found objects: houhai

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this entry unites two of my obsessions: discarded objects and the houhai land reclamation project.


looking from old coastline toward the houhai land reclamation

in shekou, the land reclamation project continues, with new housing developments popping up like mushrooms after a spring rain, so to speak. like any good mushroom, these developments thrive in dark and fetid spaces, only to be washed up and presented as luxuries. the first step in growing a development mushroom is razing whatever came before (in the sense of shenzhen history: this entry presupposes that the rural has already been displaced). what came before is usually narrow, one-story high temporary concrete structures, which functioned as residences and small businesses (more or less from the 1980a), but also more substantial, once-upon-a-time intended for the long haul, housing (late 80s, early 90s).

step two in cultivating mushrooms is picking through the rubble, scavanging whatever might still be of use–plastic can be sold, as can metals. as i stepped through the remains, i found a small clay teapot and picked it up. one of the pickers yelled at me in a henan dialect that i didn’t understand. when i asked if she wanted the teapot, however, she said no, adding in mandarin, “it can’t be sold.” she wasn’t interested in talking with me, lugging her scavagings to a truck, where a man weighed and bought them.

pickers, like this woman, move onto the temporary rubble heaps, setting up campsites that blend into the rubble. indeed, the campsites are difficult to distinguish from the garbage. the tents are made from the same plastic the pickers are scavanging and the kitchens seem burnt piles of stuff. but looking closely (or prying as the case may be), i saw fresh vegetables, packaged foods, and soap, although no source of fresh water. at this site, there were two campsites, and each had a separate stove. lucky pickers have a bicycle to cart findings to collection stations, where they can sell them.

step three, of course, is the arrival of construction crews. images of objects found while others picked, here.

signs of various kinds

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it’s not easy being a prostitute

back in shenzhen, wandering the streets of shekou, reorienting myself to newly paved roads and recently razed sites. signs of all kinds assault the eyes: graffiti (of varying quality), the ubiquitous advertizing (even garbage cans can be rented to eager merchants), and, of course, deng xiaoping’s calligraphy, which once confirmed reform and now is itself advertizing for the seaworld plaza. a selection of signs, here.

leaving north carolina

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back road, moore county, north carolina

carolina sky, sharp and clear in the winter, set-off by stark pines, uplifting tired eyes. images here.

Happy Year of the Pig

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saturday, feb 18 is the first day of the year of the pig. as far as i know, everyone is looking forward to a fat year: get rich young piglets. i found these messages more difficult to translate than the solar new messages, because they’re not only more punny, but also more culturally specific; understanding the joke requires knowing lots about what pigs mean in chinese culture. anyway, the joke, of course, is always the pig’s identity. i’m in north carolina, but friends have generously forwarded lunar new year’s greetings. here are three text messages making rounds in shenzhen:

瞎子
算命极准
众人抬来褪过毛的
你伙伴让他算。
瞎子
摸后大喜，道：
臀宽肚圆，是个党员；
脸大眼小, 是个领导；
细皮嫩肉，正在保鲜。。。

the blind person
tells super accurate fortunes.
a crowd brings over the trussed up, de-haired one
to have it’s fortune told.
the blind person
upon rubbing [the pig] says happily:
a fat butt and round belly, you’re a party member;
a round face and small eyes, you’re a leader;
fine skin and soft flesh, you’re keeping fresh.

here, the joke hinges on the line 众人抬褪过毛的 which implies a trussed up, de-haired pig that has been brought to market. however, the 的 makes the pig implicit, because the next character is the pronoun “you”. the final pun is between keep fresh and keep the avant-garde party line.

猪的四大理想： 四周篱笆全撒掉， 天上纷纷掉饲料， 地球屠夫死翘翘， 世界人民信回教。 感谢猪先生对人类做出的贡献！ 希望肉价不要在上涨。

a pig’s four ideals: fences on all four sides have been knocked down, feed continuously falls from heaven, all the earth’s butcher’s die with four limbs straight up, all the world becomes muslim. thanks to mr. pig for their contributions to humanity! hoping that meat prices don’t go up.

this one rhymes, is easy to memorize, and contains great images. i didn’t get the muslim line until yang qian explained that muslims don’t eat pork! i knew that but… i had been thinking in religious terms, where the joke is that for most han chinese, muslims are defined by the fact that they eat lamb and don’t eat pork. yang qian kept chortling, “all the world becomes muslim, of course pigs would be happy!”

