Art Gallery

This weekend included a trip to a modern art gallery, called 798, in Northeast Beijing. The site was an old factory area that got bought/reclaimed/traded with political favors/or some other sort of crazy Chinese economic mumbo-jumbo to a coalition of art dealers that kept part of the factory's name (it was, of course, Factory 798 back in the day). The coolest part was probably actually seeing all of the old factory stuff, including an abandoned train-fueling station with a coal-burning engine sitting idle on the tracks.

I picked a wonderful day to forget my camera, but Zephyr's phone (Zephyr is a coworker of mine) got a few noteworthy shots:

The first is one of a few slogans painted on the factory walls during either the Great Leap Forward or the Cultural Revolution. Workers actually probably painted them voluntarily, in their fervor of the moment.
"Long live the great Chinese Communist Party!"

A picture of me, about 20 feet up on a tracked crane, looking down. Also, for some reason, black and white. Who knows.


This sculpture is modern, made in 2007 by one of the modern artists, but in the style of a Culutral Revolution poster. The worker (with his eight-inch-thick forearms, a trademark of the time) is holding a brush, showing that anyone can be an artist if endowed with formiddable forearms and Chairman Maozedong thought. The interesting thing bout this sculpture was the quality of the medium--the iron-based metal used to make it was not only rusted, but it was of an inconsistent grade, and cracked in certain parts where the alloy had not settled, bubbled a bit, and generally looked bad. I realised with perfect clarity after a few moments of thinking--this abandoned factory, I am sure, at some point had vast wasteful expanses of pig iron or half-attempts at steel made in the backyard furnaces of peasants during the Great Leap Forward, shipped in on those coal trains, and then rejected in disgust by the marginally-more-qualified engineers of the factory. The artist almost certainly got his sculpting materials from such an industrial graveyard, and not simply because they were free, but because they represented the result of the thought of the time.


Some of the paintings were strange, some were beautiful, but some actually got to make powerful statements about China's past--the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, and the general behavior of great leaders like Mao Zedong. Some of the political satires were a bit chilling, especially those of the Cultural Revolution. Zephyr and I had a brief discussion on the different realms in which one can discuss Chinese history and policy, and apparently some history is open to China's very small ivory tower. But there was no word of the Tiananmen Square incident.

When I mentioned that, Zephyr said "nobody worries about it anymore, it's history!" I got a bit confused, and said "well, why do you worry about the Japanese so much? That's 65-year-old history." Which got me a jumbled response about Japanese attitudes about it today, but I got a small mark of admission when I asked "if nobody worries about it, why aren't you allowed to talk about it?"

I then told her why China's banned art was so popular in the US. If a single piece of art is so powerful as to threaten the security of the largest authoritarian government in the world, then it must really have something to say.

Time to be Patriotic!

Friday, exactly 2 weeks before the Olympics begin, Chinese flags went up outside of practically every storefront in China. Very cute.

In addition, "Beijing 2008 Welcomes You" junk went up inside the hotel part of my apartment.

It's not that the government is forcing any of these folks to put these up with physical guns pointed at them. I'm sure nobody will actually be arrested if they refuse. But they sure as heck didn't have any flags up before Friday, anywhere. I'm wondering if the Chinese government had to exercize any levers on its people to make them do it--or whether China has been so twisted by guilt to do what they are told for so long that it's just automatic these days.

Fire Motorcycle

I wish I had gotten my camera for this. I saw a bright red motorcycle flying by on the street, with flashing lights, and wondered what the heck it was, until I saw the Chinese character for "fire" and realized this was a chief heading to the scene.

I think the Chinese traffic makes something like this absolutely necessary, for two reasons. 1) It's often as crowded as Manhattan. 2) Chinese drivers simply do not respond to emergency lights of any sort. The oddest part about the second part is that so many aspects of Chinese culture require much more subversion to authority than American culture (school drills, random searches [yup, seen them], traffic wardens, security personnel everywhere, and lots of restrictions on personal freedom by the gov't for the olympics), and yet the authority vested in the emergency response teams seems to have no effect.

