Cardiff's twin selves
Spent an enjoyable couple of days back home in Wales between Xmas and the New Year. One of the highlights was an afternoon recording voice parts for some new episodes of Grammarman comic, the brainchild of my school friend, Brian Boyd. Brian, who lives in Bangkok these days, created Grammarman and his retinue of friends and enemies as a fun way of teaching English to non-native speakers. I played several parts in the latest episodes, which are due online shortly, including the villain Luther Lexis. Other parts were taken by several old friends and acquaintances, with another old mate, Jules Davies, providing the sound engineering expertise. That we had a blast I hope will be apparent to all listeners.
Later that evening we all headed down to the centre of Cardiff. Stepping out of the taxi on Mill Lane, I didn't recognise where we were for a couple of seconds, so greatly has the street changed in the last few years. For years, virtually the only business premises on Mill Lane was a sex shop. Today, that Private Shop remains (owner David Sullivan won't give up his freehold), but it is surrounded by a dozen or more bars, pubs and restaurants. We ensconced ourselves in the comfortable upstairs corner of the Iota Bar, later heading to a Hippo Club Reunion Night at Wish (Hippo's was a popular haunt in the late 80s/early 90s) for a selection of classic house and trance fed to the floor by DJs including John the Dentist.
Cardiff's status as one of the UK's coolest cities (Dr. Who, Millennium Stadium, the bay, etc) is a far cry from the city I knew and grew up next to. Fifteen years ago, there was one half-decent record shop (Spillers), one goodish club (Tom Tom's), the occasional quality band at the Students' Union, and that was about it.
Although rougher round the edges and significantly less fashionable, for a small town boy like me, Cardiff was still the big city and a trip there was a day to be savoured. One of the small pleasures of an otherwise hellish one hour journey on the X51 bus was seeing the names of Cardiff's twin cities at Culverhouse Cross (home to the HTV Wales studios and little else during my teenage years, rather than the retail behemoth of today). Those places - Nantes in France, Stuttgart in West Germany, Xiamen in China, and Voroshilovgrad in the USSR - seemed impossibly glamourous and remote. Having visited Stuttgart twice, I have to say that it is one of my favourite German cities (the place where the grape meets the grain); Nantes and Luhansk (as Voroshilovgrad once more became in 1990) remain mere dots on the map, but a few months back I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to visit Xiamen.
Located in Fujian province in sub-tropical southeast China, the city's climate certainly doesn't compare to that of southeast Wales (even if you can also spot the occasional palm tree in Cardiff and environs). Like Cardiff, however, Xiamen has a fabulous harbour. A trip on the ferry over to Gulangyu Islet is well worth the effort. The islet houses 20,000 residents, a couple of museums, some beautiful small beaches, a traditional Chinese garden and a wealth of colonial architecture (In 1541, Xiamen, then known as Amoy, became the first port in China to trade with Europeans, giving the English language the words tea and ketchup in due course. Later the city was one of five ports opened up to foreign trade by 1842's Treaty of Nanjing). Gulangyu also has a very large statue of Zhen Chenggong ('Koxinga'), the general who captured Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662.
Surprisingly, given Xiamen's proximity to Taiwan, and the noted antipathy between the PRC and the Republic of China, I saw no signs in the city or its surrounds of a large military presence. Likely the sabre-rattling in which the 'Communist' government occasionally indulges is simply that: sabre-rattling.
Like its Welsh twin, Xiamen is a dynamic city (in 1980 it became one of the first places in China to be declared a Special Economic Zone). There are few signs of the city's Cardiff links, but I did spot one in the Hollywood Snack Bar at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Hotel Harbourview: A Welsh flag on the wall, signed by visitors from the principality. For a photo of this and other images of Xiamen, click here.
Later that evening we all headed down to the centre of Cardiff. Stepping out of the taxi on Mill Lane, I didn't recognise where we were for a couple of seconds, so greatly has the street changed in the last few years. For years, virtually the only business premises on Mill Lane was a sex shop. Today, that Private Shop remains (owner David Sullivan won't give up his freehold), but it is surrounded by a dozen or more bars, pubs and restaurants. We ensconced ourselves in the comfortable upstairs corner of the Iota Bar, later heading to a Hippo Club Reunion Night at Wish (Hippo's was a popular haunt in the late 80s/early 90s) for a selection of classic house and trance fed to the floor by DJs including John the Dentist.
Cardiff's status as one of the UK's coolest cities (Dr. Who, Millennium Stadium, the bay, etc) is a far cry from the city I knew and grew up next to. Fifteen years ago, there was one half-decent record shop (Spillers), one goodish club (Tom Tom's), the occasional quality band at the Students' Union, and that was about it.
Although rougher round the edges and significantly less fashionable, for a small town boy like me, Cardiff was still the big city and a trip there was a day to be savoured. One of the small pleasures of an otherwise hellish one hour journey on the X51 bus was seeing the names of Cardiff's twin cities at Culverhouse Cross (home to the HTV Wales studios and little else during my teenage years, rather than the retail behemoth of today). Those places - Nantes in France, Stuttgart in West Germany, Xiamen in China, and Voroshilovgrad in the USSR - seemed impossibly glamourous and remote. Having visited Stuttgart twice, I have to say that it is one of my favourite German cities (the place where the grape meets the grain); Nantes and Luhansk (as Voroshilovgrad once more became in 1990) remain mere dots on the map, but a few months back I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to visit Xiamen.
Located in Fujian province in sub-tropical southeast China, the city's climate certainly doesn't compare to that of southeast Wales (even if you can also spot the occasional palm tree in Cardiff and environs). Like Cardiff, however, Xiamen has a fabulous harbour. A trip on the ferry over to Gulangyu Islet is well worth the effort. The islet houses 20,000 residents, a couple of museums, some beautiful small beaches, a traditional Chinese garden and a wealth of colonial architecture (In 1541, Xiamen, then known as Amoy, became the first port in China to trade with Europeans, giving the English language the words tea and ketchup in due course. Later the city was one of five ports opened up to foreign trade by 1842's Treaty of Nanjing). Gulangyu also has a very large statue of Zhen Chenggong ('Koxinga'), the general who captured Taiwan from the Dutch in 1662.
Surprisingly, given Xiamen's proximity to Taiwan, and the noted antipathy between the PRC and the Republic of China, I saw no signs in the city or its surrounds of a large military presence. Likely the sabre-rattling in which the 'Communist' government occasionally indulges is simply that: sabre-rattling.
Like its Welsh twin, Xiamen is a dynamic city (in 1980 it became one of the first places in China to be declared a Special Economic Zone). There are few signs of the city's Cardiff links, but I did spot one in the Hollywood Snack Bar at the Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza Hotel Harbourview: A Welsh flag on the wall, signed by visitors from the principality. For a photo of this and other images of Xiamen, click here.
Labels: On the road
posted by Justin Toland at 12:32 am
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