２００７猪年守则
吃嘛嘛香－－－－猪的食欲。
睡哪哪酣－－－－猪的睡眠。
面对挫折－－－－死猪不怕开水烫。
自信遗失－－－－猪鼻子里插葱：装象。
做事待人－－－－猪八戒被媳妇：肯花力气。
招财进宝－－－－发如肥猪，少生疾病多养猪！

2007 year of the pig resolutions [or to paraphrase bill murray in caddyshack: BE THE PIG]:
everything you eat, tastes good—-a pig’s appetite.
everywhere you sleep is comfortable—-a pig’s sleep.
when facing tribulations—-dead pigs don’t fear boiling water [1].
on loosing confidence—-insert scallions in the pig’s nostrils: pretend your an elephant [2].
when working and treating other people—-pig bajie carrying his wife on his back: be willing to work hard [3].
on getting rich—-get rich like a fat pig, don’t get sick and raise lots of piglets [4]!

the footnotes:

1. dead pigs don’t fear boiling water is a phrase used to criticize someone’s indifference to a matter that other’s care about.
2. the scallions are the pig’s “trunk”. the phrase 装象 puns 装像, an expression that means to fake it.
3. an allusion to “journey to the west”, pig bajie wanted a wife and so carried any woman on his back to see if they liked him.
4. 猪 pig puns 珠, the word for pearl.

happy chinese new year!

wintersun, charlottesville, va

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skyward branches

i shared a snowday with my nieces and nephew in charlottesville, va, a life so far from shenzhen that i often can’t put my worlds together. not in any coherent way. when in charlottesville, i don’t remember much about shenzhen. while in shenzhen, i often forget how to walk from my brother’s house to the nearby trail. and yet the pictures all line up next to each other on this blog. enjoy the wintersun

for it is thou

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for it is thou

before boarding a plane back to north carolina, shirley and i enjoyed a sunday afternoon with the dead in st. michael’s catholic cemetery, happy valley, hong kong. shirley memntioned that local graves have been moved for building projects; we speculated on how safe the cemetary was from developers. but mostly we walked in restful silence. shenzhen now has commercial cemetaries that cater to hong kong and taiwanese families seeking resting ground. for a price, of course. what’s more, most chinese people don’t spend sunday afternoons with dead strangers, preferring to visit relatives and friends on specific days. quite obviously, cemetaries are for the living and the living have different relationships to the dead. and yet. i begin to think that the point might be otherwise, or rather think that the point cannot be reduced to cross cultural ethnology, although such analysis helps and is more often than not fascinating, but rather the point is to ask what death teaches each of us, here, today. r.i.p.

南油文化广场：urban facelife, rural fairs

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nanyou cultural plaza

the nanyou cultural plaza, like most shenzhen cultural centers was built to promote high culture. however nanyou, like most shenzhen governments doesn’t actually budget all that much money for cultural production, instead requiring that center or plaza administrators capitalize on the space to keep it running. most cultural centers have achieved this by showing movies and renting space for cultural consumption (weiqi clubs, dance lessons, and martial arts instruction, for example).

the success of a cultural center depends on access–in all senses of the word–to the center. many village level cultural centers are in fact quite active because they not only target their cultural production to villagers and migrant workers, who (as rural people) share similar cultural tastes, but also are located within walking distance of most of their patrons. in contrast, street level centers, like nanyou, have to mediate between rural and urban tastes, which don’t really overlap, making it difficult to build a cultural community. consequently, these centers depend upon public transportation and private cars to bring their patrons to them.

the construction of the western corridor bridge has compounded nanyou’s economic difficulties because the street in front of the plaza has been under construction for over two years now. although the nanyou cultural plaza continues to screen movies, the entire space has been rented out to mom and pop vendors, who have transformed the space into a market for the many migrant workers who live nearby.

about five years ago, the area around nanyou was a thriving restaurant district that catered to urban white-collar workers. most of those restaurants (including macdonald’s) have moved out, replaced by small eateries and street level grills. five years ago, there were also villas and upscale residential complexes in this area. these are now being rebuilt, in anticipation of the opening of the western corridor bridge, when nanyou will again and perhaps as suddenly change character, becoming prime real estate for those commuting from western shenzhen to hong kong.

for a sense of how migrant workers occupy shenzhen spaces, please visit nanyou.

