Wolfsburg

I was on a business trip to Wolfsburg and you might think that this is not worth mentioning. But I liked being there and actually the former "Kraft durch Freude Wagen"-Stadt has an interesting history. Long before the settlement became a city, it was mentioned first in 1302 as residence of the family von Bertensleben. And close to today's Volkswagen Management Guesthouse Rothehof, you can still see the remains of an older small castle in the forest, which might have been built around 1200. With the ending of the von Bertensleben family in 1742, the property was inherited by the Dukes von der Schulenburg.

On May 26th in 1938 the factory for the production of the "Kraft durch Freude Wagen" (Strength through joy car), short KdF-Wagen, was started in construction. To accomodate the workers a new city was built, which was called "Stadt des KdF-Wagens bei Fallersleben" (City of the KdF-Car close to Fallersleben). US Military Intelligence pictures showed very early that the factor which was claimed to have a certain capacity for the production of cars, did not really have much parking space for storage. It became clear that given the strategic location at the Mittellandkanal, it would produce weapons and military equipment to support the Eastern Front in Wold War II. Besides military vehicles and ammunition, it was also a production base for components for the first ever Cruise Missle, called V1 for "Vergeltungswaffe 1", or Fieseler Fi 103. In principle it was a long range missile in the shape of a plane, which was used against long range targets in London and Belgium. In the words of Nazi Propaganda, this was one of Germany's "Miracle Weapons". POWs and forced labor was contained in the concentration camp "KZ Arbeitsdorf" during that time.

On April 11th 1945 the plant became target of an allied air strike and was distroyed. After capitulation the young British Major Ivan Hirst was in command of the facilities and on May 25th 1945 the city was renamed "Wolfsburg". Hirst found a few "Beetles", painted them green and offered them to the British Forces. They were amazed by the little robust car and asked for production of 1000 units. Hirst rejected the disassembly of the plant and managed basic reconstruction, restarted production and started export. By proposal of him, Heinrich Nordhoff became then General Manager of Volkswagen in 1948. It became clear, the company has a future. Volkswagen has an excellent archive and if you are interested to read more, you can download Ivan Hirst - Britischer Offizier und Manager des Volkswagenwerks. I was planning to try and meet Major Hirst in his retirement domicile in Manchester, but he unfortunately passed away in the year 2000 before I could get through to him.

Today Wolfsburg is a small town, which is trying but struggling to break up the monoculture which has developed around the Volkswagen Plant in its post war history. Many initiatives have made the city more attractive and the list would be too long to write about them all. It is not a lack of architecrual hardware, which still keeps Worlfsburg provincial. Also the list of people who shaped Volkswagen and the city is too long to be lined up here. Sure, Ferdinand Piech, who is our chairman of the board and has lead the company to great success, even beyond his time as CEO. But for me, one man has to be mentioned who with his vision has not just made Volkswagen a real Multinational Company, but also started our China Business in 1983 - Dr. Carl Horst Hahn, truly beyond an auto manager a pioneer of globalization. I was very honored that my request to meet him in his office was accepted and without talking much about cars, I was stunned by a charismatic and visionary gentleman, who understands the full complexity of the world we live in. Such a discussion I did not have in 13 years Volkswagen. If there is anything like wisdom in our industry, now I know one place to find it.

I also traveled on the weekend to Podsdam and Berlin and I hope you forgive me, that I do not mention them on my travel blog. It would have been too much to write. After returning to China, I also was in Shanghai and taught a few days at Tongji University, before returning to Beijing and now preparing for a long haul along the Silk Road into the very West of China.

Plastic Clothes

When I went to the customs in Germany to receive my stamp for tax refund before I go back to China, the officer was puzzled and asked me to open my suitcase. There was nothing wrong with the items themselves, but when he saw a collection of environmental testing chemicals and lab equipment, he felt that he wanted to confirm: "This is really for private use?"

Today was a hazy day and I spent a bit of time sorting out the equipment and played around with it: radioactive exposure is low, tab water in general parameters quite good, air quality disastrous. But then wow: formaldehyde! Where could this come from? Finally I found, that it comes from a few chemical fiber textiles I have bought in China. Formaldehyde is banned also in China, but N-methylol derivatives are used as reactant cross-linking agents to give the fabric shape stability and a "high grade finish". As catalysts for this process dialylated tin derivatives are also used. The first is known as a strong carcinogen, the second causes allergic reactions. Specially Chinese low to mid range lady fashion is entirely made of "plastic". Also many outdoor clothes, as they are supposed to be light, water resistant and fast drying and sports clothes of course too.

