Shoe Gig

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Yesterday morning, I was up at 6am and off to another Chinese gig. As usual, I had no idea where or what kind of show it would be. My favorite agent, Suky was in charge. Therefore, I donned the usual black and white getup. Upon arrival to his place, he immediately got off on a bad food by telling me that my shirt wasn't white enough. This made me a little grumpy, but after a nap in the car to the venue I forgot all about that. As I awoke, I saw the giant "Lady Shoe Center of China". This is going to be a good one, I thought. There was an expo for all the shoe factories in the area, and I was there to represent one of the companies. It was an easy gig: I popped in my jazz play-a-long cd, jammed a bit, schmoozed with Chengdu's wealthiest, then it was over! I did seem to draw quite a crowd. It didn't look like any other company splurged on a laowei (foreigner) musician and with the huge sound system the rented, it was hard to ignore me. I didn't get a chance to explore the expo center, but it looked like hundreds of carbon-copy displays like the one I was lucky enough to play.
The only downside to my morning was that I left my cell phone in car. Fortunatly, however today I was able track it down. It's amazing how indespensible this little gadget is these days. I had about 20 missed calls and 15 messages. Everyone thought I had fallen off the face of the planet! Well, China....I'm Back!