Beijing Affordable Art Fair in 798 Space

This weekend was the "Beijing Affordable Art Fair" in the so-called Space of the 798 Art District. This is a catory of works selling between about 1000 to 5000 US$. I was expecting this event to be something like a show of artistic talent. But when you take away the Cultural Revolution re-makes, the pseudo-intellectual social criticism, the plain copies of others, and the nude paintings, then there is not much left to look at. A handful, perhaps, but nothing really distinct. There are very good young painters in the pipeline, but they were not exhibited here.

798 is becoming more and more an entertainment district, which develops all kinds of disciplines from galleries, over design studios to theatres. Some people complain about this development, but I think by this it becomes actually more interesting. It is anyways a necessary change for the district to survive, because it can not compete with the real art centers. In terms of entertainment it adds nice elements and increases diversity of options to choose from (specially for those who do not like shopping malls, bars and KTV which you find more than enough in any Chinese city). Everything is here: from serious, over dramatic to funny.

Chengdu

Chengdu (成都) is the provincial capital of Sichuan and an entry point for travels into Tibet and other places in West China. But this time I did not come here to fly further into plateau region, but for work in our car factory and looking at electric car charging infrastructure. Chengdu has been a settlement and feudal capital for thousands of years and is one of the first tier cities of China. I like Chengdu. The pace is much slower than in Shanghai and Beijing, which makes it very livable. People are nice, the air is clear, traffic not too bad and food just brilliant. Modern Chinese cities have a bit of a limited development pattern when if comes to local characteristics. You have to look for the details, because on first sight they look very much the same and tend to be of a mix of grandness and tristesse. It is because of all of them basically started the main stage of the current physical environment more or less at the same thing at more or less the same time. There is a lot of modern or pseudo classical "hardware" around, but it has not grown organically and it is hard to get it alive (with alive I don't just mean noisy). It will take time and trial and error. When I was driving out to the factory today in the Southwestern suburbs, I saw a lot of residential construction work. In terms of magnitude the economy some of these Chinese megacities are comparable with for example whole countries like Greece. And there are buildings which are in terms of habitants comparable with a Greek island. I was not sure, whether this tells me how small the current Greek economic crisis actually is for Europe or how big problems China would be, if ever the real estate industry collapses here. At a growth rate of population of about +25 % last year in Chengdu it looks like the capacity will find their occupants. But then, what will happen to the rural areas? 

The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey

It was one of the airport picks of a book. Actually, I do not pick books at airports, because I have an Amazon Kindle. So, it was one of these airport decisions then, to download and read Peter Carey's The Chemistry of Tears. There was a whole line up of reviews recently in the news and as I remembered the story was set in a clock making museum, I already liked the setting. Hologerie was one of my first jobs many years ago at Bosch. I was sharing the office with one of the last of its kind, who has been in the clock business in South Africa, where he left to as a teenager. In his 60s he returned to Germany and bridged a few years to retirement taking care of our clocks installed at train stations and airports, which were still under the name Telenorma. I was actually in the Security Technology division, but I was told that I might be the only one who can bear sharing the office with him because he was so odd. What I found was that he was a kind, educated man, who had things to tell but was not eager to shout them out loud. He taught me everything he knew about clocks. We were the last ones having certain spare parts for old clock towers. And of course we were loosing money with that line of business, but I gained a lot from "negotiating" with German village priests the price of repairing his church's clock-tower. And last but not least it was smuggling gold in the form of hand made movement parts though Africa - the customs people never guessed that some of these mechanical parts deep built into the movements of these industrial clocks, leaving the country, were made of gold and even containing diamonds. By this the world of clock making became for me a world of absolute precision and great adventure at the same time. This was about 20 years ago.

