Archive for the 'Art, Games and Hobbies' Category

28
Jun

Mahjong in the rain

By Sue Anne 2 Comments
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies and Street Stories

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The raucous clatter of tiles was unmistakable as I approached the corner of Zhijiang Lu (芷江路) and Xizhang Bei Lu (西藏北路) in Zhabei district.

In a public playground, groups of middle-aged to old people were lazily gathered for an afternoon of mass mahjong and card games. A large spectator audience followed like moths to a flame.

It was a typical way for a community to pass the Saturday afternoon and enjoy the fickle spells of cool summer sprinkles. It hardly bothered the patrons who sheltered themselves under makeshift tarpaulin tents.

Ironically, all of this was taking place in front of a video arcade where a few bored teenagers were furiously driving virtual cars and zapping aliens.

Outside, cigarette smoke and tea wafted through the air, interjected by the occasional victorious shouts of “Peng! (番)” (1 peng = 2 points, or a win) The crowds were a mix of older local Shanghainese but also middle-aged migrants with a penchant for the game.

Further down Xizhang Bei Lu where the sidewalk was about 4 persons deep, clusters of mahjong and card tables were also set up.

Space is relative in a city like Shanghai and residents are highly adaptive. Be it winter or summer, there was always time for a spot of mahjong. You can sometimes see them in neighborhood alleyways and courtyards but also on public sidewalks to reach a larger audience (or pool of potential players). It was a form of community lifestyle that has accomodated the reduction of public space as longtangs modernized into private apartments and sidewalks reduced for asphalt roads etc.

Just as a gruff old man slammed down a winning tile and yelped out, “Peng!” I heard an echo of another “Peng!” coming from an open window. Peering in, I watched another cluster of residents, about 4 tables worth, vigorously playing mahjong with the radio blaring in the background.

Just then, a young boy strolled by with his head buried in a game on his phone, nearly crashing into the outdoor mahjong session.

June 2011

14
Mar

Le Printemps Arrive!

By Sue Anne 1 Comment
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies and Street Stories

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The current ugly smog Shanghai is experiencing right now might have fooled us into thinking the past two days of brilliant weather was a dream.

It wasn’t.

I hope you enjoyed this weekend to the fullest, a sign of more cheery spring activity to come.

I had a wonderful and inquisitive audience for my talk on documenting street stories at the Suzhou Bookworm which hosted the Suzhou Literary Festival. Thank you all for attending! Then, celebrated it with friends drinking beer in the Bookworm’s courtyard and even maanged to chat with the wonderful author of the Inspector Chen series, Dr Qiu Xiaolong! Another highlight was a quiet stroll through the lanes behind Suzhou’s Shiquan Road (十全街) which I recommend to all.

On Sunday, I started my morning at Glamour Bar by the Bund, facing an audience of 200 people and introduced our book “Still More Shanghai Walks” with my co-authors for the Shanghai Literary Festival. It was daunting but I made it through in one piece thanks to familiar faces in the audience.  It remains a huge honor to be on the stage with established historians of our fair city. Thanks again to my dear friends for being there!

My heart felt full with the brilliance of sunshine and the shedding of the cumbersome overcoat. I wanted nothing more than to simply share the joy of sun and breeze with all around me.

And so, I present to you, archived photos of a stroll through the Shanghai Botanical Garden from two springs ago. At a whim, I attempted to be alternative and tried experimenting with an old 80s’-built Chinese Seagull rangefinder and expired film. Little did I know the accuracy of the rangefinder was way off, evident in its results.

But who cares? Nature’s beauty can be interpreted in all forms. Someone asked me over the weekend, how important equipment was in photography. I said it was important enough, depending on your purpose. But never let equipment enslave you. Revel in its limitations, and never lose sight of the joy of shooting.

Here’s to spring!

P.S The book giveaway is still on till Wed!

28
Feb

Mosaic-tiled public service posters in Ruihua Lane

By Sue Anne 5 Comments
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies, Street Stories and The Lives Within

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[Note: I've closed comments on this specific post as it seems to attracting spammers.]

I wasn’t quite sure how I landed in Ruihua Lane (瑞华坊) which is nestled between Fuxing Middle Lu (复兴中路) and Hefei Lu (合肥路). It wasn’t the most direct of routes but I found myself admiring a display of public service posters made up entirely of large mosaic tiles.

I caught an older resident walking his dog, and asked if he knew when these posters went up. Sometime in early 2000s, he replied, not too long ago.

Though slightly fading, the posters, in good Party-like slogan fashion, reminded residents of behaviors that supported a civilized society: protecting the environment (绿化美化，保护环境), maintaining neighborly and familial harmony (邻里团结，家庭和睦) (with the classic 2 grandparents-2 parents-1 child family structure), keeping law and order (遵纪守法，遵纪秩序), helping others in the footsteps of the exemplary revolutionary hero Lei Feng (学习雷锋，助人为乐)  and promoting the belief in science to combat superstitions (普及科学破除迷). The cartoons were cleanly drawn, made to resemble that of a young child, but effective.

