Edwin's Blog 2008

September 19, 2008: SUZHOU...

2008-09-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Suzhou, a city around 35 miles northwest of Shanghai in Jiangsu province, one of China's richest. We went to the center of Suzhou, and visited a number of the gardens in the old part of the city surrounded by a moat and remnants of the old city wall. We first went to the Humble Administrator's Garden and then explored some of the older streets, and had lunch of dumplings with Ariel and Matt. We then went to the East Gardens and saw a leapard, lion, and panda in the city's zoo. After the zoo, we split up into two groups with one group taking the bus back while myself and about half the group decided to try to take the train back. We walked to the train-station and stopped at the Beisi Tower, a Buddhist temple with an eight storey pagoda tower that dates from the Song Dynasty. From the top we had a great view of Suzhou, and had a bird's eye view of a Buddhist ceremony being performed in one of the temples in the complex. After dinner in the old city, we took one of China's high speed trains back to Shanghai. While the morning bus ride had taken a little under three hours with traffic, the train got us back to Shanghai in about 40 minutes.

Matt and Edwin in the Beisi Tower

September 18, 2008 -- the Shanghai Art Scene

2008-09-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we went to the Shanghai Museum, a four story world-class museum ten minutes walk from the hotel, located next to People's Square. The Museum is now free and hosts impressive exhibits of ancient Chinese bronzes, painting, furniture, sculpture. I particularly enjoyed the coin exhibits, as they feature some of the world's earliest coins and paper money, which was invented by the Chinese.
At noon we met up again in front of the Shanghai Museum of Art and got to see works by some of the most famous Chinese contemporary artists, including Yue Minjun 岳敏君 who had built a giant set of steel dinousaurs -- with human heads. The dinosaurs were made of the same steel used in cars and painted with the same kind of paint, a subtle message about the potential consequences of our fossil fuel based economy...
We went over to Tianzi Fang, an art district in central China, and after exploring some of the galleries (where paintings were selling for 20-30,000 yuan (about 2-5,000 US dollars) I had lunch at a New York style pizza place with Steven, Megan and Christian. In the evening we went back to the hotel where people took advantage of the swimming pool and gym. In the evening a large group of us (Ila, Sam, Braeden, Madelyn, Megan, Steven, Stan, Christian and myself) went over to a Xinjiang Muslim style restaurant, where we had Naan bread, lamb kebabs, lamb and noodles --- a feast for about $6. A number of the students felt a little bad for the waitresses who were made to fetch cold beers by the table behind us (and made to go back out again when the beer they had selected wasn't correct).

Wednesday, September 17, 2008 -- waking up in Shanghai

2008-09-18T15:49:00.000-07:00

We arrived into the Shanghai train station at 6:00 am -- early on we ran into a small problem: Sylvan had left a book and Zhoucun sesame cakes on the train and after no more than 2 minutes on the platform, remembered them and went back to look for them -- they were already gone. I went back to look through his room and couldn't find the cakes but under the bed found Christian's suitcase -- an art piece he has been working on, inspired by a Chinese artist who builds transportable cities in suitcases.

Director Ding from our hotel was at the station to meet us with a van, and we were at the hotel and checked in a little over an hour after arriving at the station. In the morning, I did a little exploring and prepared maps of the surroundings to hand out to people, and then walked down to the Yu Yuan Gardens and Bund, crossing the Huangpu river on a ferry and coming back, in order to prepare for our afternoon and evening excursions. At 2 pm we met in the hotel lobby to walk over to the beautiful Yu Yuan gardens where after taking a few group photos, we decided to let everyone explore on their own. In the evening we met up for dinner and then took a bus to the new section of the city, Pudong, where we went up Jin Mao tower, one of the world's ten tallest buildings, and designed by an American architectural firm. We took a ferry back across the river and had a view of the elegant Bund, a strip of colonial era banks and hotels built by European firms in the early 20th century. We walked along the expansive, raised marble street in front of the Bund; the many Chinese flags atop each of the colonial buildings were brighly lit and fluttered crisply in the light wind.

