With Li Manshan: left, 2001 (photo: Li Jin); right, Hong Kong, 2011.

For the latest, see RECENT POSTS (to the right, just below the top menu);
or scroll down through MY BLOG in the menu.
I often update old posts, as well as the pages in the top menu.
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.

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 my portrait film and the related book (see top menu). The Li family has its own category in the sidebar, with a plethora of reflections and updates (rounded up here). But the blog soon expanded into my usual crazed ramblings on a variety of more-or-less related topics.

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).

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

Other pages in the top menu tend to be rather substantial, with

• lengthy articles under Local ritual (mostly based on previous work, but elaborated here with maps and many colour photos)—mainly on north Shanxi, Hebei, and Shaanxi; see also tags for Beijing, Hebei, Gaoluo, Shanxi (other), Shaanbei, Buddhism; and substantial articles on Gaoluo in a sub-menu under the Other publications menu!
• many articles on Western Art Music—which also gets its own category, as well as tags for Bach, Mahler, Ravel, Messiaen, conducting, Proms, and so on
• and some important conceptual background under Themes, mainly on fieldwork (which also has its own profuse category).

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

Another most handy navigational aid is my roundup of roundups!

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