Arrived in Donhua, Northeast China, where I lived for one year

Here I am in Donhua, after 22 hours on the fast train from Guangzhou to Beijing and 22 hours on the slow train from Beijing to Donhua, in Jilin Province. I've been traveling with my gramma. At 75, and with family everywhere, my gramma makes her rounds travelling through the country each year, from the north to the south and back again. On the train up, I got to talk to my gramma about her times as a kid in a Japanese concentration camp in Manchuria. I realized that she was actually a Shandong native (north of Beijing) but ended up in the far north because she was captured by the Japanese when she was eight. After three years in the camp, spending her days playing alone and sometimes with the kids of Japanese settlers, she escaped with her dad to Donhua. They traveled by foot for a month until they reached a place that was not occupied by the Japanese. At 18, she married my grandpa (now passed away). I saw their oooold smudged photographs. They were quite the handsome couple, I have to admit. My gramma is quite happy now that she's here. She runs into old friends everywhere we go. She can understand what people are saying, and everyone talks with the same accent (unlike in south China). The food is to her tastes. I can sort of understand now what it means to be in your "hometown." Instead of skyscrapers and high rise residential, the most landmark features of Donhua are brick smokestacks, constantly emitting coal smoke that make the winter crisp air taste like there's a fire burning everywhere. People walk around in down long coats, wool coats lined with fox fur at the collar and cuffs, and for the wealthier set, minks. The poorer folks where thick cotton coats, underneath lined with layers and layers of clothing. The ladies wear leather boots with pointed toes and thin heels. (I went to the store today, there's a huge selection of nice long wool and fur coats, the kind you think of when you picture society ladies walking down 5th ave on a winter's day, in all shapes and hues ... I figure when it's time for me to invest in a fine coat with a fox collar, I will come back here to buy one). The streets are like a typical Chinese city, a wide road lined with small haphazardly assembled tiny stores and restaurants, sidewalk filled with small vendors. The typical purchase is from small vendors with whom you must bargain or the deal's not cut! (Retail corporations are breaking in, steadily). That one-on-one interface is something very lovely. (I have to say, I prefer arguing with a person over the price of something than handing an item to a salesclerk to bar code in). I heard a while ago that vast majority of merchants in the country are actually these small-time middle men, who end up with goods from the factory but who are not obligated to anyone (franchises, intellectual property rights holders) except themselves. There's not a standardized system where purchases are itemized, price-tagged, taxed, and analyzed. This makes it hard for corporations to really make their way in, because so many purchases are made what we would call, "under the table." They can't tabulate all these exchanges which are floating around in this free free market. They haven't drawn the the people who spill onto the streets into one large box ... yet. If it takes at least one major international brand to make China's economy a real international player instead of a producer, then I say forget the corporate system. But, I'm not an economist. My gramma thinks the standard of living up here has improved a lot, considering north China is one of the poorest urban regions of the country; that is, slower to develop, slower to "catch up" with the world. But, pleeeease, Donhua, don't tear down your real marketplaces for a Carrefour! (Don't you hate it in the states when supermarkets and malls call themselves "marketplaces"? What bullshit is that). Each little shop is emblazoned with a sign in some bright colored Chinese font or calligraphy with the Korean name above or beneath. There is a large population of Koreans in this area they call "chou xian" who speak a brassier, more gruff sounding Korean. The train my gramma and I took here stops in North Korea at a city called Tumen (translated to "dirt door"), I'm guessing it's sort of like a port city or special economic zone where there is a lot of export/import. We shared a cabin with three North Koreans, a younger guy who kept to himself and read a Chinese magazine about military arms and two girls who made big purchases in Beijing (probably to sell in their shop back at home), who played with their cell phones and talked loudly the whole trip. They carried Burberry purses, wore Lacoste tennies and high spikey heeled boots while old men wandered around the train in their long underwear. Ah youth! It's interesting to think that in a certain way, the liberalization policy in China has affected the material lifestyle of their small economy neighbors as well, like North Korea. Here I am on a dsl line where my gramma's old courtyard house used to stand and has been replaced by a 6 story residential apartment building. Such are the costs of modernization. But what can I say? Donhua can now get strawberries in the winter and ladies get to wear minks. (However, in the larger urban centers like Guangzhou, crime rates are getting higher). It's the people in the countryside who haven't got the chance to see a huge change in lifestyle, still feeding their livestock and using chimneys for warmth. I got some very fuzzy pictures of their small brick houses from the train. I think there's this kind of feeling that you're living in a homogeneous place, where people know each other, do the same stuff, eat the same food that comes with being raised or living for a while in the same hometown. Crime rates are low, everyone talks kinda the same, the old people and young people meander the same streets. People squabble in public and there are no noise pollution laws, so shops can turn their speakers into the street and blast however the hell loud they want (mostly Cantonese pop or squeaky, melodic techno). I love how China at the same time makes this connection between all regional groups and even minority groups by recognizing and cherishing each group's traits. I love how people prefer to live close to their families and not move very far away (although do move to make more money in the SEZ's). That babies get to spend lots and lots of time with their grammas through their childhood. That there's a regional and family association that makes you special in a country that's (ideally) like-minded. I wonder if I have that same feeling somewhere in the States. Don't think I'm being nostalgic or aestheticizing this kind of life ... I think there's lots to gain from a living in a place like this. Do you have a feeling so deeply tied to a place and to the people who live there? PS- I wanted to add that even though Donhua is high density urban with quite a hefty population, there is still this feeling between people that it's kind of like a small town. It's no village; people don't sit around the stoop and grow yams all day! :) Still, materially, it's lacking -- for example, hot water only comes twice a week for baths (go to a public bathhouse the other days) and, as I mentioned, the air quality is poor and energy sources are antiquated and unsustainable. Because the whole country is changing so incredibly fast, I don't know what it will be like in a few years. Everything is ephemeral, I suppose. (But, at least I have my gramma for now!)

