft 4in Brendan Dempsey helps himself to the lot.
After only a few hours sleep, we hop in a taxi to our first show in Shanghai. I put my guitar in the boot. Maybe it’s jet lag or just the nervous excitement of doing my first ever gig in China. But when I get out of the taxi I forget all about my guitar until two minutes after it has vanished into one of the biggest cities in the world. Still, I know what the taxi driver looks like – black hair, slight build, very little English. I resolve to keep an eye out for him. The gig goes really well and I celebrate by staying out with some Australian expats and leave my reading glasses in a bar somewhere.

March 8 – 10
Two more Shanghai gigs in the Kerry Hotel, interspersed with trips to the markets. I love going off the main streets down dingy alleys where every kind of animal is for sale; fish, eels, bullfrogs, chickens, pigeons, lizards – all of them as fresh as can be. That is, they are still alive. We have a night off March 10 so John Moorhead (the promoter and best host ever) brings us to an Uyghur restaurant where they serve lamb. Or rather a lamb. It arrives on a platter and each diner is given a plastic glove and invited to dig in.

March 11
We take a train to Beijing. Travelling 1,318 km in just under four hours, the train averages 300 km per hour. Even so, it still takes an hour before we see anything resembling rural life outside Shanghai. I relax in the buffet bar with a beer and a packet of salted chicken claws.

March 12 – 13
We have three days in Beijing staying in a suite each at the Hilton. With only one gig planned, there’s plenty of sight-seeing and eating. A guide, John, knows takes us out to a tourist-free part of the Great Wall. It is near a dam built during the Great Leap Forward – or “The Great Leap Backward”, as a local called it – when the water simply disappeared down through cracks in the ground, leaving the dam useless. On the way back, we stop at a farmer’s house where our guide has organised dinner. It is the best meal of the trip, really delicious! Although after seeing the toilet it isn’t worth thinking about the hygiene standards in the kitchen. We visit the Forbidden City and I have my first taste of snake and donkey. I also see some skewered scorpion and sea horse but I don’t feel eating four new animals in one day is right. I really enjoyed Beijing but you are more aware China is not a free society when you see Twitter, Facebook and Google are blocked, a sense reinforced by a visit to Tiananmen Square, scene of the 1989 massacre.

March 14
We say goodbye to mainland China and fly to Hong Kong for the last three gigs. John manages to procure guitars for me in three different cities. The one in Hong Kong is actually his own emergency instrument, once used by the great Bill Bailey when Bill had a similar six-string mishap. I suppose I would say this but all of the gigs are going exceptionally well, in no small part due to the excellent compering skills of Ian Coppinger. Ian is no stranger to these parts. He is a member of the Whose Line Is Anyway? crew who perform here at least once a year. He is one of the greatest improvisers on the planet and it is evident every night as he whips the audience into a comedic frenzy.

March 15 – 17
Our last two gigs are in an Indian restaurant. As Ian says, “What better way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day than with a bunch of British expats in an Indian restaurant in Hong Kong?” The gigs are a sell-out and the atmosphere is electric. Brendan Dempsey has the audience eating out of his hand with observations on the trials of trying for a baby. “It’s not sex anymore,” he reckons, “It’s a game of Russian roulette you’re playing.” Just after midnight, as Paddy’s Day begins in Hong Kong, we head to Delaney’s pub to join the English rugby fans as they watch their team get thrashed by Wales. You couldn’t ask for a better end to the tour, really.

The Hairy Bowsies play The Twisted Pepper, Dublin on
April 25.