The Village of Tong Li, a Chinese Venice of Sorts

This past Monday, I had a chance to tag along with my aunt and uncle on their school reunion trip to a village 90km away from Shanghai called Tong Li. Yes, reunion trip. So a bus full of old people then. But nevermind.

The village is a water town, full of canals, lakes, and streams. People there travel by canal boats and of course, they cater to tourists with open arms. The main attraction there is to see the way people lived hundreds of years ago. Actually, the way wealthy people lived, because they were all old houses that belonged to wealthy businessmen, government ministers, and other peoples of fortune. So it's like travelling to Europe and tour old castles then.

I will update more on this trip when I come back to Canada. In fact, I plan on expanding a lot of these posts when I have the proper computing power to go through all my pictures thoroughly. I've captured about 1600 frames so far and it takes me as long as 3 minutes just to export a raw file into a JPG on this POS HP laptop. I hope to turn this blog into a resource for travelers to Shanghai and China. Right now, just enjoy my pictures :D

Thanks for all your comments on blogspot and facebook! It makes me happy when I read them! :)

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The Shanghai Science and Technology Museum.... Field Trip.....

Of all the days I picked to go to the Shanghai Science World, I picked the day when 50+ schools from all over China also decided to go to the museum. The screams and hollers of 10,000 kids, parents, chaperons, and teachers was a culture shock. At lunch time, everyone decided to picnic inside the building. Chubby kids gorged themselves on nothing but chips, chocolates, ice cream and other junk foods. Garbage and litter everywhere. Kids roamed free and wild. They sure were happy though. I'll let the pictures do the talking. It is something you'll never quite experience outside of China. I'm glad I was there!

One more thing. Freedom is a funny thing. I've never seen people more free to act the way they are, free to appear how they appear, and free to be who they are, than in China. You can see it in the children. You can see it in the adults. There is much social faux pas and indecencies in China that we would never get away with in Canada. We Canadians are self conscious, vain, and judgmental. We scowl at strangers who stand too close to us. We expect a thank you when we hold a door open. We care about appearing nice to the rest of the world. A lot of self imposed courtesies that doesn't really exist here. It is chaotic, yet the society works. It is rude yet without true malice. It is not perfect, but it is improving noticeably every time I visit China. There is a naive innocence about not caring or not realizing how others view you. I'm not speaking for all locals here of course, there are many who already think like us. But I think perhaps with more social conformity and etiquette, the less "free" one becomes? Should societies strive to be a Japan or a Britain, where everyday minutiae adhere strictly to invisible social norms and deviations will be met with prejudice and judgement? Should a population be homogenized culturally and behaviorally like that? Wouldn't it be liberating to just fuck social conventions and almost do whatever the hell you want? Well you can here, sort of. You can spit, you can curse, you can bump into people accidentally without saying sorry, you can run red lights, you can not wash your hands, and you can picnic inside a museum. Welcome to China. 

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China is a Photographer's Paradise, in more ways than one.

Other than having a lot of subjects to take pictures of, the local camera industry is pretty booming! There is a 7 story building, filled with camera gear! New and used. Check out this link for the address and other details. http://www.photo.net.ph/blogalicious/main/where-to-buy-your-cameras-gear-and-photographic-equiptment-in-shanghai-china/ The building is called Xing Guan Photography Equipment Building. It's at the corner of Luban Road and Xietu Road. Exit the Luban Road metro station at exit #1 and turn left. Keep walking for about a block and you can't miss it!

It is pretty awesome. The first two floor sells new cameras and lenses. All the big brands are there. Canon, Nikon, Sony, Pentax, Olympus, Panasonic. 2nd floor are bags, tripods and accessories such as grips and filters. Higher floors included used gear, professional lighting, soft boxes, and even photoshop learning centers!! The used stores are real candy stores. They have everything under the sun. 1930's original Leica's, TLR Rolleis, large format accordion style cameras, an array of medium format systems, simply a ton of used and rare items for sale. Prices aren't cheap, they are subject to haggling, but the selection is amazing. This is a must see for any camera enthusiast coming to Shanghai. 

