Drying Clothes Chinese Style

Classmates

We've just lost Shou老师(teacher Shou), since her student teaching is finished., here's my class with her (excuse spelling): [back row] Duan (Vietnam), Dahai (Syria), Megan (Korea/Australia), Katya (Russia), Andre (Russia), Jeff (USA), me (USA), [middle row] Ti (Cambodia), Zidar (Turkmenistan), Eda [in pink] (Croatia), Priscilla (Uganda), Lalei （Iran), Manamee (Japan), Eszter (Hungary), [front row] Sarah (USA), Shou老师 (China), Micky (Japan), [very front] Arianna (Mongolia/Angola)

My Chinese buddy Elephant and I. Many Chinese have crazy names like this, I also know a "Commander" who happens to be a girl! but when you want a more interesting Chinese name, they're always like, Oh no! you can't do that- that's ridiculous! which is pretty funny- they dont even want me to have more than two syllables for a first name or 1 syllable for a family name, yet it is fine for them to be Elephant, or Commander, Dream, or Smacker. The bottom line is that remembering their Chinese names is really really f'ing hard, so Elephant he is!

Folding Bikes

As you probably know, China has a huge population of bike riders, and you should see some of the stuff they ride, as well as carry around. A lot of them now ride mo-peds, but the other new thing is these folding bikes with the smaller wheels. My bike got stolen a while back so I decided to get one that I could keep in my room. It has six gears and moves surprisingly quickly. It also folds/unfolds in seconds! You can buy really good American made ones (that are actually cheaper there than here!) called Dahons starting at around $200 for one with gears. Cant believe more people havent cottoned on yet.

To make up for recent lazy blogging,

I present you with excerpts from the Chinese art students' talent show!

M Art Center

Some traditional Chinese painting, apologies for the glare, but is somewhat unavoidable when there is glass and low light in these quick-shot situations

Around Hangzhou

Amusing I think. There is a lot of this around. Cant help chuckling.

The metal you see here is entirely comprised of stainless steel nails, hammered into wood cores.

Shamefully (because I liked his work), I have forgotten this artist's name and I think I wrote it down, but have yet to find on what! Anyway, these are from a series called "Crazy English," when he followed the pioneer of promoting English learning around various events in China, which are amusing to see because off the bat, you assume it is some kind of socialist event! but no! they are being encouraged to "Speak Out in English!"

Day's Best (Or an Indication For You)

This was my favorite work of the day, a series of photos and the objects themselves, showing the unwrapping of a glass, and what I believe to be the painting of the tissue paper from the packaging while it was still crumpled up... unwrapped, I think it is surprisingly nice.

my photo of the actual glass, and not a photo of a photo

this is the actual paper, and not a photo of it.

Around Moganshan Lu

More Moganshan Lu

Some huge galleries in Shanghai! (this is the basement, hence the low ceiling)

Moganshan Lu, Shanghai

So this weekend, I went to Shanghai again. Honestly considering there is a large art school in Hangzhou, there are surprisingly few contemporary art galleries, I can count two at best. Perhaps this will raise some ire, but when I say contemporary, I am not referring to anything being made now, but art that bears a specific connection to the current times, specifically- so I do exclude traditional painting from "contemporary art" (regardless of the skill exhibited and when its made) unless its meaning or subject matter are tied into something specifically of our time. I might like it, in a purely visual manner, but I tend to think about it more as craft. Anyway, this is not to say there aren't a plethora of galleries in Hangzhou, mostly exhibiting traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, and of course the ubiquitous and nauseating impressionism that is usually saturated with flowers/autumn leaves/thick paint daubs/french cafes/what have you. And although the China Academy of Art seems to have speakers and guests from the "contemporary" art-world, I can never understand the flyers that are posted around here, so I tend to miss out on a lot of that stuff. In fact I really need to meet some of the people in the "Experimental Art Department" here, since there doesn't seem to be an overground scene I can find. Ok that tangent being said and done, the main area for galleries in Shanghai (basically the Chelsea of Shanghai) is Moganshan Lu. Within this street, there is a large area of converted warehouses that is called M Art Center. There are A LOT of galleries here, ranging from good to bad. Most of the ones in this complex do not allow pictures unfortunately, but maybe that will just spare you seeing some bad artwork. Well some was good. But the Shanghai art scene is pretty interesting, and still developing of course. I did not see much evidence of censorship- there seemed to be a fair amount of stuff referring to communism and nudity (not always together :)) but really it wasn't exactly testing the censors patience either so I dunno. From what I have heard Shanghai's art scene is much more commercial than Beijing's and some notorious features are : lots of paintings of Chinese with big eyes (Zhang Xiaogang), lots of empty references to Mao/communism just as a sort of style statement, etc. Anyway, I've included some pics so make up your own minds.

M Art Center courtyard