Posts Tagged: China

Writing — No Comments
16
Feb 10

The Most Classic Chinese Classical Novels

In honor of Spring Festival, every list this week celebrates Chinese culture. We’ve already done Tigers and Oscar Wilde, and today we look at the best of China’s classical literature.

I have read each of the four classic novels, in translation of course, and I cannot recommend them highly enough. Start at the bottom of the list and work your way up. It always pays to save the best for last. If you thought Twilight was good, you’ll love these:

#4 Dream Of The Red Chambers (红楼梦)

Author: Cao Xueqin

Date: 1759

Why You Should Read It: Provides a detailed look at life for wealthy magistrates during the Qing Dynasty. Covers all the major art forms, including poetry, calligraphy, painting, lantern-making and riddles. One of the all time great love stories. Makes Gone With The Wind seem like a short story.

#3 Romance Of The Three Kingdoms(三国演义)

Author: Luo Guanzhong

Date: Pre-1400

Why You Should Read It: Classic military story comparable to Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. China’s Iliad and Odyssey rolled into one. You have inspiring warriors battling perfidious traitors in order to rule all of China.

#2 Outlaws Of The Marsh(水浒传)

Author:Shi Naian

Date: Pre-1400

Why You Should Read It: Rivals The Count Of Monte Cristo as the greatest action-adventure novel ever written. A group of noble outlaws strive against injustice and a corrupt system, a la The A-Team. Li Kui fights with two battle axes while drunk and completely naked.

#1 Journey To The West(西游记)

Author: Wu Cheng’en

Date: 16th Century

Why You Should Read It: The compelling tale of Monkey and his companions escorting the Tang Priest to India in order to receive the Buddhist scriptures. Laugh out loud funny, especially when Monkey invades heaven and defeats all the gods in combat. Based on a true story.

Photography — No Comments
26
Dec 09

POTW: Self Portrait In Motorbike Mirror

Motorbike MirrorThis afternoon, I meandered through Kunming’s Bird and Flower market, taking photos.

I avoided taking too many photos of the animals themselves, or the people working there, because I figured they would get mad. Despite being careful, I ended up getting yelled at by some random guy. The whole situation was a little strange, because I never even tried to take his picture. I guess he just did not like foreigners taking photos in the market.

Anyway, I found this long line of motorbikes. After numerous photos, this was my favorite angle.

I’ll post the rest when I get a chance.

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

Photography — 3 Comments
17
Dec 09

POTW: Prayer Flags On A Construction Site

Photo By @thebeautythatstillremains

Photo by @thebeautythatstillremains

I came across this construction site one of my first days in Kunming. I think there may actually be more construction in Kunming than there is in Beijing. Hard to believe, I know.

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

ACRE — 7 Comments
16
Dec 09

Locally Grown, Organically Sown

Photo By @thebeautythatstillremains

Photo By @thebeautythatstillremains

There is inherent irony in starting a blog documenting how to live an environmentally sensitive life in the city of Kunming when said blog is blocked in China. Hopefully, for people interested in a green lifestyle in Kunming, they will find a way to access ACRE.

I have been in Kunming three weeks now, and have already discovered a number of ways to be green. My first post features perhaps my most anticipated highlight of the city. As soon as I had my own kitchen, I joined the local vegetable Co-op from Green Kunming. They operate the largest organic food distribution network in the city. For 45 rmb, I get 5 kgs of organic produce.

This week’s order included:

  • Baby Carrots
  • Spinach
  • Purple Lettuce
  • Daikon Radish
  • Pumpkin
  • Purple Potatoes
  • Collard Green
  • Frisee Lettuce

I have been looking forward to being a part of a vegetable co-op for so long. What better way to be healthy than to have weekly shipments of locally grown, organic produce delivered to you. If you don’t figure out a way to eat everything in a few days, then your money will go to waste. It forces me to plan meals and cook healthy.

I recommend that everyone who is serious about their health and the environment find the organic food co-op in their city and join.

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

ACRE — No Comments
11
Nov 09

Welcome To ACRE

Photo by @thebeautythatstillremains

Photo by @thebeautythatstillremains

ACRE is the environmental arm of The Chaos Factory. It is my job to ensure everything we do comes out looking green.

For the moment, The Chaos Factory is nothing more than a vision and a website. But over the course of the next year, I will be documenting each step in the process of opening a studio in Yunnan, China. It is our hope that ACRE will serve as a model for anyone in China interested in making their studio, their home, their office, or their lifestyle more environmentally sound.

