As everyone knows, Suzhou is famous for its Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) gardens, built by wealthy families as retreats from busy urban life and cultural centers for them to meet with their fellow elites (the best English-language academic study of these gardens is Craig Clunas, Fruitful Sites: Garden Culture in Ming Dynasty China). The name “garden” is a bit misleading. These large walled-in compounds were designed to be both living quarters for urban elites and miniature worlds, with complex yet aesthetically satisfying arrangements of mountains, rivers, oceans, and forests represented by well-placed rocks, ponds, creeks, and bonsai gardens. Thus, they represented the fantasy of man’s domination and control over the natural world, or if you prefer a more euphemistic term, man’s “harmony” with nature.
Read MoreBeaches and Buddhas: A Weekend Trip to the Zhoushan Islands of Shenjiamen, Zhujiajian, and Putuoshan
This past weekend our friends Paul and Stephanie organized a trip to the Zhoushan islands off the Zhejiang coast (see this nice map).
Read MoreAnother Sign of Old Shanghai Vanishing
This morning we were surprised to find blue skies instead of the usual rain. My mother and I took advantage of the weather and headed out for a walk. Our mission was to find the former address of an acquaintance of hers in the Boston area. Her friend, a 70-something year old man named Rolf Wetzell, grew up in Shanghai. He left in the late 1940s on the eve of the revolution, and never returned. He wanted my mother to find his old house, which he said was located at lane 189 on Kinnear Road.
Read MoreShanghai Gloaming: A Videographic Portrayal of the City in Flux
A review of a doc film on photographer Greg Girard and his work photographing Shanghai's disappearing neighborhoods
Read More(mis)Representing Beijing: A Review of _Beijing Time_ by Dutton et al
In an effort to cash in on the Olympics, a flurry of books has been published recently on the topic of Beijing. These include several histories of the city, such as Geremie Barme's _The Forbidden City_ and Lillian Li et al, Beijing: From Imperial Capital to Olympic City as well as books by Stephen Haw and Jasper Becker, all of which have come out in the past year or so. It seems that everyone is rushing to the publisher to get their Beijing book out before the Olympics hit in an effort to boost sales. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does have the potential pitfall of creating a bunch of hastily written thinkpieces.
Read MoreSex and Politics in the Orient: An Interview with James Farrer
James Farrer is a sociologist at Sophia University in Tokyo. Author of the book _Opening Up: Youth Sex Culture and Market Reform in Shanghai_ (Chicago, 2002) he specializes in the study of modern and contemporary sexuality in China and Japan. For several years, James and I have been collaborating on various projects surrounding nightlife cultures in Shanghai and Tokyo (see my previous blogs on Dr. Sex Life and on our special nightlife issue). I've been meaning to post an interview with him about his various research projects for a while now. Finally got round to it. Here are my questions to James and his responses:
Read MorePunks on Stage in Shanghai: Re-TROS at Moganshan Lu STD Party
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: The Rogue Transmission, Boys Climbing Ropes, and Joyside at Windows Underground
Somehow I managed to get the boys out of the restaurant and into a taxi without any violence and we headed over to Windows Underground. We got there in time to see Dan Shapiro’s band Rogue Transmission.
Read MoreWindows Underground: A New Bastion for the Rock Scene in Shanghai
Last night Mency and I met my friend Mo Jin, who is back in town for the weekend, and together headed over to the new Windows Underground. We arrived at 11 pm in the middle of the Secondhand Roses (ershou meigui) concert. This Beijing-based band delivers a powerful mix of northern-style folk rock enhanced with traditional Chinese instruments. The male lead singer has a campy singing and operatic performance style, and is known to dress up in women’s costumes. They looked like regular rockers last night though, and like my friend Dan Shapiro (Handlebar Dan, though he shaved his whiskers for the summer) said, these guys don’t need a gimmick—they’re solid.
Read MoreHappy Children’s Day, Shanghai
Yet another week gone by, with me getting older, fatter, and none the wiser. Isn’t that just life? The only consolation I have is to live vicariously through younger folk like my three-year old daughter Sarah. In celebration of Children’s Day, we took her out to brunch at the Paulaner Brauhaus with our friend LK and his wife Ranran and daughter Samantha. The heavy German fare now sits in my intestines like a lead weight. So much for losing a few pounds. Oh well, there’s always tomorrow.
