Posts Tagged: Beijing

Entropy Squared — No Comments
27
Apr 12

A New Twitter Contest

Dinosaur Graffiti

This photo of a dinosaur has nothing to do with the contest

Entropy Squared is happy to announce a new contest. In celebration of the imminent approach of my 10,000 follower on Twitter, we’re giving away a one week tour of Beijing.

On this vacation of a lifetime, you’ll have a place to stay*, daily meals**, and visits to some of Beijing’s trendiest hotspots. This is the real insider’s*** view of Beijing. If you’re lucky, you’ll even get to meet Entropy Squared’s favorite celebrity, the esteemed James Franco.

Since it would be way too easy to simply wait for follower number 9,999 and then swoop in to take the prize, anyone who signs up between now and number 10,010 will be entered into a lucky draw. The winner will be selected at random and notified over twitter.

To claim your week long vacation in Beijing, all you have to do is get to Beijing. I’ll be sure someone is there to meet you at the airport.

Good luck! And let’s hope for my sake that the winner is fun and interesting. It would really suck to be stuck showing around a total boor for seven days.

*My couch

**Expect lots of cereal, and some tasty Chinese noodles

***Mostly the inside of my apartment

Film/Video — No Comments
24
Apr 12

Abaji In Beijing

Abaji in Beijing

Photo by Bao Jin

I had the pleasure of meeting an amazing musician over the weekend. Abaji is a French-Lebanese songwriter, though it’s actually an injustice to label him at all. His mother is Turkish, his father Greek. He was born in Lebanon, but has lived much of his adult life in Paris. He speaks six languages with varying degrees of fluency.* And if that sounds eclectic, his music is even more so. I’m guessing he is able to play any instrument that you hand him. Watch his performance on Tiny Desk Concerts to have a look at him play 3 different songs with 3 very different instruments. I watched him sit in a hutong (a Chinese traditional alleyway) playing a bamboo clarinet in one hand and strum a bouzouki, a kind of mediterranean guitar, in the other. If there’s such a thing as a musical superhero, Abaji is it.

But even more impressive was Abaji’s personality. He is one of the most open, most generous people you could ever meet. Being around him for five minutes is enough to warm your heart. He performed Friday night in a rock club with an audience comprised of Chinese, Americans, French, Singaporeans and who knows who else. Within one minute, he had the crowd responding, singing along, clapping, and dancing as enthusiastically as if we were at a wedding celebration. He reached out to the audience and the audience responded. After getting to know him, I have no doubt this relationship with the audience depended entirely on Abaji’s personality. He put himself out on a limb and it was up to the audience to either prop him up, or let him fall spectacularly.

If you have the chance to see Abaji in concert (and it’s likely that you will, he tours all over the world) I highly encourage it.

*I hope I got all that correct

Film/Video — No Comments
24
Jan 12

Why LOTR Sucks: What About The Hobbit?

I’m a minute twenty-two in, and I’m already disgruntled. I remember how much I was looking forward to The Fellowship of the Ring when it came out. I even flew all the way from Beijing to Hong Kong to watch it on opening weekend. But I also remember being pissed off as soon as I heard the movies were being made. Why didn’t Jackson start with The Hobbit? The Hobbit is and always will be my favorite of the books. It just seemed to be the best starting point. Then we wouldn’t need this voice over introduction to the ring at the start of the movie. We’d already know, because we started at the beginning. Oh well. Maybe I’m being unfair. I’m not trying to criticize the decision to make the movie. I just want to look at what makes these movies bad movies, in and of themselves.

Minutes Watched: 1.22

Photography — No Comments
20
Jan 12

What They Say Is True

20120120-220157.jpgA picture really is worth a thousand words.

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This work by @thebeautythatstillremains is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 China Mainland License.

Novel / Writing — No Comments
20
Dec 11

Don’t Be A Pansy

I’m reading another Murakami book, this time What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. It is a memoir about…well, running.

I’m only three chapters in but I felt compelled to write my review now rather than wait till i’m finished, because I just have to write about this immediately. I was particularly struck by this quote on p. 46*:

Whenever I feel like I don’t want to run, I always ask myself the same thing: You’re able to make a living as a novelist, working at home, setting your own hours, so you don’t have to commute on a packed train or sit through boring meetings. Don’t you realize how fortunate you are? (Believe me, I do.) Compared to that, running an hour around the neighborhood is nothing, right? Whenever I picture packed trains and endless meetings, this gets me motivated all over again and I lace up my running shoes and set off without any qualms. If I can’t manage this much, I think, it’ll serve me right.

