As China recovers from what General Secretary Xi Jinping has called a terrorist attack in Kunming, just a note on the weixin posts that have been forwarded within my circle. Much fear of Muslims and people from Xinjiang, even as stories of happy Tibetans also circulate. The discourse is distressing not only for its stereotypes, but also for its identification of China with Han people. There is no place for China’s ethnic minorities within the Han nation, but there is no place outside either. The have been included in the state so as to be more effectively excluded from the nation. Sigh.
Author Archives: Mary Ann O'Donnell
garden city
Spring in Shenzhen brings memories of dustier grasses and bluer skies. 18 years ago, I lived next to a construction site, and the low cost local ornamentals and creepers flourished in moderation. We breathed construction dust and navigated street floods (or “accumulated water” as I have learned to say in Mandarin). But the skies, if organic and digitalized memory serve, we’re blue and vast and clear.
Yesterday I ate brunch on the Intercontinental patio and had an afternoon tea-becomes-dinner meeting at 1 Haiguan Rd. Once upon a developmental time, both were located near Shenzhen Bay. When built in 1982, the Intercontinental perched near coastal oyster beds and provided visitors and investors in the OCT and Shahe Industrial Parks with simple accommodations. That same year, there was no restaurant at the top of “Microwave Hill” as the site of 1 Haiguan Rd is known. Instead, it was the site of the first local (difang) broadcast tower in post Mao China. The tower broke through tree cover to send and receive signals from Hong Kong, which was just across the water. It symbolized a new communication independence from Beijing, but not too much independence; the simple two-story border guard tower still stands.
The original Intercontinental has been razed and in its place a 5-star Spaish-themed hotel stands. Outside is a galleon, while inside the male staff wear bull fighter costumes and the restaurant hostesses sashay in modified flamenco dresses. The patio area has imported flora, a black marble pool with multi-color goldfish, and a break in the lush green buffer that opens to a virtual beach area. The coastline, of course, is now pushed back, placed on the southern edge of the Binhe Expressway and the narrow Shenzhen Bay Park, which stretches along the reconstituted coastline. 1 Haiguan Rd is the physical realization of another chapter in the same history, albeit land reclamation-in-progress to accommodate a larger port area and a yacht marina. The interior of the border tower has been fitted with stage lights that create the nostalgic centerpiece of an elaborate and fragrant garden.
I enjoyed both outings. I was with generous and creative friends, with whom I often collaborate. All have helped with 302, and all are interested in contributing to the cultural life of the city. Moreover, they are truly willing to share what they have. It is a joy to be with them.
And yet.
Our friend dropped us off at our late 80s compound of boxy concrete low rises, crumbling compound floor, local plants, and ordinary pavilion with tacky pseudo-imperial glazed tiles. The combined cost of yesterday’s two meals was more than my monthly rent. Sometimes, my increasing sense of distance from ever-growing areas of the city provokes anxiety. Sometimes it hooks into my sadness about the forms of social segregation that are being built into the city. Last night, the contrast made me nostalgic for a dustier, more industrial Shenzhen, when large tracts of undeveloped land were still accessible for exploration and amenable to common dreams.
Photos taken at 1 Haiguan Rd, where the changing Shekou coastline is visible from the third floor gardens.
shekou relaunch
So the Biennale has been extended two weeks. Good news and great press for the curators, the SZ Center for Design, and China Merchants. And that–generating a Shekou Buzz–has been the point of all this productivity, or as the current campaign is called “Shekou Relaunch”.
This afternoon, I attended one of the final scheduled events, a forum on how to renovate the Dacheng Flour Mill, which has been designated the site of the future Shekou a Industrial Culture Center. The program included repurposing the buildings and designing more public space, a visual culture center, a theater, and an office building. The responses hinged on determining the purpose of the renovated buildings; just what does China Merchants hope to accomplish through these renovations? Just what is being launched again? And why?
Indeed, there is both something primal about the campaign; we are setting off, again (再出发), and yet something equally unsettling; again? How many times do we need to remake society? Or is it just the persistent dissatisfaction of capitalism and vague anxiety that we may never get it right?
I actually believe that creative activity makes people happy, but not redundant assembly line production. I have experienced happiness in creative activity that nourishes my connections with others. I am particularly enjoying 302 because it brings together research interests, social commitments and friendships. I also really, really like working with my hands. This seems to me the goal of social transformation; improving the quality of life of family, friends and neighbors, and not just achieving higher economic indicators.
Today, I’m thinking that to the extent that traditional socialist industrial culture aimed to improve the lives of worker, it offers inspiration for possible renovations and building. However, without a discussion about what’s being relaunched and why, another round of pretty and smart and interesting construction seems to me to be beside the point.
weixin etiquette
Who knew? It’s possible to not view someone’s general weixin posts and to block them from seeing your posts. This way one can accept friend requests, engage in one-to-one texts, and keep a definite distance. This discovery led to a discussion of all the kindly people who are spending too much time forwarding “must reads” and cluttering up virtual space. The conclusion? Don’t become one of those people who get passively blocked by limiting the number of cat photos you upload.
baishizhou: intervention and experience
This weekend (Feb 22-23), two events organized for Shenzhen children focused on Baishizhou. On Saturday, ATU/观筑 held a “Young Architects” program in Venue B of the Biennale. On Sunday, CZC Special Forces and Ya Ya Theatre co-produced “Baishizhou Theme Park”, a 20-minute play that was written, directed, and performed by six of Baishizhou’s youngest residents in Venue A.
