Sunday, June 29, 2008
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? II
Construction goes late into the night here. Even at 2am I look out my window and see distant sparks from the high towers around me.
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? III
Stuck inside on a rainy day. Too bad the acid rain can't even clean the pollution off our windows.
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? V
Save the baby! Formally, this reminded me of some Vietnam footage, but in a much different vein.
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? VI
Keena and our new friends that just wanted to practice their English with us.
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? VIII
These kids were wrestling each-other in the fountain, throwing each-other around and loving life.
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? X
Nap time in the park. I like the relationship happening between the lamp and the guy's hat.
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? XI
Chinese Boyband? I love trying to capture the lifestyles of adolescents everywhere. I think its because I'm still coping with my loss of adolescence that I feel a certain empathy for that time in a person's life.
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? XIII
People never have the choice of the lives they are born into, and some people never have the choice to change the lives are born into.
Kuh yi pae zhou ma? XIV
Right after I took this photo, the girl gave me a lollipop to thank me for taking her photo, which is strange since I felt I was the one in a position to feel grateful.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Long Week
Alright, Its Saturday and I can actually sit down to write something here. A lot has happened this past week. I was feeling a little glum early in the week just from being one of two males in the office, the only non-manadarin speaker , and having no one else working in a "creative" capacity. But then Monday night Keena, our new fashion designer from New York arrived. All of a sudden, I was able to use my collected knowledge of Shanghai to help someone else make the adjustment. Keena is a down to earth a like minded person working in a similar field as me, so we bonded fast, and bounce ideas of each other. The first day she was here, she broke her sandal on the way to the office, and was stuck with limping around until we found a street cobbler. I was surprised at how well i was able to converse with the cobbler, and he fixed her sandal better than new for only 2 quay, which is about 3 cents.
At work I've been finishing up the front panels of an "informative installation" I designed for the store that consists of a tall cabinet structure backlit by flourescents, and front glass doors that will have translucent posters that outline each step of the yak-to-product process. Inside each cabinet will have a piece of each respective material that the audience can play with and become familiar with; so the first "cabinet drawer" has some raw yak fiber in it, the second has some cleaned/bleached/combed fiber in it, etc etc, five cabinets in total. I'll have some photos when its finished.
I've also designed new color cards to fit the new color swatches we chose, and also a sign for the store. Lots and lots of marketing materials.
Outside of work, I've just been showing Keena around, took her to some restaurants I know, we went out with my friends Allison and Evan friday night. Saturday we stayed around Putou, got Keena a phone and some money, went to eat down, on Beijing Lu, got some groceries, and watched some bootleg dvds at home.
Today we went down to an art supply store, I picked up a sketchpad and some pens, so I'll try to do some sketching while I'm here, I need to get my drawing skills back on par, especially since I'm so design orientated these days.
We ended up at People's Square, where three young Chinese people came up to us and began just having a conversation for the sake of practicing their english and to talk to someone foreign.
I've been in touch with my friend the curator about an idea to collect portraits of Chinese artists. He seems interested, and we'll have a chat about it soon enough. We'll se where it goes though.
There's so many little things, I wish I had time to document every moment. For instance, the other night it was pouring rain bad enough to flood the streets and sidewalks to the point that one could not walk without having their ankles submerged. I was standing on a corner, waiting to cross the street, and suddenly a cab came speeding towards me, swerved towards the curb, and sprayed me with a wall of water. It was obvious that this was an intentional attack because I watched the cab go out of its way to hit the puddle I was standing near. I'm not sure if it was an act of prejudice (its still a shock when you are treated like second class immigrant trash, being here has affected my perspective on how it feels to be a minority in ways I can't even begin to describe) or maybe the driver was just having himself some fun. Either way, my instant reaction was to scream out several english expletives, which of course had zero affect, and I remember having the sensation that I was in space, yelling as loud as I could, but not hearing anything in the great black vacuum. Not having anyone to hear your emotional outbursts is a very lonely experience.
