Downtown Shenzhen used to be the area around the Luohu train station, moving east (toward the Wenjingdu border crossing) and west (toward Caiwuwei, the site of Baoan County Headquarters before 1979). Caiwuwei remains the Municipality’s financial center. However, there are still traces of early Shenzhen scale and place names to be found, even when standing at the intersection of Shennan and Hongling Roads, site of the billboard to Deng Xiaoping and the promise of stable political policies. Impressions, above.
Category Archives: noted
The Fishing Village that Became a World Symbol: 渔民村
So, I have been catching up on the Shenzhen documentary, 沧海桑田：深圳村庄30年. After setting the historic stage with rural poverty and economic immigration / cold war defection (episode 1) and then national policy (episode 2), the documentary turns to specific villages both to illustrate general trends in SEZ history and to introduce the players. So today, 渔民村 (Yumin Village – episode 3), at the heart of the earliest reforms.
Yumin Village has an important place in both national Chinese and local Shenzhen symbolic geography for three reasons, but most importantly for revealing the prejudices built into the landscape, locally, nationally, and internationally. Continue reading
City of Suspended Possibility…
Friend Jonathan Bach has written a beautiful essay, Shenzhen: City of Suspended Possibility. Highly recommended because he nimbly places myths about success and failure, homecoming and homemaking, and self-construction and urbanization with respect to western theories of the same. In other words, City reminds me why the essay remains my favorite genre; illumination on the human condition through critical perspective and sympathetic voice.
Breaking the Ice
So, episode 2 of 沧海桑田 is 破冰. What was the ice and how was it broken? A few notes, below.
Episode 2 begins with shots of thick ice on the Huai river, the narrator metaphorically speaking about the frozen space between two shores. Not only an obvious (and simultaneous) reference to the Sino-British border (on either side of the Shenzhen river) and the Taiwan Straits, but also a description of how the planned economy made the lives of Anhui farmers difficult. A relevant reminder: the reforms initiated in Shenzhen began with Wan Li (万里)’s efforts to liberalize agrarian production in a part of the country where it does snow. Continue reading
沧海桑田：The transformation of Shenzhen Villages
For those wondering, is there a documentary on Shenzhen villages out there? The answer is yes and its 15 hours long! CCTV and SZTV produced 沧海桑田：深圳村庄30年, a 30-episode television documentary to commemorate the SEZ’s 30th anniversary.
Not unexpectedly, the documentary’s ultimate happy end is urbane Shenzhen. Nevertheless, each of the 30 episodes does raise issues worth talking about and also gives current Party takes on these issues, which is always useful information. In fact, that take may be the point; the commemoration of the SEZ’s 30th Anniversary included a more inclusive and nuanced understanding of pre-reform Baoan society and history, reminding us that the villages no longer exist as such. What remains are ideological and economic struggles over the properties held by [former village] stock-holding corporations that have not yet been fully integrated into the Municipality’s urban apparatus.
That said, however, there is also the question of what a truly integrated Shenzhen society might look like. And consequently it is interesting and hopeful to think that the economic questions may also force re-evalution of who belongs in the city.
So, how are those ideological battles being waged in the contemporary SEZ?
the vast unknown…
Another happy introduction. Good friend and musician, Robert Copeland composed the theme music for the 2011 Shenzhen International Fringe Festival. Yang Qian and I wrote the lyrics. Yes, the theme is sci-fi. Yes, that’s Fringe GaGa and 艺穗 DaDa to you. Sing along, here; lyrics below. Continue reading
nitty gritty shenzhen – the photography of Sarah Li Cain
Sarah Li Cain does what I want to do; she takes consistently real photographs of Shenzhen gritty, but with an eye to how we live despite our situation. Her subjects include migrant children, sleeping old men, and straggly, germy kittens, which (as in the picture above) nevertheless shimmer through surrounding grime. I wax Oscar Wildesque – gutter, stars, and what not.
Sarah’s work is currently on display at The Kitchen Futian. If you find yourself in Cocopark over the next few weeks, step in and see Shenzhen through her eyes.
Shenzhen Dimensions
The thirtieth anniversary brought with it all sorts of interest in Shenzhen’s history. In addition to the Shenzhen Original Inhabitants website, 深圳维度 also came online. Shenzhen Dimensions is a group dedicated to enlivening public debate on and about Shenzhen. The site also provides links to all sorts of useful images and histories about Shenzhen. Recommended.
Who’s in charge?
As the biennale approaches, many documents have to be translated and I’ve found myself doing on the spot translations by text message. I mentioned to a friend that I had finally figured out that if I gave two possible translations – one more or less literal, the other more or less poetic, my interlocutor was usually satisfied with the translation. However, if I only gave one possible translation, then my interlocutor inevitably came back with questions and challenges to my understanding.
My friend nodded and asked, “Haven’t you heard the popular saying, ‘Leaders love multiple choice questions’ (领导最喜欢选择题)?”
I noted that this strategy also works with recalcitrant eaters as in, “You can eat your cornflakes with milk or without milk” because the child thinks she’s in charge even as she eats the cornflakes.
If possible, my friend’s smirk deepened.
Impressions of the differences between Nantou and neighboring villages
Guankou and Yijia Villages are located just outside the Nantou Old Town Arch and revamped walking museumon by way othe Shennan Road – Nanxin Road pedestrian overpass. The villages abut each other along the old, narrow road, which used to run parallel to Yuehai Bay and connected Nantou to Shekou. Guankou and Yijia are slated for renovation at some point in the future. In the meantime, they are “just places where poor people live” as someone said to me, indicating disapproval of my photo-walk through the two neighborhoods.
Guankou and Yijia interest me because the village architecture is actually older than much found in the Nantou Old Town walking museum. Many Nantou residents built handshake buildings before the area was designated for historic preservation. Consequently, what remains in Nantou are handshake and factory buildings from the early 1990s, as well as particular buildings that had been designated historic landmarks. In contrast, the old centers of Guankou and Yijia were untouched during the 1990s village building spree and littered (and I use the word deliberately) with all sorts of old and interesting buildings.
Now, inquiring minds may wonder: why is Nantou, the imperial capital of the area with a 1,000 year history gutted of historical architecture (except in the renovating) and Guankou and Yijia not? Continue reading
Shenzhen Noted 