Anyway, the motorcycle was small enough to weave through traffic to some extent, and take bike roads. I suspect that's exactly what it's designed for.

Chinese Government "Benefits"

I had dinner last night with a friend, and after the meal, he asked (I couldn't understand) for a pink slip that he filled out, and then got a very fancy receipt.

After asking him what it was, he mentioned that he was giving it to a friend who works in government, just to help her out. She'd receive money from the government, as a "reimbursement" for the meal, but it wasn't bribery, he just wanted to help her.

"Interesting," I said.

He didn't seem terribly ashamed of the process, even as he tried to justify it to me. But we then started talking about government in China, vs. the US. I told him most kids that come from great colleges want to work in US business, and he seemed very surprised. Apparently Chinese kids all want to work in government, because it's the best way to get ahead and make money... still. I'm not sure how right he is, but there's certainly something to it.

Apparently everyone in the government gets their meals paid for on top of their salary--which is already higher than normal. I hear they gets lots more "benefits," as well, and this is all the over-the-table stuff. Corruption and bribery still runs rampant.

Even my friend, who was participating in the system, complained about it, citing the taxpayer burden. But can you blame a struggling middle-class worker for taking free government handouts when offered? Like most disgraces prepetuated by large governments, this one allows the user to hide behind the moral sanction of the government--that if they said it is okay, it must be. Turns out, people like free stuff, and will take most moral sanctions to have it that they can get.

Busy Weekend

In short: Shopping for tea, the Marco Polo Bridge, the Anti-Japanese War Memorial, Houhai, driving-through-west-Beijing, Xinjiang food. All awesome.

Tea Shopping: we went to "Tea Street" (called "Lily Street" on the signs, but everyone knows what you mean) and found one of the eight major wholesale markets and picked around. Some of the tea tasted like grass (it was pretty lousy), but we finally found a great place where we stayed for an hour, trying different teas, 'till we got what we wanted, and haggled down. We ended up staying until the last minute of business, and walked out the service exit with the entire team... when we had walked in, there were 2 people manning the counter. When we left, there were 7; we figured they called their buddies from the otherwise-empty retail shops to help the rich white folk spend more money.

The Marco Polo bridge does indeed have 500-some "unique" lions carved at the fencing. Much of it has been restored, of course: Japanese heavy machine guns did a real number to the bridge's aesthetic integrity. Of course, unskilled Communist labor in the 1950's left many of the lions beyond saving, with splotches of concrete smeared on the blown-off lion faces like emergency bandages over a wounded soldier.


One of our favorites was a Chimera-like monstrosity:


I stood at the bridge, briefly, re-enacting the brave Chinese response to the harrowing Japanese onslaught:
"You Shall Not Pass!"

But my favorite part of the bridge was the freight rail nearby, carrying all sorts of yummy raw materials into the city:


From there, it was a short walk through a former fort-village to get to the anti-Japanese War Museum, full of reasons why you, too, should spit every time you hear the word "Ri."

The tank outside, of course, was my favorite part of this exhibit, and I took some time to stand, bewildered at the thing (it was a Soviet T-34, probably gifted to the Chinese right before the Russians invaded Manchuria):


But, staring out into the distance, it became hard to resist the urge to climb. I had to settle for egging it forward:
"Fire at Will!"

The museum itself was not quite as impressive as the Military museum, but did actually include a lot more about the American, British, and Soviet involvement in fighting the Japanese, which was interesting. There was a fair bit of credit given to the US for "helping" the Chinese "defeat" Japan.


And, of course, some cool paintings:
The Chinese had an Air Force?

The Eighth Route Army

Japan Offers Surrender to the Chinese

The fort-village on the way out was pretty cute:


After it all, we drove through a part of Western Beijing we hadn't seen before, and realized that the Enormity Scale of Beijing was greater than we thought. After thinking it was a mere "Gi-normous," we are now under the impression that Beijing might actually be a "Huge-mongous" level city, placing it a mere notch away from "Metro-Juggernaut." A lot of the architecture is lock-stock blocks, so none of it was that thrilling on its own, but together, it just felt big.