If a dress is supposed to set a heart on fire, then be careful, because without organophosphate substances as flame retardant this could be even dangerous. Even I have never witnesses that this kind of spark set clothes on fire, I remember three incidents in which chemical fibers caused severe injury: a cook who spilled boiling water on is legs in the army, a Nylon camping tent which caught fire and a car accident where the vehicle caught fire. In the first case I was providing first aid and wanted to cut open the trousers, but had to find that it had melted into the burned skin. In the two other cases any help came too late. Of course this was not just a result of chemical fiber clothing, but it made it worse. I also remember a comment of a Naval officer, who said that about 30 % of the men they lost in the South Atlanik War in the sinking of the Battleship Belgrano died in the flames because they Uniforms were switched to cheaper material before. 

Now this sounds a bit an extreme reason why to avoid "plastic clothes". And also the health effects of many chemicals used are disputed. So, it might not be "too bad". But I just ask myself: why? Plastic clothes look cheap (even they not always are). They do not breathe well and get stingy easily. Sure, you can reduce that by adding biocides as anti-microbal agent to make them stink later. Antimicobic material for lingery, for example. How sexy can it get? How about just taking a shower from time to time and apply normal procedures of personal hygiene?

Sure, it is not easy to make something "pretty" out of chemical fibers, but often they are choosen because they are easy care. But are they really? Just a little bit too high ironing temperature and they are distroyed forever. Repairing is either not possible or not worth it. I understand the advantages of chemical fibers for outdoor clothing quite well, but even the "easy care properties" of cotton, wool, linen and silk are also very good. Just hang them on a tree and let them dry. And even they are a bit ruffled. At least they smell like fresh are and not like an oil rig.

On the way back to Beijing

After more than a week working in Wolfsburg and a wonderful weekend trip to Potsdam and Berlin, I am on the way back to Beijing. Germany is a place where life is easy. Things work efficiently, the environment is clean and people are friendly. For a moment I hesitated at that thought: Germans friendly? They did neither have this reputation nor I have them in my memories like that. But they are. Even in the North, where they are said to be "cold" and serious, I found them quite humorous. So either they have improved or I changed my benchmark. These days I am already happy, when people don't spit at me and fart strait into my face or shout into a mobile phone. But I take it with ease. Actually, I always take it with ease. That's because of my stoic personality, which is sometimes mistaken as inter-cultural tolerance.

The normal hassle on the transfer from Terminal A to Terminal B in Frankfurt was brightened up by a Lufthansa ground staff whom I asked whether there is a post office box on the way?

"Give it to me", she replied.

I gave her some postcards and she said: "I will post them tonight on the way home".

She seemed happy that someone is still writing postcards and then blushed a bit and said: "I promise, I won't read them"

How sweet. I guess, in other places they would not get to the mailbox but be strait away posted on Weibo (the Chinese alternative to Facebook - actually it is not a real alternative, because Facebook is blocked in China). I passed by long corridors of "Beauty Free Shops" (my not really funny but true alliteration of Duty Free Shops) and finally made it to my terminal. There is nothing more triste than these large airports. It feels like downtown Hong Kong: mall, toilet, food, mall, toilet, food, mall toilet, food etc. All branded, sterilized and standardized.

The advantage of a Business Class flight is more legroom. And the Air China planes are specially nice. The seat nearly unfolds into a bed. But the disadvantage is to be surrounded by a certain kind of business people, which are not just dead boring but also actively expose that by starting a conversation.  With the reform of the German education system and dropping it to down to international standard many German managers now also have serious intellectual shortcomings. It is really hard to have an interesting conversation with them. The other dominant group in the cabin are Chinese new rich who are watching cartoons, chewing on their nuts with open mouth and smiling through rotten teeth like the dogs they are. I am not looking forward to see (and hear) them having dinner!

I will have a busy second half of the week in Beijing and then teach a course in the Tongji-Mannheim University EMBA Programme. It was nice to see my colleagues in Wolfsburg, some of them again, some the first time. It was not enough time to see them all, and I missed out on a few old friends also. I am sorry. I will come again.

