鱼香肉丝

2009-11-07T00:25:00.003+08:00

Some photos from rush hour on the train.  It looks not too bad, but trust that it was, and is, crowded during early evening.  I'm using more camera more frequently again.

我高峰时间在地铁上拍了这两张照片。我最近几乎每天带着我的照相机。在想一会要开中文的fotoblog. 幸运的是我有中国朋友会把我的博客校对一下。

2009-11-06T11:11:00.002+08:00

**__^^ SNOW DAY **--^^

It snowed endlessly this early this week. This is a rare occurrence in dry Beijing, so kids were out making snowmen and everyone was mostly marveling at it all.

Me throwing a snowball.

The target of said snowball.

Oops.

Me on a very cold Beijing morning.

2009-11-06T11:02:00.003+08:00

~~DISCLAIMER~~

It's been a while. Chinese website blocking techniques are a bit more sophisticated, and it's getting harder and harder to find unblocked proxy server sites or programs that can bypass the great firewall. I'm trying to figure out another blog solution, but in the meanwhile, I found a good temporary solution with a new unblocker program, so back to blogging.

Otherwise, the semester is in full swing and I'm teaching at several schools. It's getting colder and there are red leaves all over Beijing's concrete. I'm learning calligraphy, which is beautiful and rewarding, and have but aside painting temporarily until it comes more naturally again. I've been reading voraciously since I found a new cheap source for books.

How're you?

2009-09-14T13:57:00.002+08:00

My bed for four hours.

The town of Erlian during heavy rain.

Entering the Chinese gate to fill out exit forms. These people, all Mongolians, helped me cross the border in their jeep.

Said jeep. I was packed in with six other people.

A wonderful handpainted sign for camping supplies in cyrillic Mongolian.

/// Mongolian visa run ///

---

Last week I had to get an exit stamp to get my new work visa, so I decided instead of a costly Hong Kong trip, I'd try Mongolia. Americans are one of the only groups that do not need a Mongolian visa, a rarity in most countries Euro-positive visa laws. Below is what I exactly did, especially useful to other Americans in a similar situation.

First, I booked a bus ticket from Beijing to 二连 (Erlian) leaving from 六里桥路途汽车站 (Liuliqiao long distance station) at 5pm. Buy in advance, as seats sell out quick. Apparently, there are trains that also leave at infrequent hours.

The ride is a mostly enjoyable 11 hours through factory landscapes that gradually melts away to endless grasslands and a fire red setting sun. Passengers were mostly Russian and Mongolian, so Chinese won't get you so far. You'll stop at randomly for bathroom breaks and dinner. Bring snacks and water.

Once you reach the city at about 3 in the morning, you'll be hassled for a room. I'd recommend just getting a ride into the small town or walking yourself. Rain is frequent in late summer. The Mongolian locals will try to rip you off in a far more slick and intelligent way than Chinese usually do, so be smart.

In the morning, you'll need to look for someone to take you across the border. They will most likely come to you rather than the other way around, especially if you are not Asian. You need to find a car (almost all Soviet era Jeep copies) that has a Mongolian license plate. Another idea is simply head to the border (国门) and find someone willing to take you across. (I crossed for 60 yuan, far too expensive, because from Mongolia I returned for only 18 yuan.) Don't wait until too late, because after three everything shuts down and you'll need to wait another day. Regardless, it was fun and I met a Mongolian woman who lived in Washington for six years before being deported for overstaying her green card. Sort of sad and interesting.

If you need to wait in the town for any period of time, make the most of it. There are lots of interesting markets, 羊肉馅饼 (lamb pancakes) and Russian restaurants. I found a market with no Chinese on any of the signs, selling things from blenders for butter tea to henna to Mongolian language books for children to Indian snuff.