But why here on Ruihua Lane, and not anywhere else? I wondered. After searching for similar art in neighboring lanes, I found other mosaic-tiled posters but only with more detailed text (of soft warnings for safety) and no pictures.

After a little bit of research, I found out that Ruihua Lane was believed to be a good neighborhood due to its proximity of wealthier occupants in nearby Jinan Lu (济南路) before 1949. It was also close to the site of the first National People’s Congress (全国人民代表大会) meeting on July 23, 1921 which was also marked the birth of the Chinese Communist Party. Or as most would know it now as Xintiandi (新天地). Politicians attending the NPC meeting had apparently resided in Ruihua Lane during that time including Leng Yuqiu who had served in the Republic of China army and met with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Zhu De.

Sadly, in a matter of another year or so, Ruihua Lane would be no more. Almost a third of the residents in that lane have moved out and the entrances to their homes have been bricked up to prevent squatters. But mostly as a ringing sign of its pending demise. This is the case of many neighboring lanes in the area.

While the mosaic posters were not heavily aged, they were an evolved version of civil propaganda, using long-standing Party concepts but revised for more modern times as opposed to older images of peasants and workers. We’ve left that behind us a long time ago.

As such, they made a colorful addition to the lane’s character. The only irony is that as reminders of enduring good behavior, they will suffer the fate of a limited shelf life.

February 2011

24
Jan

Getting into the mood for Chinese New Year (Part 1)

By Sue Anne 2 Comments
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies and To Market, To Market

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We are a little over a week away from Chinese New Year. China goes on holiday on February 2nd (night before Chinese New Year or 除夕 (chu xi)) for a full week.

One must be deaf and blind not to be aware of the coming festivities, the most important (and the start!) of the Chinese calendar. The bright reds and gleam are plastered all over the city and the new year songs set on an annoying repeat in malls and restaurants. Vendors and migrant workers are readying to head home (or have already done so to avoid the crush of peak travel). “Be back in a few weeks.” When? “We’ll let you know.”

This past weekend, I made my way to Fuyou Lu Wholesale Market (福佑批发市场) located next to Yuyuan Gardens (豫园), to pick up some Chinese New Year decorations. The market is well-tuned to all major holidays all over the world, especially Christmas and Chinese New Year. All goods are manufactured in Guangdong province, whose tagline really should be “Guangdong: Manufacturer of all tinsel and other crap to the world”

On December 25th, all Christmas related decorations were hauled away and by December 26th, the market was decked in red on all corners of the roads and in the first floor of the building. Trinkets ranged from lanterns and mock firecrackers, stuffed toy rabbits in varying designs and sizes, paper decorations of rabbits (since it is after all, the Year of the Rabbit), fishes (a play on the greeting 年年有余 – to have excess/(rhymes with fish) each year) to characters of wealth (福), spring (春) and other good wishes.

“We sell to the end of January, after that, everyone shuts down,” a vendor tells me, charging me RMB 15 (USD 2.30) for a two-piece wall decoration of a giant gold rabbit. Barely minutes later, I watched a woman toss RMB 8 (USD 1.20) on the table for the same thing.

Only a week before Chinese New Year, the crowds were relatively tame. Last year, I bought my wares 3 weeks in advance to ship back to Singapore. I had literarally fought my way through rushing hordes in narrow aisles. 1 hour of frenzied shopping later, I emerged triumphant with 2 bags, my hair askew, 1 glove lost and eye makeup smeared from the shoving. By the second day of the new year, I noticed most of the decoration had started to fall apart. C’est la vie.

This time, lesson well-learnt, I walked away with only a paper deco and a string of silk-sewn zodiac animals. Still, the ruckus was fun if not a cheery way to get into the mood for the new year.

January 2011

21
Jan

A slice of winter wonderland

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies, Portraits of Strangers and Street Stories

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In the three years living in Shanghai, I’ve never really encountered a good snow day. You know, the kind that can silence a city, or in the case of Shanghai with its over 20 million residents, muzzle the few that a hard snowfall can drive indoors. I miss that heavy silence and emptiness of an ongoing snowfall, like a perfect vacuum in outer space.

I savoured a brief moment in the garden of my compound yesterday where the grass was coatedwith a light dust of white. Traffic was sparse for no parent would allow their child to catch a cold in the deceptively chilly snow.

Save for the little boy I spotted from my balcony. A dark spot was moving patiently across the patch and back again. It was a little boy rolling a snowball to birth a snowman. I felt compelled to join him even as a spectator.

By then, a few residents had taken to strolling around the garden, on the small knoll and around the pond which had frozen over. The palette of neutrals was enormously pleasing.