Breakfast at "Erlebnisstadt Wolfsburg"

Ulrich Wickert, one of the most popular news anchors in German television, once when he was asked what he likes most, answered: "French wine, French cheese and French women's legs". And then, when he was asked what he dislikes most, he said: "German wine, German cheese and German women's legs". 

I was somehow reminded of this quote sitting over breakfast in the dining hall of my hotel in Wolfsburg, being surrounded by a group of mid aged (actually about my age) German woman who must have come here for shopping in the so-called "Designer Outlets". But they seem to be traveling also internationally, as they were talking about their "Australia tour" and many others showing off to me where they have been.

I see these woman traveling the world as an integrated part of the German National Defense strategy. Nobody would ever dare to invade or attack a country where such women come from. They are the modern form of maintaining the Cold War "Balance of Threat Strategy", not with nuclear weapons but with an enormous potential of retaliation. As Germany is a core NATO member, I would be really careful as Syrian Air Defense shooting down Turkish planes in the future. You want us to send you a tour bus strait into Damascus? - Wom! 

With many hardware and systems manufacturers diversifying into the service industry, I could think that these women could make a substantial part of the business of companies like Krauss Maffei and Rheinmetall in the future. And it makes it easier also, because unlike a battle tank, combat helicopter or submarine a tour bus would not need parliamentary export clearance. Well, not yet!

Returning to Wolfsburg for a visit

Do you know the feeling, when you visit a place you were very familiar with a long time ago? While your mind is redrawing the map and match it with your memories, you get surprised how much you actually forgot. Sometimes you say encouraging: "Oh, so many things changed here". But not much really changed. It is just that you forgot a lot and always told yourself (and others) the same stories.

You meet people which have stayed over all these years. Children have turned into adults. Young people have turned into middle aged ones. The former middle aged ones are now close to retirement. Some got old, some died. The pretty daughter of the baker is not pretty any more. The soccer player from the kicking ground is now the soccer coach at the kicking ground.

The first time I came to Wolfsburg was 14 years ago for an interview. When I asked in the office in Munich how to get there, I was told:"No clue. Fly to Warsaw and then take a taxi". When I then moved there, I arrived with all my belongings packed into a Daihatsu. This must have been the strangest car ever entering the territory of the Volkswagen City (it was actually the strangest car in the parking lot of the Munich BCG office also). I left the region again in 2003 for China and now returned after more than 8 years for a business trip.

It reminds me of the feeling going back to your old school and meeting the old teachers. The formerly young ones are now in the middle of accomplishing their career. And the professional authorities of the past are now spending their last few years before retirement. In a corporate environment, where leadership changes sometimes abruptly make losers out of winners and winners out of losers, these "dislocations" can be sometimes quite severe. Still the more professional merits people have, you can see that they are less dependent than the ones which have been purely counting on personal connections and "mentors". And also those who have to many Volkswagen branded bones in their skeleton, tend to suffer personally more when these bones are pulled out one day - specially when one of them was the spine.

Caught in the rain in Beijing

Water Lily

My whole life is mine, but whoever says so
will deprive me, for it is infinite.
The ripple of water, the shade of the sky
are mine; it is still the same, my life.

No desire opens me: I am full,
I never close myself with refusal-
in the rythm of my daily soul
I do not desire-I am moved;

by being moved I exert my empire,
making the dreams of night real:
into my body at the bottom of the water
I attract the beyonds of mirrors.

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Vive le "Velosolex"

Today I tried to get spare parts for my Wanderer bicycle in Beijing. It is strange that even you would think China is a bicycle country, people actually don't know much about bicycles, and it is not easy to get parts. You also don't really get the impression that they know even how to use a spanner key or a screw driver. So finally, I decided to get what I need when I am next time in Germany, and then repair it myself.

But on my Odyssey, I had a closer look at the electric bicycles available. There is a whole range of electric scooters, but my interest was in some kind of "muscle-electric hybrid", which also is called "Pedelec". I have been trying a prototype from a colleague once, and found this the "Velosolex of the 21st Century". Not many remember the old bicycle with the small one cylinder two stroke support engine which was just flipped on the front tire when needed. I was still once riding one in the late 70s, and remember well how it blew the oily exhaust fumes strait into my face. Of course this does not happen with an electric version. Actually, the original version of the Velosolex is still available and is advertised in the US, as the "French way of getting from A to B". Other electric personal mobility concepts are provided for example by Segway. Segways are also available in China, via an importer in Guandong Province, but far too expensive to compete with the local bicycle electric competition. The one I decided for, is a simple 20 inch bicycle with a 36 Volt (10 AH) Lithium Ion battery, which is supporting via a 240 Watt motor in the front wheel. Really a bit like a Velosolex. But the manfacturer is Giant, which is a Taiwanese company, of which lso my racing bike is made. Could be called the "Chinese way of getting from A to B". The range is very much determined on how much you rely on the engine and how much you paddle. It is really a hybrid. Today I tried out nearly the full electrical range, which is about 20 km. Then the engine stopped abruptly and went home on a conventional push bike.