September 16, 2008 -- Exhibition Day!

2008-09-18T15:37:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe how quickly time has passes -- it is now exhibition day! Installation took most of the morning, and we had a quick lunch, some of the professors didn't even have lunch as they worked straight through to the opening ceremony at 2:30. At 2:00 we went over to visit President Pan in his spacious office, where we gave each of us gold plated medal coins, featuring the bust of Confucius, designed by one of SUAD's professors. At the ceremony, I translated the short speeches by Ying and Christian (who was the US student representative) into Chinese, and then got to enjoy all of the fantastic art pieces. Matt and Li Guang's video attracted the most attention, and I was flattered that they included a short cameo of me pretending to be a rock star at the end of their video. In their piece, Li played the role of a Kong Fu master, battling out a game of Chinese chess with a Western Cowboy, played by Matt. Images of the normal LI and Matt in t-shirts were interspliced with images of Li imagining an epic battle between East and West. In the end, neither Matt nor Li wins the game, and they walk off into the sunset as friends. In the evening we went to another fantastic dinner, hosted by the SUAD's Vice President Li. I sat next to Wang Han Chen, and Professors Luo and Jiang, who kept repeating how wonderful the US students were this year. He also apologized for some of the problems they had had with printing out projects, which surprised me, given how rarely people directly appologize in Chinese culture in my experience.
In addition to toasts by Vice President Li and Ying, a number of the students proposed toasts to the Professors and Ying. Professors Jiang and Luo were very impressed with Stan and Sam's drinking ability, and Professor Wang, Wang Han Chen's father, poured Stan a full glass of Baijiu, white alcohol, and encouraged him to stay in China because he was such a good drinker. After dinner we drove directly to the train station, and Jackie, the head of the International Affairs Office, shepherded us through the station and onto the train. The sleeper cars he had helped us purchase were very comfortable, and I stayed up until about 11 talking with Steven, Ila and Christian about their experiences and the coming US election. It was a really full day, and one of the most satisfying so far.

September 15, 2008 -- Zhoucun & Progress Review

2008-09-18T15:32:00.000-07:00

Today we had breakfast at 6:30 and went on a 90 minute bus ride to the city of Zhoucun, near Zibo, north of Jinan. We were accompanied by a Jinan government official as well as Jackie, who had arranged for our participation at the opening ceremony for the city of Zhoucun's fifth annual cultural festival. We saw performances by the Zhongguo Lamei, (China spicy sisters) as well as an introduction to the history of Zhoucun performed by two 10 year olds -- it was an amazing show, with fantastic drumming and a very powerful sound system. After the performances we went to see some of the old sections of the city and got to see how one of the city's most famous foods, Zhoucun Shaobing (sesame seed cakes) were made and had an enormous lunch, courtesy of the local city government. We drove back to the new campus and worked there from around 3 to 8:30 at night, finalizing the projects for Tuesday's installation and exhibition.

September 14, 2008 -- Baotu Springs, Qianfo Mt, KTV

2008-09-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

Today we had an early breakfast and went to visit the springs for which Jinan is famous. We went to downtown Jinan, and had an hour to visit the "leaping leapard spring" --- the park also featured two Seals, a new addition from last year. The word for seal in Chinese is "hai bao" (sea leapard) and I think the common character in the name of the spring is why they chose to have two seals in the park. I got to see a memorial temple for Li Qingzhao a famous Song dynasty poet from Jinan, who also lived in Hangzhou (like me!). After the park, we met up with our Chinese partners at Thousand Buddha Mountain and hiked the mountain; I went with Matt, Madelyn and Brooke and their partners Li Guang and Zhang Wenqiu to visit a few temples and see a giant golden Buddha. A few people tested firing arrows at targets and went on the bumper cars. At lunch I went back with Zhang Wenqiu to check on Lexis, who had been feeling sick and then went with Zhang to the KTV place we had booked the night before. Everyone met for lunch, some going to KFC, others trying out Chinese style fast food. Karaoke was a lot of fun, and Lexis joined us and sang a number of songs -- it was a really great atmosphere. The Chinese students smuggled in food and drinks, and I sang "Yueliang daibiao wo de xin" with Zhang Wenqiu. In the evening we had dinner at the school cafeteria and ate "basi digua" candied sweet potatoes -- something I'll definitely miss when we get back to the States!

