China: Remember Old Kashgar?

Plans for the redevelopment of the Old City of Kashgar, Xinjiang, China. The plans will radically change the neighborhood, replacing the old-style alleyways and houses with contemporary Chinese apartment block style residences.

At the heart of Kashgar is the so-called Old City. Of tremendous historical value, the twisting alleyways and haphazardly built houses clump together and spring out of the city’s terrain in an organic and natural way. After sporadic uprisings and fighting between Uighurs and Hans, the Beijing-controlled municipal government has unveiled plans to completely renovate the Old City. Uighur families who’ve lived in the same location for, in some cases, hundreds of years will be uprooted and resettled in cookie cutter apartment blocks built according to contemporary Chinese building standards. More at GAIA PHOTOS

Family Portraits of all 56 ethnic groups in China

Chen Haiwen, a photographer, recently lead a team of 14 photographers to create a book entitled, “Harmonious China: A Sketch of China’s 56 Ethnicities.” The team spent one year travelling all over China to complete the project. They ended up taking over 5.7 million photographs.

See more at ChinaHush
Via

Mao Badges

See more Pins and Badges from the Cultural Revolution
Via Plep

China Gold at the Aristide Maillol Museum

I visited the home and burial place of sculptor Aristide Maillol in Banyuls-sur-mer last spring and made a promise to myself to visit the Paris Museum dedicated to his work. I was doubly pleased when I found that the museum was hosting an exhibit of the work of modern Chinese artists.

Visitors to the exhibition are greeted by a sculpture of a large golden astronaut with a missing finger by Sheng Qi, followed by provocative paintings, prints and numerous images mixing photography and other media. Sheng Qi, who after the events of Tiananmen, cut off his finger and buried it in a flower-pot before leaving China only to return to his country years later.

I really enjoyed it. They didn't allow photos but I snapped a couple of surreptitious ones.
Does this Mao make me look thin? I thought so.

Here's a Maillol sculpture:

The Little Nightingale

All who watched the opening ceremonies at the Beijing Olympics were touched by the performance of young Lin Miaoke. It turns out she was lip synching to a recording by the even younger Yang Peiyi. It seems that Yang's uneven teeth, while unremarkable in a seven-year-old, were considered potentially damaging to China's international image. I feel bad for little Yang Peiyi who was considered too ugly to perform in front of the world. I think she's as cute as can be.


It reminds me of the Nightingale fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen which also takes place in China:

The Emperor of China hears that one of the most beautiful things in his own land is the song of the nightingale. He sends his courtiers to take a nightingale from the nearby forest and present her as a guest at court. The bird can communicate with the humans and agrees to come, but when the Emperor is given a mechanical nightingale covered with jewels, he loses interest in the real bird, which flies back to its home. The mechanical bird breaks down. When the Emperor is taken deathly ill, he learns only the song of the real nightingale can restore him to health.

Maybe there will be a fairy tale ending and little Yang will get her chance to shine before the games are over.

Paper labels

Beautiful set of Chinese paper labels on Flickr
Via DRB

Renovating Beijing’s Historic Homes

"Chinese believe that in a siheyuan you can feel the spirit of the earth because unlike in a high-rise apartment, you step on it every day."

These historic homes in Beijing appeal to me but scores of these buildings have been demolished to make room for highrises. Many owners/restorers of these old houses are wealthy foreigners which raises all the sorts of issues around gentrification but they are perhaps the only hope for the preservation of Beijing's historic architecture.

The Official Communist Party Guide To The 2008 Beijing Olympics

This Guide will tell you everything you need to know about the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Greetings, roundeye! The Glorious Party of Chairman Mao eagerly awaits your arrival here in Beijing for these Games of the 2008 Summer Olympiad. Our preparations for the Games are now complete. We’d just like to let you know that 4 million construction workers DEFINITELY DID NOT DIE during the construction of the Bird’s Nest. Those cries and shrieks you hear from countless mothers and fathers as you walk down the street are not from grief. They are simply overwhelmed about the fact that the Games will soon arrive at long last.

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Return of the ivory trade

Poaching tusks of endangered animals to make tourist trinkets? I'm disgusted.

The world trade in ivory, banned 19 years ago to save the African elephant from extinction, is about to take off again, with the emergence of China as a major ivory buyer.Read more

Communist Utopia

I've posted a lot of Chinese propaganda posters but I'm pretty sure I haven't posted these.

China as paradise (1972-1976)

The chaos of the civil war is hidden behind the optimistic images of the early 1970s. They create the impression that China is a paradise, where abundance reigns and everyone is happy.

2008 Beijing Olympics Song

Charming song found at Smashing Telly along with the following helpful translation of the lyrics:

“When you see our Olympics on TV in America, you will shit your pa-ants. We take your capitalism, sell you plastic toy and build ourselves a free-eeway. There are a billion of us, we are very indu-ustrious, you can never wi-in. Repeat 78 times: There are a billion of us, you can never wi-in.”

Their words - not mine.

People's Park

Photographer Kurt Tong recalls his childhood as he visits China's forgotten parks in a slideshow at foto8

Via Metafilter

Year Of The Rat

Happy Chinese New Year! Welcome to the year of the rat. Let's celebrate it with links.

A rat quiz
Chinese zodiac
A collection of rat facts
Chinese New Year recipes
Decorate your home

I've left the best til last:
Eat a Rat

Great Leap Backward?

Chinese content to re-live Mao era - over a meal

Five decades ago, Mao launched the first communes -- which, of course, featured communal kitchens -- with the Great Leap Forward, an effort to spur the economy that instead caused a famine that killed as many as 30 million people.

Is it nostalgia for this period of starvation that has led to the recent spate of of restaurants that hark back to China's Cultural Revolution? Perhaps Europe can follow their example and open restaurants themed around the bubonic plague, complete with pustule-covered waiters.

Cheap toil builds Beijing Olympics

Olympics all work and no pay for migrant workers

For most of the construction workers, the Olympic projects are just another job. Most of them earn only $4 a day. They often work from 5:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., then from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 or 7 p.m. Most are required to pay for their own meals, which consume as much as a third of their income. Almost all of them lack any health insurance or insurance against injuries or death, even though China has the highest rate of fatal occupational accidents in the world.