I've spent the last few days mired in a series of inexplicable and frustrating legal technicalities. I'm quite enthusiastic about my project, I think it will lead to a good line of inquiry, and I am very close to finishing the data-gathering segment of the show. One last step remains, to go up onto the balcony from whence I previously shot my footage and project that same footage onto the ground that I filmed at the beginning of the week. The idea is to re-introduce a previous space and time into this village square, and see what effect the new ground plane/time period/point of view will have on the people passing through it. Ideally, they would return from whence they came, encountering their morning selves from above in the evening. Ok, that may have been a little confusing, I'll admit. But it makes sense once you see it.
--The biggest problem, which also is not a problem at all, is that I have no idea what the result will be, and thus have trouble explaining exactly why I am doing all this. I just know in my gut that it'll be worthwhile. The second and most disruptive problem is that the landlord of the building where rests my balcony has significant issues with my existence on this planet, and would like very much for me to shove off and not be heard from again. Perhaps with fanfare and a bottle of Chablis. This, of course, runs antithetical to my end goals, which, as stated above, are nebulous at best. In a world forgotten by time In any case, One Man stood between me and world domination completing my project.
--Step one: Go to the bank. Withdraw 500 Yuan. Cry. Return to school.
--Step two: Find an envelope. Stuff money in. Cry.
--Step three: Convince Guy Who Works at School to translate for me.
--Step four: Go to landlord. Tap on shoulder. Ahem.
--Step five: Stand back while GWWaS explains the nebulous premise of my nebulous project to landlord.
--Step six: Bite fingernails.
--Step seven: Recognize that landlord is beginning to look less obstinate.
--Step eight: Realize that they are finished talking and looking at you with your bloody fingernails.
--Step nine: Listen to GWWaS tell you that you have permission to do your project.
--Step ten: Wonder when you need to give money to landlord. Wink. Nudge.
--Step eleven: Listen to GWWaS yell at you for bringing envelope full of cash along. Return to school.
--Step twelve: Yay.
--In case that wasn't absolutely clear, I got my permission, did not have to fork over a bribe (the landlord was actually quite reasonable in the end), and will complete my project tomorrow night (Sunday, June 8th, 2008, in case any of you want to come see). Phew. That was tough. I may still have to buy him a carton of cigarettes or a nice bottle of Chinese wine after I'm done. Actually, if I had given him money during the initial talk, it would have seemed to him that I am trying to do something illegal. Instead, I will give him a 'gift' after everything is over. So, a well spent day. I'll let you know how it goes after tomorrow's festivities. I think the townies will get a kick out of it. We'll see. Also, there's a small chance I may end up in prison. But probably not. I'll carry my passport with me just in case.
-c
Saturday, June 7, 2008
Monday, June 2, 2008
ChinaBlog Day 30
I'm amazed at the sequence of events that led me to this place. It is 7:30 in the morning, and I'm huddled on a stranger's balcony overlooking the main square of Caochangdi village outside of Beijing. Freezing to death. Between me and the torrential, icy stare of mother nature is a cotton shirt one size too small and the acceptance that I may have overlooked a few items during my morning gatherings. In my defense, it is the third day of June and this is the first of this weather I have encountered in Beijing. At the overcast crack of dawn it looked like I'd be good to videotape the village's morning routines, but my camera has long ago scampered into the driest corner it could find, useless. I arrived at my elevated perch one hour before, having cleared the permissions with owners of the nearby apartment. I set up my very much not waterproof (nor even mistproof) camera pointing down at the square, anxiously awaiting the explosion of activity that signals each workday's hello. Rocking back on my heels with a whistle, I waved confidently at some passers-by who had noticed the camera and sat down on a little plastic stool next to the tripod. Just as I began to hate myself for not bringing a book a frigid, sloppy splash shook me from my silent contemplation of a strange black bug on the railing. You would think that would be the point at which I realized I was in trouble. Instead, I did the next obvious thing, which was to hold my backpack over the camera in the accumulating rain with the vain hope of it letting up before my arms fell off. It was only after I had sapped every ounce of strength keeping the ever-weightier sack over this tiny piece of electronics that was now recording absolutely no one down below that I began to question my decisions on this matter. With a tremendously heavy heart, I shut down the feed and waltzed my backpack-over-tripod into the only spot completely sheltered by the small eve above. I slid my sopping stool as far clear of the stinging torrent as was possible, and sank onto it with a splash.
--Now I'm just waiting. Waiting for Mother to drain her fury. Waiting for people to return to their outdoor lives. Waiting for any bit of clear so I can try to salvage this utterly bizarre morning. A few minutes ago an elderly lady who lives in the apartment behind me came out to gave my soggy bones a sympathetic smile. A pity poncho would be more useful. I tried to explain that to her, but my limited vocabulary of 'hello', 'goodbye', 'right turn', 'left turn', 'straight ahead', and 'I am an American' only caused her to frown ruefully while slowly clicking the door shut in my face. The few people braving the slop below haven't taken notice of my plight, but that's kind of the point. I'm on my own, and it's just a matter of principle whether or not I pack up and leave this ice cave. So, to kill time before my inevitable defeat, I imagine the incredible sequence of events that led me to this moment.
