February 27, 2006
China 4: More China
More pictures from in and around Beijing (including a lot of tricycles)
post-apocalyptic motortrike?!
another hutong street picture
hot-dog vendor, China-style
hutong restaraunt
many cheap restaurants do their cooking over charcoal outside
on the way to the Great Wall
hutong street picture (notice the grass growing out of the tile roof!)
a pedicab
In Beijing, many oldsters (possibly vets?) seem to be given some kind of semi-welfare jobs driving pedicabs.
night market
This is the night market in Beijing. All over China, there are food-vendor markets which set up in the evenings after work.
tricycle delivering coal in the hutongs
food vendor tricycle
Posted by Sam on
03:55 AM
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Same/different
There is nothing quite so frenetically bipolar as people's desire to be unique and also be like other people. There's nothing you can do about this -- neither one is satisfing in itself or better functionally adaptive. Buy the ticket, take the ride, use as needed.
One consequence: the instability that comes from trying to establish an identity by consumptive choices. Trying to identify yourself by what you buy doesn't give a pure fix of either feeling. No matter how underground or rare a purchase is, someone else has it, and no matter how popular a purchase is, not everyone has it.
Posted by Sam on
03:37 AM
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February 24, 2006
Ambition 2
In Douglas Coupland's novel
"Girlfriend in a Coma"
he builds a virtual time-machine,
an 18-year coma
which functions to transport
the heroine from 1979
to the mid-nineties.
Here's the catch: her
imagination of the world
has continued without her,
progressing even
as she slumbered.
It is as if she is synchronized
to a world clock. Historical time
has passed, and even though
she has not experienced the
intervening years, her hopes
and imaginations
had gone on unchecked.
Proposition: Ambition cannot be avoided.
Coupland despairs at his generation's
refusal to articulate an ambition.
In an attempt to avoid the trap
of careerism, or of the self-centered smugness
they so despised in their parents,
Gen X nulled out their chance to
articulate a hope for the future.
Posted by Sam on
04:47 PM
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February 23, 2006
China III: Hutongs
The Hutongs are the alleyways of the old city, in a constant balance of decay and rebuilding. Or should I say overbuilding, because it looks as if things are less removed than built on top of.
this building has absorbed a light pole!
Posted by Sam on
11:28 PM
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February 15, 2006
China 2 - High-rise Beijing
In Beijing, after you notice the smell of charcoal, the next thing you notice is the layer of dust on everything. There is so much construction going on -- every block, it seems, has some major new high-rise going up -- between knocking down old buildings, excavations, and concrete dust, there is a nearly visable miasma which settles on everthing.
Beijing is circled by a series of highways, called ring roads. Oddly, there is no first ring road. Most of these photographs were taken near our friend Sarah's apartment, which is located just outside of the second ring road. This is convenient because one of the two subway lines in Beijing follows the second ring road. The other one runs East-West in a line past Tienanmen bisecting the rings.
subway map of Beijing -- can you see the ring roads? I think the upper loop is a light rail, not a subway, but I could be wrong
one of the ring roads and high-rises
Inside the 2nd ring road is a mix of old neighborhoods, characterized by alleyways called "hutongs," new high-rises, and governmental buildings. Between the second and third ring roads, where the development of the city was presumably less ancient, the development of high-rises is almost unrestrained, and the composition is approximately equal parts slightly older housing blocks (perhaps dating back to the 80s), brand-new high-rises, and high-rise construction sites. Beyond the 3rd ring road the density of the city drops dramatically, giving way to low-rise neighborhoods. Between the 4th and 5th, from what I saw, are clusters of high-rises (akin to Co-op City). There are 6 ring roads in all, with a 7th planned. The population of Beijing tops 15 million.
high-rise cluster
high-rises under construction
next: INTO THE HUTONGS
Posted by Sam on
02:51 PM
February 10, 2006
China 1 - Beijing University
Our first stop was Peking University, where my mom was teaching. Also, where the first demonstrations of the Cultural Revolution started. The museum was closed though -- this apparently is common during politically sensitive times. The Beijing olympics in 2008 are a big deal. Everywhere people are counting down, trying to get projects finished. There is a big clock off of Tienamen Square showing the days, hours, and seconds until the opening ceremony kicks off.
out the hotel room window at Peking U.
When you get off the plane, the smell of charcoal hits your nose. The older parts of the city are all heated with charcoal stoves. Even much of the housing at Peking U.
charcoal supply
There are a lot of bikes.
And trikes.
(I like this one in particular because it's almost exactly like mine)
Most sanitation workers ride around with brooms on trikes like this one.
doorway at Peking U
store on campus
skating at Peking U
For kids who couldn't skate, they also had chairs with long skates on the bottoms and ski poles to push themselves around.
Posted by Sam on
01:02 AM
February 09, 2006
First glimpse of China
Posted by Sam on
11:00 PM
February 04, 2006
molly on revolution
"Isn't the idea that revolution is provoked by suffering just propaganda? It is never the most fucked-over groups who rebel first. Look at the American revolutionaries: they didn't have it that bad! I think that if you comparted the groups who initiated revolutions throughout history, you would find that the commonality is that they were people who saw an opportunity."
I like this formulation, because it gets away from the corrolates suffering-hope that keep us stirring our emotions instead of making plans. This is not a battle for our souls, it is a battle for society.
On a related note: we watched another movie about Martin Luther, this one starring Mike Hammer!
pinky adds:
shows u
never confuse the sudden collapse of the ancient regime with a rev
vide :
eastern europe in '89
the rev if there is one and not just a smell removing change of outer ware
is the resultas u imply
of orged opportunists
responding to the collapse and the temporay "vacuum of legitamacy "
Posted by Sam on
06:07 PM
