Friday, January 14, 2005

I will survive During my time in university in the beginning of the 90's I like one song particularly, 'I will survive' in a cover by the Hermes House Band. The band that performed the song consisted of univerity students from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, while I was studying in Maastricht. The version that became famous was a live version in which also some things in Dutch were 'sung' (more screamed actually). About 5 years ago I was walking on a hot Saturday afternoon in Chongqing in the main shopping street, while waiting to board a ship for a trip on the Yangtze river. It was extremely crowded, there were 1000's of Chinese all around me, and I was probably the only foreigner there. I felt really foreign there, especially because it was my first time in Sichuan, it was hot and I felt tired. I stopped at a small clothing shop for a few minutes to cool off when I suddenly heard this song played, in the partly-Dutch version. That gave me such a surreal feeling, I suddenly felt a bit at home here. I heard the song actually a few more times in China. A couple of times it was played in the infamous Maggie's bar (no wonder, they sponsor the Dutch socer team in Beijing), and I once heard it while strolling through Tianjin. Tonight I was in my spinning class in the gym when the exact same song was played. It made me feel really good to hear it, and I realized it's actually a great song for spinning. The second part (after 'We gaan het nou op zijn Grieks doen') starts off very slow and goes faster and faster, so you start driving slowly at a high resistance and then you pedal quicker and quicker. Try it out! 10:09:46 PM    comment []