--Sure, I woke up this morning with my camera charged and nothing but filming on the agenda. But if I'd checked the weather, I would have avoided much of this problem by bringing an umbrella. That would have been sure to guarantee not a single drop of rain. But before even that, I chose to come to Beijing for my thesis instead of staying home to work on it. And before that I made the decision to do a project concerning the movement of people. Before that I was led down the path towards a thesis by attending SCI-Arc, and I chose to go there because of my interest in architecture and my love of Los Angeles. But I could not have begun my studies in this field without an undergraduate degree from UCLA, the opportunity for which was provided me because of the emphasis on higher learning of my high school. But I would not have attended such a place had my parents not known early on how incredibly important a strong education can be. So, in other words, I am shivering in the corner of this drenched metal balcony jotting sloppy wet smudges into my sketchbook, watching the increasingly angry rain inch ever closer to my hiding place, all because of the diligent upbringing of my wonderful parents. Thanks guys, I wouldn't be here without you. :)
-c
--Now I'm just waiting. Waiting for Mother to drain her fury. Waiting for people to return to their outdoor lives. Waiting for any bit of clear so I can try to salvage this utterly bizarre morning. A few minutes ago an elderly lady who lives in the apartment behind me came out to gave my soggy bones a sympathetic smile. A pity poncho would be more useful. I tried to explain that to her, but my limited vocabulary of 'hello', 'goodbye', 'right turn', 'left turn', 'straight ahead', and 'I am an American' only caused her to frown ruefully while slowly clicking the door shut in my face. The few people braving the slop below haven't taken notice of my plight, but that's kind of the point. I'm on my own, and it's just a matter of principle whether or not I pack up and leave this ice cave. So, to kill time before my inevitable defeat, I imagine the incredible sequence of events that led me to this moment.
--Sure, I woke up this morning with my camera charged and nothing but filming on the agenda. But if I'd checked the weather, I would have avoided much of this problem by bringing an umbrella. That would have been sure to guarantee not a single drop of rain. But before even that, I chose to come to Beijing for my thesis instead of staying home to work on it. And before that I made the decision to do a project concerning the movement of people. Before that I was led down the path towards a thesis by attending SCI-Arc, and I chose to go there because of my interest in architecture and my love of Los Angeles. But I could not have begun my studies in this field without an undergraduate degree from UCLA, the opportunity for which was provided me because of the emphasis on higher learning of my high school. But I would not have attended such a place had my parents not known early on how incredibly important a strong education can be. So, in other words, I am shivering in the corner of this drenched metal balcony jotting sloppy wet smudges into my sketchbook, watching the increasingly angry rain inch ever closer to my hiding place, all because of the diligent upbringing of my wonderful parents. Thanks guys, I wouldn't be here without you. :)
-c
Saturday, May 31, 2008
ChinaBlog MiniTrip End
The sun has just set over the Olympic Torch Building out my twelfth-story window. I've been gathering and organizing all the footage from this incredible 5 day trip to the southern part of China. It feels incredibly home-like here in my Beijing apartment, much more so than I ever would have thought, and not a little relieving that I am no longer living out of a suitcase. For the first time in a few days, sweat is not pouring down my face Airplane-style, and there are no mosquitoes to be heard, but I am also sad to face the work ahead for my thesis. I want to keep exploring this place. I've clearly just scratched the surface, and a trip from one city to two others is not even close to allowing for a full understanding of this country. Although I will say that after three days in Shanghai I have a pretty good feel for how it differs from my home port of Beijing. For one thing, it is a lot more vibrant. Beijing is a city of nonstop movement, but that movement seems always related to work and completing the never-ending set of tasks that develop when erecting a city of 20 million in half a decade. On the other hand, twenty years ago Shanghai was a bunch of rice paddies, and since then has become the second largest urban center in China. But it feels as though its growth and development have long ago slowed to normal heightened Chinese levels. The city's vibrancy comes from a strong night life, and a younger-skewed populace that thrives on modern convenience. If you want to make some comparisons, Beijing's endless urban sprawl is similar to Los Angeles', and Shanghai's density and youth is similar to New York's. These are obviously gross generalizations, but they can work on the surface.
