Some of you will remember him for his messy hair, and others will remember him for his tight ass, but Aric Queen is back, this time with a hairband. The former City Weekend nightlife columnist, one time Shanghaiist contributor and serial podcaster found himself wanted by the police for a series of videos that he had been filing for Current TV under the name Shanghai Diaries (not to be confused with Dan Washburn's 2002 blog of the same name). Aric is going to tell the story of his exile from Shanghai in a new series which we presume is starting pretty soon.
Here's what we already know from a post in his personal blog dated Aug 12:
I’ll never forget the intersection I was at yesterday when I got the message, as it will always be associated with a sick feeling. Kind of the way I can never listen to Inner Circle’s ‘Rock With You’ as that was the last song played in my car before I walked up to greet (name removed), my junior-year girlfriend, back from her summer holiday, and she broke up with me…I digress.There I was, enjoying (as you can see from the previous post) the wonderful town of Solo and I get an SMS from someone who is not known for their over-dramatics saying ‘Please call. Urgent’. This person has never said ‘urgent’ about anything. In fact, this person isn’t the ‘urgent’ type. 3 seconds later they called to inform me that the police had just shown up at their office looking for me, as I had done a few projects out of there. They confiscated my phone number, email address and bank records claiming I was somehow involved with Tibetan support. No doubt this comes down to ‘the diaries’ , but thank God I walked when I did. I don’t think I’m headed back. Anyone who knows anything about the current climate knows they could make my life hell, as they have done for countless others. One friend thrown in prison for 10 days without his contacts (rendering him legally blind…in a cell with 10 others) and the police did not notify the consulate for 5 days (it’s supposed to be 2). Another friend of a friend had her passport confiscated (highly illegal) without given a reason why. This is happening all over China, so when I say it’s becoming a police state I’m not exaggerating.
So why go back? Sure, my stuff is there, but thankfully, a friend of mine helped out and it’s now in a safe place. Clothes? Yeah, sucks, but only a few things were worn enough to justify a moment of silence. Books and DVD’s, sure, it’s also a pain, but I’d read/watched most of them. The important stuff is safe. I don’t think I’m headed back. I didn’t like it there. I have a few weeks left on my flat (one of the things I’ll miss the most, not the apartment itself, but the coffee talks with Scott, that’s what hurts) so I might just have a big ole free yardsale and let those who I’ll soon call ‘old friends’ inherit my ever-changing tastes. I’m still pulling in a tiny bit each month, might even be enough to get me over to India instead of rent (half, actually, Scott was paying the other half as ‘it was worth it not to have anyone else in there’) and a phone bill. I’d like that. Even Nepal. Maybe Sri Lanka. Could work out nice. I’d be eating rice and drinkin’ water, but hey, Mom promised me her enchiladas if I can get home soon. What was it Proust said, ‘We are healed of a suffering only by expressing it to the full’, right? Who wouldn’t trade some dirty cots and a dance with dysentery in exchange for sunrise on the Ganges and a sore neck from the Taj? Fuck it. I’m doin’ it. At least, I’ll try. Seems strange though, having just given my Facebook a peek that I might not see these people ever again. That’s weird. But goodbyes usually hold more cliches than a fraternity brunch, so I’d be okay with that. The people that matter I will either see again, or know I’ll miss them. Man, talk about ‘when one door closes’ (oops - see you at brunch) mine just got slammed shut. But it’s kind of the same feeling a girl slapping you after you just requested break-up sex is. In the overall sense of things, it’s over - but man, it would have been cool to end it slightly differently.
It hadn’t really sunk in until I wrote this whole thing…now it’s surreal. This could be it. Wow.
Wow, what a difference in life 24 hours makes if you let it.
We're still not sure what specifically did Aric in, but there were some things he said on his show during all the pre-Olympic madness that one really shouldn't say out loud even if you really, truly, sincerely believe it with all your heart. Case in point is this video below filed June 5 on a day when he clearly wasn't in the best of moods which totally made us go "Woah! Where did he get that from?!". In it, Aric famously declared that "nobody wants China to fail in the Olympics more than the foreigners living here do". When he published the video, Aric described it as being the one that might get him into trouble, and we think it did:
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Personally I'm please that this city has one less would-be-of-they-could-be F visa wankers. What an ego to think he could speak for all foreigners! We're just not interested in trash like Aric and Shanghaiist only diminishes itself by festering its pages with his very name.