The boy’s snowman was modest despite his best efforts, evident by his small hands which had turned red from the cold. By then, he had armed himself with an umbrella to focus more thoroughly on his endeavour. It was around noon and the snow kept coming down, softly but steadily.

Nearby, another young boy was pelting his nanny with small snowballs. He mimicked the first boy in attempting a snowman, who by this time was comically fighting the uncooperative umbrella while grappling with the snow.

“Why don’t you give him a hand?” I suggested to the second boy who immediately went over and lifted the umbrella by the tip. A stunned look turned to grattitude and finally, the body met a head and the snowman was completed.

The two boys then departed separately, leaving a small and sad snowman behind with two thin arms and no eyes or mouth.

Nearby, a mother kept a watchful eye over her son as he tossed pebbles into the pond. Lest he, like any of us, would be curious to test the sheet of ice on the pond.

January 2011

07
Jan

A review of 2010 (part three)

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies, Behind the Camera Interviews, Portraits of Strangers, Street Stories and Take To the Street

I leave you with the third installment of my review of last year’s work. I bid you good weekend. For those in Shanghai, do bundle up. Maybe we’ll bump into each other on the streets this weekend.

I was recently gifted a Blackbird, Fly Toy Camera, an adorable 35mm “toy” twin-lens reflex (TLR) camera. I believe this is when purists go “pish posh”. I say, “time to find me some film”.

The street art you see above is by the talented Grayson Stalling, located along the stretch of Moganshan Lu.

July: Was a good month for street photography and shadows. I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Tang Ying (唐颖) whose sublime street photography both in Shanghai and San Francisco (and now doing wonderful work in Europe) is worth revisiting.

“And then the sun came out to play”: The late afternoon is the witching hour for street photography, what with the falling sun and sharp shadows that take a life on its own.

August: “The tale of a skaterboy” – I met Wan Cheng (万成) at The Love Park, a key skateboarder’s hangout south of the Shanghai Concert Hall (上海音乐厅南广场). He took off his shirt to show me a tattoo of his mother. One of my favorite stories.

“Echoes and the crunch of broken glass”: A footnote on the joys of exploring old abandoned factory spaces. In this case, the former Philips light bulb factory.

September: “Haircare” - Mr Baldy and Mr L’oreal meet. Enough said.

A review of 2010 (part one) (part two) (part four)

06
Jan

A review of 2010 (part two)

By Sue Anne 2 Comments
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies, Portraits of Strangers and Street Stories

I continue with a review of my favorite (and yours, in some cases) photos from 2010. It’s always nice to look back at the style and subjects of past work, as an assessment of how much one has learned and how far more one has to go.

April: “Speak softly, but carry a big can of paint” - My first encounter with one of the many talented street artists that grace the infamous Moganshan Wall which morphs every so often. Go quickly to visit before it is torn down.

“Portraits of Strangers #1″: Armed with an old-school 50mm 1.8, I decided to capture portraits, as close as possible. This portrait is by far my favorite of the lot. There is so much character in one’s face.

May: “Lessons from shooting 2010 <我在上海 世博特刊>” - I shot the magazine cover of a travel magazine for Taiwan’s largest travel agency, Lion Travel. Hilarious stories would ensue, also known as “Dangers of photographing snotty children”.

“Sunrise on the Bund (Part 1)”: A month after the newly renovated Bund opened, the only time to take it in all its splendor is at sunrise. Old men kite flying, drunk youths racing and morning tai-chi.

June: “A Photographer’s Eviction from the house on Yulin Road” - A beautiful row of houses that retain their original interior, but unfortunately falling apart. An adventure to photograph it runs a little awry.

Behind the Camera with my friend Xi Zi (席子) on documenting Shanghai’s longtang and shikumen, available in English and Chinese. Do check out the site he administers, Shanghaimage. You will be awed by how much heritage architecture that goes unnoticed, though rapidly disappearing, in the city.

Also recommended, Katya Knyazeva’s elaborate work on Old Town (老城厢), her interview here.

A review of 2010 (part one) (part three) (part four)

01
Dec

DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) Shanghai (Part II)

By Sue Anne 0 Comments
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies

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DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) Shanghai 2010 (Part I)

A final round up of photos from the DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) Shanghai 2010 before I return to street stories that involves 2 wheels rather than 4, and million-dollar dreams rather than million-dollar cars.

I particularly enjoyed the wide-eyed amusement and fascination by the predominantly Chinese audience who had gathered to watch the DTM. I mean, who wouldn’t with gleaming metal being wheeled out one after another? The audience ranged from luxury car clients or lao bans, who were gifted complimentary tickets, many of whom tagged along bevies of young girlfriends wrapped in knee-high leather boots, fur coats toting designer bags. To hardcore racing enthusiasts and pimply school boys and girls, the latter in giggle fits after having a driver autograph their notebooks.