--Our nonstop shot from Hangzhou to Shanghai came after an amazing tour through a Hangzhou bamboo plantation and factory. I'm still scratching at the volcanic bumps left behind by some of the biggest and, according to the plant manager, fiercest mosquitoes in the world. You could feel them landing on you, not by stinger or wing flaps, but by weight. 'Oh, haha! A puppy just jumped on my shoulder! Now where did you come from little fella-OHMYGODWHATTHEHELLISTHAT-GETITOFFGETITOFF!' And then the weakness sets in, your knees buckle, and you're scratching in another spot for the rest of the month. But aside from that, they might easily have filmed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in this plantation, because it is nauseatingly beautiful. The factory ran like a swiss watch, with a surprising number of women 'throwing the slats'. That's what they call working in a bamboo factory. Actually, I just made that up. But that's what it should be called. And now it is. By the time we were out of the 156 degree factory heat we were almost unable to muster the strength to get to the train station. I was worried that our 'hard seat' tickets would give us 10" of butt space upon which to hang on for two and a half hours of dear life, bone-rattling 20mph rail travel. Imagine my surprise, for the second and last time on this trip, when the sleekest, modernest, shiniest bullet train pulled up to the platform and silently halted before us. The wide, comfortable seats were anything but 'hard', and could be labeled more accurately as 'ohlordthat'snice' or maybe 'doweeverhavetogetoffthisheavenlything'. The hour flitted past quick as a trackside bamboo shoot, while the sky got darker and more menacing as we approached Shanghai. By the time we arrived lightning was constant through the ebony clouds, illuminating tiny parts of the massive skyline one fragile blink at a time. Our mad, haphazard scramble through the muddy streets of Shanghai left us and our belongings all manner of soaked, and I considered myself a genius for having stuffed an umbrella in the outside pocket of my bag, despite the 75 degree weather of Beijing when I left. Always be prepared, and such. After several wrong turns, a similar number of frantic phone calls to the hostel, and even a couple of verbal directions from passing Europeans, we found our glass hole in the wall and slipped inside...into the greatest hostel my meager travels have ever brought me to. It's difficult to describe how nice this place is, but I would liken it to a W hotel. If you've ever seen one of those, you'll get the idea. If you haven't, check one out. It may be cheesy as a hotel chain, but as a hostel it's heaven on earth, especially for $18 a night. And the fleet of young ladies who staffed the place all spoke excellent english, and were invaluable in navigating the city over the coming days.
--Our (meaning me, Jamie, Mark, and Sean) first dinner was inside a place recommended to us by my Beijing roommates, who had been in Shanghai for one day before we arrived. I got a hamburger, fries, and a coke, which was the first such dish I've had here, and it only cost $25. Not 25 Yuan, as you would expect in Beijing. My can of Coke, no refills, was $5. Five. Dollars. It almost made the burger and fries a good deal. Needless to say, we all returned to the hostel fuming. If you're wondering why we even ate dinner there, it was because the district we were in, on that particular day of the week (Tuesday), shuts down at 10. We arrived starving at 9:55. It was either eat expensively or not at all. We ate. And fumed.
--The next morning, however, we awoke with an air of optimism. Shanghai was before us, waiting. This time it was me, Jamie, Mark, and Matt. You might be able to tell who all these people are if you look at my flickr page (www.flickr.com/photos/chrisward23). We set out to find the French district, which we'd been told was very quaint and interesting, along with a good place to eat breakfast called the Mansion Hotel. We left at nine, arrived bedraggled and hungry at 10:05, and were told that the place closed at 10, and opened again for lunch at 1. What IS it with this place? So we went to McDonald's, where I had a coconut pie and a shot of oj to tide me over. We found ourselves on the main shopping street, and strolled along until Jamie was inexplicably sucked into the black hole that is H&M. There's a spot of oil on the street below my window that looks exactly like a bunny. Hi Sonia! Where was I? Oh, right, H&M. After some cajoling, canoodeling, and conversing, we convinced H&M to let our little comrade slip through its mighty capitalist digits intact. Phew, that was too close. Our next stop was the People's Square, where we met a die-hard Wisconsin fan who ran up to us screaming about some Rose Bowl or other, not knowing that Matt's MICHIGAN ARCHITECTURE shirt pretty much eliminated him from any knowledge of such events. I chuckled and remained silent.
--Our goal was a new-ish building called the Chinese Urban Planning Museum, which has the largest scale model of a city in the world. How big could a scale model of a city be? It's half scale. Ok, not that big. But one of my feet would only crush one of its buildings. And every structure in the city over 3 stories is represented in one gigantic room. Pictures are on Flickr. It's an amazing exhibit, one that must continually be updated as new iconic buildings are erected every 6 months or so.
