Beijing

The Temple of the Earth and I

It is a cold day with gales today in Beijing. A beautiful day, as it is sunny and the Beijingers are enjoying the clearness after a day of rain washing out, and then strong winds blowing away the haze. The Hutongs are filled with golden leaves, and live their anachronistic slowness and quietness in the middle of the capital city. 

After dinner, before going to bed, I still went to my favorite place in this city, which is The Temple of the Earth. There is no God in the centre of this temple. It is an open space to worship the Earth itself, pray for luck, harvest, and ask for forgiveness. There is no "person" on the other side - nobody you can make a deal with. I love this temple and the park around it. I spend as much time there as I can. Even I am not religious at all, and last prayed in a German kindergarden (when you got beaten up if you did not follow instructions), today I felt like asking for a few things. Of course, I am aware that I can only ask myself, and no supreme being. And then, I can hope for luck.

I regret, that I cannot read Shi Tiesheng's "The Temple of Earth and I" in Chinese. I have to rely on translations and found one on Karen Gernant and Chen Zeping . The book is the description of the Temple of the Earth Park through the eyes a man who has been crippled in young age and spends all his free time there. Even I am handicapped only having the translation to rely on, it is a beautiful record of the place I like most in Beijing.

It begins like this:

"In a number of my stories, I’ve referred to an antiquated park: in fact, this is the Temple of Earth Park. Some years ago, before tourism had developed much, it was as desolate and neglected as a wasteland. People seldom gave it a thought. 

       The Temple of Earth wasn’t far from my home, or perhaps it’s better to say my home wasn’t far from it. All in all, I felt I was related to it by fate. It had reposed there for four hundred years before my birth, and ever since, when my grandmother was a young woman, she had taken my father to live in Beijing, my family had lived near it: in more than fifty years, my family had moved several times, but always to a place in its vicinity. Each time, we moved closer to it. I often felt this was something foreordained—as if this old park were waiting especially for me: it seemed it had been waiting for four hundred years—through all the tumultuous changes of those centuries ..."

DSC01988.jpg

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.

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.

\!\ x = v_\mathrm{x} t

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

v_y = v_\mathrm{0y} - g t\, .

Integration over time derives the vertical location to be

y = v_\mathrm{0y} t - \frac{g}{2} t^2\,

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

x(t) = v_{0} t \cos \beta \qquad (1)

Further the vertical component is

y(t) = v_{0}  t \sin \beta - \frac{g}{2} t^2\, .\qquad (2)

The vectorial equation of the trajectory then follows to be

\vec{r}(t) = \begin{pmatrix} x(t) \\ y(t) \end{pmatrix} =     \begin{pmatrix} v_0 t \cos\beta \\ v_0 t \sin \beta -\frac{g}{2} t^2 \end{pmatrix}

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

y(x) = \left(\tan \beta \right)x - \frac{g}{2{v_0}^2 \cos^2\beta}x^2

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

x_\mathrm{S} = \frac{\sin (2\beta)}{2} \frac{v_0^2}{g} = \sin \beta \cos \beta \frac{v_0^2}{g} 

and

y_\mathrm{S} = \frac{v_0^2 \sin^2 \beta}{2g}

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.

 

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.

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

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.

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.

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".

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.

Beijing in Spring Festival

During Spring Festival Beijing is laid back and festive. Most people which have their families not in Beijing, travel back to their home towns. Logistically the best thing to do during these days is to stay where you are. All others who also stay enjoy a week holiday and there are many things you can do in this city. Not just the cultural repertoire is huge, but also you can just get onto a lake ice skating, do a hike in the mountains along the spectacular parts of the Great Wall which are less "developed" or even drive up to a ski resort. Hiking, I was surprised that there are now also many Chinese going outdoors and enjoying the scenery. A few years ago, they did not go too much into the countryside. Now there are many "Donkey Friend Clubs", which are mainly self organized groups walking together far distances. For a first orientation, I found that the Beijing Hikers are organizing nice groups. There are a lot of foreigners in these groups, but they are not the typical Expats, but nice people which have been living long time abroad and many of them speak Chinese. I guess, that foreigners strolling around the Chinese countryside with a rucksack, already implies some self selection.

Of course, I would not be in China, if not everywhere small little businesses open to cater into all kinds of holiday demands. From the man with the mobile sweet patato bakery who is counting his money on the frozen lake where he sells his snacks to the ice skaters (see photo on the left), to extra capacities in taking family portraits in the China Photo Studio. Not to mention the huts selling the fireworks which turn the nights in Beijing into a self (un-)organized light show which is unmatched anywhere. I was wondering how safe it is when the firework's salesman is smoking sitting on a few tons of gunpowder. But you think it is "cool" just to smoke in a non-smoking area in Hong Kong and chase away the little policeman? That's nothing against sitting smoking on a pile of gunpowder chatting with the policeman on how the family is doing. Happy new year, health luck and prosperity for the Year of the Dragon.

Beijing China Photostudio Ltd.

Beside the Hans Schafgans Studio in Bonn, my favorite "Photo shop" is the Beijing China Photostudio Ltd. on 180 Wang Fu Jing. When you click on their website you will find that it does not work. When you tell them it does not work, they will not care. And why should they? Established in 1937, they have been photographing not just the leaders of China, but hundreds of thousands people and families, including myself. On the upper floor at Chinese New Year you have families putting their reunion in photographic memories. You see moving scenes of grandparents dressing up in their best suit, while babies get pacified with milk, people choosing glasses without glass (not to have the reflection). Young couples go there to take a photo together which might become a document for lifetime, they love to look back to. And then all the buzz and discussions around making finally the choices which photos to print. But the Beijing China Photo Studio is not just a "sweet place", it is also highly professional: the photographers in the upper floor themselves, the editors sitting at the computers making minor corrections and last but not least the print shop. On the ground floor the camera and equipment sales is actually run by people loving photography and knowing what they talk about. In my quest of getting a few pictures for my office, I finally decided for some of my own photos and went there to make use of the print shop. When the editor opened the files, I saw that his eyes started to sparkle. They were also some Antarctic scenes and he was looking at it interested like watching a different planet. I thought if an editor who sees thousands of photos from his professional photographers, looks twice at my photos, this is a very compliment for a crude amateur like me. So I left happily after asking to make a few large prints and then still bought on the same street a wool coat, a pullover, two maps of China and Beijing and two tea cups. 

Graceful Capital and pleasant neighbourhood

Sure, I have strolled around Beijing many times and have seen all the spots you see as a visitor. But now that I moved here, other things catch my interest. So, I put on my running shoes today and went off through Hutongs, parks, along lakes, through Universities. I saw bookstores, museums, a drama school for experimental theatre, galleries, people playing cards, and dancing in the parks. I chatted with people and found that the Beijingers have a good spirit. You can joke with them even beyond the language barrier. There are corner shops, handymen, repairshops of all kinds. Beijing is a graceful capital and a pleasant neighbourhood at the same time. Just coming back from a trip to South America, I also appreciated that it sems absolutely safe in any place. Perhaps it is also because my sportswear is so old that I look like a migrant worker myself, just a bit taller and a long nose. And I had only 50 Renminbi in my pocket, of which I spent 12 for a roadside lunch and 1.5 for a bottle of water. Who should rob me like that? When I came back, my GPS showed that I ran 32 kilometers. Good start.