If he feels it's so tough living here as a foreigner (because of the spitting and peeing apparently?), the more than obvious question is why stay?
And like puhlease said, who made him spokesperson of all foreigners here? I for one haven't heard a single person say they wanted the Olympics to fail. Were many people anxious for the Games to be over and life getting back to normal? Sure, but that's a different story.
More generally speaking, always be wary of people advocating their personal opinion as "the Truth".
Kenneth, Kenneth, Kenneth.
Never mind the fact that neither you, nor Dan, can answer an email when I'm trying to get support for this show (I think the last one was sent after the earthquake and we had just produced a series of shows in getting the word out for how to help those affected), but instead you zero in on the end of the shows.
Which is fine - I put them out there, so can't moan.
It just would have been nice to have you offering up write-ups for the positive stuff as well.
But, on a slow week, where no one is jumping to their death or young girls aren't being electrocuted, I suppose you needed something.
Only one show in this series will carry the 'police' story, though. The rest will be travel-based which might do well to take the light off of the weekly 'let's thank our advertisers' spot, but they are anything but Shanghai-newsworthy.
Aric
Probably Mr. Queen, being disappointed with his ex-lover, was looking for a spectacular departure.
He can operate a camera, so he can not possibly been so ignorant not to know what he was doing and what the result would be.
Sometimes I ask myself, what value the Chinese are seeing in granting people like that visa. May be as a matter of proportion.
We are (tax-) paying guests in this country, complaining is ok, insults noone has to accept.
No need to bring the hate everyone. Like Aric said, there's a focus there on the very end of the shows, and there were a lot.
The diaries project was initially posted up to Current TV's website, but then broke through to their TV channel schedule and finally getting a staff award. This means that it became a successful paid project. The would-be-if-they-could-be jibe does not apply here. It went on hiatus for Aric's holiday, and is now back.
And, while I don't necessarily agree with everything in the shows, they were a refreshing alternative to the mainstream - IE jumping on the olympic bandwagon with mininum critical thinking.
For how long is he going to go on checking Shanghaiist?
THANK GOD someone's standing up for the foreigners here 'in the creative genre'. They do so much for China and it's people, for example these well thought out, informative and not-at-all-shockingly-ignorant-and-self-important video diaries.
Ah China, without you where would the unemployable liberal arts school grad go?
let me get this straight - you all voice your opinions on an online media platform...about me voicing my opinions on an online media platform?
only difference I see is that I'm the only one using my real name.
I didn't know the show's back so thanks for this post.
Except..
..no one is having a go at your choice of platform, but your choice of words/message/..haha..'content'.
None of which you can have an answer to of course, so you spazz out this attempt at a riposte.
Didn't you learn anything in Lit Crit 101?
@rldh
Can you give us a link to your blog? Or a project you do?
if opinion isn't content than you're guilty of the same thing, no?
agree with Andy Best, at least let us know what you're up to.
and 2 digs about college when you probably know I didn't go. that's just mean.
Aric,
Ha ha ha! Brillant. Watching the intro to the Shanghai exile diaries made us cackle! Classic.
Getting exiled from China has made you a legend to the foreigners in Shanghai.
Looking forward to future installments.
By the way, your ass (yours or a body double) on the Great Wall, Hotttt!!!
Shanghai absolutely needs the creative class, and while you may not like all of them or any of them, you take the good with the bad. At the end of the day some will make the city a better, more colorful, richer and interesting place and others will simply go home, but there will be a lasting impact on the city-scape and culture that is both positive and not going away, however much some would like to sanitize the place into an intellectually effete world of shopping malls, brainwashed school children and gray career men.
None of you people, if you have been living in China for a while, can seriously claim that you never had a day where you were really pissed of about the life here! So what's wrong with talking about it?
How come nobody is complaining that Mr. Queen is being searched by the police for just letting of some harmless steam?
To Eric Queen
Try Tibet, it wouldnt let you down. Same public pissing and spitting will warm your broken heart.
Then you can stare into camera n say--Only here do we foreign migrant workers extend visa truly willingly.
"Shanghai absolutely needs the creative class"
I love art but this is not art; just another diatribe from an egotistical Web 2.0 wannabe.
This city needs home grown art more than it needs to endure delusions of grandeur from another nations' cast offs.
@ puhlease,
you mean like Leastman?
puhlease.
fair enough.
what do you do in Shanghai?
Modern thinking: 'Creative' = 'Writes a Blog'.
Saints alive...