Crossing the border is easy and you'll be prompted when you need what and at what time. The whole procedure will take about two hours. Russian language skills are useful in Mongolia, but some working at the gate will know basic English and Chinese. Once you enter Mongolia, you really just need to turn around and head back out. The Mongolian side is incredibly strange, with abandoned train and construction materials, hand painted signs and flat land stretching endlessly. You cannot cross any part of the border by food, so it's another tedious search for a ride back. Even though I couldn't really communicate with the Mongolians at the border, they were gruffly helpful, literally dragging me along to different officers.

Anyway, once you get back to Erlian, you just need to head to the bus station and buy a sleeper bus ticket leaving for Beijing. If you're tall, specifically ask for seating near the front of the bus. It's very easy to head back, and if tickets are sold out, there are other private operators outside of the station. Trains are less predictable.

Good luck!

2009-08-15T11:19:00.005+08:00

Me at Emei Shan, Sichuan.

Possibly the best noodle shop in Chengdu.

Snouts for sale at an open market.

---
微微拍的照
---

Veronica posted a series of photos from her China trip.  (I miss you， V.)

2009-08-02T01:49:00.002+08:00

奥赢

(Olympic win)
Oil on canvas
60x50 cm
---

This is a recently completed painting based on a package of cabbage seeds found in a village outside of Beijing. The title comes from the brand name of the seeds themselves. Although hard to tell looking at a monitor, the painting is far more fleshy and thick than I usually paint, and the size is far larger than previous work. The girl is, self consciously and awkwardly, breaking past her boundary. Anyway, I'm quite happy with it. Thoughts?

2009-07-27T18:01:00.004+08:00

The trio by an ancient water urn used to fight fires, Forbidden City.

Veronica amazed at a overstocked market, Sichuan province.

Strange pastry and coffee at our questionable, but pleasant hotel, in Shanghai.

Smart dressed, nervous ladies on a street in Xintiandi, Shanghai.

Dad taking a picture in a Shikumen house museum, Shanghai.

Handsome Ariel in a cafe near the old drum tower, Beijing.

Mountain temple at Emei, Sichuan

North Korean restaurant karaoke madness at the DPRK Embassy. Lots of glaring, brusqueness and static ceremony.

Dad at the Simatai section of the Great Wall.

Smiling through crushing crowds.

Kitty at Grandma's Kitchen, a great lil' restaurant and guesthouse in Beijing.

---*<>*---

旅游啊

I've been busy. Veronica and my father visited me recently, with a few days overlapping. Both were memorable and packed with sightseeing. Let's review:

VERONICA

Vero and I went to Sichuan and ate incredibly good food, lesuirely climbed a sacred Buddhist mountain, breathed in factory pollution in and around Chengdu and I struggled with the thickest accented Mandarin in the country. We saw a very traditional Tibetan neighborhood in Chengdu and had several moments of being stared at in random villages. The most wonderful moment was on Emei shan, a beautiful Buddhist mountain with several ancient temples scattered throughout the area. We spend the night in a haunting nunnery with traditionally dressed incredibly friendly nuns, the strong smell of incense and loud droning bells.

DAD

When my father came and I bid Veronica fairwell, the two of us went to Shanghai. It was a far more upscale trip, so our bathroom had a tub and I wasn't drinking packets of Nescafe out of enamel cups anymore. Lots of incredibly fancy pastry breakfasts, shopping, museums, obsure temples, strolling and long conversations. He bought a lot of antiques from a seller with a charming kind of English, who proclaimed him to be "big customer." Generous dad even bought me nice new clothes. Shanghai is a great city to wander, and we saw lots of decaying old art deco buildings, some seemingly abandoned and ghostly. Pretty.

2009-07-24T23:15:00.003+08:00

And so, goodbye Veronica
-or-

 *再见微微*

2009-06-25T13:26:00.003+08:00

知春里小学二年级

Last day at Zhichunli primary school with my third graders.
(I remember how happy I felt to start summer vacation when I was their age.)

