Word: maing
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...balmy summer night finds Ma Ziqi and a group of skateboarders weaving and flying around an open square in Beijing. Ma sets himself apart from the crowd, not only by his choice of wheels - he is the lone BMX rider - but by his skills. He pulls long wheelies, his front wheel far off the ground as he arcs around the rows of large flowerpots. He hops his bike, pivots it around, then starts riding again, standing up on the pedals and lazily making circles around the square, his ears filled with punk rock blasting through his headphones...
...Compared to the rest of Beijing, this square contains few obstacles for Ma and the skateboarders, just the flowerpots, floor lights, onlookers and trees in front of the ornate Wangfujing Church. As in other places, being punk in Beijing can mean many things. Ma doesn't even like to use the label, though he listens to punk music, played in a punk band and admits he has the punk spirit. The Beijing punk scene contains many of the same nuances it has in the countries from which it was imported. Jon Campbell, a promoter for rock bands in the Chinese...
...globally minded as they may be, the punks of Beijing still face the same limitations as their peers do on their lifestyles. Ma, 22, lives alone in a traditional Beijing home vacated by his family, who left for a more modern place. But for everything other than his biking, he is still financially dependent on his parents, like most of his companions. Only a few stores in Beijing sell skateboards and BMX bikes, and the punk music scene here is concentrated around a small number of clubs that sometimes have punk concerts...
...church plaza where Ma rides is located on one of the most famous thoroughfares in central Beijing, Wangfujing Street. It is flanked by dozens of shops and restaurants. On summer nights, the lights are all on as people walk up and down the street, stopping to buy clothing, KFC chicken, jewelry, medicine, and anything else this consumer paradise has to offer. In many ways, Wangfujing represents the sort of consumerist bounty that punk culture rejects. It Also offers a venue for Ma to live out his anti-mainstream philosophy...
...through a series of themeless anecdotes, which were often interrupted by other anecdotes, punctuated by gloppy attempts at folksiness ("As my mother used to say, 'No purgatory for you-it's straight to heaven!'") and the occasional condescending, syllabic pronunciation of a key word: "It's about di-PLO-ma-cee, folks...