226:文化南山

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the 226: lumbering between chiwan and nine streets

in the 1990s, nanshan district tried to jumpstart the district economy through culture. in a sense, the effort was premature, as the city has only just started seriously investing in culture. nevertheless, it seemed a good idea at the time. there were two cultural pushes in nanshan. one was commercial, the other historical. commercial culture took the form of theme parks; window of the world (世界之窗), splendid china (锦绣中华), and happy valley (快乐谷) are all located in overseas chinese town (oct or 华侨城, itself both a street administration area and a major international conglomorate), which is located at the border between futian and nanshan districts. in addition, the oct corporation built the he xiangnian (何香凝美术馆) museum and a cultural center (华侨城文化广场), both state of the art cultural centers.

historical cultural development took place in western nanshan, along the eastern banks of the pearl river. nantou, the county yamen during the ming and qing dynasties is located there as are the ruins of a cannon fortress, a rebuilt tianhou temple, and the imperial grave of zhao bing, half-brother to zhao xian (赵显), the last emperor of the southern song before the establishment of the yuan dynasty. (at the grave site the bing character is written with a sun on top. however, i can’t find this character in my computor software. i searched online and came up with two alternatives, which may be an indication that most software programs don’t have this character. anyway, online the sun is either removed and the child emperor’s name is written 赵丙 or the sun and bing are separated as in: 赵日丙.)

the theme parks have thrived, but the historical sites have not fared as well. in fact, shenzhen’s purple tour bus (line 3) regularly travels between the luohu train station and windows of the world (世界之窗), the line ending even before the historical sites begin. consequently my favorite tour bus is the 226, a bus line serviced by double-decker buses so old they have wooden seats and often don’t have air-conditioning. fun stops along the 226 route include: nantou (site of the old yamen, which combines historic remnants, abandoned reconstructions, and new village life), nanshan courthouse (near canku new village, site of a small temple to the god of cantonese opera), shenzhen university, shekou (including shuiwan new village, which was one of the first villages to be rebuilt and so examplifies mid 1980s new village architecture and building scale), seaworld, and chiwan port.

this past weekend, i took the 226 to two stops: end of the line and the left cannon. the end of the line is near chiwan port, part of the large network of ports that together form “shenzhen port”. at chiwan port, a security guard asked me to refrain from taking pictures, but didn’t actually ask me to erase already taken pictures. when asked, he said there were no reasons why i couldn’t take pictures, it simply wasn’t permited. so when i turned a corner, i started snapping again.

this stop is also walking distance to the imperial grave, which is marked by a statue of zhao bing and loyal imperial minister, lu xiufu (陆秀夫). after the yuan had defeated the southern song, the last two southern song emperors fled to guangzhou, where the government was re-established. however, zhao rixia (赵日正) was executed in 1278, when zhao bing assumed the non-existent thrown. however, the following year, the yuan armies defeated the last southern song loyalists, following which liu xiufu carried the eight-year old emperor into the ocean to commit suicide. the imperial grave was restored in 1911 and marked with eight characters: 大宋祥兴少帝陵. the zhao family geneaology tells how the grave site was identified: at foot of the mountain, an old monk went to inspect the coast, suddenly seeing a floating corpse, a flock of birds hovering above. when he brought the body in, its face was as if alive, and the clothing uncommon. he knew it was the imperial corpse and ceremoniously buried it on the sunny side of the mountain (山下古寺老僧偶往海边巡视，忽见海中遗骸漂荡，上有群鸟遮居，设法拯上，面色如生，服式不似常人，知是帝骸，乃礼葬于本山麓之阳). this whole story gets retold as the origin of “kitten congee (猫仔粥)”, a speciality of fujian province.

after visiting the imperial grave, i took the 226 back toward the left cannon stop. the left cannon in question is one of eight cannons that the qing placed above the mouth of the pearl river to defend against pirates. the remnants of a small fortress remain and a statue of lin zexu (林则徐) has pride of place in the plaza. li zexu used the left cannon in his efforts to rid the area of opium, efforts which eventually led to the opium war. this is one of the few remaining mountains in nanshan, and the peak has been left for walking and admiring the chiwan port.