The largest group had to be an audience who had not paid for tickets but enjoyed the race from behind metal fences, standing on every major corner of the race course. I refer, of course, to the workforce supporting the DTM organizers: namely the security staff and construction workers.

I’ve never seen so many rent-a-cops in one location before. There weren’t as many police as expected – the young and strapping kind with riding boots, aviator sunglasses and crisp blue uniforms. Even those present had a gleeful grin, some even armed with cameras themselves.

No, we were surrounded by middle-aged to past retirement men in dusty grey-blue security guard uniforms in various state of in/activity: sleeping on benches, smoking in groups and generally, gulping tea in street corners. For the most part, they seemed quite pleased to be there, herding tame crowds and enjoying the cool weather with plenty of metal candy at their disposal.

Then there are workers in charge of assembling the race who stood on lorries and pickups parked alongside the race. They had a much better view so much so that actual ticket holders clamoured on board as well. In the end, with less people attending a rather spectacular event, the mood was relaxed which made it easier to enjoy the thrills of the 60 laps of the final DTM race.

Of course, the ones with the best view had to be the local staff posted to the paddocks. I met a young gentleman who was a businessman by trade, in charge of measuring the temperature of tires that had just come off the wheels of the race cars in the pit stop.  He had volunteered through a contact, and wanted to have more action beyond a ticke stub.

Armed wth his nifty thermometer gadget, and me and my camera, we both agreed, as far as bystanders are concerned, we had the best view of all.

29
Nov

DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) Shanghai 2010 (Part I)

By Sue Anne 2 Comments
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies

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I had the pleasure of watching the DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) Shanghai 2010, also known as the China Street Race, this past Sunday. It was held around Century Avenue in Pudong where streets were shut down for three days. If you were nearby, or had watched the semi-finals leading up to Sunday, you may have heard, or witnessed some rather epic car crashes.

I have been to a couple of car races in my time and paddock action is always very thrilling, what with the smell of burning rubber and deafening bellows of revving engines. Street racing has not caught on in China as yet but it is expected that the steady demand for high-performance cars will eventually translate into a bigger DTM following.

“In recent years, the luxury car segment in China has been growing more than twice as fast as the other segments. If everything goes well, sales of luxury cars should approach 700,000 units in 2010, a year-on-year increase of 70%,” said Zhang Xiaojun, executive vice-president of FAW-VW Audi Sales Division. Meanwhile, JD Power & Associates predicted that luxury car sales in China will double by 2015.

Attendance that day was not even close to 10,000 spectators as compared to an average of 80,000 in Europe. Nevertheless, Asia is the only region DTM has held races outside of Europe and China is a major focus for the organizers and definitely Mercedes and Audi.

The results are as follows: A thoroughly British win, Paul di Resta won the DMT championship but Gary Paffett won the race in Shanghai. Both raced from Mercedes.

Audi had an impressive rookie, Miguel Molina, who took fifth place with a very long stint first strategy where he he drove 39 laps on his first set of tires, and then stopped on laps 39 and 43 (each car makes 2 pit stops per race which consists of 60 laps).

I was in Molina’s paddock and could feel the heat emanating from the tires when the pit staff tossed them behind. It takes about 3 seconds for a team to switch an entire set of tires. Boom, boom, boom and they’re off.

I’ll spare you my pedestrian commentary. A more elaborate review of the DTM Shanghai race can be found here.

DTM (Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters) Shanghai (Part II)

18
Nov

Patrons of street art

By Sue Anne 1 Comment
Categories: Art, Games and Hobbies, Street Stories and The Fading Vestige

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“What is this?”
“What does this all mean?”

Existential questions? Hardly. Just curious thoughts being blurted out, accompanied by some headscratching.

This past summer, I met with BrandFury and Grayson, Shanghai-based street artists on active demolition site – an acre of rubble - now sadly flatter than a panini.

Whipping out bags of spray paint, they began doodling. Chances were, the walls would be taken down in a matter of weeks.

We attracted a few individuals: the demolition company’s lady boss , a few construction workers and one or two migrant workers – all from Chongqing.

One gentleman in particular stood there for a long time, trying to make sense of it all. I gave him Grayson’s moleskin sketchbook, and watched him thumb through page after page of intricate designs destined for Shanghai’s walls.

Grayson’s work is mostly intricately sketched portraits and emblems with great detail and a very Australian aboriginal feel to it, You might have recognized it on Moganshan Lu (莫干山), a stretch of wall in Shanghai popular among graffiti artists.

“Do you have a favorite design?” I asked, watching the middle-aged man, mesmerized by the book. He hemmed and hawed, I could tell the designs were very alien to him.

Pressed for an answer, he stopped at a page and pointed at a design. A large diamond.

We smiled at each other.

July 2010

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