Left, with Li Manshan, 2001 (photo: Li Jin)
Right, Gaoluo ritual association, 1989.

For the latest, see RECENT POSTS (to the right, just below the menu);
or scroll down infinitely through POSTS in the menu.
I often update old posts and pages.
Do use the Categories and Tags in the sidebar, and the Search box;
further down in the sidebar, do relish the audio playlist (with commentary here),
and below that, a selection of images, cued to the relevant posts,
as well as a monthly archive.
See also my YouTube channel.

This site began as an introduction to my work with Li Manshan, his late great father Li Qing, and the amazing household Daoists of Yanggao county in north China, notably the portrait film that goes with my book Daoist priests of the Li family. The Li family Daoists have a rubric in the Menu—the sidebar category contains further reflections and updates (rounded up here). Also under this Menu heading is a section with fieldnotes on other household Daoist traditions around Shanxi.

The other site where I did my most in-depth fieldwork is Gaoluo just south of Beijing. Now that I have at last added a documentary about the 1995 New Year’s rituals there, Gaoluo also has a section in the Menu, subsuming many articles based on my book Plucking the winds.

So for both themes, the Daoists of Shanxi and the ritual association of Gaoluo, we have a winning combo of film, book, and blogposts.

Three baldies and a mouth-organ:
roundup of posts on the ritual/music of Beijing temples and village associations.

Contextualising Gaoluo, the Hebei rubric contains many fieldnotes on other ritual associations in the region. Under Elsewhere are notes on other regions—notably Shaanbei, Gansu, and Fujian. Some important conceptual background appears under Themes, mainly on ritual and fieldwork. See also tags for Beijing, Hebei, Gaoluo, Shanxi (other), Shaanbei, Buddhism.

Many of these articles are based on previous work, elaborated here with maps and many colour photos.

* * *

Apart from China, the blog soon expanded into my usual crazed ramblings on a variety of more-or-less related topics. The Menu continues with a useful sampling of Roundups, including playlists and topics such as Tibet, Uyghur culture, Indian raga, flamenco, jazz, and so on. The final heading is Western Art Music—which also gets its own category, as well as tags for Bach, Mahler, Ravel, Messiaen, conducting, Proms, and so on.

The Menu is only a personal selection—again, use the Search box to find posts. So if Daoist ritual doesn’t float your boat, or butter your parsnips, then there are generous lashings of jokes, including Chinese jokes (some sub-heads suggested here). The drôlerie category is voluminous yet unwieldy, but the *MUST READ!* category leads to some of the wackier posts (as well as some more serious ones).

Compiled without regard to expense or the feelings of the public

—Flann O’Brien

I seem to have discovered a taste for arcane and unlikely links between all manifestations of the Terpsichorean muse.  Here are some of the more stimulating:

• Gender category, including the lives of women in China and elsewhere, feminist punk, humorists, film, and so on: handy roundup here
• Jazz, and wind bands in China and Europe (see also trumpet tag)
• Rants on the heritage shtick, kicking off from the so-called Hengshan Daoist music troupe;
• German tag, including major articles on Ravensbrück, the GDR, and Nazism; Iron Curtain tag, covering a whole large region of suffering; other regional tags include Italy, French, Iberia, Irish, Indian
• The Tibet and Uyghur tags (selections here and here) make a significant counterpoint to my coverage of Han Chinese traditions
• posts on west/Central Asia (notably Turkey) are rounded up here
• the world music category includes general posts (Nettl, Musicking, What is serious music?!, and so on) and folk traditions around Europe—not least flamenco
• my series on north Indian raga is introduced here.
• film, and fiction—the stellar Stella Gibbons, Myles, and Alan Bennett have their own tags.

Also not to be missed are

• a fabulous, eclectic Playlist of songs (for links to more playlists, click here)
• Revolution and laowai
• Bach à la chinoise
• Noor Inayat Khan
• Nicolas Robertson’s remarkable series of anagram tales,

as well as the wacky

• That is the snake that bit my foot and
• Czech–Chinese drôlerie

As you can already see, I just love creating internal links (highlighted in the text). So whether you first came here for Daoist ritual, football (indeed, Daoist football), punk, Bach, modern China, or even jokes, they’re all connected, so please explore all the links! However jocular, such connections seem necessary in these fractured insular times—building bridges, not walls.

With thanks to Michele Banal, Ian Johnson, and Morgan Davies
for dragging me into the 21st century

 from the Priory of the Azure Cloud Bottle* within the Belvedere of Tenuous Obscurity,** Chiswick
京西微玄觀內碧雲罐庵

*Azure Cloud Bottle: Bombay Sapphire—
for anyone seeking it in China, it’s 孟买蓝宝石金酒!
** Cf. the True Classic of Simplicity and Vacuity