what i love most about this site are the fengshui trees that have grown up the side of the fortress. and although the left cannon is a designated patriotic education site (爱国主义教育基地) not many people visit, making it one of the few relatively uncrowded green spaces inside the city. photos of my chiwan tour here.

seaworld’s other: the itinerant oyster farmers

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the oyster coast

although histories of shenzhen often begin by reminding the reader that the city was once a small fishing village, nevertheless, the closest that most residents and visitors have come to the local fishing industry is on the yantian coast, where seafood restaurants crowd the space around the docks. in western shenzhen, the local fishing industry has been increasingly pushed away as the houhai land reclamation project moves the coastline closer to hong kong. this pushing increased at the turn of the millenium, when more upscale projects started reshaping local neighborhoods. however, it is only in the past two or three years, as the building projects have finished and new people moved in, that gentrification has successfully ousted most of the fishing industry. indeed, in the shadows and grind of a multi-building elite housing estate, i lost one of my favorite seafood restaurants, which had specialized in shellfish.

just beyond the the seaworld plaza, where nuwa holds up the sky, people gather to look at the ocean and the odd fishing boat. after breakfast, a friend and i walked down there; she to visit one of shenzhen’s well-known tourist sites, me to see if anything had changed. and it had. oyster farmers had occuppied the stretch of coast from nuwa toward rose garden estates and oyster shells now covered the area, creating the land for makeshift docks and oyster processing. in addition to harvesting oysters to sell throughout shenzhen, farmers were shelling and drying oysters to make oyster sauce, and then drying and grinding the shells to make a calcium supplement for animal feed. interestingly, many were not originally oyster farmers, but working on the boats for the season, after which they will look for other agricultural work.

pictures of seaworld’s other, here.

短信文化: text message culture

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dinner with beijing friends led, as it inevitably does, to conversation about why beijing and beijing people are the best. this time, text message culture (短信文化) was our point of departure.

according to wan ning and hu lin, all of a sudden people are text messaging their new year’s greetings to each other, rather than calling (as in years past) or sending cards through the mail (as in their childhood). moreover, the telephone companies, especially china mobile, encourage this behavior because every message sent is money earned. to that end, the said companies have allegedly hired couplet writers to come up with messages that will be mass forwarded to everyone on a particular calling list.

wan ning and hu lin also pointed out that beijing pizi write independent/non-corporate messages. (皮子: does anyone have a good translation for this term, which i understand as refering to rebels in the james dean way–young, disgruntled, hyper-individualistic men, who are also passionate, appealling to the rebelious heart beating beneath everyone else’s staid exteriors. yang qian adds that 皮子 are darker and more cynical than 愤青, angry young men, who grow up to be 大愤, big angries, which puns the express, big shits…) anyway, they said that if you’ve lived in beijing, you can always tell the difference between “factory eggs” and the “farm fresh”. i can’t so i’ve posted a few new year’s greetings in no particular order (again with the caveat, loosely translated and always in need of friendly correction):

友情提示未来社会：朋友比领导重要，能力比成绩重要，健康毕业绩重要，水平比文凭重要，情商比智商重要，交友比结婚重要，节日比上班重要。祝生蛋，新年快乐！ (friendly reminder, future society: friends are more important than leaders, skill is more important than grades, health is more important than outstanding achievement, talent is more important than a diploma, making friends is more important that marriage, holidays are more important than work days. wishing you a merry christmas and happy new year!)

2007年到了。别忘了给孩子们讲讲很久很久很久以前的事：那时候天还是蓝的，水也是绿的，肉是可以放心吃的，耗子还是怕猫的，法庭是讲理的，结婚是先谈恋爱的，理发店是只管理发的，药是可以治病的，医生是救死扶伤的，拍电影是不要培导演睡觉的，照相是要穿衣服的，欠钱是要还的，孩子的爸爸是明确的，学校是不图挣钱的，白痴是不能当教授的，卖狗肉是不能挂羊头的，结婚了是不能泡MM的。祝你新年快乐！（2007 has arrived. don’t forget to tell the children about how things were long, long, long ago: in those days, the sky was blue, the water was torquoise, you could eat meat without worrying, rats feared cats, the courts listened to reason, marriage came after courtship, hair salons only gave haircuts, medicine cured illness, doctors saved the dying and cared for the injured, you could make a movie without sleeping with the director, you had to keep your clothes on in a photograph, loans had to be repaid, a child’s paternity was clear, schools weren’t profit-oriented, idiots couldn’t become professors, you couldn’t pass off dog meat as mutton, after marriage you couldn’t play around with young women. happy new year!)

wan ning’s commentary: this message had changed since he first saw it. he believes that people are editing and adding to messages before forwarding them to their friends.