Re the Chinese government's oppression of a guy in a bandana ranting about spitting: are Amnesty or the UN aware of the case? If not, get onto them asap, it's not like there's more serious things in China for them to worry about.
Kicking you kids around is too easy, I'd better leave you to it, blogging around in your little bubble.
Never watched the videos but I've never enjoyed Aric's articles in whatever magazine they were published. I gave up reading anything under his name pretty quickly.
How many times can you spit on Bar Rouge's "wankers" and wax lyrical about the "undahground" scene in a typical 14-years-old fashion?
Seriously.
I still give him props for trying to create something, but he should grow up a bit and stop seeing the world so black and white.
Luckily it seems a dude with a Dali mustache has already taking over the "rich wankers bashing" niche. Show must go on, I guess.
Come on rldh
Who are you and what do you do here? It's only fair to Aric who is trying to engage you here.
Like Aric's work or don't like it, agree or disagree with him, but the man sure knows hot to stir the pot and has been quite successful doing so for both his own entertainment, for outrageous personal PR and for his own meandering career path.
There is such a thing as writer's voice and playing devil's advocate. It's a method of stylized writing and scripting and a mode of artistic expression.
Aric,
Looking forward to more of the exile diaries and the book. Best of luck.
Ahah I just watched the video above. Hilarious.
"foreigners living here all want the olympics to fail"
Uh..OK. If you say so. He really made sure to say ALL, EVERYONE, etc a couple of times. I'm not sure that was so necessary.
"it's very hard to live here"
Very, VERY hard indeed. Like, here you can pay all your monthly expenses with just the equivalent of a one month rent in NY. That's how tough it is. Hard-fucking-core :-)
And then the usual stuff about the spitting, etc, with no historical perspective.
And also the obligatory dash of criticism on rich expats who live in comfortable homes, with maids and driver (the bastards!).
I think the same guys also go to Bar Rouge, where they wank, although that wasn't mentioned.
Quality comedy! :-D
"This city needs home grown art more than it needs to endure delusions of grandeur from another nations' cast offs"
Certainly, not all of them are cast-offs, as you say -- I've met many who are anything but cast-offs. Nevertheless and your boneheaded position notwithstanding, a lot of great things have begun with cast-offs.
As I read these comments I'm completely disgusted. This is an individual who states his own personal opinion on his blog about how he feels and now he has to get bum rushed with stupid comments? Some of you sound brainwashed.
There are days, I'm feeling the same as Aric, but when I would feel this way in America or Europe and would voice these feelings, no one dared to tell me to leave the country.
We have the right to state how we feel, even if not everyone agrees. No one is forcing you to watch Shanghai Diaries or ready his work. You can choose to expose yourself to it. Obviously you have (and will likely continue to do so).
It's also weird anonymously writing your personal opinions about a person you don't even know. So what does that make you?
Thx Aric for being real, this is Lucius and the more I read your writing, the more I respect you.
Hurrah Lucius, good to find someone whose not drowning in their own dribble! I completely agree.
Of course, I'm not saying you have to agree with Aric - but p*ss off, he can have his own opinion and if you don't like him then: DON'T LISTEN/WATCH/READ. But clearly he's got a bit of a world-wide fan base so he's doing something right.
Artists as nations cast-offs you say? This is a load - of course we know china is full of a number of country rejects but no need to catagorise artists like that. As a three year expat in China, I along with 4 other expats (one of whom is Aric Queen) opened an art studio to teach creativity. We hired a local so classes could be translated and offered to everyone - and offered free events so locals were more than encouraged to join in.
As much as you might dislike Aric he's done so much more for the community in Shanghai than anyone else I know. Give him a break...
Continuing on from Lucius and Sculley's sane posts.
Obviously some people would take issue with a statement like 'foreigners living here want the Olympics to fail'. But if you do then how about giving your own opposing view on why you wanted the Olympics to succeed, for example.
As opposed to one of many variations on 'you suck' or 'i'm right, you're wrong'.
Personally I thought the Olympics were a one dimensional 'big-up' for nationalism. The opening ceremony in particular was bot cheesey and sinister. I got a big shock how many of the ex-pat community seemed to jump uncritically on the band wagon.
I'd love to hear some lengthy pro-Olympic views that go beyond "It's our time", "China is great" or whatever.
So, what I'm saying is, rational people should watch a vid like this and use it as a springboard to discussion. Not to a bunch a name calling.
Please post some information about this yard sale. I read through all this and have learned nothing about picking up more Rick James on vinyl.