I haven't done much shopping in Shanghai overall, but I've scored quite a bit of camera gear so far. I bought 2 camera straps off of taobao.com, which is like a chinese ebay only way better (no auctions, store fronts, all purchases are escrow), as well as a Pentax K -> EOS AF confirm adapter. Today, at the Xing Guan building, I bought a self-portrait lens+mirror for my fuji instax 7 camera for $9, a Benro carbon fiber tripod with ball head, and 6 rolls of black and white 120 medium format film for about $7. Awesome!

I'm pretty happy about the Benro tripod. The brand is a Chinese copy of the Gitzo high end tripods. The build quality of Benro is superb, all the knobs feel velvety smooth and the carbon fiber legs feel very solid and high quality. It is fairly light for a medium sized tripod. And it includes a fairly decent ball head as well. It can hold my 5D2 with no issues at all. All for $175CAD. Pretty awesome I think! 

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My "New" Niece :DD

One of my main reasons for coming to Shanghai is to visit my new niece! She is one month and one day old today!! Her birthday is on February 26th. A Pisces then. Just like someone else I know <3. As you can see, she is soooo cute! Super duper tiny. And never makes a noise. My cousin and his wife says she almost never cries. She is healthy and smiling. I am so happy for them!!

I only know her Chinese name, but I am trying to see if I can give her an English name. :)

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An Inside Look at the Shanghai Expo Convention Center: Part II

Aside from all the huge halls, weird meeting rooms, and decadent communist (oxymoron?) extravagance, the most impressive part of the building is the roof. Not only is it green, it is covered with solar panels, supplying energy for the entire building, and having enough left over to put back into the grid! Plus the view is pretty amazing up there too! :)

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An Inside Look at the Shanghai Expo Convention Center: Part I

The new Shanghai Expo Convention Center is a impressive building. Inside are halls that are typical of "Communist China". (I wonder if just by typing that in Shanghai will illicit some online bot's attention?) There is a gargantuan LCD display in the main hall. Three stories tall at least. The cool thing is that while it is a display on one side, the other side is see through, so if you stand behind the display, you still get a relatively unobstructed view of the lobby.

Inside the building are many gigantic halls and auditoriums. They are for high level government meetings where dignitaries from all over the country gather to discuss...whatever it is they discuss. This you won't see in Canada or outside of a communist country. All the seats are red, and decorated in a very socialist/soviet manner. It could also serve as an awesome concert hall I suppose!

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A Sneak Peak at the Shanghai Expo 2010: Part II

By far the most visually stunning expo at this stage of construction is the UK Pavilion. The porcupine-like spines of acrylic protruding from the construction includes over 6000 seeds that will be left behind to local schools after the expo as a legacy. It is one of the smaller structures, but it is one of the most unique structures I have ever seen! Looks like something out of Star Wars!

The Spanish Pavilion is also very cool, covered in straw mats. I wish I knew all the inspirations and their design choice behind all the buildings! Actually, I wish the expo opened now so I can look inside all these amazing buildings! Nonetheless, it is such a rare opportunity to see the expo at this stage of the game. Before the hundreds of thousands of people surround you trying to take the pictures of the same things.

I was very happy to see the Canada Pavilion! For some reason, I thought it was very Canadian. It was colossal compared to other buildings, and it was covered in wood. No doubt imported from British Columbia :D It looks largely completed with the sign already up in English and Chinese.

The USA Pavilion has an embarrassing story behind it. I read online in western and local articles that the Americans didn't have enough resources to attend the Shanghai Expo and originally chose not to build a pavilion here. But the Chinese didn't want USA to miss this world event since the states are a prominent country in the world, so the local government and Chinese Americans in the states raised funds for a pavilion next to ours. However, it is rather unspectacular and resembles a shopping mall.

The Polish Pavilion was also another nice one that is basically finished. The Luxembourg, the Qatar, the German, and the Swiss pavilions all looked pretty cool, but they were still in various stages of construction and uploading via email is quite slow. Perhaps I will add it in, in a later addition to this post.

Among the many workers were thousands of troops. Men and women. Dressed in full dessert camo. Quite a sight actually. Something that we would never see in Canada.

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