--The next stop was the Oriental Pearl tower, a Space-Needle-esque thing standing on the other side of the Yangtze from the Urban Planning Museum. A couple subway stops later we emerged underneath it, gawking at the ridiculousness of the thing. It's a gigantic cement tower covered in big metal balls. Pictures are on Flickr. A young Chinese man came up to us and began rattling away in insistent Mandarin, and we stood for a few moments with our heads cocked listening for any uttered word we might latch onto to gather his intentions. We finally were able to communicate that we were architecture students from the US, at which point he switched to his native English and told us that he was from Georgia Tech. It was all a little practical joke to make us look stupid. Ha. Ha. All his asian-american friends laughed heartily at our expense, and we sort of looked at each other with an air of 'um...ok'. Jamie felt especially offended, and invited the lot of them to join us that evening for dinner (with the intention of making them eat something horrible). Admiring the tower for a few minutes, our stomachs tapped us on the shoulder and reminded us that it was 2 in the afternoon, then pointed to a nearby Subway. Mmm...shrimp sandwiches. They don't make them like that back home. Sated, we could have gone back into the subway tunnels for a complicated, crowded ride back across the river, but something about the words 'Tourist Tunnel' in rainbow text on our map managed to snag our attention. What in the world was a 'Tourist Tunnel'? It must be amazing, seeing that it has the adjective 'Tourist'. 'Tourist Anything' is always better than just 'Anything'. It went under the river, and nearby posters had pictures of fish. Maybe it was a 'Tourist Glass Tunnel Across the River'. Or a 'Tourist Aquarium for Easy River Egress'. Or maybe it was just a 'Tourist Tram with Terrible Lights and Cheesy Music Behind Announcements of CONSTANT MAGMA or SPATIAL VACUUM'. It was the lattest. I was excited enough to pay half of Mark's entrance fee, he being the only sane one of our group in his refusal to pay 40 Quai for a stupid tram surrounded in Christmas lights. It actually looks pretty neat in the pictures, but that's only because my camera is so bad at snapping low light. We immediately recommended the 'Tourist Tunnel' to everyone in Shanghai. The other side of the tunnel was a grand riverwalk City Improvement Project designed to concentrate the most amount of tourists into a skinny, unexitable walkway with at least half of the city's beggars, sellers, and pickpockets. I left with a fake Rolex watch and an utter sense of shame. Since it was getting toward the end of the day, and we were in danger of losing what money/dignity we had left, we ducked into a nearby lighthouse and ordered some drinks. The place was empty, so we convinced the owner to allow access to the top of the spire, and we stood up there talking and laughing and looking out over the city for an hour before everyone but Matt and I returned to the hostel. We ate dinner at a nearby cheap, tasty Chinese restaurant, took a bunch of nighttime photos along the riverwalk (the most famous and scenic part of the city), and then crashed into the hostel.
--Our final day of the trip was a frantic dash to cover whatever ground we didn't tread the day before. Matt and I had only one thing on our minds: the top of the Oriental Pearl. After an hour and a half subway ride, we bought the most expensive tickets to the topmost observation deck, stepped into the elevator, and ascended into dense, visibility-slaughtering clouds. They started at about 50 feet off the ground, and were still very door-not-window-like at the tippy top. We stared out at the white nothingness, looked at each other with 'well, this is what we asked for' faces, got back in the elevator, and began the return journey home. There was just enough time to pack all our belongings and cab it to the train station, where we all instantly fell asleep, and woke up 12 hours later in Beijing. It's good to be home.
--It's time now to really hunker down and get some solid work done on thesis. I have three more weeks until I return home to LA, and I still have so much I want/need to do. On monday morning, I'm going to stand up on a guy's balcony in our little village and film everyone's morning routine in the square below me. Then, that night, I'm going to project the morning's film onto the square to create a new ground plane. The place is small enough that people might begin to recognize themselves, and if I do it for several days in a row people in the morning might catch on and alter the way they move through the space, knowing that that night everyone will be able to see it. If you're wondering what this has to do with Architecture, I can only tell you that it does not. And yet it does. Touristly.
-c
--Our nonstop shot from Hangzhou to Shanghai came after an amazing tour through a Hangzhou bamboo plantation and factory. I'm still scratching at the volcanic bumps left behind by some of the biggest and, according to the plant manager, fiercest mosquitoes in the world. You could feel them landing on you, not by stinger or wing flaps, but by weight. 'Oh, haha! A puppy just jumped on my shoulder! Now where did you come from little fella-OHMYGODWHATTHEHELLISTHAT-GETITOFFGETITOFF!' And then the weakness sets in, your knees buckle, and you're scratching in another spot for the rest of the month. But aside from that, they might easily have filmed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in this plantation, because it is nauseatingly beautiful. The factory ran like a swiss watch, with a surprising number of women 'throwing the slats'. That's what they call working in a bamboo factory. Actually, I just made that up. But that's what it should be called. And now it is. By the time we were out of the 156 degree factory heat we were almost unable to muster the strength to get to the train station. I was worried that our 'hard seat' tickets would give us 10" of butt space upon which to hang on for two and a half hours of dear life, bone-rattling 20mph rail travel. Imagine my surprise, for the second and last time on this trip, when the sleekest, modernest, shiniest bullet train pulled up to the platform and silently halted before us. The wide, comfortable seats were anything but 'hard', and could be labeled more accurately as 'ohlordthat'snice' or maybe 'doweeverhavetogetoffthisheavenlything'. The hour flitted past quick as a trackside bamboo shoot, while the sky got darker and more menacing as we approached Shanghai. By the time we arrived lightning was constant through the ebony clouds, illuminating tiny parts of the massive skyline one fragile blink at a time. Our mad, haphazard scramble through the muddy streets of Shanghai left us and our belongings all manner of soaked, and I considered myself a genius for having stuffed an umbrella in the outside pocket of my bag, despite the 75 degree weather of Beijing when I left. Always be prepared, and such. After several wrong turns, a similar number of frantic phone calls to the hostel, and even a couple of verbal directions from passing Europeans, we found our glass hole in the wall and slipped inside...into the greatest hostel my meager travels have ever brought me to. It's difficult to describe how nice this place is, but I would liken it to a W hotel. If you've ever seen one of those, you'll get the idea. If you haven't, check one out. It may be cheesy as a hotel chain, but as a hostel it's heaven on earth, especially for $18 a night. And the fleet of young ladies who staffed the place all spoke excellent english, and were invaluable in navigating the city over the coming days.