Patterns to Watch

Currently Playing
Songs from Jim Henson's Bear in the Big Blue House

Thick plaid stripe in solid colors, particularly "coon-hunting" black on red (ie Dsquared)

Black on white/white on black thin zig zag (like a wide herringbone)

Wide houndstooth

Linear streaks in one direction, hues of white/black with slight color

Black with thin plaid of other color

Hand-drawn contour images ("cute" animals, distorted people)

Pastel polka dot

Thin loops

Paint splatter

Loose monochrome blobs on white (a la Eley Kishimoto)

Lichstenstein-esque, screen-print-esque (not especially fond of these)

Abstracted maps

Iconic image stamps (ie characters, text, modern/revolutionary symbols)

Anything geometrically hyper graphic which can be printed ... excited to see what people have been thinking up.

Travelling Up

Eaten today in Guangdong province: oyster, abalone, mollusk, scallop, lobster, shrimp, clam, turtle, sea cockroach (<-- tastes not so good).

To be eaten in Jilin province/North Korea: locusts, silkworm, and dog. (!)

I will be leaving tomorrow morning to Beijing to Donghua (my mom's hometown in the far reaches of the north) via train. My first snow of the winter ...

(ps happy belated Thanksgiving!)

Mullet-ude and Carrefour

_____Guangdong Fashion

Fashion explodes with youth. In southern China, the middle and high school fashions are more aligned with Hong Kong and Japan, so you get lots of spikey, mullet-headed, streaky-haired girls and boys with baggy outfits, cloth shoes (a hundred varieties of converses, vans--both high and low and the like). Pants are low-riding with low slung belts and chains, baggy in the hip and tapered at the ankle. (Kinda like in Italy, actually). Even their school uniforms are worn like this; it's really cute. I think girls order uniforms a size larger so they can get that look.

I caught my gramma reading the magazines I brought here. She was browsing through Men's Non-no, and exclaimed, "You know, Japanese men's clothing is quite lovely, isn't it?" My gramma is so coooool

_____Hypermarket

I went to what is called a "hypermarket" today with my aunt, cousin, and gramma. It's a Carrefour, and you've most likely seen one if you've been to France or Belgium or South Korea. There are about 10,600 Carrefour stores in the world, and about 55 in China, (but zero in the US, probably because of the competition of Targets, Costcos, and Wal-marts). But, they really have the market here. (Hmm ... I wonder if Wal-mart actually owns shares of Carrerfour, or possibly owns it. Do you know?) In Shanghai there's 7; in Beijing, there's 5

Basically, in Zhuhai, it's one sprawling supermarket with employees in aprons on the first floor just like a Ralph's or Safeway

(except the products are local brands), and a big, discount retailer like a Wal-mart on the second floor selling electronics, clothes, home accessories, etc with employees doing demos, and so on. You can push one shopping cart through the entire store, because the floors are connected with an escalator belt that you can push your shopping cart onto, instead of escalator stairs.