The Chemistry of Tears is the first book of Peter Carey I read. I guessed that it means that humans are chemical machines, where one process drives the other - like in a clockwork. But then of course also they are not - or at least they are complex enough not just to be a movement. Mostly they don't like the idea of being one anyways. Even I find they are predictable. The plot starts with a fictional Catherine Gehrig an, horologist at the Swinburne museum in London, who comes to the office to find her lover died. It is weaved in with the story of Henry Blanding, a Victorian gentleman, who a century earlier travelled to the Black Forest to have a giant "magical instrument" constructed, which is a clock in the shape of a duck, for the amusement of his dying son. Henry meets the two brothers who became most famous in Germany for their collection of fairy tales (which is a bit strange because I thought they mainly worked in Northern Germany). The two streams of the novel meet when Catherine, who is forced to mourn the loss of her lover in secret, reads the notebooks of Henry from a century before, while taking up the restoration of the duck shaped clock. 

It is an interesting way of discussing death, and the machinery of life - or is it not? Somehow, I did not fully enjoy the language Carey choose and found the book a bit dragging on in the end. But a good airport pick, when you need just something to read, think about and detach you from the reality of delayed flights, noisy neighbors and missed appointments. 

Anthracnose of Japanese Maple Tree

Anthracnose (Discula, Kabatiella apocrypta) is a disease caused by fungus spores. It is not to be confused with Tar Spots which look dramatic, which is also a fungus disease. Typical symptoms on maple trees are brown areas on the leafs, irregular, light to dark brown spots form along or between veins extending to the leaf margin. The disease might break out after changing to more humid and less ventilated climates. The leaf deformation is very different from draught stress. Also, the infection might come along with other pests. The disease might be fatal to the tree. For control the Royal Horticultural Society recommends application of copper based fungicides which in my case did not show significant effect. Also fungicides containing mancozeb are recommended (for example Manzate 200 or Dithane M-45). In Beijing it is not easy to buy such chemicals, as the shopkeepers and farmers have usually no idea what they are selling and how dilution and application should be handled. Given that some of these chemicals are very poisonous, I do not even want to think about that kind of vegetables I am eating here on a daily basis. A pack copy of what I am usig to treat my maple tree is attached for reference. Also treating the soil surface seems reasonable, as well as removing infected leaves.

Andrew Wyeth exhibited in Beijing

Works of the American painter Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) are exhibited in Beijing and Hong Kong as preparation for a New York Auction. The venue is the YUAN Space and it is jointly coordinated by Christie's and Andelson Galleries from April 14th until May 12th. It is located at the 20th floor of Jiaming Center, Tower B, 27 Eastern Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing. Wyeth often painted and portrait people living and being around him, famously his muse Helga Testorf. Some of his paintings of her, and related studies were shown in the exhibition. One of his very famous pictures is the painting Christina's World showing a woman from his neighborhood crawling home over the fields. The picture is inspired by Christina Olson (1893–1968) who is believed to have suffered from polio. There are a few books available on Wyeth. One of them is John Wilmerding's Andrew Wyeth: The Helga Pictures, which shows 240 only in the late 1980s disclosed pictures and renderings of Helga, out of which you find some in the Beijing exhibition.

In the Orchard, 1973

Study for On her Knees, 1975

Study for Overflow

Caochangdi Photospring 2012

Beijing's third international photography festival is staged in Coachangdi by Thinking Hands and the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre from April 21st to May 31st. All together thirty galleries and exhibition centres take part in the initiative which are spread over Caochanghdi and also the 798 Art District.

The centre is the Crossover Three Shadows Photography Award Exhibition. I specially liked the photos of Zhang Jin, which he took walking alone along the eastern section of the Silk Road from Chang'An to Yangguan. The pictures capture a lot of the landscapes mood in a timeless manner. He still prints in gelatin silver process, and it is even more fascinating to see that these pictures have no digital touch. Zhang Kechun's series The Yellow River I also liked a lot, as well as some of the dreamy pictures of Yi Hui's. A few photographers also touch on topics of Chinese society, which did not draw too much of my attention, except Wang Lin's Tulip in the Clouds project showing the life of Chinese Stewardesses beyond their neat appearance on airports and in planes. Definetly one of the highlights of the Photospring is Hisaji Hara's Symphony of Time and Light, which is a solo exhibition also on the compund of the Three Shadows

 Photography Art Centre. In this he is re-staging scences from Balthus paintings. Looking at these photos closely, they are really amazing. They look simple and plain, but the photographer used multiple focussing and exposure in such a manner that he absolutely streches what I thought is possible with a camera. These pictures are perfect, but beyond a perfect photo. It is really a bit like a merge between photo and painting, achieved by a brilliant mastering of photography. The scenes themselves are for me too many school girls for my taste, but I still spend a lot of time at every picture, just trying to figure out how he did it. 