In the evening, we ventured to go see Olympic Park. We rode, during its first day of public operation, on the 10 line:
With its fancy new station-tracking technology!

The car actually had a new subway car smell. Now neither you nor I had ever smelled a new subway car before, but man, once you smell it, you _know_. The thing wasn't even that crowded, but that was mostly because it was Saturday night:


The new subway map claimed that the Olympic Spur Line (line 8) was open now:
Full of Lies!

But it lied to us. Line 8 was not open, and we had to hike a good hour-and-a-half to get to the Olympic site. The site was... interesting. It was very hard to walk from the south--the roads seemed design to block you from getting there. But we took a detour and got to the high-security military installation between you and the national treasures that are the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest. There's barbed-wire fencing and guards every 50 linear feet in a grid... it was impossible to get close enough for a good picture. And the water cube wasn't even on. Very disappointing. But they're there, I've seen them with my own eyes. When they get blown up by East Turkestan nationalists, I can refute the moon-landing conspiracy psychos that the whole thing was done in a studio.

I did get a picture of "The Torch," a building that is made to look like the Olympic Torch. I'm sure it's commercial, but not sure what it's there for, otherwise.

The TV's on the side are all advanced LED technology, which was impressive, but they were out of sync--those on the left lagged those on the right. You know what that means, kids? Don't build your massive Olympic TV circuits in series!

A final parting shot from our hike away (which was another 90 minutes, because we were too cheap for 2 cabs in one day):


For dinner (which happened somewhere in there, but it's a blur), I finally made it to a Xinjiang (that's the northwest region, home of the crazy East Turkestan nationalists) restaurant in Beijing. Let me tell you, it was amazing. It rivals the Korean Barbeque in terms of pure quality of food (turns out local food is pretty boring, sorry guys). It had a creative mix of Sichuan style (spicy and hot) and Middle-Eastern (naan, lots of lamb, curry, etc). We had some really impressive, spicy and thick naan-ish thing, potato shreds with cilantro (I will try to reproduce--they were amazing), lamb skewers, very spicy green beans, a lamb-potato-carrot-pepper-onion-etc-curry-stew, and these really amazing apples flash-fried in liquid sugar. The waitress gave them to us burning-hot, and put a bowl of water next to them and made us dip them and eat them quickly, let they turn into one giant inedible crystal sugar blob. It was spectacular. I may try to go back bofore I leave.

Anyway, that was the weekend. Tonight: Red Cliff (a movie about the 3 Kingdoms).

Barged In On

Well, I was hanging out in my apartment 5 minutes after I got back. It's hot, because the cleaning lady turns the AC off during the day. So of course, I'm in my underwear, waiting for the AC to warm up again, when I hear a "beep" and this guy walks in. Before the door opens, of course, I spring from my chair (placed precariously on my bed, because the window above the bed is where I pirate my internet) saying "Woah, hold on!" (in English), and the poor guy keeps coming in, but is shocked to find a big white guy in his underwear, so he stands and looks at me. I ask him "Ni gan shenme?" ("What are you doing?"), and he answers, in Chinese: "...I'm watering the plant...").

He proceeds to water the plant and leaves quietly. I wish I knew how to say "knock," because I would have either said "knock next time" or "do that again and I'll knock you to next Tuesday."

No More Shopping in China

That's it. I'm done. The department stores are significantly more expensive than the US, so the only place to go for a cheapskate like me is the market. And I've known that I had to go for a long time, but have been putting it off, terrified. Yesterday, I wondered, "Why so scared? Just do it."

Now I remember why.

I went to Hongqiao, because it's got the most junk for Westerners per square foot that I found in the last 2 months. Last time I went, I went with an expert Beijinger, so we got a little more respect. I did not realize that, alone, I would be screamed at, heckled, and ripped off as much as I was.