We were buying some tangerines at 1.50 RMB per something grams, and I asked my gramma, "Why don't we just get these from that little corner fruit vendor on the way back home? It's probably fresher anyway." She replied, "No way! It's actually cheaper here, at Carrefour!" (And yes, when we stopped by the fruit stand, it was 3.50 RMB).

Big Box Retail: 1

Local Fruit Stand: 0

Big Box Retail wins again.

Back at home, my gramma was sitting down on the couch and somehow pulled a half-eaten tangerine from her pant pocket. She said, "Yeah, I stole it ... but I stopped eating it ... cuz it was sour!" My gramma is so cooool!!!

Near Julu Lu

Drawings

Bourgeois Fantasyland, Being One in A Billion, and America

Some rambling thoughts

1] High density housing associated with poverty associated with disease. Poverty is everywhere here. Substandard sanitation, housing, etc. But, I think the way it is portrayed in the US is emotional, that of sympathy (and yes, becoming more apparent to me, that of crisis) and fails to address real issues of real people such as that of my relatives: once, concerns were centered on how to feed yourself and your kids, now it is population problems, housing problems, health issues, and standard of living. The issues that billions of people face daily are beyond the realm of architecture. Well, it's hard to predict where China will be heading in a few decades. Maybe totalitarian regime/socialist free market, in a sort of machiavellian manner, WILL prove itself to be better than capitalist democracy as it speed its way into higher living standards. But not right now.

1.5] [It seems that pervasive in the Chinese psyche is the idea that human life is perishable and replaceable. One in 1.3 billion. Who are you to be an ego-filled individual free-spirit when there are only so many jobs and so little resources. It leaves little room for self-indulgence, and the kind of philanthropy is not the same as in the US. The feeling is to find your own path, struggle, and protect yourself and your family above all else. I see this makes it really hard for Western companies to really break into the market, because they have to finangle with these cultural differences, where the Chinese are protecting their own interests and giving incomplete, indirect, sometimes evasive information to outsiders -- so I'm lucky to at least not look like a "lao wai" and get the in on certain information. Nonetheless, there is a commonality between people, a feeling of being "one big family" that is zhong guo -- people, even strangers, are constantly being referred to as sisters, brothers, etc. and in that respect, there is a bluntness I really love. None of that schmoozy "yeah, your hair looks great!" crap. If you're too fat, too skinny, your work sucks, you will be told. :p]

2] Architecture feels like a bourgois fantasy land when I see this material poverty. Architecture doesn't solve problems if it can't get past the policy and lack of resources / crumbling infrastructure. Maybe I can start out with a different kind of architecture that reshapes existing, unused structures. If I do the corporate/starchitect/boutique firm thing I'll really grapple with an ethical dilemma, I know it ... I just don't want to end up feeding that insular fantasy in the US by doing avant-garde, intellectually schmoozy stuff that makes architects happy (an architect's architect? an rich man's architect?). Not to say it's a BAD thing ... there are great results.

But, something's a little askew to me when something (what we call art in architecture, for example) aspires to achieve an ideal end through unideal means. (Why not be honest about it and recognize it for what it is instead of creating a religion around yourself ... self-fetishization's maybe the word. Feels out of touch with reality). That kind of work is not for me.

3] I watched 2046 twice, and I've only watched American teensploitation films since. Perhaps to balance out the overwelming sleeziness dripping from those highly saturated dream-like memories of romance, longing, and loss. Hot Chinese women orbiting the fantasies of one floozy Chinese man. I always wonder how these art house films would turn out if a woman was the director ... hot Chinese men, lush Chinese woman. Probably less sentimental and dodgy. (Does it really help the reputation of all those mustachioed Chinese Don Juans? Or maybe men do need a stereotype-hero artist to aspire to ... ) Kind of makes me want to start writing a yellow novel ... rar.