The Chaochangdi Photography Spring 2012 is really worth spending a lot of time at, or going more than once. As the centre is North of 798 Art Zone in Beijing, it is not crowded and you find mostly people appreciating photography. The main cluster of galleries of Caochangdi are in walking distance of The Three Shadows with a lot more to see. Transportation is a bit difficult, but that's the price for keeping the "folks" in 798 out, which is really worth a bit of hassle.

A bout de souffle

When you read laws in China, you will find that they are very thoughtful and accurately designed. So are also the standards of air quality. But it will be a large effort to implement them to a degree that there is a real improvement. The development model of China is based on turning the country into the "world's factory". Unfortunately it has been also been turned into the world's garbage bin. It is often said that this is the price for development and that now developed countries were even worse in the past. That's also true. Just that now clean technologies are readily available for use and they were not in Europe 50-100 years ago. People tell me that China has the "moral right to be polluted" like all other countries during the phase of industrialisation. Sure, people also have the moral right to have diabetes, to smoke, to wear no seat belt in the car and no helmet on motor cycles and make all the other mistakes we did before in the developed countries again. Enjoy!

I am glad to see that not just awareness, but also the determination is growing to resolve the problem of air pollution in Beijing. The immediate health effect might not be even too bad. But it is just not nice if you can't see the sky and feel like you want to vomit when you go on the street on a bad day. For the Olympic Games in 2008 it worked reasonably well, but was not sustained. The current Five Year Plan also sets clear targets for environmental protection and energy usage per GDP. I guess, everybody is holding his breath to see what happens. I am happy that I can do a bit more than that.

Beijing Motor Show

For professional reasons, I cannot write about specific cars on this personal website. And it is of course not easy to talk about the Beijing Motorshow (Auto China Beijing), without talking about cars. But perhaps even more important than the cars themselves, is the enthusiasm of the visitors. And I cannot deny a bit of pride when I saw that people are crazy about our products in China. Referring to the models exposed alongside the technical exhibits, I even heard that “German engineering is more sexy than the girls hanging on the cars in the other halls”. In our hall though, when I looked from the back at the camera displays and what people were “shooting”, they really focused on our cars and not on our hostesses – even though I personally think also there we made the better choices than many of our competitors. To understand the significance of the selection process of hostesses for us, you have to envision that a few months ago, hundreds of models came to interview in the Volkswagen Beijing Office. Waves of perfume were swinging through the smell of gasoline for days. As Volkswagen engineers are gentlemen, technical terms (for cars) like “ground clearance”, “bodystyle”, “notchback” and “bottom line” were thoroughly avoided not to make the ladies feel uncomfortable. Here and there you could notice some of my colleagues choosing a more colorful tie than normal, or combing the hair in the restroom. Quite sweet, isn’t it? - The Beauty and the Beast.

Visitors on the motorshow were crazy about “cool cars”. And what I found interesting as well as encouraging, is that “cool” is not only about speed and power any more. The few ones which had an exceptiontal technical concept or an outstanding design, drew the crowds as much as those who were just showing off horsepower. And in some cases, all that comes together anyways. For that just see the normal suspects. They are all great again. 