--Our (meaning me, Jamie, Mark, and Sean) first dinner was inside a place recommended to us by my Beijing roommates, who had been in Shanghai for one day before we arrived. I got a hamburger, fries, and a coke, which was the first such dish I've had here, and it only cost $25. Not 25 Yuan, as you would expect in Beijing. My can of Coke, no refills, was $5. Five. Dollars. It almost made the burger and fries a good deal. Needless to say, we all returned to the hostel fuming. If you're wondering why we even ate dinner there, it was because the district we were in, on that particular day of the week (Tuesday), shuts down at 10. We arrived starving at 9:55. It was either eat expensively or not at all. We ate. And fumed.
--The next morning, however, we awoke with an air of optimism. Shanghai was before us, waiting. This time it was me, Jamie, Mark, and Matt. You might be able to tell who all these people are if you look at my flickr page (www.flickr.com/photos/chrisward23). We set out to find the French district, which we'd been told was very quaint and interesting, along with a good place to eat breakfast called the Mansion Hotel. We left at nine, arrived bedraggled and hungry at 10:05, and were told that the place closed at 10, and opened again for lunch at 1. What IS it with this place? So we went to McDonald's, where I had a coconut pie and a shot of oj to tide me over. We found ourselves on the main shopping street, and strolled along until Jamie was inexplicably sucked into the black hole that is H&M. There's a spot of oil on the street below my window that looks exactly like a bunny. Hi Sonia! Where was I? Oh, right, H&M. After some cajoling, canoodeling, and conversing, we convinced H&M to let our little comrade slip through its mighty capitalist digits intact. Phew, that was too close. Our next stop was the People's Square, where we met a die-hard Wisconsin fan who ran up to us screaming about some Rose Bowl or other, not knowing that Matt's MICHIGAN ARCHITECTURE shirt pretty much eliminated him from any knowledge of such events. I chuckled and remained silent.
--Our goal was a new-ish building called the Chinese Urban Planning Museum, which has the largest scale model of a city in the world. How big could a scale model of a city be? It's half scale. Ok, not that big. But one of my feet would only crush one of its buildings. And every structure in the city over 3 stories is represented in one gigantic room. Pictures are on Flickr. It's an amazing exhibit, one that must continually be updated as new iconic buildings are erected every 6 months or so.
--The next stop was the Oriental Pearl tower, a Space-Needle-esque thing standing on the other side of the Yangtze from the Urban Planning Museum. A couple subway stops later we emerged underneath it, gawking at the ridiculousness of the thing. It's a gigantic cement tower covered in big metal balls. Pictures are on Flickr. A young Chinese man came up to us and began rattling away in insistent Mandarin, and we stood for a few moments with our heads cocked listening for any uttered word we might latch onto to gather his intentions. We finally were able to communicate that we were architecture students from the US, at which point he switched to his native English and told us that he was from Georgia Tech. It was all a little practical joke to make us look stupid. Ha. Ha. All his asian-american friends laughed heartily at our expense, and we sort of looked at each other with an air of 'um...ok'. Jamie felt especially offended, and invited the lot of them to join us that evening for dinner (with the intention of making them eat something horrible). Admiring the tower for a few minutes, our stomachs tapped us on the shoulder and reminded us that it was 2 in the afternoon, then pointed to a nearby Subway. Mmm...shrimp sandwiches. They don't make them like that back home. Sated, we could have gone back into the subway tunnels for a complicated, crowded ride back across the river, but something about the words 'Tourist Tunnel' in rainbow text on our map managed to snag our attention. What in the world was a 'Tourist Tunnel'? It must be amazing, seeing that it has the adjective 'Tourist'. 'Tourist Anything' is always better than just 'Anything'. It went under the river, and nearby posters had pictures of fish. Maybe it was a 'Tourist Glass Tunnel Across the River'. Or a 'Tourist Aquarium for Easy River Egress'. Or maybe it was just a 'Tourist Tram with Terrible Lights and Cheesy Music Behind Announcements of CONSTANT MAGMA or SPATIAL VACUUM'. It was the lattest. I was excited enough to pay half of Mark's entrance fee, he being the only sane one of our group in his refusal to pay 40 Quai for a stupid tram surrounded in Christmas lights. It actually looks pretty neat in the pictures, but that's only because my camera is so bad at snapping low light. We immediately recommended the 'Tourist Tunnel' to everyone in Shanghai. The other side of the tunnel was a grand riverwalk City Improvement Project designed to concentrate the most amount of tourists into a skinny, unexitable walkway with at least half of the city's beggars, sellers, and pickpockets. I left with a fake Rolex watch and an utter sense of shame. Since it was getting toward the end of the day, and we were in danger of losing what money/dignity we had left, we ducked into a nearby lighthouse and ordered some drinks. The place was empty, so we convinced the owner to allow access to the top of the spire, and we stood up there talking and laughing and looking out over the city for an hour before everyone but Matt and I returned to the hostel. We ate dinner at a nearby cheap, tasty Chinese restaurant, took a bunch of nighttime photos along the riverwalk (the most famous and scenic part of the city), and then crashed into the hostel.