Anyway, my cousin's best friend from work is obsessed with American teen movies. She lived in Beijing almost her whole life. I met her for the first time and swore she was from Southern California, accent, dress, attitude, stilletoed swagger and all. She is verifiably a Hollywood teen-movie victim, and refuses to date anyone but American men. Goes to show just how pervasive and influential Hollywood is as the "number one cultural exporter in the entire world." She loans Danielle all these DVDs, and afterward we watch them, we are always left perplexed and making bemused/confused faces. Danielle and I proceed to contemplate her friend's taste in men and movies ...

4] Humanism is not dead, right? Next thought: the political polarization of America. The ideological split between the "blue" and "red" increasingly frightens me. The more I blog browse, the more angry I get at people's comments. Really, there doesn't seem to be a middle ground. This is probably because of the great disdain both sides hold for one another ... how does such a conflict resolve? I have no idea what this great American divide's going to do to the States in the long-run, but I'm shaking in my bones thinking about it. And it's SO deeply intertwined with the fundamentalist Christianity (that the Left chooses to unwisely ignore and belittle) ... it's a force to be reckoned with! ... (And hasn't there been, historically, a Christian fundamentalist revival in the US that sweeps the nation every 20 years since early last century. I figured there was one due around year 2000. Pray to God for sanctity of our RIGHTS).

Down Julu Lu

Two old ladies

Handbag Factory, Food - Southern China

Here I am in Southern China! I am living in Guangzhou right now with my aunt, my little cousin, and my grandma. This is what I've been doing:

1) On the way to the largest mall in southern China (Humen), our driver picked up a buddy of his near Shenzhen. His wife is a manager or something of a purse-making factory, so we got to see a glimpse of it. An open floor plan with aisles and aisles of sewing machines!!! About 5000-6000 sq ft. Along the sides are the people sorting out the materials to be sewn together, gluing things, and hammering on the hardware, and putting the final touches. A few people eating meals out of small metal tins. The first floor of the factory is where they roll out enormous sheets of plastic and fabrics and punch out the shapes they need to make the panels and straps of the purses. HUGE rolls, and very synthetic smelling (can't be that healthy). Nice people, no one's treated badly. It's ventilated, but the sanitation's not great, but sanitation's not great anywhere around here. But it's monotonous work. At least you get to sit with your friends. The workers are mostly younger women, with a few young guys who look like they're in their teens. They work from 7 AM to 10 PM with small eating breaks in between, but I guess it's timed so that the factory doesnt ever stop production. Their pay is between 700-800 RMB (around 100 USD) per month including a dorm room and meals. A lot of workers are uneducated. They send money back to their families from other parts of China. Compared to the incomes there, they make a lot of money. They probably see it as decent, hard-earned wages, so there's nothing to complain about. (This is how we get our goods cheap, right?) They get designs from Japan, produce them, and export exclusively to Japan (and a few orders to the US). (Out of this, I got two waist bags; I have to admit, they are quite cute). On the way to and from, the highway is just lined and lined with these anonymous factories, concrete mid-rise structures with colorful tiles pasted on.

2) Next, we went to Humen, the city near Guangzhou with the largest number of clothing/fashion producing factories in the entire nation. We went to this enormous 9 story mall and wandered around a bit. Incredible lots of cheap cheap clothing and shoes and bags. ENORMOUS selection. For example, I must have seen at least 60-70 varieties of converses and vans. Lots of factory extras and (hm i dont know what the technical word for it is ... post-production? the illegally produced extras after a factory finishes a shipment, sold to the local market). I got a very pretty sweater and black military-like shoes for a total of 163 kuai (about 20 USD).

3) The food here is exceptional!! I mean, I haven't been totally impressed with the food in Shanghai (yeah, I've been disappointed a number of times). But people care about their food here, and you can really tell. Every dish is find tuned. I've been thoroughly satisfied--Dongbei, Shaanxi, Hunan, Guangdong, every region's cuisine is treated better. (Don't go to Shanghai for delicious Chinese food...yet. Also, the service sector is far better).

