photo assortment

Firstly, more photos from 798 taken during my second trip there. Above and below, beautiful courtyard where a tree had been entirely wrapped with red string. This curved concrete bit is actually an entrance to a gallery. Very cool and minimalist.

Haha! Duchamp goes to the chinaware factory.

Yes, Ally, I went here! The coffee shop with a coffee cup filled with (real!) coffee beans for a door. They played American country western music, which seemed a little odd to me.

Another door. For the "weird signs in English" photo album. For some reason the Chinese characters are traditional which are not used in mainland China.

798 is pretty grungy, but that's what makes it so cool. Artists looove the grungy grimy.

Factory which is still being used as such.

Tonight is the last night of celebration of the Chinese New Year (the lantern festival), and also the last night to set off fireworks. Fireworks and firecrackers are readily available during this time of year, and anyone can buy them and set them off, anywhere, anytime. Since loud noises are believed to scare away evil spirits who might be lurking at the start of your new year, it would seem that almost everyone in Beijing participates in this ritual. Although they are beautiful and New Year's Eve at midnight was incredible, after about 3 weeks of constant booming (daytime, too!) I'm really quite ready to have it come to an end. Earlier tonight there was quite the upset in the ACC dorm because we thought that the new CCTV building had caught fire from the fireworks. For a panicked 15 minutes or so we were all leaning out the windows trying to see through the haze and smoke (caused primarily by the fireworks, and only somewhat by the fire). Turns out it was a nearby building instead, and the fire was put out fairly quickly. Still, this is why letting a city of 17 million people set off fireworks at their leisure and discretion is not entirely without risk. The CCTV building is an architectural marvel and was only recently finished. It looks like this: http://images.businessweek.com/ss/05/12/china_wonders/image/cctv.jpg (there is a current name-the-building debate going on, and the vast majority of Beijingers are already referring to it as "The Big Underpants")

These are Longgan- a fruit I'd never seen before coming to China. Since I'm all about rare/ unusual fruit I was really excited when my roomate brought these home. On the inside they are sweet and translucent like a grape but have a pit like a cherry. A little obnoxious to eat but it's worth it.

Time for shower and review the characters one more time and then sleep.

Available Job Opportunities in China

Since, as you all know, Beijing has a huge population, there is always someone willing to take a job that another person won't. Therefore, I have thought of a few new opportunities that could be implemented to better use the man power of Beijing's everyday person.

- What Not to Wear Zhongguo: a Chinese version of the US's tv show with Stacey and Clinton, except geared towards Chinese aesthetics. I.e.; in China it might be okay to wear a puffy, furry panda jacket to work, but there are rules! For example, a panda jacket must never be paired with pink butterfly boots. (Unfortunately I don't yet have pictures of this phenomenon- this isn't the Sartorialist.)

-Official Map Maker for the 798 contemporary art district. Description: help people find their way around this confusing neighborhood. Making maps, by definiton, is not the same as making art. Visitors can't find the art with out a map!

A view of 798 art district. I went there last weekend with Katie and Margaret (my friend from Oberlin who is also in Beijing for the month of January). 798 is a really fascinating district- all of the buildings were built as factories in the 1950's and 60's in conjunction with Soviet Russia. They are all giant, with Bauhaus architecture and giant saw-tooth rooflines. Many have huge windows, providing a perfect space to make art, which is why in the 1990's the Central Academy of Fine Arts moved their sculpture studio into the then-vacant factories. This jump started what is now Beijing's most thriving contemporary art neighborhood. It's a really exciting place, and even though I don't think the three of us chose a good day to go (since many galleries were closed and there weren't many people around), I can't wait to go back! (http://www.studio-international.co.uk/reports/beijing_798.asp- a nice brief history of the area, if you're interested)

We weren't exactly sure what this space was- we walked into this gallery (museum?) that was open but in the midst of putting up a new exhibit, and they had this really swank lounge area that probably becomes a bar on the weekends. That giant brick column is actually a giant smoke stack that goes through the ceiling.

- Pollution Particle collector (description: picks the dust and grime out of the air with a large, wet cloth). Apparently many of these people were employed before the olympics, but now they've gone back to their day jobs.

This is the view from my room on a pretty bad pollution day. This isn't a bad photo, and the window isn't that dirty- you just can't see buildings very clearly when it gets so smoggy. Uck.

This is the view with my back to the entrance to Tiananmen- the furthest left building is Mao Zedong's mausoleum (pretty sure). Gross, right?

Looking towards Tiananmen (note that the sky is white, not blue)- this is the entrance to the Forbidden City (aka gugong), which I also went to last weekend. The Forbidden City was home to the emperor during the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

A close-up of a door in Gugong- very beautiful.
Me standing in front of one of the facades- it was so cold I think it made me smile weirdly.