Smog as a Romance

The term "smog" was coined by Henry Antoine Des Voeux in 1905 to refer to the foggy smoke appearing in large cities, which was in London called the "pea-soup fog". This was mainly the result of a mix of smoke coming from inner city coal firing and providing condensation nuclei for the humid air. It was the atmospheric backdrop for many Victorian settings, including of course the unforgotten Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories and the short stories and novels featuring the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson. For me also Jack the Ripper would be much less mystical without smog in the London of the 1880s. Likewise other characters. Monet also painted London in pea-soup-fog, as shown below.

Unfortunately, my Chinese is far from good enough to trace what impact the Beijing smog has on Chinese literature, arts and culture. In modern Chinese literature, there might even be scenic descriptions of smog heavy alleys of Hutongs, or novel protagonists gazing into the haze from their office in the xyz floor? Smog in Beijing can be very "atmospheric", and this I do not mean in the metrological sense of the meaning. 

I know it might sound strange for some to see smog as a "cultural heritage", but am thinking of starting a photo project on Smog in Beijing. Perhaps in some years nobody remembers how it looked like really and it is only a haze in collective memory of the Beijingers. Of course, I do not go so far to say that it is one of the cultural heritages that has to be maintained. To avoid misunderstanding: it is pollution and has a seriously negative impact on public health. But it is a historical phase of many cities of the world. And for me for example the yellow days of Differdange (Luxembourg), are as much part of my childhood as the fresh breeze in the Westerwald (a forest region in Germany).

However, I might have to wait for winter until I really have the haze for my photo project, as the summer smog is different, much less visible, but actually much more harmful, as it is the result of photochemical processes breaking primary pollutants into harmful substances. This is why even on a presumably clear day, you may end up with itchy red eyes, coughing, or even with a headache.

One of these substances is tropospherical Ozone, which is produced in a two step process via a peroxy radical from Carbon Monoxide and NOX:

OH + CO → H + CO₂

H + O₂ → HO₂

These then react with NOX to ozone in a second phase: 

HO₂ + NO → OH + NO₂

NO₂ + hν → NO + O

O + O₂ + N₂ → O₃ + N₂

This results in a net effect of

    CO + 2O₂ → CO₂ + O₃

Tropospheric Ozone itself is a good indicator for the level of photochemical activity in a polluted area, as it can be monitored relatively easy. It is usually degrading during night time, again reacting with primary pollutants. Interestingly, as the photochemical production of Ozone takes time, the pollutant moves with the wind into less polluted areas and there might not find enough primary pollutants to degrade. This is why you may find high ozone levels far away from cities and also a sustained level during night time in the countryside. Sometimes even the "rural nighttime Ozone" then travels back with the nocturnal cold air flows into the city. For Beijing though, this is not so much a relevant process, because the suburbs and countryside are also heavily polluted and have enough potential to break down photooxidants during nighttime.

A very interesting group of photochemical chemicals are the Peroxyacetyl Nitrates, as they are really aggressive irritants to fauna and flora. They are the result of photochemical reactions with Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC) as you find them in exhaust fumes. If you really feel sick after a sunny day sitting in a Hutong Courtyard house in Beijing, then you might have experienced them.

They appear after long sequences of reactions which for example have the general reaction net like:

Hydrocarbons + O₂ + NO₂ + light → CH₃COOONO₂

or more general C_xH_yO₃ + NO₂ → C_xH_yO₃NO₂

The Beijing Governent makes majoy efforts to clean up the air of the city by improving emission standards, better traffic management and also decreasing industrial and power generation emissions. I believe I am just here at the right time to capture the last phase of it. I am thinking what name it will get in the common memory of the city. "Pea-soup-fog" is unlikely. And even I know it has to go as soon as possbile, I will miss the smell of sulfur and dust when I return into a cleaner Beijing one day.