Saturday, September 13

2008-09-15T18:48:00.000-07:00

Today we went to the new campus to work with our partners -- everybody felt a little under pressure because today was the last full day of work before progress review and the installation on Monday and Tuesday. People are finishing their projects at different speeds and some people left early today, while another group stayed on in the evening. I have been having lunch and dinner at the new campus with Wang Hanchen, son of one of SUAD's senior professors, Wang Chuandong, who hopes his son can go to the U of O as a junior and so wants me to help his son improve his English. At dinner I shared with him a language trick, telling him when he doesn't understand someone who speaks English to him, he can say, using an even tone of voice: "really?". This way he can give the appearance of understanding, and half the time, the person he's talking with may repeat what they just said, giving him an opportunity to really understand it.

Friday, September 12, 2008

2008-09-12T17:46:00.001-07:00

We had a more Western-style breakfast this morning, with strawberry jam, bread, boiled eggs (as opposed to tea dyed eggs) and fresh watermelon and canteloupe. In the morning everyone worked on their projects at the new campus, and I had a good time helping people translate -- it was fun to see everyone's projects developing so quickly. In the afternoon I printed out maps of the neighborhood around the old campus and our revised schedule and gave them to everyone -- about half the students went back early and I was happy to learn that Steven and Lexis found the nearby McDonalds by using the map.

In the evening I had dinner at the cafeteria with Professor Wang Chuandong's son, Wang Hanchen and two of the Chinese partners (Sylvan's and Sam's). At one point Guo Xiaochuan, Sam's partner, turned to me and asked: when he had joked that Sylvan's partner was "a gay" (Xiaochuan used the English word) all the Chinese students laughed but the American students didn't -- why didn't the American students laugh? I replied by asking him why he thought the Americans didn't laugh, and he said that he thought it was because Americans value privacy and don't like talking about private things. At that point the conversation turned to some other subject, and I thought to myself it nicely reflected the complex interactions between American and Chinese cultures on many levels.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

2008-09-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

Today Professor Tan took 13 of the students to the village of Weifang, which is renowned for its kite making, and the production of Chinese new year's prints. The bus ride from Jinan is three hours, and so Sylvan, who was feeling sick to his stomach decided not to go. Ying gave me the day off, and so Sylvan and I had a nice lunch at the cafeteria of kugua (bitter melon) youmaicai (rapeseed) and niuroujianjiao (beef and peppers) and talked for almost two hours. In the afternoon I got a Chinese style haircut with flair for 20 yuan -- I asked the stylist if he could make my hair look like his and he said it would take two hours of perming. I passed on the perm, and went out for a dinner of traditional country food with everyone when they came back at 6 pm. We got served beer in shallow bowls, in the traditional way --- I've been delighted by the way this trip has been packed with new experiences even though I did the program last year.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