4) My uncle is an officer in the military so we get a fancy car to drive us around. He is a really really charismatic guy. He talks about the Chinese-Vietnamese War (in the 90's). He's always talking about the "big countries," and what it would be like to make a living in the States. (I keep thinking that immigration brings a whole new set of problems). Material wealth seems so uncomplicated ...

5) I was talking with my gramma at night about how I was as a kid. She told me I stopped drinking milk at 1.5 years, and started talking at 2 years and had a "sweet mouth." Didn't stop talking. When my cousins (5 and 7 years older than me) were sitting at the desk doing their homework, I would get a piece of paper and sit at the bed drawing circles and lines over and over and over. She also told me what it was like for my mom to enter university in the 70's (how ridiculously hard it was to get in, and she got in because some manager's son dropped out). How food was still a tough thing for everyone to get their hands on. How my dad's mom treated him badly because he was her ugliest child. (!!!) How after coming to the US, my mom had so much hardship and scarcity. Lots more ...

6) Went to the biggest Buddha statue in Guangdong. Yes, it was big! Burned incense at three different alters, pounded a huge bell three times. Walked up and down an enormous staircase overlooking an immense banana tree field. My gramma waved her hands at the alters, and I asked her what do these statues and hand gestures mean, she said "Beats me, who knows what it's all about. I just figure I'll bow anyway." So funny. There's this one Buddha statue with a baby in the hall of Buddha statues. It had the biggest sum of money thrown at its feet out of all the little Buddhas (I guess there are some people out there who really really want to have a kid).

A-yi's and Cultural Capital

Danielle and I have an ayi, who is this old lady who lives in the apartment underneath us (yeah, all the new villas that architects design here have servant's quarters bc rural folks and elderly can make more being servants than chillin in the poorer areas of the country). For 100 kuai per month, our ayi comes in every other day, sweeps the floor, dusts, does the laundry, and cleans the bathroom once a week. She doesn't do the best job, but I guess she's the only ayi readily available to us.

Today, I decided to hand wash the clothes I set aside. I made the mistake of bringing nice clothes to China. The water and detergents here don't treat fabric well at all (all I can do is hand wash and hope for the best -- that my stuff doesn't fade and pill). You can visibly watch your clothes wilting after each wash if your ayi machine washes; also, bc people here don't machine dry shit, everything smells like mildew after it hang dries. Washing my own clothes give me a really fulfilling feeling. Like I am bathing my kids or something. Even though my fingers are like icicles, it's really pleasant to see my pants drip-drying and sweaters laying comfortably on terry towels.
----
I went with my friend Julia to the new house she bought in Pudong. She already has 2 apartments there, but she just closed on a 3 story townhouse, about 300 m square (3000 sq ft). (The bottom storey is a great room and servant's quarters). The kind of developments here are like bastardized and super high density versions of Southern Californian suburban developments. But I think it's a pretty comfortable place. All parking is underground, but it's not like the underground you imagine in the States. If you can think of a below 0-level plane that has sunlight access, plantings and ventilation in addition to parking spaces, you've got the idea. Chinese developments are very interested in surfaces -- you have this obsession with landscape and water and fresh air and south facing facades, in addition to an appreciation for laquered surfaces, rich woods, tiles, and ceiling variations. The interiors have this mix of attention to material detail, but also a substandard attention to detail in craftsmanship (but that's just a labor and economic problem). If only the 2 were joined ...

anyway, even though the typical homeowner here loves European Baroque/Rococo shit, I think there's this trend of Modernism (not unlike the Mid-Century Modern trend in the US right now) that's happening as well. It's not too bad. It's more that just seeing this growing self-awareness and aesthetic appreciation is really encouraging. I can't wait to see what's going to happen to China in a decade. I hope by then it's starting to import it's own cultural capital like Japan, instead of being mentally raped (like a typical developing country) by US and Europe. (Yeah, fuck you, Western cultural hegemony!)

You can see the capitalist system really pushing this awareness, too. For example, the shitty contractors are getting rooted out, and this isn't always a bad thing. You get more qualified and better skilled craftspeople who can make things with a higher standard and are accountable to the people that they work for. (Even though real imcompetency at all levels runs rampant here).