2009-06-25T13:16:00.003+08:00

污染天气
AIR POLLUTION

Thursday the 18th in Zhongguancun, a suburb of Beijing. There are dozens of skyscrapers in the distance, totally concealed in smog. One of the worst pollution days since winter.

Same day at dusk near the city center. It rained lightly; a strange, chemical smelling rain.

2009-06-16T08:29:00.005+08:00

My first horse ride.

Drying sheets.

Ariel. Behind him are these wonderfully fake concrete yurts and Han women in Mongolian outfits.

A camel owned by the resort.

Sunset.

Prairie girls.

Redundancy.

Chao in the yurt dining hall.

Happy Ariel at 乌兰花, or "Black orchid" town, which was our transfer point to reach the grasslands.

Chao and I in a moto-rickshaw in Hohhot.

Hohhot at night. Note the Muslim style domed buildings.

Mongolian restaurant by Hohhot University.

Our guide with an "aobao," or prayer mound, in the grasslands.

Wild mushroom our guide found.

Chao in front of a Mongolian white stupa. Both Tibetan and Mongolian cultures share this kind of structure.
---

内蒙古
Inner Mongolia

Ariel, Chao and I went to Inner Mongolia last weekend to see the grasslands, an endless stretch of rough green and shockingly blue skies. It was one of the most beautiful places I've seen. There is basically nothing at all for miles; no trees, no mountains, no water, just endless varieties of grass and more bizarre insects than I've seen anywhere. Giant crickets that look like hummingbirds when they fly, smooth marble slabs buried under dry earth, rabbit and snake holes. Most startling of all, for a city boy like myself, is the silence, which is almost strangely loud it's so quiet, and the dramatic temperature drop and strong winds at night.

We rode horses, ate a lot of lamb, and met a few Mongolians. One guide spoke excellent Mandarin, but was impatient to teach us a few Mongolian words. The language has very strong constant sounds and seems painful to speak, like the sounds are scraping your vocal cords. We passed by a village like one I'd never seen, made entirely out of rammed earth with beautiful, completely foreign boxy, colorful temples.

Hohhot was a surprisingly unique city. Mid-sized cities in modern China are mostly fashioned completely alike; the train station and long distance bus station are close to one another with most hotels around them, major streets are very wide with tremendous street lamps, skyscrapers are everywhere, giant monolithic Communist structures, the old part of the city is being flattened, etc. However, Hohhot had very Hui minority style structures with minarets and onion domes, all street names in Mongolian script, huge metal sculptures of horseback Mongolian warriors; all somewhat tacky, but at least it had a personality.

I believe average Chinese people view Mongolians in this dramatic, Plains Indian kind of way and enjoy putting on cowboy hats and heading to the grasslands to ride horses and drink sheep's yogurt. It's a lot like Americans' "wild west" fascination; an interest in this noble savage that has been conquered and can be safely approached. The comparison is obvious in city and place names, which are nearly all translated directly from Mongolian script into Mandarin characters, a rare thing in Chinese. Compare that to Mississippi, North Dakota, Miami and countless other American places that are named after tribes or use native languages for naming.

2009-06-15T10:28:00.002+08:00

This is your last night.
-`-`-

四芽儿，你离开北京了。这几个年过得非常又开心。在旧金山开始新生活，交新朋友，找新工作，结识帅哥。。。恩。祝你好运！爱死你。

Silvia! Best of luck in San Francisco!

2009-06-11T11:34:00.002+08:00

美景潭, or "Beautiful Scenery Lake," sans lake.

We're in a band.  (Chao, Ariel, Patricia, Me)

A new toy.

Villager on horseback.

Wonderful, somehow Mexican-looking, village restaurant.  There was an entire skinned collie dog near the outhouse out back.

Mung bean and pineapple ice lollies.

Hipsters in a village house with drapes that I want.

十渡
Shi2 du4

A couple of weekends ago, the crew went to shidu, a very touristy village area that happens to be surrounded by beautiful karst formations.  The whole affair is reachable by Beijing public transport, which makes it a nice short trip.