--Our final day of the trip was a frantic dash to cover whatever ground we didn't tread the day before. Matt and I had only one thing on our minds: the top of the Oriental Pearl. After an hour and a half subway ride, we bought the most expensive tickets to the topmost observation deck, stepped into the elevator, and ascended into dense, visibility-slaughtering clouds. They started at about 50 feet off the ground, and were still very door-not-window-like at the tippy top. We stared out at the white nothingness, looked at each other with 'well, this is what we asked for' faces, got back in the elevator, and began the return journey home. There was just enough time to pack all our belongings and cab it to the train station, where we all instantly fell asleep, and woke up 12 hours later in Beijing. It's good to be home.
--It's time now to really hunker down and get some solid work done on thesis. I have three more weeks until I return home to LA, and I still have so much I want/need to do. On monday morning, I'm going to stand up on a guy's balcony in our little village and film everyone's morning routine in the square below me. Then, that night, I'm going to project the morning's film onto the square to create a new ground plane. The place is small enough that people might begin to recognize themselves, and if I do it for several days in a row people in the morning might catch on and alter the way they move through the space, knowing that that night everyone will be able to see it. If you're wondering what this has to do with Architecture, I can only tell you that it does not. And yet it does. Touristly.
-c
Friday, May 30, 2008
ChinaBlog MiniTrip photos
It's been a hectic bunch of days in Shanghai, so while I write about it I uploaded some new flickr photos for your distraction. Enjoy.
-c
-c
Sunday, May 25, 2008
ChinaBlog MiniTrip Day 2
Hangzhou. The most beautiful city in China is right now the most humid city in China. Actually, I can't confirm that, but it's in the top ten, or maybe the top ten of beautiful cities in China. It's 75 degrees with 430% water in the air. It's so humid you have to wear a face mask to keep from swallowing passing fish. After disembarking our train we herded 18 people through the complex and crowded station to a well-marked line of taxis. There was one set of directions between the throng of us, so we each took the phone number of the hostel, intending to contact the front desk and have them tell the cab driver where to go. Well, imagine the poor guy behind the counter who gets 6 simultaneous phone calls asking for directions. Only one cab made it unscathed, and it happened to be the one I was in. We began as an intimidating line of aggressive (more so than Beijing, it seems) blue and silver Hundais, and then one after another dropped away, taking wrong turns, stopping in wrong places, and getting forced onto conveniently placed dirt flipping ramps designed to throw wayward speeding Hundais onto large parked panel trucks. With explosions. Without a single incident, the Hundai we were in arrived at the hostel with us alone and confused, because none of the people in our cab had the check-in information. Ten minutes later, the next cab arrived, it's contents shaken, singed, and bleary-eyed. A third cab approached with its roof caved in, missing five hubcaps, but still operational. The last cab was being pushed by some nearby old Chinese men. We never saw the rest.
--Our hostel is situated right across the street from West Lake, a grand central lake in the middle of Hangzhou. It is famous across China for it's 'eight scenes', fixed picturesque spots with names like "Autumn Breeze over Moonlit Water" and "Melting Snow with Flakes of Sea Cucumber". They are designed to be seen on specific days throughout the year, based on their titles. They were made hmbafld years ago, and are the reason Hangzhou is pushed heavily by the Chinese government as a tourist spot. There is no construction in this city.
-- We took some time to eat breakfast, shower, walk around the lake a bit, and shower. On our itinerary was a visit to the Chinese Academy of Art, which has its impressive campus just down the road from our hostel. We put our stuff in the rooms, showered, gathered our cameras and cell phones and maps, showered, and left. Getting 18 people into cabs on the street is hilarious and exhausting, but we somehow managed. They had some showers in the dorms at the Academy, so we went there first to clean up, and then perused the interesting architecture, art, and gardens of the scenic place. We spent a good 2 hours there, including visits to nearby Porsche, Aston Martin, Maserati, and Ferrari dealerships. The Michigan people were completely astounded at these vehicles, and I began to realize just how skewed my perspective on cars really is.
--After piling everyone into the backs of five frantic people-movers, we returned to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner. We're going out to a specific restaurant to meet up with someone who is going to give us a personal tour of the famous Hangzhou bamboo factory on Tuesday morning, and it's a really fancy place. I've been told that it might be expensive, which means dinner might be 10 bucks instead of 5. And we have to dress up, which means I'm going to be wearing a polo shirt with jeans. I know, you're having trouble picturing it. Anyway, maybe I'll be able to give an update when I get back. Hope all is well back home.
**UPDATE**
--The aforementioned West Lake in the center of Hangzhou has several small islands, the largest of which is connected to the shore by a short bridge, and is covered in restaurants. At the point furthest into the lake, there is a very famous old eatery, and that's where we ate dinner, split up in two private rooms. The food was good, we sampled a lot of different dishes (and drinks) similar to the ones we've been having all throughout the trip, and the menu wasn't as strange as I've been told it might be in this part of the country. Our dinner was huge, magnificent, and 600 Yuan for 9 people. That's 67 Yuan per person, divide by 7, carry the one, jump around in a circle, and it comes out to about $9.50 a meal. I'm not usually one to say 'I told you so', so I'll just say 'look how amazing I am', and assume you're capable of reading between the lines.