Here's the funniest thing about this all.
Those in support for, well, creativity (whether or not you agree), on this post, are all in the same field, be them artists, musicians, etc.
I'm more than willing to listen to constructive criticism, I'll be the first to tell you my ego could use the hit. But the problem here seems that those who nothing to do but 'moan about me speaking for the rest' have yet to tell us what they do, or what they've done. Which is nothing but cowardice, and, to go along with these accusations, they're coming from an avatar with a fake name.
The only other option would be jealousy, which is understandable. I'm mildly good-lookin', moderately successful, unabashedly self-promotional and am occasionally getting attention for whatever project - most likely losing me money - I'm attempting.
At least bring some credibility to the forum table before shouting out from whatever complacent life chapter you're currently being written into.
Personally I thought the Olympics, while commercial like they always are, no matter where they take place, were quite a cute thing here. Chinese had something to be proud of, and I was happy for them.
Aric, it's funny that you would say we should not be negative and basically support "trying" (which I'm all for), when your video is 4 minutes of pure, pretty unoriginal negativity about China.
Ever thought of that? Aren't the Chinese "trying", too? Sure, they are imperfect. Sure, some still spit on the street and don't brush their teeth as often as we would prefer. But that has been covered to death already, and it comes with the territory.
Cheers to creativity!
Have you even watched the videos?
This was my original point, what were the first ones to be bought for television? News and support for the earthquake. Pros and Cons.
Tell me what measures have been taken to improve human rights and I'll be less harsh. This was, their ace-in-the-hole, no?
Tell me what pre-Olympic vidcast was ever done and I'll accept your claim of 'unoriginality'.
And you've yet to let us know what you do.
After reading all the comments so far I am disappointed to see that puhlease hasn't brought up F-visas and unworthy expats at least a few more times.
Hate to break the stereotype for the likes of 'puhlease' but ...
I'm a 'creative type' and as Aric pointed out, posting under my real name. However. I have had a full residence permit and working VISA for all of my 7 years and paid taxes.
I think it's fair to say that that Aric Queen single handedly built this city with only his bare hands, blood, sweat, and balls and the pack mules bearing his creativity. Fueled by alcohol, ego and vaginas, Aric was like the Shenzhou 7 of truth which burned brightly over Shanghai for only a short time, but guided us all by the light his outsized persona, MTV aesthetic and the youthful impudence of his soundbites. It was inevitable that this missile of our enlightenment would explode over our fair city as it crashed into the edifice of our night-Buddha in an lychee-scented alcoholic fireball, projecting Aric to far-away southern climes where he continues to sew the seeds of truth, awesomeness and his loins, so that one day his progeny will rise up to create the super-state that shall be a radio jock's paradise in Southeast Asia, where the national anthem will play "Hello, people, I'm Bobby Brown..."
All true, you can look it up!
p.s. Andy Best was involved too, but mostly as a sort of Igor figure.
Hey Choxxx, that's quite funny, even from an anonymous troll type.
But you miss the point entirely. Aric makes a video diary for Current TV (Al Gore's station, created to encourage just this type of thing)in which he expresses himself - and some people come on a react to it by saying some variation of "get a job, hippy".
Those people are morons and should come out and talk about what they are doing under their own name, or at least stay on topic. You too.
Bu then again, the last time we got one of the regular troll types to actually engange on here, they actually started quoting Ayn Rand. It's a trade off.
Can't I at least shower before I post a video that gets me booted out of the country?
"And you've yet to let us know what you do."
I suppose if I'm an accountant it totally invalidates my points?
What does my work have to do with anything?
I would like to think Current TV can do better than filmed rants of a guy who's had a bad China day, but that doesn't mean Aric can't have an opinion. It would be a shame for that rant to lead to his deportation, but I have a feeling that's not the full story.
To me the biggest shame is that he gives the false impression to Current TV viewers that all expatriates here wanted to see the Olympics fail, and that all of us hate "life" here while somehow liking the "lifestyle." His examples? Public urination, expectoration, defecation, and crowds. Apparently, knowledge of this makes us foreigners "dangerous" to China's face and hence worthy of expulsion. Does anyone else find that a bit of a leap on Aric's part? He lives in a stinky crowded city, therefore he wants the Olympics to fail? Must have been a REALLY bad day.