2008-09-12T04:20:00.000-07:00

Today was a full day at the SUAD's new campus -- in the morning everyone worked on their projects and I helped with some translating and looked at the banners and English language materials that will be used in the exhibition.
After another generous Chinese lunch at the cafeteria, we went on a tour of the brand new museum of Chinese folk arts. To the untrained eyes of an art novice, the four story museum could rival any art museum in Beijing or New York. It was comfortably air conditioned and built out of white marble. One exhibit of the living room of 19th century Chinese gentry featured a mantle piece with a vase on the right side and a mirror on the left. The museum guide explained that this was a Chinese pun: vase is ping, and mirror is jing -- reading from right to left as in traditional China, pingjing means calm and stable, suggesting that the family will be blessed with stability and calmness. The tour guide also showed us two beavy stone lions with red ribbons tied around their necks. Their purpose? Chinese housewives would attach their babies to the lions so that they couldn't wander away.
After visiting the University's museums, we were treated to calligraphy lessons by the head of the calligraphy department. Everyone got to try Chinese calligraphy, writing their names or other phrases on Chinese rice paper. In the evening we had dinner with the Chinese partners and went back to the old campus to work on projects and catch up on the blogs.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

2008-09-10T06:46:00.000-07:00

Today we had breakfast at 6:30 and were on the bus to Qufu at 7. Qufu is the birthplace of Confucius, who lived from 551 BC to 479 BC, and is revered as the philosophical father of Chinese and East Asian culture. After a two hour bus ride, we had time to visit three different sites in Qufu: Confucius' temple, his mansion, and cemetary. We had an English-speaking tour guide whose explanations added a lot to the experience, and who was flexible enough to let us have some free time for people to work on projects and explore the temples themselves. She passed on a number of interesting stories about Confucius: his theory that to be a gentleman one had to master six arts: poetry, music, archery, charioteering, mathematics, and calligraphy. ront+of+Confucius+Grave+corrected.jpg">
After another enormously rich lunch at a 4 star restaurant, courtesy of our Chinese partners, we drove to Mount Tai, China's most sacred mountain. Mount Tai was the place where emperors would go to thank Heaven for military victories. 6,6666 stairs take hikers from the foot of the mountain up 1500 meters to its peak; they are seperated into 19 platforms, and in imperial times, Emperors would perform rites to heaven at each of these platforms. Because of time we took a cable car up to the
18th platform and hiked the last portion. It was cool and misty on the top of the mountain (it was over 90 in the valley) and there was a spectacular view. The rock of Mount Tai is viewed as extremely lucky, and is said to encourage peace and harmony in the family, so many Chinese have rocks from Mount Tai in their homes and businesses.

In the evening we drove back to the old campus where we had another enormous meal with Professor Lou, our Chinese driver, and the two SUAD students who have been taking photos and filming every part of our experience in Jinan. The meal included 12 dishes, with two kinds of fish, king prawn, amd fried locusts....

Tomorrow we'll go back to the new campus to work on projects with the Chinese students and learn some calligraphy in the afternoon.....

Monday September 8, 2008

2008-09-08T02:01:00.000-07:00

This morning we had a fantastic breakfast at the old campus, hosted by Director Kang, with tea-dyed eggs, egg cakes, zongzi, and Chinese sausage. We then loaded up the bus and went to the new campus which looked even more impressive than last year. They now have a beutiful 4 story museum and the grounds are lush with plantings and trees. In the morning each of the students introduced themselves and some of their artwork and I translated. My personal highlight was one student who had two interactive websites, one where the user chose a drink that represented their boyfriend or girlfriend. Lexis chose orange juice -- the Chinese girl giggled -- and a page popped up that read: Choosing orange juice shows that you want to have sex (fasheng guanxi) with your boyfriend / girlfriend. I have never seen anything so explicit in a work or school context before in China, and it was especially shocking for a place like Shandong. The next interactive site the student showed featured a Chinese pun: a teacher tells his students their test will be really easy (shifen jiandan), but all of the students do poorly. Why? The teach explains: shifen jiandan, shengxia jiushifen hen nan. (it's a play on the expression shifen jiandan - which means both extremely easy and ten points easy - the teacher's explanation: ten points on the test are easy, the other ninety are hard!)
After introductions we went to the cafeteria where we had an enormous lunch with the Chinese students before going on a tour of the university's impressive facilities. The university has brand new sculpture and graphic design studios, and many of the U of O students said they wished they could come to SUAD for their postgraduate studies. In the evening we had another large dinner and then went back to the old campus, and went to bed early -- tomorrow we get up at 6 am to go to Mount Tai and Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