Sun(day)

Today was the first day in Beijing, where you could really feel the heat. Quite late in the season. Also all the flower blossoms came with delay this year. But today, even it was 37 Celsius, it was not so hot that you could not enjoy the day. Beijing has a dry climate. After showing around German colleagues in Beijing yesterday and ending the day with a barbecue with friends, today was a real Sunday with getting up late and doing nothing useful than cooking dinner in the end.

Ballistic spitting

One of the elements of Chinese street culture is the habit of spitting. Of course, I will not discuss here the purpose of spitting, or even whether it is right or wrong to spit. All which is covered in my humble mission, is to transfer knowledge and make increase the technical abilities in China. Spitting is not excluded from that. And I do not distinguish whether I personally like it or not. My duty is to make you spit better! One limitation, that I have to acknowledge, is that I have no practical experience in spitting myself and also no plan to gain any. So, please take my lines as a purely theoretical contribution.

Below comes all the tools needed not just to maximise spitting range by optimizing launch speed and angle, but also enables us to calculate how much time we have to step aside after spitting vertically upwards at 90 degrees, not to spit on yourselves. That's cool, just to step away 1/10 second before the impact. Let's go. 

Neglecting air drag, in horizontal direction the saliva follows Newton's first law and flies as constant velocity.

and in vertical direction the saliva is constantly accelerated downward by gravitation

Integration over time derives the vertical location to be

which is nothing else but the commonly known free fall equation.

The x-component of the saliva given the launch velocity (speed of projectile when leaving the mouth) and the launch angle, is

Further the vertical component is

The vectorial equation of the trajectory then follows to be

and the explicit form can be derived by solving Eq. 1 for t and substituting t in Eq. 2:

To estimate the location and the maximum height of the saliva on the trajectory, follows

 

and

The mathematical descriptions become more complex, if you include the air drag breaking down the aliver speed and changing twisting the trajectory away from parabolic shape, like illustrated below (picture from Wikipedia on artillery projectiles).

Similar processes take place when spitting against the wind and when spitting under strong side wind conditions. This is a field of further research, which I will follow up in future contributions.

A bridge over troubled waters

The color differences of the waters you see on the left and on the right side of this bridge are not the result of photo editing (neither is the blue sky). It is a result of a barrier under the bridge separating the water bodies and of putting green color, chlorine and perfume into the left one. This makes the difference: a murky stinky sludge on the right, and a bright green liquid with waves of vanilla smell on the left. The picture is taken at the Northern canal of Caoyang District (Beijing). Even there is dead fish floating belly up everywhere, this does not stop people from fishing in the green part. The color itself I guess is the same you use in soccer stadiums to color the grass and must be harmless. But the water is highly eutrophic and full of algae, and even the artificial coloring keeps it what some people think is pretty, it will be hard to avoid that this flips over with the summer coming. But with scars water resources there is nearly no chance of having fresh water supplies in, there is actually not much which can be done at this stage. Another chance might be to pull out all organic matter mechanically, cut any inlet of nutrients and ventilate the canal with pumps. Not easy to manage at this stage and even it looks silly, perhaps even throwing color in is the best that can be done now. Let's hope for rain. This would bring more options. And by the way, I guess taking a 5 ton truck over this bridge really is no problem - once. Good luck.

Paper thinks differently

Coming back from Wuxi and Shanghai to Beijing, I spent the day with sorting out things, and going running and swimming. My e-mailbox was filled up with hundreds of mails again and somehow I never think this has something to do with me and I deleted them in rapid fire. Strange so many still reach the inbox, even I have a very sharp spam-filter which kills most irrelevant machine generated messages and a "human junk filter" which automatically deletes mails having spelling mistakes or using vocabulary indicating low intelligence or bad manners.

While sorting my things, I found that I still have nearly all postcards collected over half a lifetime - even I was already writing many. So, it is a good moment to start sending out more. I also have amazing supplies of letter paper and envelopes of finest quality and interesting letter heads, from institutions you might never have heard of. A good start to make use of them too. And then there is still a folder with stamps, which I never bought for collecting, but always for use. 

I liked e-mails when it all started and I am online since 1982. But recently, I really feel that this is just a conversation which is better done entirely by machines among each other and I do not really have to participate in this any more. I was even looking for a way to automate the answering of my e-mails by something more clever than an Autoresponder. Something like ELIZA for e-mails, where people actually think they talk to me, but it is just a machine. But I did not find anything viable - yet. There is research published on automatic e-mail answering, for example by Sneiders, E. (2010) in the Proceedings of IceTAL'10 of the 7th International Conference of Advances in Natural Language Processing. This is clever, but very hard to integrate in my technical e-mail environment, specially at work - where it is actually very hard even to keep the basics running.