忍养安，乐养寿，爱养富，善养德，诚养誉，礼养谊，正养胆，廉养义，古养今，和谐养文明，时光养友情，睡眠养容颜，运动养健康！恭祝新年好！(endurance nourishes tranquility, happiness nourishes longevity, goodness nourishes virtue, sincerity nourishes reputation, courtesy nourishes friendship, uprightness nourishes courage, honesty nourishes righteousness, the past nourishes the present, sincerity nourishes reputation, time nourishes friendship, sleep nourishes beauty, exercise nourishes health! happy new year!)

translation note: 养 is one of those characters rich in cultural meaning. in addition to meaning “nourishes”, it can also mean “breeds” as in endurance breeds tranquility. the important point is that whatever or whoever does the 养ing takes pride of place in that the 养ee (so to speak) depends upon 养er for its existance.

什么是爱情？色呗。什么是温柔？面呗。什么是幽默？贫呗。什么是艺术？脱呗。什么是仗义？傻呗。什么是朋友？你呗。什么人最记得祝你元旦快乐？俺XXX呗。(what is love? sex. what is tenderness? being a wimp. what is art? stripping. what is having principles? stupidity. what is a friend? you. who is most likely to remember to wish you a happy new year? me, XXX.)

hu lin: you can tell this is fresh off the beijing farm. only beijing people use the expression “面” to mean wimp.

translation note: 呗 (bei) implies a cyncial finality–last word on the subject. 俺 (an3) is funny because it’s a northeastern expression for “I”. northeasterners remain a source of constant amusement for the rest of the country, but especially beijing. as soon as they hear 俺, beijingers start laughing because they know the non-northeastern speaker is cracking jokes (耍贫嘴), a form of verbal spoofing (恶搞). one of the funnier practitioners of this art is xue cun (雪村) from jilin. his website includes the wonderful flash version of his breakaway hit “northeasterners are all living leifengs (东北人都是活雷锋)” as well as recent songs. a fun aside and in the spirit of xue cun is cui jian’s flash version of “net virgin”.

快年底了，地下的先烈们纷纷打来电话询问。江姐问：国民党被推翻了么？答：被阿扁推翻了。董存端问：劳动人民还当牛做马么？答：不劳动了，都下岗了。吴琼花问：姐妹们都翻身得解放了吗？答：思想解放了，都当小姐了。杨子荣问：土匪都剿灭了么？答：都改当公安和城管了。杨白劳问：地主都打倒了吗？答：都入党了。雷锋问：那资本家呢？答：都进人大和政协了！刘胡兰问：同志们都藏好了吗？答：都隐身上网了。毛主席问：大家现在都在忙什么呢？答：都在斗地主。毛主席：那我就放心了！(the end of the year will soon be here, and so the martyres from below are calling to ask about the current situation.

sister jiang,”has the kmt been overthrown?”

answer: by a bian (陈水扁, chen shuibian).

dong cunduan, “have the workers ceased to work like oxen and horses?”

answer: they’ve all ceased working.

wu qionghua, “have my sisters been liberated.”

answer: their thinking has been liberated and know they’re all young ladies (小姐 also means escort).

yang zirong, “have the bandits been erradicated?”

answer: they’ve changed status and jointed the security forces and city police.

yang bailao, “have the landlords been over thrown?”

answer: they’ve joined the party.

lei feng, “what about the capitalists?”

answer: they’re now in the people’s congress and people’s political consultative committee.

liu hulan, “are our comrades safely hidden?”

answer: they’ve hidden their identity and gone online.

mao zedong, “what is everybody busy doing?”

answer: struggling with landlords.

mao zedong, “then i can rest easy!”)

i leave it to the reader to make the relevant political and gender analysis.