Even the display of New Energy Vehicles was not overwhelming, at least most exhibitors had something on that topic. Some Chinese manufacturers even seem to have noticed last minute that they are missing the display of an electric vehicle and quickly cut by hand a hole in the bumper and glued a household electric plug in, to make it look electric. Like this you can even see electric vehicles with a stick shift, which must be a superior invention (again!). I guess nobody ever wants to steal the Intellectual Property for that. This is a way to stay safe. We coined it the "No brain, no pain strategy". Without knowing it, they at least choose a matching background music: “Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies …”. But to be fair, this time such extremely incompetent examples were quite rare, and further consolidation of the industry is ahead. So, I am already looking forward to the next Beijing Motor Show in two years. "Nach dem Spiel ist vor dem Spiel" (After the game is before the game), as the Germans say in soccer.

Kyoto and Nara

I took it as a positive sign of my ability to adapt deeply into neocommunist manners, that when I arrived in Japan coming from Beijing, I first felt like a caveman. But it luckily did not take more than 30 minutes to switch back to normal. So no permanent damage done. Japan is often described as a "cultural Galapagos" of East Asia and even it is a highly modern country, it preserved a lot of uniqueness. And I like it a lot.

It has been my third time being in Japan and the second time in Kyoto during the "Sakura" which is the time when the cherry trees blossom. Flying into Osaka, Kyoto is only a short local train ride away. In the high speed train Shinkansen you even shoot from one city to the other in only about 15 minutes.

When Kyoto was established as Heian-kyō (平安京, "tranquility and peace capital") is was modelled as a copy of the Chinese Tang Dynasty capital Chang'an (西安, Xi'an). Kyto remained the capital until the Emperial Court moved to Tokyo in 1896 as a consequence of the distructions during the Hamaguri rebellion. By contrast to Xi'an, Kyoto has preserved a lot of its charm and beauty. Kyoto is an important academic, philosophical and cultural center of Japan, has 14 UNESCO World Heritage sites and is definitely a region to explore with more time.

I was reading Lin Yutang's The Importance of Living on the way and had to burst laughing when he refused describing Buddhism in his book, because it is "too sad". Sharp observation, wise explanation and the good humor of Lin Yutang makes this book together with My Country and My People two absolute must reads for any Westerner who comes to China. I took a few chapters on Taoism (道教) twice and remembered my hopeless attempt to read Laozi in a German translation when I was a teenager. But now perhaps is a good time to catch up on it. In terms of Zen please be reminded of Eugen Herrigel's short essay Zen in the Art of Archery (I did not find the German original in electronic format) and D.T. Suzuki's An Introduction into Zen Buddhism. 

Taoism is for me a very sympathetic religion. First of all they don't set people on fire for believing in something else, don't blow themselves up in crowded vegetable markets and are also in other respects far less aggressive than for example the Abrahamic religions (Christians, Jews, Muslims). They don't believe in an old man in the sky who watches every move you make, but simply have an harmonious philosophy with their natural environment, themselves and other people. They don't even have dogmatic suppression of scientific research, do not burn books or pictures - and the best thing is: they have sex! Philosophical Taoism is a nice and colorful way of "explaining" the world around and makes undoubtedly good suggestions how to live in it happily and without annoying others. That's for me as good as a religion can get anyways. Also in the People's Republic of China Taoism is still quite common and under government supervision of a state bureaux called the China Taoist Association. 

Zen is a derivative of Mahayana Buddhism which goes back to the Chinese Tang Dynasty and is actively practiced mainly in Japan, Vietnam, Korea, China and also in some Western Regions. It practices a lot of meditation and tries to achieve enlightenment through "emptiness". Enlightenment or not - an interesting experiment has been undertaken by Richard Davidson by examining people with meditation experience in a MRI scanner. It shows that meditation changes the mind and increases attention. 

Opposite the Kyoto Museum (which I do not recommend to visit) I bumped into "David's Gallery Cafe". In the back part of the gallery leading to a small workshop I saw a painting of David Kidd by Claire Trevor. David Kidd started his time in Asia in 1946, aged 19, as an exchange student in China where he taught English at suburban colleges. He married Aimee Yu, the daughter of the former Chief of Justice of the supreme court of China and he experienced first hand the Communist Revolution in 1949. The New York Times wrote in his Orbitary in 1996 the he might have been "perhaps the only American in Tiananamen Square for the formal Communist takeover". He published his account in the book Peking Story: The Last Days of The Old China. Another book he published is All the Emporers Horses. After his devorce in the United States he moved to Japan in 1956 and established himself as an art collector and taught at various Universities and Art Institutions. 