I have the same sentiment about biking in Beijing. Every time I think it might be too cold to bike, I think about the old people who have no choice but to bike every day**. So many people are out biking in subzero temperatures, and they don’t even own gloves or hats. They must be dying, especially when the wind gets up, but there they are, biking along as stoically as can be.

If these people have to bike every day, then I certainly can too, with my expensive winter coat and gloves. Don’t be a pansy. That’s my motto. Except when it comes to Disney movies. And Harry Potter trailers.

Please Note, this blog does not mean to suggest that Murakami is a pansy. You on the other hand, probably are.

*All things being relative, citing the page number is relatively useless.

** They don’t have any choice about being old either. Cold and old. Is there a worse combination? If there is, I bet it doesn’t rhyme.

Film/Video — No Comments
1
Dec 11

One Day In Beijing

I’ve noticed you’ve been absent for a while. I think it’s been two entire months since I’ve seen you around here. I was starting to think that you didn’t care for me anymore. The fact you were trying to blame me for your absence only made it worse. Tears were shed.

I hesitant to welcome you back, but here you are, and before it gets any more awkward, let’s move on to new business.

While you were away, we participated in the One Day On Earth film project. This year’s event took place on 11/11/11, and across the planet, documentary filmmakers, students, and other inspired citizens recorded the human experience over a 24-hour period. The organizers will compile the footage and edit it into a final documentary.

There’s no guarantee our footage will be used, but you can see the raw footage here:

Part 1:


Part 2:


Part 3

There is more footage to come, which will be uploaded in the next few weeks as it becomes available.

Please Note, this blog is not responsible for any error messages you may have received while visiting us in the past two months. Everything was working fine, as far as you know.

Photography — No Comments
12
Aug 11

POTM: Sit Long Talk Much

So I have a new camera and a new hobby. If you haven’t heard of lomography, it’s a new movement of photography that emphasizes analogue methods and experimentation. You can buy lomograph cameras for cheap, less than $100. I recently picked up a La Sardina 35mm film camera, and it’s been awesome. I’ve taken more pictures in the past two weeks than I have in years.

The only frustrating part is having to wait for the film to develop. But I guess the anticipation is part of the fun. Fortunately, when you take it to the lomograph shop, they scan in the film after they develop it, so you’re able to post the photos to the web or share them with friends. All in all, pretty cool. I guess nothing really becomes cool until it goes out of style at least once.

This shot was taken on a hutong adventure the other day, and I don’t think you can argue with the sagacity of the advice.

Creative Commons License
This work by @thebeautythatstillremains is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 China Mainland License.

Photography — 2 Comments
1
Aug 11

POTM: No Smiling Allowed

I finally found some time (and space on my computer) to upload photos. Expect more in the coming weeks.

This one was taken while adventuring in Song Zhuang, the most remote of the artist villages around Beijing. Don’t let Zoey’s smile fool you. She hated every moment. I think she’s just enthralled by her own image here. She’s somewhat narcissistic.

The rest of the time, we spent traipsing through condemned buildings, getting told where we can’t go, and looking at books and art. All in all, not a bad way to kill a few hours.

Here’s the link to more of the adventure.

Creative Commons License
This work by @thebeautythatstillremains is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 China Mainland License.

Photography — No Comments
6
Feb 11

New Wank, New Look

Actual sign in an actual shopping mall in actual Beijing. I would really like to know what the person who designed this sign thought that it meant.

Creative Commons License
This work by HHH is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 China Mainland License.

Photography / Short Stories / Writing — No Comments
14
Jan 11

In Which A Photo Tells A Story

So I took this photo on the streets of Beijing with my iphone. It led to the following story:

Institutional Negligence

They found her body–tattered, ripped open at the seams with the fluff bleeding out–in the middle of the sidewalk. The authorities labeled it accidental murder; she was the victim of circumstance.

But murder is never an accident. It takes nerve and planning and years of resentment piled on top of envy and systematic failures. Triggers don’t just pull themselves.

Neither of the authorities wanted to hear about it. They refused to own the fact their institutional negligence had allowed Mrs. Cassidy to be chewed to death by Chocolate, the cocker spaniel. Her parents were always skirting the blame.

If you’d like to see more stories like this, check out A Story In 100 Words, our collection of micro fiction.

Entropy Squared is currently hard at work at producing an e-book based on our 100 words stories. In addition to collecting some of the best works that have appeared on our blog in the past, there will be at least 40 brand new stories, exclusive to the e-book. Please stay tuned. We’ll be making more announcements in the near future.

Writing is awesome!

Please Note: This blog was written with you in mind.

Creative Commons License
This work by @thebeautythatstillremains is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 China Mainland License.

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