Prejudice isn't that common here, in fact most people are excited by your presence (especially Keena, the first black person many of the people in our neighborhood have ever seen. And I used to think that I was stared at a lot!). Every now and then, you'll have a cabbie drive in circles to run up the meter or a phu yen mess up your order because they didn't care enough to listen or try to figure out your baffling chinese. But then again, Shanghai is not a very patient city, and though at root, the Chinese are a communal society, it wasn't very long ago that they were living off government rations. The sense of personal well being above all others still resonates even in Shanghai, which makes for a very aggressive culture. My advise to anyone who wants to see the real Shanghai, its okay to budge in line.
At work I've been finishing up the front panels of an "informative installation" I designed for the store that consists of a tall cabinet structure backlit by flourescents, and front glass doors that will have translucent posters that outline each step of the yak-to-product process. Inside each cabinet will have a piece of each respective material that the audience can play with and become familiar with; so the first "cabinet drawer" has some raw yak fiber in it, the second has some cleaned/bleached/combed fiber in it, etc etc, five cabinets in total. I'll have some photos when its finished.
I've also designed new color cards to fit the new color swatches we chose, and also a sign for the store. Lots and lots of marketing materials.
Outside of work, I've just been showing Keena around, took her to some restaurants I know, we went out with my friends Allison and Evan friday night. Saturday we stayed around Putou, got Keena a phone and some money, went to eat down, on Beijing Lu, got some groceries, and watched some bootleg dvds at home.
Today we went down to an art supply store, I picked up a sketchpad and some pens, so I'll try to do some sketching while I'm here, I need to get my drawing skills back on par, especially since I'm so design orientated these days.
We ended up at People's Square, where three young Chinese people came up to us and began just having a conversation for the sake of practicing their english and to talk to someone foreign.
I've been in touch with my friend the curator about an idea to collect portraits of Chinese artists. He seems interested, and we'll have a chat about it soon enough. We'll se where it goes though.
There's so many little things, I wish I had time to document every moment. For instance, the other night it was pouring rain bad enough to flood the streets and sidewalks to the point that one could not walk without having their ankles submerged. I was standing on a corner, waiting to cross the street, and suddenly a cab came speeding towards me, swerved towards the curb, and sprayed me with a wall of water. It was obvious that this was an intentional attack because I watched the cab go out of its way to hit the puddle I was standing near. I'm not sure if it was an act of prejudice (its still a shock when you are treated like second class immigrant trash, being here has affected my perspective on how it feels to be a minority in ways I can't even begin to describe) or maybe the driver was just having himself some fun. Either way, my instant reaction was to scream out several english expletives, which of course had zero affect, and I remember having the sensation that I was in space, yelling as loud as I could, but not hearing anything in the great black vacuum. Not having anyone to hear your emotional outbursts is a very lonely experience.
Prejudice isn't that common here, in fact most people are excited by your presence (especially Keena, the first black person many of the people in our neighborhood have ever seen. And I used to think that I was stared at a lot!). Every now and then, you'll have a cabbie drive in circles to run up the meter or a phu yen mess up your order because they didn't care enough to listen or try to figure out your baffling chinese. But then again, Shanghai is not a very patient city, and though at root, the Chinese are a communal society, it wasn't very long ago that they were living off government rations. The sense of personal well being above all others still resonates even in Shanghai, which makes for a very aggressive culture. My advise to anyone who wants to see the real Shanghai, its okay to budge in line.
Monday, June 23, 2008
A Cry for Democracy in China?
Let's get it right in America first...