For the past two years, ATU has run the Young Architects program to teach architectural literacy through experience. They have intervened in the Baishizhou Tangtou row houses, building chairs and also built small spaces to spec, for example, a study room for one person that connects to another, but remains private. Saturday’s program was a urban renewal workshop for Baishizhou. Led by architects, Huang Jingjie and Feng Guochuan, six groups of pre- and teenagers took responsibility for one area. The requirements were, the total building area cannot change and improvements must be affordable so that rents will not increase dramatically. Each group had a professional consultant and 90 minutes to rethink urban renovation.
For over four years, Ya Ya Theatre has developed intimate performances that express unique experiences. Earlier in this year’s Biennale they produced a version of “One Person, One Story” in which members performed autobiographical and biographical monologues about a life-changing event. Lora Wang and Chen Lihua ran the two-month workshop that included exploration of Baishizhou and then developing a series of autobiographical vignettes. Sites visited included a dry swimming fountain, the Jiangnan Department Store plaza, and a video arcade.
So, the during the last official weekend of the Biennale, we had two events that developed the theme of the relationship that Shenzhen children have to Baishizhou, and by extension other urbanized villages. This in itself indicates that interest in the urbanized villages is spreading beyond commercial and academic enclaves. Moreover, we also saw community projects that assume urbanized villages as an important component of Shenzhen as an imagined community. This marks an important shift in the public awareness. Previously, urbanized villages existed outside Shenzhen representations of the city. The villages were (and to a large extent remain) glaringly absent from urban plans. Suddenly, the villages have emerged in public discussions about wither urban development and renewal?
These questions were at the heart of the post performance discussion “Learning from the Urban Villages” with Lora, Feng Guochuan and Zeng Guansheng. Audience members were not only interested in where the working class and young migrants would first settle in Shenzhen, but also in questions about the social value of street life and neighbors. This kind of conversation provided a glimpse into a larger, more general search for Shenzhen identity. This new identity reworks the version of high-speed development and red heroes that has been the previously ignored but not challenged vision of who Shenzheners are and what the city might be.
crumbling foundations
The first floor sinking, occupied by migrant workers. Above, several condos have been inhabited, but most floors remain empty, unused except as placeholders on accounting sheets. A section of Houhai Bin Road is being reconstructed. The chilly smog undulates.
children’s baishizhou
As part of the Hanshake 302 program, Lora and Lihua have been running a theatre workshop at the Mingzhu culture station in Baishizhou. Workshop content has included games, narrative structure, and exploring Baishizhou. The children developed short pieces about their lives in a Baishizhou. A few observations:
1) Baishizhou (and other urban villages) are home to two generations of Shenzhen youth–the children of migrants and recent high school and college graduates who have migrated to the SEZ. The urbanized villages shelter Shenzhen’s future;
2) The young children have grown up in Baishizhou. They have improvised playgrounds and special places. Of note, they don’t actually know where Baishizhou’s boundaries are, and they have also figured out how to sneak into neighboring gated communities;
3) The children run relatively freely in Baishizhou. Unlike highly protected children in upscale communities, in Baishizhou the children mingle more widely and I am reminded of studies about US suburbs, where community friendships grew out of children’s play.
Today, we ran a dress rehearsal in Baishizhou. On Feb 23 at 2:30 pm we will bring Baishizhou children to perform at the Biennale Venue A. The performance will help us think through the question, what can we learn from the urban villages? Impressions of dress rehearsal, below.
reports from caiwuwei
The research division of Urbanus has sponsored Fu Na and Chris Gee’s research in Caiwuwei these past three years. Just recently, they released three videos that take viewers on walks through what remains of Caiwuwei. Of note: Caiwuwei has been upgraded and polished into an exemplar of the potential of high density living that can be created through appropriations of handshake buildings. So commercial opportunities and low-cost conveniently located housing, with minimal investment in public spaces and amenities. Links:
census data. . .
Census data reminds me that shifting geographies undulate like poetry, and likewise get caught in the throat before lurching out, taking root beyond consciousness. And New York. Pulsing, sparkling New York, here too in Shenzhen.
1810: New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Boston, Charleston
1860: New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Boston
1910: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Boston
1960: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Detroit
2010: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia
crossroads: staged reading
So, yesterday afternoon we read “Crossroads” onstage at the Mizzou Jesse Wrench Memorial Auditorium. Despite snow days and ice and broken cars, the show went on and Fat Bird had a great time. “Crossroads” is an early play by Yang Qian that looks a the moral confusion and disfunction that have shaped and been shaped by Shenzhen boomtimes. Impressions, below:
Shenzhen Noted 