"Passive aggressive cultural revolution?" Basically, things just got a lot stricter, and all those "thinkers and painters," not to mention plenty of professionals that had gotten used to the F-visa loophole got caught with their pants down. If you are living and working in China, the law says you should be on a Z-visa and pay taxes, plain and simple. Contrary to Aric's statement, Z-visas are hardly for overpaid expatriates alone--this lowly Z-visa holder enjoys none of the perks he cites. Certainly, China's lack of an appropriate visa for true freelancers made the F-visa an attractive (and for a long time, cheaply and easily obtained) option, but it has never been the legal one except for business travelers not receiving a salary in China. Those with complaints about obnoxious visa policies can direct letters to my own country, the US, as well. National sovereignty, anyone?
I'd be curious to know if Aric was on an incorrect visa, and if perhaps that made him an easy target rather than some romantic notion that he was some sort of rabble-rousing journalist who dared speak the "truth" about China's dirty bodily fluids. Finally, why would he have worked so hard to get a visa to stay in a place where life is so bad? Oh, that's right--because he loves the lifestyle.
Whatever you think about the Queen, or Andy Best for that matter, give them both a little credit for trying to document Shanghai life as it is for foreigners living here. I personally will miss the bitch..
and that's from Jimmy Page, mofos..
Shanghai Life - if you *are* an accountant and have yet to put anything out there, then it simply makes you a stat - general public.
Laowish - you're going off of one video, I'm guessing? By the questions you asked later in your post, yes. I do still find it funny to hear that whatever station/platform I'm on 'can do better', no doubt you say that a lot.
False impression on expats in Shanghai? I actually think I was being more refrained than I could. This wasn't just waking up and saying things, obviously, if it was all sans merit, it wouldn't have the audience that it did.
Per the visa situation - who were the F visa holders? Again, if you watched the shows you'd actually have many of your questions answered, but your romantic notion of being an the enigmatic critic who comes in at the very end of the discussion only adds to your ignorant, yet, well-written introduction.
Yeah, a bit harsh to come down on Current TV. Their rotation for the cable channel is pretty varied, it's a real pity it's too slow here until 3am or thereabouts.
Thanks for the support Jimmy Page :) Although my writing is mainly unseen here and for work. My public blog is 95% about Shanghai Indie music and not very inflammatory or whatever.
I guess the view of Shanghai depends on your general view of reality, or your experience of it. Bit of a duh! statement that. I mean, I went to see Arundhati Roy at the last Lit festival. Her work documents in detail how the current global economic system enriches a certain percentage of people and leaves the majority in worse poverty and stripped of their identities, not to mention the destruction of the environment and traditional ways of life.
There were a bunch of people there who just didn't get it, had clearly not read her essays. Someone said "Isn't the fact that we are standing here in the Glamour Bar proof of the economic miracle". Then I thought that some of us just live in completely different worlds, mentally that is.
But, for example, what ever you want to speculate about Aric's departure - his friend DID go to jail. How does that warrant these kinds of ignorant dismissive responses? And, why is it so outrageous to have an opinion an issue.
Let's have some true counter posts here - who's going to come on and explain why the Olympics were great, in spite of all the well documented trade offs?
@ Aric
You've one-upped me in drawing the ire of both panda lickers and shit youth. My hat is off to you, I've watched your videos and loved them. Perhaps someday we'll do a netcast together telling people what kind of place China really is.
Aric: I am indeed responding to this single video. I am not implying that it represents the entirety of your views on China, but I do believe that it should be defensible if you felt strongly enough about it to produce and distribute it.
I said already that you are entitled to your opinion, and that it would be a shame if expressing that, whatever it was, were indeed the only reason for your exile. But I believe it's more likely that you simply drew attention to yourself with your ill-informed rants, and holding the incorrect visa put you in a poor position. Certainly no one deserves the kind of treatment your friends received.
Again, to follow your logic: foreigners like yourself are "dangerous" because they see and report on the "real" China? Your evidence of the "real" China: public urination. Not anything more insightful than that. I am not blindly defending China--like all places there is good and bad. I simply feel this particular video of yours was a poorly-constructed argument, and found it odd that someone who was so annoyed by all the flying feces that they wished for an international event to fail (along with apparently all his friends) would in the same breath lament his difficulty in securing a visa to stay on and live in this place.
Andy: the debate is not, were the Olympics great or not? The question some of us are asking is why would someone WANT them to fail? I certainly did not want them to fail, in that they represented a great opportunity for China to show itself to be a positive global player. I would also pose the question, did they succeed? My own answer would be mixed.