--One of my roommates was anticipating his birthday last night. It came at about midnight. Maybe exactly at midnight. But we haven't gotten to that part of the story yet. In any case, when we emerged from the restaurant several days after arriving, we were confronted by the quaintest wooden Chinese gondolas in all the land, brought there by blind monks plank by plank, and operated by University PHD students. 10 of us couldn't resist celebrating early out on the water. It was still very hot, but on the lake there was a bit of a breeze, so we were immediately rewarded for our impulsiveness. We split into two boats, and the two Physics majors deftly sped us out to one of the islands in the middle of the lake with just one fixed oar each (it actually looked impossible to keep these things from simply drifting in large circles, what with the Physics problems of always paddling on one side of the boat, but these guys' advanced degrees had given them tremendous control over our world's natural forces). When we got there, it was clear that this was the Hangzhou equivalent of "Makeout Point". The couples among us melted quietly into the foliage, and the rest of us spent 20 minutes exploring this little place Tom-Sawyer-Island-style. There were all kinds of ancient structures covering the island, so it was a stretch to see everything before we had to leave again. The student drivers had to get back to their labs. It was a beautiful, relaxing, utterly pleasant hour spent out on the water, and would be the last moment of peace for the rest of the night.
--Still hours away from midnight, the next stop, after a hostel shower, was an en masse stampede to a local deserted jazz club. We heard everything from old standards to Dean Martin to Eric Clapton, all crooned out by a 70 year old woman and her two sons on piano and upright bass. There was also sax player and a drummer, but they were small and plastic and covered in multi-colered lights. The saxaphonist was especially accurate and on beat. One of our bunch, during a band break, was coaxed onstage to play piano for us, and we got the whole bar (just the group of us, really. I said it was deserted.) to sing Hey Jude while he accompanied. He'd never been to a bar before, is the youngest of us （at 19）, and after being the center of attention sat down at the table and confidently ordered a Long Island Iced Tea. He took one sip and crumpled to the floor. We had to carry him home. Those who didn't head back went with the rest of us out to the most Dance-iest Asian-ist Asian Dance Club you've ever seen. I felt like Sydney Bristow, or maybe Marshall, as the Michael-Jackson-green laser light show pounded us into the floor one heart-stopping beat at a time. There were no inked-up, besuited mobsters in this club for me to remotely access hard drives from using stylish infrared glasses. Instead there was just the bunch of us jumping and dancing and having a grand old time until midnight rolled around, at which point I had a beer with everyone, said happy birthday to my roommate, showered, danced some more, and finally came home to shower. My clothes still haven't forgiven me. So that was my night. If they're all like that on this trip I'll smell like smoke until my birthday. We'll see.
-c
--Our hostel is situated right across the street from West Lake, a grand central lake in the middle of Hangzhou. It is famous across China for it's 'eight scenes', fixed picturesque spots with names like "Autumn Breeze over Moonlit Water" and "Melting Snow with Flakes of Sea Cucumber". They are designed to be seen on specific days throughout the year, based on their titles. They were made hmbafld years ago, and are the reason Hangzhou is pushed heavily by the Chinese government as a tourist spot. There is no construction in this city.
-- We took some time to eat breakfast, shower, walk around the lake a bit, and shower. On our itinerary was a visit to the Chinese Academy of Art, which has its impressive campus just down the road from our hostel. We put our stuff in the rooms, showered, gathered our cameras and cell phones and maps, showered, and left. Getting 18 people into cabs on the street is hilarious and exhausting, but we somehow managed. They had some showers in the dorms at the Academy, so we went there first to clean up, and then perused the interesting architecture, art, and gardens of the scenic place. We spent a good 2 hours there, including visits to nearby Porsche, Aston Martin, Maserati, and Ferrari dealerships. The Michigan people were completely astounded at these vehicles, and I began to realize just how skewed my perspective on cars really is.
--After piling everyone into the backs of five frantic people-movers, we returned to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner. We're going out to a specific restaurant to meet up with someone who is going to give us a personal tour of the famous Hangzhou bamboo factory on Tuesday morning, and it's a really fancy place. I've been told that it might be expensive, which means dinner might be 10 bucks instead of 5. And we have to dress up, which means I'm going to be wearing a polo shirt with jeans. I know, you're having trouble picturing it. Anyway, maybe I'll be able to give an update when I get back. Hope all is well back home.
**UPDATE**
--The aforementioned West Lake in the center of Hangzhou has several small islands, the largest of which is connected to the shore by a short bridge, and is covered in restaurants. At the point furthest into the lake, there is a very famous old eatery, and that's where we ate dinner, split up in two private rooms. The food was good, we sampled a lot of different dishes (and drinks) similar to the ones we've been having all throughout the trip, and the menu wasn't as strange as I've been told it might be in this part of the country. Our dinner was huge, magnificent, and 600 Yuan for 9 people. That's 67 Yuan per person, divide by 7, carry the one, jump around in a circle, and it comes out to about $9.50 a meal. I'm not usually one to say 'I told you so', so I'll just say 'look how amazing I am', and assume you're capable of reading between the lines.
