In January 2008, 30 years after forming, D.O.A.—Canada’s original punk rockers and one of the world’s first hardcore groups—made history once again, becoming the first Western-based political-punk band to tour China. All this week, guest editor and D.O.A. frontman Joey “Shithead” Keithley looks back on the historic trip and gives a fascinating and uncensored glimpse into a part of the world most of us will never see.
Day Eight
We get up early, as we have an exciting day ahead of us. (Tour manager) Abe (Deyo) has hired a driver and a car to take us up to the Great Wall. Our driver arrives; he’s a middle-aged guy with a small, beat-up old car, but what the heck, it’s only $120 (U.S.) in total. We grab some street-vendor food to go and set off. Our driver does not speak English, but he keeps telling Abe in Mandarin that if we get pulled over, we have not paid him money to drive us. He says if we get pulled over, our “story” to the cops is that “we are all friends.” So he makes up Chinese names for all of us, which, of course, we can’t quite get the handle of pronouncing correctly. He tells us his name, and we don’t understand that either, so we name him “Bob.” On the 40-mile drive, Abe is trying to sleep, but Bob keeps yakking at him. This 40 miles takes about 90 minutes, as Bob is the only slow driver we have encountered on our entire tour. We finally get to the Great Wall; it took quite a huff and a puff to climb up to the section we went to. Some of the stairs would be quite low, six inches or so, and then with no rhyme or reason, the stairs would be anywhere from 18 inches to two feet in height. At times, I was pulling myself up the stairs by arm strength, using the railing. But the effort was worth it.
We get back down to the parking lot and meet up with good old Bob. Abe wants to sleep, so he gets in the backseat to avoid Bob’s yakking. I sit up front with Bob. He starts yakking at me. I understand nothing of what he is saying, but I nod my head in agreement to keep him happy. What I do understand is that Bob is lost. (Drummer) Floor Tom thinks his eyesight is shot. I keep pointing at the green expressway signs, but he does not figure this out. After about half an hour of side roads, he finally gets on the correct highway. We pass the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium, so everything is kosher. Bob tries talking to me again, but he finally realizes I do not understand Mandarin, so he starts singing Chinese folk songs. I figure he wants a reply, so I start singing songs back at him. He smiles, so we start trading off verses back and forth of various disconnected songs.
We get to that glorious Home Inn. Time to collect our shit and head out to the Beijing airport and fly to Shanghai. Once at the airport, we again notice a ton of Chinglish (combine Chinese and English), such as signs in the washrooms that say, “Please be kindness and please be flushing” or “For your privateness please door locking.” English is very prevalent here. In fact, predictions are that there will be more people that speak English here than in the U.S.A in 20 years or so.
Day Nine
Floor Tom is off early to catch a different flight home than Dan and I. So later that morning, Abe, (bassist) Dan and I go to do some shopping. Abe tells me there is a military-surplus store that’s cool, so we head there. I try on a bunch of these Chinese-soldier long-green coats with red stars attached. Of course, we are having a great time, laughing as I am going, “How do I look?” Then I go to buy one of those peaked military hats to go with the coat. Abe realizes that there are a couple of off-duty police men in the shop while we are there and they start to bitch at the shop owner that a foreigner shouldn’t be in there buying this military gear. So Abe quickly hustles us out, as they are starting to get hostile. I mean, what the fuck were they thinking? Hey! Maybe one white guy was going to buy a uniform and covertly stage an invasion of China! Chairman Joe. Hey, it’s got a nice ring to it.
Well it’s time to say goodbye to Abe. He’s been a great host and an indispensible tour manager. We probably would have ended up in prison without him. Dan and I are first in the lineup for the airport bus; we wait a bit, and the bus finally arrives. The bus-door opens, and I have to grab all my three bags and my guitar and lug them onto the bus. This lady and her pal try to budge in front of me and my gear. Hey, bad move. I have been in China for a week, so I quickly block her entrance onto the bus with my guitar case and say to her, “It’s best to wait your turn.”
Before we left on the D.O.A. tour of China, I did not know what to expect. Now I do, and I can’t wait to get back.
