Spittoon Turns 10: Celebrate With Literature and Music

Spittoon Turns 10: Celebrate With a Night of Literature and Music

Abigail Weathers | May 23, 2025 4:30 pm | Add a comment | 115 reads

Beijingers, mark your calendars for next Thursday (May 29). Spittoon is turning 10!

Founded in 2015 by English expat poet and musician Matthew Byrne, the Spittoon Literary Collective has been a mainstay of the Beijing literary scene for the past decade, holding weekly events, creating online and print publications, hosting special artistic projects, and serving as a welcoming space and literary "home base" of sorts for the city’s diverse writers, artists and performers.

To celebrate ten years of creativity and collaboration, Spittoon is hosting a birthday party Thu, May 29, at 8pm at Celestial. Join Spittoon for storytelling, fiction and poetry readings followed by a poetry open mic session hosted by poet Fenia G. with musical accompaniment by the band Fiaba.

Anthony Tao, Spittoon Beijing’s coordinator and host of the main event, explains what to expect for the night: "The event will celebrate Spittoon but also the city where it was born and where we've had regular events for the past ten years. Our open mic poetry and music section will be on the theme of Beijing, and we're asking people with pieces about the city to come along and share their work."

Tao continues: "Around these parts, there aren't a lot of organizations, especially of the volunteer-run and nonprofit variety, that last a decade. Spittoon's been around for ten years. I'll say that again: Spittoon's been around for ten years. I think it deserves a party, just a formal but fun way to recognize its staying power and the people who have contributed to it over the years and the people who sustain it."

That means you! This Spittoon birthday is just as much about saying thank you to audience members, friends and supporters as it is about celebrating Spittoon. It’s sure to be a night to remember, with good vibes and good tunes, all in the company of good friends.

David Yang of Fiaba shares a bit about what the band will be bringing to the night.

"Fiaba is an Italian word that means ‘fable.’ So, because our songs are instrumental, we try our best to convey a story with our melodies, rhythms and sounds. The band is a trio, so Binoy Yakha (Nepal) is playing guitar/bass, David Yang (Sweden) is playing Keyboard and Antonio ODC (Italy) is on the drums. All of us come from different countries and very different musical backgrounds, so the songs that we write are, in a was,y a mix of all the things we like, with a lot of improvisations and no limitations to what is supposed to be right or wrong.

The first time we did something like this was with Fenia a few weeks ago, and it was a very new thing to us, but it flowed pretty naturally. The music and the poetry complemented each other perfectly. The venue is also a very familiar ground for Fiaba, so being able to play at Spittoon’s birthday celebration in Celestial is super cool! We are very excited to be playing for the event, and also big thanks to Fenia and Spittoon for having us!"

After checking Fiaba out next week at Celestial as part of the Spittoon birthday festivities, don’t miss their upcoming shows at DDC on Jun 7 (you can read more here) and Modernista on Jun 10. They are currently recording new music for release on various platforms, so keep an eye out for it!

Spittoon's 10th Birthday Celebration will be taking place on Thu, May 29 at Celestial from 8pm. Entry is free.

Celestial 空想酒吧
2/F, 74 Dongsi Beidajie, Dongcheng District
东城区东四北大街74号2层

About Spittoon

Spittoon is a Beijing-based arts collective that does events and programming with the goal of bringing together Chinese and foreign writers, artists, and literary enthusiasts. The Beijing collective hosts monthly fiction, poetry, storytelling and book club events along with fiction and poetry workshops. It has also organized a number of other literary events in the city, including an ongoing poetry-music collaboration called Spit-tunes, which sees a poet paired with a band or musician and then performing their original poems with musical accompaniment, and Spittoon U, a Beijing sub-group for university students.

The collective also publishes the Spittoon Literary Magazine, which is dedicated to bringing contemporary Chinese writing to an English-language audience. The magazine scouts a diverse range of emerging and established Chinese-language writers and translates their work into English to bring their talent to an international stage.

Spittoon has published a number of online features, which can be found on their website at https://spittooncollective.com. Search "Spittoon" on WeChat to follow their official account and stay up-to-date about the collective's activities.