Absurdity, Allegory and China

“I’m in shock. I haven’t eaten in five days. I was in prison in Beijing and now here I’m in a [Brooklyn] restaurant.” – John Watterberg, who, along with another American from Students for a Free Tibet, had a life-altering four-day stay in a Chinese jail during the Olympics, for a five-second wave of a [...]

[Read more →]

Here in Tianjin for the past month it has been quiet, and the normally grimy air has been cleaner. The Games brought a relative peace to the city, if not the promised Olympic windfall, since a dozen soccer matches is hardly enough to make a dent in the vacancy rate of the large number of [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve been trying my best to follow a particular story since its initial announcement on March 10, 2008. And now finally some word about the world’s most expensive train: the proposed luxury line from Beijing to Lhasa, single ticket price – a mere 40,000 RMB (today, $5,849 USD; 4,000 Euros). No, there is not an [...]

[Read more →]

Last March I wrote a post anticipating the Olympic protests in support of a ‘free’ Tibet. Nothing prescient, mind you; anyone with a tooth in their head, and a lot of folks without, could have anticipated attempts at extreme displays. If your plan is to make a scene, I am asking you to review your [...]

[Read more →]

In early June I went to the CCTV Bldg. to have a look and what I found cocked my brow a few degrees: on the roof of the northwest tower, Tower 1, there was a helipad, a circular affair that oddly took the edge off the well-defined linear profile. A circle of all things! As [...]

[Read more →]

As the flap over the audio and video enhancement of the Olympic opening ceremony widens, Zhang Yimou, the director of the spectaculorama, is taking it on the chin. The foundation of his reputation was built upon his portrayal of life in the countryside, showing the world a side of China that the Chinese were not [...]

[Read more →]

I managed to score a free ticket to the US-China basketball game this past Sunday evening. My default resistance to being part of any crowded event usually keeps me far from large, snot-spitting sporting events where the object seems more about getting worked up into a common lather than it does about any higher ideals. [...]

[Read more →]

I’ve just arrived back in Tianjin from four days in Beijing, and there’s so much to talk about I hardly know where to begin. Photos of the CCTV Headquarters Building seems to be as good as place as any while I collect my thoughts. There’s the bullet train from Tianjin to Beijing (and vice versa, [...]

[Read more →]

Last night while I was talking with my mother in Philadelphia, a wonderful woman (she’s my mom, after all), she said, “I heard that there was another earthquake in China close to where the big one was in May.” I told her I’d not heard, though as we chatted I got on the web and [...]

[Read more →]

Whether or not it is official I cannot say, but it appears as if Tianjin has gone to Plan B. I just received word that the odd-even vehicular restrictions will go into effect tomorrow, Wednesday, August 6, effective through August 15th. From 12:00 to 22:00 inside the outer ring road – though not including the [...]

[Read more →]