Traveling by train less than one hour you reach the small town of Nara, which was the capital of Japan before Kyoto (710-784). Nara is a very pretty small town with huge parks. One of the attractions is the Todai-ji Temple, of which the Daibutsuden Hall is the world's largest wooden building. The whole city is full with ancient treasures and relicts, and it needs more than a day trip to explore it. For that case, the 1910 built Nara Hotel is a very nice place to stay over night. 

Sony NEX-7

The best camera I ever had was my full frame Nikon D700. Unfortunately, it was robbed at gunpoint in Puno (Peru) when trying to take a photo of the Titicaca Lake last year. With it I also lost most of my pictures taken in East Africa. Good that my secondary camera, the Fuji X-100, remained a good companion - except some trouble with exposure when set at Aperture priority on the Antarctic Peninsula. For my lost D700 my wishes are that it finally found its way to a photo enthusiast - even I do not encourage to buy anything from the black market. For the robbers my wishes are that they either see the light of salvation, a cell in a Peruvian prison or get a bullet in their head as soon as possible. Anything which stops their dangerous practice is fine.

I was about to repurchase the D700, but then thought that I might adapt to my current life style by switching to a lighter and more flexible model, like a mirrorless SLR. After comparing specifications, I decided for the Sony NEX 7 with the 18-200 mm zoom lens. This is small enough for snap shots and good enough in terms of quality, even it is clearly in the consumer segment. Like currently no other mirrorless SLR the NEX 7 uses a normal size D-SLR size sensor.

What I found amazing of the NEX 7 in this configuration was not just the small size and full capabilities of a D-SLR camera. But also I first time experienced that the so-called "intelligent automatic settings" are really intelligent. Further the landscape stitching and anti blur programmes are quite amazingly accurate. Unless there is really scene where the camera can not "imagine" the image you have in your mind, the automatic functions are brilliant and you can put your mind in peace on composition or speed (if required).

The NEX 7 is nearly everywhere outside Japan sold out and you need to sign up on waiting lists to get it a few months later. But I was able to pick up one in the "Bigcamera" store which is 5 minutes walk West from Kyoto Japan Railway Station. Beware that there are two versions: a Japanese (only Japanese menus) one and the Worldwide model (which also has a worldwide warranty).

My "Smartphone" is like a spoiled girl

You know these kind of girls? Everything is complicated. They wake you up at night and need attention. They need charging every day. You can not have a serious conversation without loosing the connection. They are in many social networks and they are full of gossip and junk when ever you look at them. They need expensive updates and accessories all the time to keep going. They freeze without warning. They loose power faster than expected. They are unreliable. When you need them most, they make a scene. They get wet in the rain, they faint. They call themselves smart, but just to make you feel guilty because you don't know what to do with them. Yes, my "Smartphone" is just like this - like a spoiled girl. A waste of time.

I was talked recently by my IT Department into an Android phone. They said, they can support this better until I found out that they cannot support anything really - not even my computer. Might be a nice phone. But just not my type. I will dump it for a new model from Sweden, the Sonim Force 3G. Built for life. That's better.

White surprise

After two days of yellow thick haze, in which you could not smell but taste the air, I did not not expect a lot when I opened the curtains this morning. But wow, what a nice surprise: all white. The little drizzle from yesterday kept going through the night and turned into snow. This was always a "wow" since I was a boy and I decided on the spot to get away from the desk, and get out to the Temple of Heaven.

I have been sitting the last two gloomy days at the desk (Friday I even took off from work) to write on a book chapter. Nothing about cars: so the clearance desk, the patent department, the intellectual property unit, PR and all the others who get nervous when they see these lines can relax. Anyway, they will not have time to come to this website, because they are so busy keeping the world in order.