On the streets, everyday I see something happening in fashion. People are into EVERYTHING. Like I said, if there is anything to be said about Shanghai fashion, it's that it's fucking eclectic. It's like after they started free trade, the coastal cities went on a style binge; they really broke a fucking cultural dam. There are too many different people for fashion to be homogenous (like it kind of is in Japan). It makes San Francisco feel super sterile. It makes New York feel like a granddad. It makes Japan feel like its troubled, disenchanted yuppified 30-something cousin. Yah, Shanghai really is a global teenager. With all the requisite foreigners flooding in trying to tell it to be one way or the other. A real chaotic, incomprehensible dialectic between foreigners, expats, government, and locals. (I am starting to see that China is less of a unified nation and more of a collection of regions, somewhere between the heterogeneity of the EU and the homogeneity of the US demographically -- Danielle believes that as China delves more into the free market system, it will become increasingly regionally fragmented). Shit, this is only 1/100th of my thoughts ... okay. I'll stop writing.

Camera and New Clothes

The night before yesterday I bought this great pashmina in a really rich Ives Klein blue at Hotwind (I am so in love with this color). I also got four pieces of clothing at JNBY: a long black coat with side zip and big collar, a blazer with a transformative lapel, a deconstructed matching skirt, and casual pants like ski pants (which will be super super useful when i go to Dongbei).

Yesterday, I got my visa extended until March 04, 2005. Still uncertain the actual date I'll go back to the States.

Travel to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and HK (one set), and within that time, travel to Dunhua, Dongbei -- China's far north, formerly known as Manchuria, near N. Korea border, maybe spend New Year's in Harbin (second set).

----

so it turns out that i can get my camera this friday!!!
J says:
FINALLY!!!!!!
J says:
well, it's been really good actually because ive really spent my time observing and not looking for good shots and editing them in photoshop
J says:
there's too much reflection and surface-ization when i am always doing that
J says:
i think shanghai is starting to melt into me
J says:
or maybe i am starting to melt into shanghai?

whoohooo! i am so happy!

Semi-conscious Oil Change

Today is my last day on the job here. The competition deadline was last Friday. I hope we win. Coming to Shanghai has made me more confident and optimistic about my future as a designer. I feel like someone has whispered in my ear and suddenly my vision has become extra vivid. Another way of saying it would be ... if everyone had a little life engine puttering inside their bellies, someone changed the oil and changed the fuel in my engine. Or maybe it's been re-tooled. And now my engine is more powerful and happy. Being in Shanghai has been fantastic. There is something really wonderful being in a state of semi-consciousness, that is, only understanding a small percentage of the information being shouted from the streets, radio, millions of advertising posters, and the flashing neon signs. There is a lack of pretense, a naive-ness that makes being in China give me a respite that I could not escape in either Europe nor Japan. No one's here to judge (at least, the typical guy on the street is not bothered), no one's here to analyze every action to the last drop of human decision. Okay, I haven't written in a while; I don't think I'm making a ton of sense. :) Maybe after I go back. I will think about things harder, but feel it would still take more than six months just to retroactively process and reflect on all of the things I've experienced in this place. It's been extraordinarily refreshing.

Words

Don't ask me why I was surfing m-w.com, but I found this great list there:

2004 Top Ten Favorite Words

1. defenestration (to throw a person or thing out of a window)
2. serendipity
3. onomatopoeia
4. discombobulate (upset, confuse)
5. plethora
6. callipygian
7. juxtapose
8. persnickety
9. kerfuffle
10. flibbertigibbet

My favorite:

cal·li·pyg·ian

Pronunciation: "ka-l&-'pi-j(E-)&n
Variant(s): or cal·li·py·gous /-'pI-g&s/
Function: adjective
Etymology: Greek kallipygos, from kalli- + pygE buttocks
: having shapely buttocks

Technicolor

I woke up this morning with Sondre Lerche's "Modern Nature" stuck in my head ... I like Lillian Samdal's voice. The time is here for being straight It´s not too early and never too late People say I should watch my pace (What do they know?) "Think how you spend all your days" (They all say so) They´ll just have to wait and see (Wait and see) If things go right they´ll have to agree Oh, what a world this life would be Forget all your technicolour dreams Forget modern nature This is how it´s meant to be

Pudong suburb. Unending construction is going on everywhere. (Several million cranes all with their necks in the sky).