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1569933183
http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1569933183
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Saturday
Its the weekend, and I slept in late. I was supposed to go out last, but it had been a long week and I guess it caught up with me, so I fell asleep right after a dinner of glorified ramen. The night before wasn't bad though. I went out to this ex-pat irish pub called Malone's on Tongren Lu. Sure it was filled with fat old and disgusting "meh guo rehn" (Americans) with their trophy Chinese "tai tai" (wives) and girlfriends. But I can't say I didn't expect that, I just wanted a beer other than Tsing Tao. I ordered fish and chips, which were terrible, and I remembered, "that's right, I'm in China" and my feelings of crushed expectations quickly vanished. You learn fast thats if you want a truly decent meal, it has to be Chinese.
The European cup was on, and an older guy next to me at the bar started chatting to me about it. I'm pretty good at pretending I follow sports, and when the conversation led to where we were both from, I had to pretend like I knew something about non ivy league college basketball. I realized than, sure its refreshing to find someone that speaks english, but I didn't come all the way to China to find another way in which I don't feel "American". I guess Ijust have to accept that I am not fully accepted by the Chinese and not fully accepting of expats. C'est la vie.
Today I'd like to spend just wandering around the city with my camera, practicing my Chinese, and going to the art district on Morganshan Lu to get some creative inspiration. I need to start working on something that isn't designed just to generate revenue, I'm losing my soul ha.
One problem is, Zhou Ma needs to be taken care of, Beverly has been doing it without break all week, Carol works all the time, so I guess its my turn. Its a tricky situation. I don't speak Mandarin. She doesn't speak english. I want to go to art galleries and ponder and walk around and get lost, which won't be fun for her (and usually isn't fun for anyone else, but thats how I learn my environment and meet people the best). Oh well, I'll shower and figure it out.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Shanghaied II
Alright, enough of Chongming, that was over a week ago, and I just needed to get those photos up. So yesterday I finished up a working on a cheese label design for Mei Xiang, one of the ventures I work for. After work I went out to dinner with Zhou Ma and Beverly, stopped at the bootleg DVD mart on the way home. The bootleg DVD business here is an actual industry. The packaging is very professional, and if you get DVD 9, the quality is quite good. You can usually return it if it isn't, and if the shop protests, whatever, you only lost 7 quay. Bringing copies of US films back into the US is a serious Federal offense, and though I am not a proponent of pirating creative works, something should also be said for not marking up a product for an exorbitant percentage more than what it costs to make. Consider my use of these shops in Shanghai a protest! ha, but really, this is nothing new or uncommon here.
It was a relaxed night, although I was blown away by Danny Boyle's latest film, Sunshine. He loves stories where a group of people are lost in their own personal isolation, and start killing each other off, either by accident or intentionaly, one by one, until only the main character is left to "change the world". Regardless, he has an incredible visual sense, and the music to match. Sunshine was like 2001: Space Odyssey meets Koyannisquasi meets 80's B Slasher Film.
I also started Herzog's Rescue Dawn, and after hearing him speak at school last year, you can totally read into his twisted, yet childish, German sense of humor. So a film that should be about a pretty horrifying situation, is actually pretty amusing. Oh and it has the physicist from Lost in it.
Not sure what I'm up to tonight, maybe get drinks with a friend, maybe get a massage. We'll see.
I guess I have to start putting up Shanghai photos. I realize the difficulty in reading my photo posts in the correct order, so I'll try putting them up backwards, so you just have to scroll down. I thought about using a separate host that i could use to link to a slideshow, but the internet is so slow here, this is the best way for me to get things up reasonably fast.
Chongming Island xviiii
Just a fraction of the food we were served. We had three different kinds of fish that were dried, fried and steamed. , various vegetables, fried rice cakes, prawns, fatty pork (they leave the fat on meat here! none of this pseudo-health conscious-steroid-pumped-super-lean-meat that plagues American eaters). Lets see what else, oh yeah rice porridge with fruit for desert, and later on after our trek around the island, fresh water melon. There may have been some chicken too... Suffice to say, they did not expect this skinny frame to have such an appetite, and apparently I made quite a good impression with my ravenous eating skills. In Chinese culture, one who has a healthy appetite is much admired.
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