But with the snow around I went out and enjoyed the fresh breeze of the day. The Temple of Heaven is a tourist attraction, so the best is, on a Sunday, to stay away from the main spots and just enjoy the park. Away from the tourist people gather here here to perform whatever they like to perform. This is one of the really great things in China: you can do and be whatever you like. Now you might think, that this does not sound like China. What about the "sthgir namuh" and "hceeps fo modeerf" (please read the terms form right to left). You are right. But you can go into the park and be a musician, a dancer, a singer and whatever you like. And you will find your audience.

It was nice to have a long weekend to get some more concentrated work done. Good ideas are like roaming around the landscape and you have to go out to meet them. They run after you when you go running, or bump into you when you go swimming. They also come to coffee and tea houses or they appear in interesting conversations. There are many places you can find them. Just one thing is unfortunate: they never come to the office.

Lettre International revisited

After a break during last year's travels I decided to re-subscribe to the quarterly Lettre International again. There were a few reasons coming together to do so. First, I was pointed by a friend to the literature magazine Grand Street which he said is something non shallow and worth reading. So, when I went to their website, I found they went out of business. Secondly, my container arrived from Hong Kong and I found an older copy of Lettre International and read it again enjoying it a lot. As most of my quite extensive library is on Amazon Kindle, I was looking for an electronic equivalent first. When you travel and move a lot you have quite some respect towards boxes filled with books and paper. But I found no electronic alternative, and when I look at the whole product, I guess there never will be. Last but not least, I found the quarterly periodical just the right dose to read a European cultural magazine when you spend most of your time in Asia. I signed up for 3 years, which will carry me through the normal period of my current China assignment. Now I am waiting for the next publication to reach me in Beijing, while I am still reading in the one year old copy when time allows. Hope my readership also contributes a bit that this magazine will not go out of business in due course. This would be a real loss.

The boat crossing the river

Just 40 minutes walk North of the Beijing 798 Arts District, at about N 39 Deg. 59.808' / E 116 Deg. 29.917', you get to another gallery and workshop district which is called Cao Chang Di. As this is still in the middle of local suburban Chinese life, this is also where artists live, and the galleries get more square meters per Yuan. This is also a place where some more serious galleries moved.

"In 798 you have to protect your works from this zoo of people, who lean against it to take a photo", I was told. Cao Chang Di, is definitely more refined in terms of galleries than 798, but still I also like the "zoo" mainly because I think it is so much nicer seeing young people there than in a shopping mall. It is better to see 798 as a Cultural Entertainment Centre, and I think it is nice to have it. Also the reputation and commercial value are the only arguments protecting it from being torn down and "developed" into another block of high rise buildings. And in the end also still many artists have to make a living on selling postcards and handicraft, for which 798 has much of space.

Cao Chang Di is different. Also "iewieW iA" (I spelled the name reverse to avoid trouble) has his studio there and he designed quite a few buildings in which you find very interesting galleries. Beijing Fine Arts is one of them and Alexander Ochs another. But the best is to stroll around and see what exhibitions are on. Just this will take at least a day.

On the walk back through 798 I was lucky to drop into the opening of an exhibition called "The Boat Crossing the River", showing the sculptures of Zhang Yong at the Joy Art Gallery, curated by Wu Hong and Wang Haitao. I did not expect much more than a clean toilet when I went in, but then had a nice surprise.

I liked most his sculpture "Night Crossing" which is a casted copper cube on which top you see only a head of a boy and a horse swimming in the waves. It was unfortunately impossible to take a photo of it, given the dim light. But even boosting ISO to 6400 it is just an object very hard to capture, because what makes it amazing, is only very small detail on the surface on a rough block. I liked also a few other sculptures and "Orientation" (photo) is one of the other sculptures which caught my attention. Perhaps a year ago, it would have been "Listing in the Rain".

