Absurdity, Allegory and China

The Haihe is the river the runs through the middle of Tianjin. Along with all-other things Tianjin, the riverside has changed dramatically over the past decade, though it is still, as it always has been, a great early morning place to wander and see the Tianjin seniors exercising, fishing, conversing or just strolling along forwards and backwards, alone and together. What the Haihe is now hardly resembles what it was like in 1998, except, of course, for the color of the river which is an unappetizing dark shade of …. Well, I’m not really sure what color to call it. Perhaps that’s why I prefer these photos to be black-and-whites. River traffic is not nearly what it was back then, and small ferries that moved pedestrians, bicyclist and motorcycles across from Hedong to Hexi have been replaced by bridges packed full of cars. There used to be many ping fang along the river, but all of those homes are now gone. But still there are the seniors.

I’ll be turning my cameras on the Haihe over the next few weeks and uploading them here. Below are a few samples. Click on the photos for a much larger version.