Read MoreA Message to China: Stop Eating Shark Fin Soup! 鱼翅汤背后的成本：鲨鱼可能消失
For some years now, ocean scientists and many other concerned citizens around the world have been aware of the danger that shark finning is bringing to the world. Sharks are being consumed by the millions, just for their fins. After being brutally definned, their bodies are tossed back into the ocean to die. This is going on in support of a multi-billion dollar industry surrounding the purported benefit of shark fins for human health—a completely unsubstantiated belief. China is especially guilty of contributing to the extinction of sharks worldwide. Here in China, shark fin soup is considered a delicacy, and people pay a premium to consume it.
Read MoreNightlife in China: A Special Issue of _China An International Journal_
We are pleased to announce that our collective research project on
nightlife in contemporary China, after some trials and tribulations,
has finally been published. Below are the article titles. This issue
of _China: An International Journal (CIJ)_ is now available online and
may be accessed through university library websites. I uploaded my own essay onto this site and it may be downloaded by clicking on the link below.
Read MoreEarthquake Rocks Sichuan, but Shanghai Parties On
A description of news reports on the earthquake in Sichuan, and a visit to a Shanghai nightclub...
Read MoreSix Shanghai Walks: One Down, Five to Go
On Friday May 16, I took 20 NYU in Shanghai students on a walking tour of the heart of the old French Concession. I’d given tours of the area before, which is rich in historical buildings and neighborhoods, including the old French Park (now Fuxing Park) and the home of Sun Yat-sen. This time I decided to use the book The Streets of Changing Fortune: Six Shanghai Walks as the basis for the tour. Written by Barbara Green, Tess Johnston, Ruth Lear, and Carolyn Robertson, this is the first of a (now) two-part series of guided walking tours of the city.
Read MoreShanghai in May: A Renewed Love Affair with the City
May has arrived in Shanghai, and with it the best weather this city offers. The trees are all in full leafy array. Birds twitter in the parks. The skies are generally sunny, and the air is warm but not yet hot and sultry. A cool breeze blows through the city, keeping the air as clean as a metropolis of 20 million residents could be.
Read MoreA Virtual Tour of the Paramount Ballroom, 1930s Shanghai's Finest Dance Palace
In 2004 I made these short films discussing the history of the Paramount Ballroom, Shanghai’s finest ballroom in the 1930s.
Read MoreHoly Hollywood! Welcoming John Cusack to Shanghai
Lately I’ve been dusting off my old photographs of Shanghai to show a man who plans to play an American in a film about Shanghai in 1941. Last week John Cusack arrived in Shanghai with his mate/producer/handler, Nick Gillie.
Read MoreTintin in the Land of Snow: Tibet, China, and the West
Ah, Tibet. Land of the high plateau, the monstrous snowy peaks, the lofty lamaseries, and the mysterious Yeti. When I was a child, I devoured the Tintin books. The story of how Tintin and Captain Haddock bravely rescue the Chinese boy Chang after Tintin has a premonitional dream of his friend surviving a plane wreckage somewhere in the mountains of Tibet—what an epic tale! Who could forget the surly Nepalese porter, the wonderfully humane Abbot who harbours Tintin and the Captain after their near death, the levitating seer, the heroic struggle and refusal to abandon their Chinese friend despite all the dangers, and of course, the loveable and misunderstood Yeti?
Read MoreDartmouth in Beijing Presents: Preserving the Hutongs of Beijing
Last fall, at the end of the Dartmouth in Beijing FSP program, my students delivered several outstanding presentations on the history and contemporary society of Beijing. I am putting these online so that others may benefit from them. The file size is a problem, since these are all nearly one-hour presentations, so I've compressed this one in mp4 form, hence the fairly low quality. If anybody has an idea for doing it better, let me know. This presentation is about the Hutong neighborhoods of Beijing and what is and can be done to preserve them.
CIEE Workshop On Improving Teaching, Learning, and Intercultural Understanding
Two weekends ago CIEE (the Council for International Educational Exchange, a program that I teach for involving American students studying abroad in China) organized an excellent workshop here in Shanghai.
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