Farewell to my photo website

After a long hesitation, I closed my Smugmug account today. It was my photo website for years and I still think it is the best one you can use. Technology, performance and service are just perfect, the price is reasonable and the professional version is really professional. On my to do list was a long time to revamp the website. But if you have to put something you actually like on a to do list, then perhaps it is better to let it go. I will in the next years realistically have not the time to maintain a professional photo website. And before doing it half committed, I better leave it. At the same time, I am developing this website also to contain more photo galleries and functions and I changed the design to match better to both: text and photography. I hope those who follow this site, still like it.

First Spring day in Beijing

Today temperatures were well above zero in Beijing, and it was a sunny clear Sunday with a blue sky. People were in a good mood, started going out buying flowers, strolling around the parks and sitting outside reading a book or playing cards or chess. Even the traffic was more quiet today, partly because it was a Sunday of course, but also because drivers were just not so aggressive. Urban driving in China often does not feel like transportation, but like being in combat. But today it was different. 

Still I did a bit of ice skating and many others also had the same idea: let's do it before the ice gets too thin. Even the group of men were around swimming in the ice water. This is amazing. They do not just dive in and get out again, but they really swim a few strokes and stay for minutes in the water. So I asked: "What's the trick? Some Chinese Medicine again?" A lot of laughter. I guess, there is no trick. They are just really tough. If things go well, I will finally get the container at the end of this week. The winter clothes which are in there I might not even need any more this year. It took then about 3 months to ship the freight from Hong Kong to Beijing. It is not the shipping itself which takes this time, but the procedures around it. Bureaucracy is a very sophisticated system here, as there are so many people who have to find employment in it. But once you figure out the process, things go surprisingly smooth. Of course the HR Department should take care of such things. But like with any HR Department, "should take care" is all you can expect.

The only small disadvantage of temperatures above zero is that you have to watch out on the street where you step. People tend to spit on the ground here, after cleaning their throats in a dramatic manner. And what was a little frozen ice patch before, is now - well, you know what it is. I know it is based on 5000 years of culture and this needs respect and tolerance. No problem. But better watch your feet.

Lomography

In Germany we have traveling shows coming to the villages and setting up what we call "Kirmes". They bring roller coasters, carousels, lots of beer and "Schiessbuden" (shooting budes). 35 years ago one of those also came to Feldkirchen and I was already quite good sniper at the age of 10, I took a rifle and won a Russian photo camera called "Diana" with one shot. Given the fact that in Roman Methodology Diana is a goddess often seen with bow and arrow, I found the way I got her quite matching and amusing.

Diana was always a camera you could do things with, which you could not do with other cameras. And the reason was: it was so cheap, that if you crash it, it does not matter. I even fixed it to a kite get a bird's view. The shutter I operated by a pendulum mechanism which just made click on a certain angle (which corresponded to the pre-calculated flight height). Then I put it into a sewage pipe and used it for my own kind of underwater photography. I have to say though, that there is not much to see in the lakes and ponds of the Westerwald. What else can be said about Diana? Well, just that it was a really bad camera - 35 years ago. It is really not much different from a Camera Obscura, just that it has a lens and not just a hole. And I guess it is simply put one of the world's worst cameras.

Now, something called Lomography has become a fashion and Diana (and her sisters) are reborn. Strange for me, because every mobile phone can take better pictures than a "Lomo". In the online shop, you have the choice between many different models in the range between about US$ 50 up to over US$ 100. People meet for Lomo-Events and pin their photos to walls and talking pictures with it seems a cult. In the Lomography shop which I found today were a few girls which only had frames for glasses on their noses. This is also a strange fashion I have now often seen in Asia. I suggested that if did not forget to put glasses in their frames, their might actually be able to see how bad their pictures are. But they just giggled. Never mind. I think it is actually think it is nice they have a hobby like that and I regretted a minute later that I said something so nasty.

I took the picture of the shop above and post edited it with a cross color algorithm and then a preset function called "Toy Camera". But it is still not what a Diana would make it look like. Today's Dianas I have seen are actually not made in Russia, but in China. Would be nice if the good old (and I mean literally "good old") Voiglaenders also could make it back like this. And when I think about all the old Chinese camera brands which are actually so much better then a Lomograph, then there are quite a few nice things which can be done to get them alive again.