The villagers are very used to tourists, but haven't figured out what to do with us yes.  Lots of ripping off, price gouging, lying, etc., which gets tired fast.  However, the area is undeniably gorgeous and I could actually breathe without feeling like I'm gasping and chocking on soot.

2009-06-11T11:05:00.003+08:00

And so...

Most blog sites have been recently blocked in China, due to, I'm sure, a certain anniversary of a certain massacre. The block is much harder to get around now, as many websites that can make a secure proxy are also blocked. Anyway, I'm using a very clunky, slow program to finally post again.

Anyway, I'm going to post a few of the recent events of this last month. Lets start with...

---~~~---

~^ A summery trip to the Beijing botanical gardens ^~

Emilie in the grass

Me, pretty much what I look like now.

Emilie, me and a soon to be devoured mangosteen

My people.

Northbound bus.

2009-05-08T16:38:00.003+08:00

Me on that classic Chinese bike tour around Tian'anmen Square. (Silvy was also there!)

*^*

It's officially warm in Beijing with some relatively clear skies and outdoor seating at restaurants. More Chinese girls in summer dresses eating popsicles, restaurants are offering cold zhou with osmanthus flower as well as outdoor seating, and old Beijing men with exposed bellies are lounging outside, fanning themselves off.

This afternoon on the subway I saw three older women chatting in a completely foreign Chinese language that I imagine may be from Fujian or a southern province. They had cheap red tour company visors on and seemed to be really enjoying themselves.

Ariel got back from his European trip bringing gifts of cheese and coffee and cookies. He was missed by his Chinese comrades.

2009-04-26T09:22:00.004+08:00

Sunrise with Sea Monsters

。。。

A show of the Tate's collection of Turner paintings opened Friday, and Silvia and I went to check it out. The exhibition was brilliantly set up with full paintings side-by-side with studies, and smaller watercolors set up in vitrines. I've seen only a couple of Turners in person and they just explode. The layering and melty, washy paint is hard to render photographically, and as Turner ages his work takes on this hard to reproduce, abstract quality. Incredibly beautiful to look at, and I'll go with Ariel once he comes back from Europe.

A word about The National Gallery: it has to be the best place in Beijing for traveling shows and the worst place for permanent collections. With few exceptions, the work is pointless, tacky and Communist-friendly, like really 80s Chinese ink paintings of tigers hidden in bamboo, Chinese dignitaries shaking hands (these I slightly love) or minority children cavorting in some idyllic place. However, they've organized some great traveling exhibitions including a show of the history of American painting, a Goya show, a "recreation" of the Buddhist caves of western China, etc.

2009-04-24T09:32:00.002+08:00

Positive things about living in Beijing

Springtime.
The Summer Palace.
Mandarin.
Visas are easy.
Kindness of Chinese people.
Emergence of a competent art scene.
New, shiny, fast-paced madness.
The best public transportation ever.
Cracking sunflower seeds and drinking green tea.
Greasy Cantonese food at one AM.
Things are cheap.
Wandering through the hutong.
Produce markets filled with exotic things.
Bootleg DVDs.

Negative things about living in Beijing

Pollution.
Endless waves of people.
Cutting in line.
Public spitting.
Really terrible clothing.
Destruction of beautiful, old hutong.
Dirtiness.
State of public toilets.
Oily, cheap, MSG-laden food
Missing familiar things.
Long winters.
Endless, drab apartment blocks.
Ignorance of the outside world.
Oh, and pollution. Pollution. Pollution.

2009-04-23T17:53:00.002+08:00

All,

I changed my blog title to 鱼香肉丝 (yu2 xiang1 rou4 si1), which means "fish flavored shredded meat." It's a popular dish here, coupled with the fact that "shredded meat," or "rou si," sounds awfully close to my name. My de facto nickname.