2008-09-07T09:01:00.001-07:00

We got to sleep in this morning, and then checked out of the hotel at 12:30. We took taxis to Beijing south train station, which is very sleek and modern. The train to Jinan was also very modern, and when we arrived in the city, Professors Kang and Wang had a large banner ready for us as well as a film crew and a team of translators. It was good to see Jackie and Wang Chuandong again, as well as Wang Peibei and Guo Rui, the translators from a year ago.

We had an amazing banquet in the evening hosted by the SUAD Vice President Li Xin. Steven sang a Scottish folk song, Ila and Lexus also sang songs and the food was almost endless. Meiwei Jiayou as they say in China.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

2008-09-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday night I went with Ryan to the hospital where he got IV treatments until 1 in the morning. It looked like he got bitten by an insect and his ankle swelled up -- he was in tremendous pain, and it turned out the doctor's treatments weren't effective. Saturday morning I got up at 5:30 and we got our stuff together to go to the Great Wall -- once we got on the wall it became apparent that Ryan wouldn't be able to hike it and so Ying took him to a local hospital and then back to the People's hospital.

I hiked the wall and took a detour with Megan through the valleys next to the wall. We got to see old farmhouses and corn, though had to haggle with guides over the expenses. We had an early dinner at a farmhouse near Simatai, and then went back to the city. In the evening a group of students went out to Houhai club areas. Tomorrow we'll take a train to Jinan.

Friday, September 5, 2008

2008-09-05T02:49:00.000-07:00

Today we got up at 7:30 to go to the Temple of Heaven, stopping on the way near a hutong by the White Tower Temple (where we had breakfast the day before) to have a delicious Northern Chinese breakfast of egg pancakes (jidanbing) and oily bread (youtiao) then we took the subway to Qianmen, where we got off and walked the Imperial march toward Tian Tan (the Temple of Heaven) just as the 22 Emperors after Yongle would have done. We walked around the Temple of Heaven for two hours, before getting back on the subway to head back to the hostel. Everyone was really impressed with how modern the Beijing subway was, especially the digital advertisements projected on the side of the subway tunnel as we sped underground. In the afternoon, I had a nice leisurely lunch with Sam, Stan, Ryan, Matt and Christian at a restaurant near the hostel -- we had xiangla tudousi (fried potatoes) yaoguo jiding (cashews with chicken), a spicy chicken dish, and yuxiang rousi (fish flavored pork) and then had jinyin mantou -- fresh out of the oven and dipped in condensed milk sauce. In the evening everyone worked on their Beijing projects -- Ila , Ryan, and Megan worked on some beautiful water color sketches, Sam made a modern style propaganda poster, and Christian worked on creating a 3d suitcase piece, inspired by a Chinese artist. I'm really looking forward to the review when we get to Jinan, when I'll be able to see everyone's final projects.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

2008-09-05T02:28:00.000-07:00

For breakfast this morning we walked down past the White Tower Temple and stopped at a little Chinese bakery where we got "san jiao" (triangular molasses pastry) and traditional northern "mantou" -- wheat bread. We walked over to Jingshan park in the morning where we got a great view of the Forbidden Palace and all of downtown Beijing. We then went into the Forbidden Palace and explored for several hours -- I had "suanlatang" with Ying, Sam and Madelyn and then did some exploring around Tiananmen. We met up at the Tiananmen flagpost where we did some performative art that attracted a crowd which police had to break up. In the afternoon I went with Braeden, Stan, Ryan, Sam, Megan, Lexis, and Ariel to yaxiu shopping center and then met up in the evening at the Laoshe Teahouse. The program was a little different from last year, with a new acrobatics program and an Olympic tea ceremony.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