Writing instead with a pen on paper, I really enjoy. There is a German saying which says that the tool is not just manipulated by the craftsman, but also shapes the craftsman and his abilities. This is how I feel about the difference writing on paper or on a computer. It makes me think different and write other things. Writing letters is like a dying way of communication. Many people even lost the ability to write by hand. Writing e-mails is just typing, not writing.

Since back in corporate I also made several attempts to use an electronic calendar. The way people use it, this is the most useless piece of kit. It is just like a receiver of a remote control and with all the gadgets to synchronize, so many mistakes happen, that I am back to paper on that too. Somehow my brain just can not process these moving flashes on computer screens as if they were related to me. I am sorry.

Gardening my way to work

Since I have been in Beijing, for 6 months now without any significant rainfall, I was thinking recently quite often about the reservoirs around the city. Sure, I have not been here all the time and seen every drop of rainfall, and there was a bit of snow and here and there a few drops. But nothing which really can replenish the reserves on which this city runs in terms of water supply. Finally, today there was a real heavy convective rain, and even I know many people get annoyed, I was happy to see the streets flooded. Hope this was the start of a good rainy season. The map attached does not show the rainfall observation yet, because it is from 8:00 in the morning, but the isobars and the MSAT shading illustrate the general weather constellation with winds from the South. So, tomorrow on the way to work along the river I expect the trees to be lush and the color of the flowers flowers to be brighter. The air is already cleared up, it cooled down a lot and the evening sun is breaking through. That's a good start into the week. I guess I need that, because there are big changes ahead.

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

Is Shanghai an elegant city?

This week in Shanghai I met friends in a debate insisting that the city is “elegant”. I understand them. They are mostly engineers. And it is normal for people who have not really seen anything, that it is easier to notice a chronological change than choosing a lateral comparison. And Shanghai of course changed a lot in the last few years. Even they noticed that.

I like Shanghai. It is a metropolis and a world city. But elegant (lat. eligere = sophistication of choice) is not the right word to describe it.  In opposition to my friends, I would for example say, that the large penetration of luxury brands are the opposite of  “sophistication of choice”. And as the managers of luxury brands also become less picky on their customers, their houses’ future design ability is questionable anyways. Since the Chinese new rich conquered their customer base, there is not much hope that these brands will play any role in  creating something interesting. Of course these customers have the money to buy expensive things. However, most of them are still so much involved in improving their social skills and personal hygiene, that their contribution to elegance is questionable.

But the main reason why I think Shanghai is not elegant, is because the speed of life has been picking up there over the years.  Speed and elegance do not go together well. Elegance, grace and dignity are closely related concepts. Wossen-Asserate says in his book Manieren, that “Hurry is the enemy of grace”. I guess nobody who is in a rush can be elegant or contribute to an elegant environment. This is why for example Hong Kong is not more "Asia's World City" than a chicken stable. Gomez Davila is quoted to have said that before talking about abstract issues of “human dignity” we should just do everything slowly. What makes it even worse in Shanghai is that the ratio between actual speed versus hectic is quite odd. Like in many Chinese cities you can just look at the traffic as a metaphor for the state of the society: everybody tries to gain a few meters by shooting with his car into the next gap and as a result everybody gets stuck. The one who is more aggressive wins a meter and in the end everybody looses.  

It is hard for a business city to be elegant, as business people are usually not elegant. Of course there are a few exceptions. But in the development stage Shanghai is today, the majority is just in the "landgrabbing phase". How can they do sophisticated choices when they are busy all the time and their narrow stream of conciseness is driven by margins, shipments, real estate prices and the stock market? 

Often when elegance is brought in context with Shanghai it refers to the time before the Japanese invasion. The pictures of Shanghai Calendar girls are still selling hot in tourist shops. Whether the corrupted Mafia city of the 1930s was really elegant is hard to say. But travellers of that time have stated it in their writings very often. However it really was, it seems that elegance is a memorable attribute. So, it is a good idea for Shanghai to develop a new era of elegance. Some small plants are already rising. But the big picture is still not visible for me.

The refurbished old Slaughterhouse in Shanghai

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.