As I've said earlier, people yelling at me to buy their stuff is the first thing that will get me to never buy it, even if I like it. But good gravy, I couldn't find anywhere to shop in peace. Each little booth on Hongqiao had like 3 ladies in blue in front of it, all yelling "HELLO. BELTS!" or "YOUBUYAWATCHHELLO!" This, multiplied by a dozen at a time, was a barrage I could barely tolerate. My patience with other people--as you know--is short. I almost turned out, but figured it wasn't going to get any better unless I convinced another workmate to come with me. But somehow, it was important that I do it myself. It would end up costing me a lot of money and aggravation.

To this day, I do not know why the "HI! HELLO! YOU BUY MY THING!" strategy works at all, and I blame white people as a whole for it. But my stoicism left enough of an impression on a few people that they shut up for a few seconds to let me browse their wares without serious interruptions or assaults on my personal bubble. Nonetheless, I made a few haggling mistakes that hurt. The first: I told them how many I wanted, before asking for the price. Always bad. If you ask the price, and then say "well, I'll buy more if you make it cheaper," that will help you get the initial price lower. The second was that I did not walk away enough. Sometimes, to get a deal, one must walk away 2 or 3 times. So from one lady, I got her to 10% of her original asking price on one of her wares and 20% on the other, but still knew I was getting ripped off. I should have walked away near the end.

But it's very frustrating being white in a Chinese market. The squaking of sales-ladies is bad enough, but being offered a price more than 10x what is reasonable is just insulting. Sadly, it's been 2 months, and I needed some of this stuff (including luggage), and wasn't willing to actually walk away without it.

But man, I am done shopping.

More Weekend Pictures

First picture is me singing with Candy and Michelle, together. The logistics of how that worked after me singing the Sinatra song are a bit complicated--don't ask.



These next two are me and Zoe discussing different positioning strategies in badminton. We went with me in the back-left and Zoe in center-right.

Titans of Architecture: The Central Business District

Today I left work and ventured down to China's Central Business District--south of me in Chaoyang--for a gander at some of the richest and tallest buildings in Beijing. The CBD is somewhat like a Special Development Zone, but more spontaneous. I got a lot of shots in, some of which were pretty exciting. I don't know the names of any but one of the buildings, and am too lazy right now to look them up. Sorry!

The buildings, in my opinion, are placed in descending order of interest.













I thought this one stuck out for me some, especially the picture with the reflection of all the other buildings. My impression is that this was intentional, and it is well-done indeed.



This building was quite intriguing. As you can see, it angles inward and then straight up; the front side is relatively flat black glass. In the back, the glass is jagged, different panes are placed at random angles to each other. On the west side, a short part extends outward, sloping up and then down and away.

To get some of the better shots of both this and the now-famous CCTV tower, I had to sneak into the construction site. I waited until a guard was distracted, and then walked in like I knew what I was doing. Nobody gave me too hard a time, and I got some good shots in. This was important because both buildings had lots of large panels at the edge of their property, obstructing view (and probably preventing junk from flying out too easily). Either way, I was just lining up to take a picture of a foreman who was adjusting his collar and posing in front of the CCTV tower, very proud of his work (and why shouldn't he be?), when 2 guards showed up and put their hands in front of the camera, and started asking me to produce my CCTV card. I told them I didn't have it (which was technically true), and was very sorry, and could find my way out. I don't know most of what they said after that, but it included being escorted out by 2 guards with a bunch of workers looking on in confusion. Luckily, the No Beating Up Foreigners Rule is in full effect, so I was fine.








The CCTV Tower, of course, is my favorite. The engineering success of its preposterous shape stands in defiance against gravity and those who said it couldn't be done. Its mere existence stands in rebellion against bureaucracy and government offices that tried to withhold the license to build it. The architect of this tower triumphed over nature, chaos, and human inertia to exert his will over matter and space. This building will serve as a reminder of the triumph of the potential of mankind, the greatness of our minds, and the exaltation of the human spirit.
















On a final, awesome note, I finally got the opportunity to take a photo of a cool scene I described earlier: cash pickups at banks. These guys are the private security team there to protect the transfer of big bags of cash, and they mean business. But I feel safer in Beijing than I have ever, in any big city, so they may be growing superfluous at this point. At least, having so many of them (there were 2 more on the other side of the van).