--One of my roommates was anticipating his birthday last night. It came at about midnight. Maybe exactly at midnight. But we haven't gotten to that part of the story yet. In any case, when we emerged from the restaurant several days after arriving, we were confronted by the quaintest wooden Chinese gondolas in all the land, brought there by blind monks plank by plank, and operated by University PHD students. 10 of us couldn't resist celebrating early out on the water. It was still very hot, but on the lake there was a bit of a breeze, so we were immediately rewarded for our impulsiveness. We split into two boats, and the two Physics majors deftly sped us out to one of the islands in the middle of the lake with just one fixed oar each (it actually looked impossible to keep these things from simply drifting in large circles, what with the Physics problems of always paddling on one side of the boat, but these guys' advanced degrees had given them tremendous control over our world's natural forces). When we got there, it was clear that this was the Hangzhou equivalent of "Makeout Point". The couples among us melted quietly into the foliage, and the rest of us spent 20 minutes exploring this little place Tom-Sawyer-Island-style. There were all kinds of ancient structures covering the island, so it was a stretch to see everything before we had to leave again. The student drivers had to get back to their labs. It was a beautiful, relaxing, utterly pleasant hour spent out on the water, and would be the last moment of peace for the rest of the night.
--Still hours away from midnight, the next stop, after a hostel shower, was an en masse stampede to a local deserted jazz club. We heard everything from old standards to Dean Martin to Eric Clapton, all crooned out by a 70 year old woman and her two sons on piano and upright bass. There was also sax player and a drummer, but they were small and plastic and covered in multi-colered lights. The saxaphonist was especially accurate and on beat. One of our bunch, during a band break, was coaxed onstage to play piano for us, and we got the whole bar (just the group of us, really. I said it was deserted.) to sing Hey Jude while he accompanied. He'd never been to a bar before, is the youngest of us （at 19）, and after being the center of attention sat down at the table and confidently ordered a Long Island Iced Tea. He took one sip and crumpled to the floor. We had to carry him home. Those who didn't head back went with the rest of us out to the most Dance-iest Asian-ist Asian Dance Club you've ever seen. I felt like Sydney Bristow, or maybe Marshall, as the Michael-Jackson-green laser light show pounded us into the floor one heart-stopping beat at a time. There were no inked-up, besuited mobsters in this club for me to remotely access hard drives from using stylish infrared glasses. Instead there was just the bunch of us jumping and dancing and having a grand old time until midnight rolled around, at which point I had a beer with everyone, said happy birthday to my roommate, showered, danced some more, and finally came home to shower. My clothes still haven't forgiven me. So that was my night. If they're all like that on this trip I'll smell like smoke until my birthday. We'll see.
-c
Saturday, May 24, 2008
ChinaBlog MiniTrip Day 1
What image forms in your brain when you think of Chinese trains? Nope. Wrong. Well, I'm sure some of them are like that, but not this one. This particular train would make Germans sit down in their liederhosen and wonder where it all went so verdammt back home. "Ach, Kleissl, es tut mir lied! Diese bahn ist so gross und schnell und modern. Wir sind dumbkopferin!" Yes, they are female Germans. Now you're guilty of two stereotypes...what's he talking about? Nevermind. The train is very big, fast, and modern. It has all the expected conveniences, like air conditioning, ladders that fold into the wall, a little table with a rose on it, and a dining car that serves fired wife buffer. In fact, there were several dishes with fired wife on the menu. This train must have a high employee turnover rate. In all seriousness, we never figured out what they exactly meant to write instead, and none of us were brave enough to order a fired wife, because we DID figure out that every time they wrote 'fired', they meant 'fried', and, well, to be honest I'm still not sure which is worse. Instead I got the shrivled pork peppers, which was some kind of delicious beef dish with yams. The woman behind the counter spent a good five minutes digging through what can only be described as a trash can to find the hand-written English menu, so I guess we were lucky to have any idea whatsoever what we were asking for. We've all found that simply pointing at random to an all-Chinese menu will invariably get you a dish of steamed sea cucumber entrails. While that may be fun and adventurous once, its not very filling, nor exciting, the tenth or eleventh time. I've heard that Shanghai has the strangest food in China, so I'm looking forward to a change.
I think this is all I can write with my thumbs at this time. I need to go to bed so I can be up in time for our arrival in Hangzhou at 7am. We'll spend two nights there before we move on to Shanghai. More later!
-c
I think this is all I can write with my thumbs at this time. I need to go to bed so I can be up in time for our arrival in Hangzhou at 7am. We'll spend two nights there before we move on to Shanghai. More later!
-c
MiniTrip to Hangzhou & Shanghai
I'm going on a little trip for the next five days. We're taking a sleeper train from Beijing to, supposedly, the most beautiful city in China. It's called Hangzhou, and it's one point of a triangle of cities that includes Shanghai. The third city is called Suzhou, and I know literally nothing about it. They're all an hour away from each other. By train, and we'll be romping around the three of them for the next few days.im not taking my laptop, but if I have Internet access, as I do now, I can write on my phone and still be able to post. So, off we go! More later.
-c
-c
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