I'm a DJ and I live in China

Hi Vintage & Deathy,

I posted in this forum because there is so many things to tell about Chinese club scene that I got lost about where writing my post 😉

I read all the DJ Tips that I find extremely useful and clever. So many DJ’s should read that. But I’m reading them while laying on my bed in BEIJING, not in Paris (from I come) or Berlin or any western country. And, no offense of course, but a lot of those precious advice are perfect when you play in Europe or US, but not so much when you DJ in China.

This country is a world. You can get amazed one day and totally disgusted the next one.

When I first arrived in China, it was a kind of road trip with my Chinese wife and my 2 best friends. Almost 17 months ago, we decided to go to Shanghai and give a try at the clubbing scene there for some days, before continuing to Hong Kong and Macau.

You can’t imagine how hard is the competition between clubs here. They are all more huge and luxuous than the other etc… I remember in Paris, you get into the VIP line (as a customer) when you book a table with 1 or 2 bottles. Here, you’re just nobody if you just get your gold card from your pocket and ask to the guy the same thing.

Here you are VVVVVVVVVVIP or nothing. People can pay up to sometimes 500.000 RMB (about 65.000 US$) JUST to HAVE a table. Then, to show that they are important, they need at least to have 30 people at their table (famous people) and between 50 and 150 bottles of Champagne. At THIS point, they consider someone.

Some of them even rent some guys to drive ALL of their luxury cars, commonly about 10 Ferrari, Porsche, Aston Martin… Just to show off. So you see 10 cars costing millions arriving in lines driven by some men in black and parking right in front of the entrance.

This is just to give you an appetizer.

I will soon write you how I spent 1 year before being booked seriously here, how I got the most miserable DJ salary of my whole life and how Chinese in general think about clubbing and especially music. I think you will just fall on your ass like I did so many times lol 😉

Cheers

Seth Shannon

Haha Deathy, I take that for a very nice compliment. It could be an idea but English is not my native language, so I’m afraid not to be able to explain perfectly my thoughts sometimes.

You’re gonna tell me “bro your english is fine”. But I realize that it is not when I watch a non-subtitled movie and more especially when the movie is not about 2 hours of pure action. 😉

But maybe I could effectly write some articles, as the manner of a little blog on this website, like “How DJing can be totally different depending of where you live” (or anything like this).

Like most of you guys, I have a quite rock-solid experience, but trust me, here, I felt so many times like a beginner and still even now that I FINALLY got a residency, I have some nights I cannot eat anything, need several drinks to relax, change of t-shirts 2 times and look at my shaking hand when I’m about to push the play button in the booth.

However, I found it can sometimes be a good exercise. It reminds you that, no my bro, it’s not because you have your DJ name on the huge screen, that the MC introduce you like a superstar (typically Chinese style) and you even made your own DJ Intro that you are a Tiesto, and that you still have to manage the pressure every single night, and most of all, nothing is never won in advance.

Cheers

Seth Shannon

Hi,

You were almost right, it’s ni hao 你好 😉