798 Art Zone

Shortly after the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, a gigantic Chinese-Soviet military and industrial co-operation program was launched in the Dashanzi district North-East of Beijing. You find the site at N 39 Deg. 58.972' / E 116 Deg. 29.571' and it is now called the 798 Art Zone (798艺术区). The People's Liberation Army's demand for electronic components was not fulfilled by the Soviet partner to the extend required, so that China turned to then Communist Deutsche Demokratische Republik (German Democratic Republic) which just had been formed out of the Soviet Occupied Zone in Germany. To make it easy for foreign intelligence services, the Chinese numbered military factories starting with the digit "7". It started in the district with factory 718 and by time grew up to 798. Operation of 718 lasted from 1957 and the uncompetitive nature of the state owned complex did not survive the opening and reform policy and declined until it was largely abandoned in the 1990s.

This was also the time when first artists were moving in looking for cheap space. In 1995 also the Chinese Academy of Fine Arts moved workshops there and a nucleus for a growing cluster of artists was laid. In 2004 it was achieved that the destruction of the buildings was halted and a bill passed to develop the site into an Arts District. As a consequence the owner of the buildings did not renew lease contracts to have the chance driving out tenants and redevelop the land in a more profitable modern format. In 2007 though it was decided to keep and refurbish the Art Zone.

Today it is a lively place full of galleries, studios, workshops, design centres, cafes and restaurants. It is amazing what amount of space and hardware is available. Here is where you find everything from pretty nice galleries to Mao Kitch. There is not one list of galleries available online. So, the best thing is to go there and have a look.

Ice skating to the office

The Chinese new year started with a sunny Sunday. And as it was a working Sunday, I took the opportunity to commute to the office on my ice skates. This was a very nice commute, down the canal to Sanlitun in the morning. The water level has been dropping and the ice is cracky, but thick and safe. Only at some inlets it is melting. And at one point there is a hole which people use to (believe it or not) go swimming. At night going home, I did not skate, because I could not see the cracks in the dark and also I might have fallen into one of these holes. Many companies have started work today, even it is a Sunday. Together with having a working Saturday the week before, many had 7 days public holidays in a row. But the Sunday was not a quiet one, as everybody tried to get a headstart. From tomorrow, the calendar is packed and I expect a bit of a stormy week also, because we have quite high visitors. So, in terms of blog entries I might excuse myself for a few days.

Enhanced flavors causing me a headache?

I generally like Chinese food, and for all the years have not experienced acute hazards. But now a second time, after having dinner in a restaurant, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I have turned diabetic and having a headache and fast heart rate. Of course the immediate thought is the "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome" which is said to be connected to the use of Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) as a flavor enhancer. Even the chemical has been considered safe as a food additive and is in use for a long time, it has also been connected with causing brain damage and obesity. MSG is also used in fast food, but I guess people going to anything like McDonalds or Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) actually are suffering the brain damage already before they enter the restaurant. It might be just a "brain damage enhancer" then. And obese people are often very skillful blaming the fact that they eat too much on others, specially when they have enhanced brain damage at the same time.

MSG is also used in many convenience foods, where it has to be declared as ingredient (E621). Again, the last time I was eating something like convenience food, were Military Combat Rations in the 1980s. But also back then my exposure to MSG must have been low, because I usually traded out the main dish against the chocolate, cigarettes and condoms with fellow soldiers. These were accepted for payment of goods and services from our US allies and increased my wellbeing and social position in the barracks. Once, using this currency, I even bought a fully loaded Smith & Wesson Cal. 0.38 Revolver from an American soldier. Well, talking about brain damage: he must have had a lot of MSG.

Perhaps my low exposure, is why I am more sensitive to MSG. But it is also possible, that my current discomfort has nothing to do with MSG at all and it is just the oil used or ... who knows? It is always tempting in Beijing, just to pop in a restaurant. But of course there is not much control on the ingredients.