We are all newcomers to Kunming, so do not expect a lot of news in the next couple months. I will be busy settling in, improving my Chinese, and getting my bearings. But as things start to ramp up, I expect to have plenty of information to pass along to you.

But I can share one tidbit right out of the gate. If you are running a studio or small business, you will certainly want to have a website, which means you will need a host. Try Fatcow. Their web hosting service is powered by 100% wind energy. We will be exploring the different renewable energy options for the studio (solar or wind most likely, or a combination), and it is a relief knowing that our website will be renewable as well.

Photography — No Comments
6
Nov 09

Giant Cabbages From Outer Space

Photo By @thebeautythatstillremains

Photo By @thebeautythatstillremains

There are two surefire signs that Autumn has officially arrived in Beijing.

First of all, you have the two week stretch of November that is invariably the coldest of the year, thanks to the Government’s central heating rules. In America, you might think of central heating as the thermostat control that lets you turn up your heat as high as your electricity bill will allow.

In China, however, central heating is the neighborhood controlled system that allows one boiler to provide warmth to an entire village. In Beijing, November 15th is something of an informal holiday every year, as that is the date when the city’s boilers switch on. But for those first two weeks of the month, you find yourself bundling up to go to the bathroom, and showers gain you entry into the polar bear club.

The second sure fire sign of Autumn in Beijing is the deluge of 白菜 that descends on the city like an alien invasion. Harking back to the 3 vegetable winters of decades past, every old woman in the capital stocks up on the hardy cabbages, buying enough to last a family all the way to spring.

Speaking of alien invasions, I finally watched District 9 this week. Definitely worthy of all the hype. I especially enjoyed the father and son prawns. The strongest characters in the movie.

The only drawback was the documentary style. The feel of it was nice, but I was constantly annoyed because too often the scenes were shot in places and circumstances that never would have allowed for cameras. Inside the alien hideout? Close-ups during a firefight? If you are going to use the faux documentary technique, go all the way. Otherwise, YOU, the filmmaker, have violated our tacit agreement by which I, the viewer, have agreed to willingly suspend my judgment concerning the implausibility of the narrative.

And I hate it when that happens.

Writing — 4 Comments
22
Dec 08

Santa On Saxamaphone


Christmas and the surreal go hand in hand when living in Beijing. Yesterday I was greeted by the following scene in my office lobby: A Chinese Santa Claus, skinnier than Zhang Zi Yi after a three week therapeutic fast in Phuket, playing Christmas songs on his saxophone, accompanied by a circa 1983 boom box.

Christmas in China has become an industry of its own. When I moved to Beijing in 2000, Christmas was in fact a year round event, although perhaps unwittingly. It was not uncommon to see random holiday decorations plastering the walls of the kind of cheap, neighborhood eateries that I preferred to frequent. People did not necessarily realize what these Christmas angels and St. Nicks represented, they just liked the way they looked.

Fast forward a few years, and I began noticing that Christmas was becoming popular among Chinese youth, especially students and office workers. I asked a few people why Christmas was so popular and the most common answer was that Chinese people need an excuse to spend money.

The truth is, anything Western is increasing in popularity. I have never been really big on Christmas myself as an adult, finding it a little too commercial and hypocritical for my taste. But for some reason, seeing Christmas celebrated in China has always perturbed me. It seemed like some kind of violation of a sacrosanct Western tradition. At least in Korea, where they are even more Christmas crazy, a large percentage of the population is Christian.

The lowpoint for me came a couple years ago, while eating at my favorite Buddhist restaurant. The decorations were in full affect, including a Christmas tree and Santa hats. Severely annoyed, I asked why a Buddhist establishment would be celebrating a Christian holiday. The staff informed me they were not celebrating it as a Christian holiday, but as a secular one. This response miffed me even more, since then all you have left is a commercial holiday based around consumption and consumerism. Oh, the irony!

But I have come to accept Christmas in China. I have decided if it makes people happy, why should I complain. It really is no different than me celebrating Spring Festival or Cinco de Mayo. These are not my holidays, but I enjoy having an excuse to party. And any holiday that involves a Chinese Santa Claus on Sax can’t be all bad. So Merry Christmas everyone!

Next stop Vietnam!

Lyric Of The Day:

Could I write a requiem for you when you’re dead?
‘She had the moves, she had the speed, it went to her head’
She never needed anyone to get her round the track
But when she’s on her back
She had the knowledge
To get her into college
But when she’s on her back
She had the knowledge
To get her what she wanted

‘The Stars Of Track & Field’
-Belle And Sebastian

Writing — 2 Comments
7
Dec 08

If Only The Olympics Were Year Round


The other day, I was going to my office and saw the elevator doors standing open. The arrow was pointed up, so I hurried to catch it. When I got in, I noticed two other men were also headed towards the elevator so before pushing the button for my floor I held open the door for them.

