Welcome 2011 | Life is What You Make It

As the new year rolls in, I look back at everything that happened opposed to making new resolutions.  I believe you have to examine the past before you can prepare for the future.  Even then, I don't make a specific resolution. I have goals, but they are always there and usually take more than one year to achieve.  No need to rush.  There was a lot of transition in 2010---a little too much at times but I believe I ended up where I needed to be in the  end. I always do seem to take the long way.

This was my very, very first holiday season away from home. I anticipated it to be hard, but it wasn't that bad.  I found people to hang out with and did small things to honor the occasion.  The atmosphere in China is very different for Western holidays so they kind of all just quietly came and went with out much commotion. The "holidays" presented themselves as what they essentially are: just another day.  It's not that they were suppressed in any way---the country just attaches no meaning to the holidays, the people have no childhood sentiments, and the traditions have become another import.  Christmas specifically is a fashionable holiday where young people have an excuse to shop their hearts out. This reconfirmed in me the oh-so-cliche proverb "life is what you make it."  It is the meaning and memories we attach to people, places, objects, and days(events) that make them special. Everything is the same everywhere.

China is the Most Populous Nation Because...

Encountered on the staircase outside the shops at the Portman Ritz Carlton | Shanghai Center

The Chinese like to screw.  I could not help but double-back and snap this picture with my  phone when I found it. Despite the fuzzy quality of my out-of-date piece of technology, I believe you can still make out the medication: Viagra. Most medications are prescription-free in China, from anti-biotics to sleep aids to case in point: Viagara.  You can see from the picture that this was not a lost package as it has been opened and emptied of its contents. Then, I gather the eager individual decided to rid himself of the bulky packaging on the steps outside the pharmacy at the Portman Ritz Carlton shops in Shanghai Center where I encountered it while shopping for vitamins because it's winter and I don't want to get sick. However, this humorous incident reaffirms my belief that the Chinese have sex on the brain just like everyone else.

Evidence #1: Walk in to any convenient store chain and you will see a menagerie of condoms (mostly Durex) at the check-out along with the chewing gum and candy. While in the US, I have never seen this. Aren't condoms supposed to be tucked away on some discreet aisle along with the tampons and pregnancy test sticks? 

Evidence #2: Four out of five weekdays in Shanghai are 'Ladies' Night' where Ladies drink absolutely free.  Specials will range from house cocktails to free-flow champagne until midnight or later. I have no idea how the bars make any money except that men will be where the ladies are. China especially, is a country where splitting the check is a seldom practice. Prepare to pay up gentlemen.

Evidence #3: Chinese women are hot (myself excluded). Judging from the raven-haired barbie dolls that I walk to work with each day; Chinese women are petite recreations of Barbie herself with porcelain perfect skin.  Beauty is such a huge industry in China from diet teas to special face creams to cosmetic surgery.  This nation is on the move and the women are in it to win it.

The Christkindlemarkt

In my defense, they never asked me for my ticket. I didn’t try to sneak in. I honestly didn’t know there was an admission!  Down the street from my apartment is a German beer hall called Paulaner Brauhaus which apparently holds a Christmas Market (Christkindlemarkt) every year for a 25 yuan admission fee---to keep away all the locals I suppose.  The “rift raft”, as one old friend would put it.  It was a lovely market, something a kin to the stands at Union Square and Bryant Park every year (which don’t charge admission, might I add). The Christmas Market did have food stands though with a mix of German and Western fare like Bratwursts, Pretzels, Chili, Goulash, etc. I bought myself some hot, spiced Gluϋhwein that came with a red ceramic cup and reusable  green plastic lid and white sleeve. How cute! And THAT’S when they asked me for my ticket. Maybe if you drank two the second one was half price or something...I dont’ know. It’s not like the Gluϋhwein or anything in there was free.  Well. All I could manage was a bashful “I must have misplaced it” and slowly slithered away to quickly buy some folk art stationary cards before I made a run for it. 

The Shanghai Biennale

Wang Mai's headless horse-shaped pipes in Oil Monsters

The Shanghai Biennale is back in it's 8th run at the Shanghai Museum of Art. The theme this time is Rehearsal, alluding to the fact that art is an on-going production. Art is fluid and changing.  Artist Ma Liang (also fashionably known as Maleonn)  recreates a portion of his photography studio---which is known to be cluttered with quirky, outlandish props---in order to allow visitors to see what the opposite side of the lens looks like in staging a piece of work.  Below are some of the props.

A para sailing skeleton from Ma Liang's studio

Traditional Chinese New Year Lion heads

A traditional Chinese scroll is meticulously drafted over by artist Guan Wei showing futuristic new developments.  On an opposite wall he also uses maps and imagery to make a statement of our increasingly globalized society.  I was more interested in the drafting.

Guan Wei's Development Zone

 Artist Zhang Huan's piece has two parts: a reinterpretation of the Baroque opera Semele  with a Chinese perspective and then second, the transportation of the set which was originally a 450 year old village temple to be displayed in new glory as a museum centerpiece. Cool. Check more about Mr. Zhang's projects and the story of Semele here.

 

There was also an amazing installation by Norwegian art group Verdensteatret that was totally my favorite  It's called And All the Question Marks Started to Sing.  Best said by WSJ's Art Scene Asia, "The work fills a room with spinning bicycle wheels, surreal projections, music and live performance to evoke a cheery if slightly eerie dream." The installation is reminiscent of Tim Burton--another favorite---because both artists bring inanimate objects to life in a creepy but whimsical way. Check out Verdenstreatret's website here.

Image courtesy of Verdensteatret

Then there's the charming playroom by Qiu Zhijie in which essentially a 2 dimensional painting is brought in to 3D. Also, best said by the Wall Street Journal:

[ Mr. Qiu] "brings to frenetic life a famous traditional painting of Ming Dynasty-era city life with an interactive installation comprised of mask painting, mechanized grindstones of ink and of salt, strewn keys and other miscellanea. " WSJ

I wasn't expecting the interactive opportunity of artwork or ability to photograph anything I wanted. Art museums are still a growing cultural phenomenon in China---maybe these lax rules will establish a more enjoyable art-viewing experience in the future. I mean---who wouldn't want to photograph or touch art work?

Yours truly with Qiu’s Notes on ‘Colorful Lanterns at Shangyuan Festival'

Beware of the Motorbike

Shanghai is China's largest city, but it does have room to expand unlike Hong Kong or New York. There's not that claustrophobic density or fight for space.  The city spreads out wide and low with a matrix of alleyways and unmapped side streets.  Almost every road is tree-lined and they shed giant leaves that paper the ground as Fall winds down.  The pleasant tri-ling of bicycle bells as people pedal past add to the charm. The city is actually rather peaceful on weekends with the backdrop of period French architecture and older residents that gather to chat on doorsteps. You begin to forget where you are for a moment as you fantasize about the stories this city must have during the 1920s and it's European occupation.

And then, there comes the motorbike---menace of the streets. It obeys no traffic laws. Red light, one-way street, mother and child in the middle of the crosswalk---the motorbike does not care.  I've always known that traffic is crazy in China, but at least you can see and hear cars and they obey the traffic laws.  Plus, usually they're inclined to honk.  Bicycles are a little trickier to detect, but they don't go that fast and won't kill you. Motorbikes however are a cross-breed of the car and the bike that alternate between roads and sidewalks like an indecisive Mario Kart player.  They constantly zip through intersections long after everything else has stopped or travel against the flow of traffic.  I am terrified of them because they will severely injure, possibly kill, and almost always ruin my weekend musings around Shanghai.