2009-04-18T18:05:00.007+08:00

爨底下

。。。

Silvia and I went to Cuandixia, a village a few hours outside of Beijing, completely accessible by public transportation. I had previously been two years ago and wanted to see what had changed. A bit of word-of-mouth must gotten around about the place, because it was much more tourist friendly with signs in English, a trendy tourist shop, an actual bathroom facility (previously it was ghastly concrete slabs with holes in between) and a local populace much more attuned to money spending outsiders.

The character 爨 (cuan4), featured in the center of this photograph, is an ancient character that basically no Chinese person is familiar with, save for the residents of the town. It's a namesake for the people of the village in that it is a completely rare character. It's original meaning is a verb to start a cooking fire.

Many of the Ming Dynasty era buildings have Cultural Revolution slogans painted on them. This reads in part 大学解放军(?)红(?)用毛主席(?) meaning "University student liberation army! (?)Red (guards?) use Mao Tse Dong thought!" I don't understand the whole phrase since it's mostly erased...

Silvia and her homemade cape.

A wonderful dinner of beef and potatoes, eggs stir fried with tomato and a kind of zucchini-like vegetable, duck sausages with walnuts, preserved wild vegetables, fried eggplant and homemade tofu with green peppers.

Me with my new beardless face overlooking the ancient, terraced mountains.

Silvy resting in our village room.

Me in a narrow walkway leading to the entrance of a home.

Big breakfast of "bao zi" filled with wild vegetables and pork, scallion pancakes, several cold vegetable dishes, hard boiled eggs and corn congee.

2009-04-16T10:23:00.001+08:00

8.3
oil and acrylic on wood
45x30cm

This is another painting in a similar vein to "0.35," which was posted earlier. This is also from a supermarket ad. I painted the wood with a silver acrylic paint and overlayed it with oil. Also, I taped off the edge to create a border of unfinished wood.

These "8.3" and "0.35" paintings are related in that they feature incomplete information (numbers without a clear indication of meaning) and lack the Chinese text that was present in the actual ad, thus eliminating a narrative. This is the closest I've been getting to a more obvious, exploratory series.

2009-04-12T22:57:00.002+08:00

Picture of me and Silvy this winter (taken by Ariel.)

-*[]*-

Some updates.

It's finally getting warmer, but the trade off is the worst possible pollution. I have no idea where it's coming from but it's wicked. That, and all these wonderful cottony puffs of pollen from Beijing's numerous poplars create this. Rather more charming than pollution.

Other than the weather, I'm up to similar antics. I've been painting quite a lot more and enjoying my new bike, courtesy of my friend Guy. I've also been keeping up with exercise.

Mornings I've developed a routine of putting the cafecito on the stove and drinking juice I squeezed the previous morning. Raw oatmeal, unsweetened yogurt, walnuts and sliced fruit nearly every morning. Again routine.

I'm studying for the HSK (Chinese proficiency) test, which will be taken at some point within the next six months. Well, most likely near the tale end of six months.

Next weekend I plan on going with Silvia to a village outside of Beijing. I'd like to see something that somewhat resembles nature.

Ariel went to Europe for three weeks and I wish him an incredibly fun time.

What are you up to?

2009-03-25T09:26:00.002+08:00

153888: 李建成

153897: 陈善黔

-<0>-

My friend Guy found a half dozen discarded work permits of migrant workers on a construction site. I made these two drawings from this group. The actual size of the drawings are just a big larger than the passport pictures they are based on.

2009-03-25T09:20:00.002+08:00

Explaining a story.

Sculpture garden at an art school.

Taxi to an opening.

2009-03-11T10:31:00.002+08:00

0.35
oil on canvas
40x40 cm

I've been drawing more than painting lately, but here is a recently completed painting that I'm quite happy with. It's from a grocery store advertisement for a sale on onions, garlic, carrots and cabbage.

2009-03-10T11:43:00.002+08:00

~~ Some of my recent drawings from figure drawing class ~~