Upon getting in the elevator, one of them brushed past me so that he could hit the button for his floor, in the basement. This was no accident. He knew that if he hit the button first the elevator would go down instead of up, and so he pushed in front of me in order to do so. I could only shake my head and smile.

Anyone who lives in Beijing can attest to countless similar examples. What to Westerners are simple acts of courtesy–holding the elevator door, waiting in line, yielding to someone in front of you, waiting for someone to get off the bus before you push your way on–are rare events in the Chinese capital. If you cannot shrug off the many instances of public selfishness which you encounter on a daily basis, then your time in Beijing will be a long, slow countdown to bitterness that will only end with your grateful return to a civilized world.

But there is another aspect to China that is not as obvious to the visitor. Whereas in public, with perfect strangers, people may behave atrociously–it is a rare week I do not witness two strangers getting into a shouting match–among their friends, Chinese people are extremely generous and kind. A Chinese friend will consistently embarrass you with his or her generosity, and from our Western perspective it can actually be quite awkward. I cannot count how many kidneys I have had offered to me.

I once got run into by another biker while pedaling near Wang Fu Jing. Of course the woman saw a foreigner and tried to blame me. A crowd gathered and the police were called in, even though neither of us were hurt. I had to go to the local police station where no one spoke English. They called an off duty officer who could speak English, and he asked me several times if I had a friend that could speak Chinese that could come down to the station.

This was in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday. All my friends were at work. But he kept prodding me to call someone to come down to the station. Later, after observing the way Chinese people will drop everything to go and help a friend in need, I realized for this police officer, it was only natural that one of my friends would leave work to come help me translate with a traffic cop.

The lesson is you can never judge a foreign culture. Just acknowledge that it is different and try to understand it more deeply. It is no better or worse than your own culture. What seems normal to you, like taking a vacation on your own, may seem outrageous to a Chinese person. And what seems outrageous to us, like the left turn lane cutting off oncoming traffic as soon as the light turns green, may be an everyday occurrence in Beijing.

Writing — 2 Comments
26
Nov 08

停用一次筷


I just recently found out from a coworker that Greenpeace has an office in Beijing. I had no idea. When I moved here in 2000, Greenpeace was only operating in Hong Kong because of issues of how to approach the Mainland. There traditional campaign model obviously would not work here.

Well it turns out that they have now opened up multiple offices in China and are working with the government to conduct campaigns and educate officials on how to become more environmentally sustainable.

One campaign they conducted recently was to educate people on the issue of disposable chopsticks. This is an issue near and dear to my own heart, and I always try to bring my reusable chopsticks with me where ever I go.

The numbers are staggering. Chinese factories churn out 63 billion pairs each year. By bringing your own chopsticks you can not only help conserve resources, but you also avoid worrying whether the chopsticks provided by the restaurant are clean or not.

Also heartening, another Greenpeace China campaign is being conducted by several young Chinese environmentalists. The fact that Chinese youth have begun become involved with environmental activism provides hope that the overwhelming issues that China faces will begin to be addressed before it is too late.

Writing — 1 Comment
12
Nov 08

The Exploding Plastic Inevitable


I see that Mayor Bloomberg, trying to divert attention from his recent power grab, is proposing a new NYC law that will require shoppers to pay a 6 cent tax on every plastic bag.

This tax really works. The Chinese government passed their own version earlier this year. The first week after it went into effect, I was in line behind a man buying exactly three items. In the past, it would not have been unusual to see him walk out of the store with three separate bags. When asked if he wanted a bag, the man responded yes. When informed that he had to pay 2 mao per bag (the equivalent of 3 US cents), he decided he could manage all right without one after all.

Since the law was passed, this scenario has repeated itself in front of me a number of times. Cloth bags can be found everywhere. It is true that some people still want bags, and they ask for them as if to show that they are above such petty money concerns. But many more people are refusing to pay for bags, and bring their own with them to the grocery store.

My own shopping habits have changed as well. I used to be more likely to take plastic bags, which I would use as trash liners. Now I only take a bag if absolutely necessary (for something liquid that will leak in my backpack). Now I reuse food bags and containers to put trash in.

Every community should pass such a law. Place a higher price on something that is a problem for society and the environment, yet which does not cause any undue hardship when you remove it.

What a fantastic idea!

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