2008-09-03T08:18:00.000-07:00

Everyone in our room got up early this morning - at 6:30 I was the last person to wake up! We first left for Caochangdi at 9:00 am from the hostel and got taken around the contemporary art district by the Director and Owner Mr. Sun. He talked about how crazy the Chinese art scene is, how commercial it is, as well as some interesting political ideas about the Olympics and China's century of humiliation. He was overflowing with energy, and showed us several really impressive galleries. We then went to lunch and the famous 798 art district where I got to see an Andy Warhol exhibit at the Pace, Beijing. At 2:30 we got on the busses to head for the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Chinese premier art academy where we met with Professor Xiao who took us to an impressive Olympics Art gallery where we saw a number of pieces related to the Olympics. The building itself was a work of Art, covered in slate tiles at a slight arc, the building was distinctive, modern and very classy. We went to Professor Xiao's private studio and then had a twenty course meal (at Professor Xiao's invittion) at a luxurious restaurant.

Monday, September 1 - Tuesday, September 2

2008-09-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

I got up at 3:30 in the morning to have my roommate Ruixue drive me to the airport. There was so much fog we ended up driving really slowly and got to the airport a little after 4:30. We got on the plane and got into San Francisco at 7:30 in the morning, with three hours to kill in the airport before the flight to Beijing. Lexis' plane was rerouted through DC, and so instead of meeting her in S.F. and taking the same plane, I gave her the cell phone numbers of Ying, the hotel and the drivers who would meet us at the airport.... We had $3 coffees at the airport deli, our last meal in the States for three weeks! We got to go with the US paraolympics team and the flight went smoothly. When we got to the airport we found Lexis and the driver pretty easily and then headed back to the hotel, where we had a late dinner at a delicious dumpling restaurant close to the hostel. The Beijing airport looked amazing, with vaulted ceilings, a sleek train that connected us to baggage pick-up, and one of the most advanced parking lots I've ever seen.

Friday, August 29

2008-09-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

We met up today for lunch at China Blue to have a taste of some Shandong food (the owner is from Qingdao, not far from Jinan) We had the place almost to ourselves and the owner came over to talk with us about Shandong and how she came to the United States. Yesterday, Christian, Ila, Sam and me met up at the AAA library and worked on the designs for the t-shirts, and Sam has already begun making them. We ended up combining Ariel's design as well as Ila's and Sam's with "Shandong University of Art and Design and the University of Oregon Exchange Program" in arced Chinese at the bottom.

Potluck -- August 26: six days to Beijing!

2008-08-27T02:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone for all of the wonderful food at tonight's potluck! Matt, Stan, Ila, Christian, Sam, Megan came over tonight for a relaxing potluck and movie -- we also discussed the t-shirt making and designs and watched "All Men are Brothers - Blood of the Leopard" a 1992 Hong Kong kung fu movie with Tony Leung. Time is going by so quickly -- I can't believe that will be flying to Beijing in less than a week!

Wednesday, June 25

2008-06-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

I met up with my new Taiwanese roommate, Yin Chin at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art and got to see a really impressive set of new exhibits. There was a really wonderful reception with an incredible spread of food, live jazz band, and waiters who walked around offering guests caviar on endive and baked brie.... you could almost feel yourself becoming more elegant and discerning with each passing moment....

There were about twenty giant photographs of contemporary China from Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, with scenes from Shanghai's booming industries and the construction of the Three Gorges Dam. There was also a really interesting room of an assortment of metalwork, with a wall of miniature houses, that when you stooped down to look through the windows, you got really surprising views.

Thursday, June 19

2008-06-19T19:02:00.001-07:00

I'm really looking forward to this summer -- with the Olympics this is such an exciting time to be going to China. Thanks to everyone who came over yesterday night and brought snacks. Thanks especially to Ila's mom for the delicious home-made humus!

Just one more week before going to Portland and then Taiwan... it's amazing how quickly time passes.