What does the invention of Belt & Road culture look like on the ground? Approximation du jour: it looks like a mash-up of classical European music, traditional Chinese martial arts, and a yearning to explore and trade and understand.
Continue readingThe walk from Chegongmiao to Xinzhou used to be a walk from the factories to Xiasha and Shangsha, urban villages where workers and their families lived. Then there were upgrades and a spurt of entrepreneurial redevelopment. However, this area was zoned for redevelopment before the 2018 decision to halt the demolition and redevelopment of working class neighborhoods. Consequently, during the COVID years, demolition and redevelopment proceeded, blurring the borders between high- and low-income Futian. Nevertheless, a few jagged edges remain, below:
The number 1 subway line stops at Pingzhou (坪洲), which once upon a time was a sandbar near the coast of the Nantou Sea. The station is at the edge of Qianhai, but near the former center of restored Bao’an County. The county seat of restored Bao’an was Baocheng (Bao City)-Xixiang, with administrative functions in Bao City and commercial functions in Xixiang. Indeed, the layout of Bao City-Xixiang echoes the layout of Luohu-Shagbu, with a new town going up next to the older market town.
Continue readingHong Kong day-trippers are–if we chat posts are to be believed–shopping again in Shenzhen. There seem to be generational differences. The young and hip are in the malls, while the old and once-upon-a-time hip are revisiting their former haunts, like Luohu Commercial City. Maybe? Anyway, I went back to Luohu Commercial City and realized that the more things change, blah blah still the same. Or is it?
One of the things that I like about Commercial City is the 90s-naughties vibe. The entrepreneurs rent their spaces and then sell what they like. Now, admittedly, they only sell a few types of goods–glasses, dance costumes, fashion, watches, scarves and haute fake fashion–and only offer a few services–mani-pedis, massages, tooth care. But. Within these categories of pampering commodities, they sell what they like. This means that unlike the malls and many commercial streets where stores are all selling the same goods, in Commercial City, every store is a curated experience of what the vendor thinks is fashionable. And. It’s still possible to haggle. So. Fun.
Using phones to order food in restaurants has become commonplace. There is no longer direct interaction with waitstaff, unless in a high-end restaurant. Otherwise, most workers in restaurants are now food servers and cooks. Other areas where phones are necessary (and have been for a while): health forms when crossing the border; paying bills; making healthcare appointments, and; finding one’s way around the city. I don’t know that I’ve seen a paper map for sale (outside of proper bookstores) in years. Used to be, every kiosk sold maps that were constantly being upgraded. It strikes me how difficult it is to navigate the city without a smart phone, even as it is more difficult to use many apps without an identity number. Indeed, I sometimes wonder how much of what I take for granted is a result of opening accounts before they were all consolidated via phones and identity numbers.
So the Nantou venue of the 2023 UABB finally opened on August 16. Rumor has it that the reconstruction of several handshakes was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. But. The results hover at the edge of critique, where showing is itself already taking a position, especially as what we can show and how it can be shown have been increasingly restricted. What I came away with was a sense of how windows function in tight, crowded spaces. We catch glimpses of our neighbors and strangers on their way, peeping across (necessary?) divides. Impressions of a walk through official biennale and adjacent spaces, below:
If you’ve been studying Shenzhen, you know that some of the most widely circulated images of the city circa 1980 were taken by Leroy W. Demery, Jr just before the SEZ was approved. Demery uploaded the images to flickr, where they were picked up by historians in Shenzhen, including government exhibitions. In 2013, he recalled that trip in an Insider interview. He returned three years later, and although Demery didn’t leave the general area of the railway station, nevertheless he noted that it wasn’t the same city. Boom!
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Many of you probably wonder: what happened to Bagualing, the other industrial park in Shangbu Management Zone? And it’s true, so much has been made of & off Huaqiangbei that we forget: the 1986 master plan called for two industrial parks in Shangbu and like Huaqiangbei, Bagualing changed the world as we knew it. And by we, I mean those of us born in the 60s and 70s . For roughly two decades (let’s say ≈ 1990-2010), Bagualing was the printing capital of the world–books, books, and more beautiful books were printed there. In the States, you probably encountered these books via the discount warehouses that sold cheap books either by mail or in large downtown spaces. Chez Shenzhen, especially in the naughties, Bagualing was a great place to shop and purchase a Korean manga or a French novel. Of course, architecture, design, and art books were everywhere, in every language, and could be had for 30 or 40 rmb. Good good days, no more.
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Like many events in Shenzhen (and yes I’m looking at you, UABB), the china international cultural industries fair was first held in central areas in the inner districts and has subsequently expanded into the villages. Indeed, many of these events are now explicitly used as venues to reimagine development or even urban planning. This past weekend, I participated in two such events. One was held in the New Who Art Village (鳌湖/牛湖) and the other in Jingkou Experimental Center (迳口).
Continue readingA few weeks ago, there were protests in Baimang (白芒) Village about the new “unified rental” plan. (Perhaps “consolidated” would be a better translation?) In a nutshell: the government will become the only second landlord in a village, upgrading rentals and then renting them out, preferably to college graduates. The protests came about (as in Baishizhou four years ago) because the forced eviction notices came out in late May early June, which is test month. Students and their families were being evicted after intake for the 2023-24 school year had finished, meaning that many would not only loose their homes, but also their place in school. Also as in Baishizhou, the new plan threatens family life because there are few places where families can live together and send children to school. At the moment, the village is going through a “cooling down” period, but it seems that once school is out, the process will proceed.
Sigh.
Located in what used to be a huge swathe of lychee orchards, Baimang is primarily a residential village, where commerce is geared to the everyday needs of renters–small markets and shops selling plastic household goods. At the center of the village are old village buildings, including an ancestral hall and two towers (碉楼). These row houses are surrounded by several generations of new village housing–concrete villas and tiled handshake buildings. Once one of the second line border villages, Baimang is now within Nanshan District’s “Innovation Corridor” and offers relatively easy commutes to University Town and High Tech Industrial Park.
Shenzhen Noted 