Shenzhen Noted: Occupy Hong Kong: A View from Shenzhen
This is a tale of two occupations–in Tin Sau Bazaar and Central, the former artistic and the later political, but both explicit calls for social justice. On Saturday night, friends and I crossed the...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: the violence of rural (re)construction (3): living genealogies
If you google “Hakka” all sorts of information comes up, ranging from Wikipedia’s Hakka People brief through the overwhelming comprehensive blog 客家风情 to more academic takes such as “The Secret History...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: occupy central: impressions
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Democracy movement and fateful crackdown on June 4, 1989. Annual commemoration protests have continued in Hong Kong since then. Perhaps 25 years...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: shen kong: hoodlum governments
The price of a night of sanctioned thuggery: This post from the anti-Occupy Central Blue Ribbon Organization offers HK$ 200 to meet up in Mong Kok and Causeway Bay and HK$ 300 to meet up in Admiralty....
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: occupy central: confessional moment
Many of the English language news reports coming out of Hong Kong highlight the antagonism that the SAR’s Mainland residents feel about the protests. The articles draw attention to vapid consumers...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: my white wall obsessions: paint it black (I)
On Friday, October 3 at Handshake 302, we held the first salon for My White Wall Obsessions (墙迫症), “Paint It Black”. The artist team for the first wall comprises Liu He (刘赫) and Wu Dan (吴丹), both...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: the center besieged…
In several of my WeChat circles, an excerpt from the snarky classic, Fortress Besieged (围城) by Qian Zhongshu has been activated by those sympathetic to the Hong Kong students. It is however not...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: the violence of rural (re)construction (4): what gets preserved
Monday I joined the Meizhou preservationists in Enning Neighborhood Guangzhou, where we met to talk about how we could intervene in what was happening in Meizhou. There were two issues at stake. The...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: the violence of rural (re)construction (5): lessons from...
So what am I learning about Shenzhen through my engagement with Meizhou forced evictions and the young people who are trying to figure out how to articulate new relations to their Hakka past and rural...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: international community. china?
Over the weekend CZC curated a cultural exchange between the Dalang Street Office and Peter Moser of more music. A talented and inspirational music facilitator, Pete asks questions that go to the...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: occupy central: it’s not what you think
The US press, like many of my Chinese friends have focused on what the Hong Kong protestors won’t accomplish. This focus on future violence against students completely ignores the courageous...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: cultural smog
I am in Tianjin where the smog is thick. It creates grey on grey cityscapes and irritates eyes and throats. My niece, a lovely and talented young woman jokes that, “Chinese people have iron lungs,”...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: not just a china thing: thoughts on keep’um stupid governance...
While in Beijing, I have been reading David Campbell’s Politics without Principle: Sovereignty, Ethics, and the Narratives of the Gulf War. I am grateful that Campbell has made a pdf of this important...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: of theme parks and the contemporary state
I have been showing my 12-year old niece the sites in Beijing, including the Great Wall. As we wander, I have free associated between these experiences and previous theme park experiences, most...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: guanzhong folk art museum: dynastic architecturelandia
Located at the foot of Wutai Mountain in Xi’an, the Guanzhong Folk Art Museum (关中民俗艺术博物馆) is one of China’s more famous cultural tourism enterprises. In fact, the project launched billionaire peasant...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: tianjin smog update
I have uploaded photos of Tianjin smog to the post “Cultural Smog“.
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: rural construction: can law serve china’s peasants?
While in Xi’an, I once again visited the Terracotta Soldiers in Lingtong, once upon a time center of Qin power. The First Qin Emperor (秦始皇 ) installed this death monument during his life. This seems...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: harmonized
While in Tianjin a friend said to me that she wanted to forward one of my posts about the Hong Kong protests to her WeChat circles, but was afraid of being “harmonized” (被和谐掉) — a euphemism meaning...
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: neon romance, new south china mall
Visited the New South China Mall in Dongguan, which is undergoing a family makeover (more next post). Today, impressions of my neon romance with the semi-abandoned re-occupied playground.
View ArticleShenzhen Noted: playgrounds for consumption
In 2009, Sam Green and Carrie Lozano made the short documentary Utopia, Part 3: The World’s Largest Shopping Mall about the South China Mall in Wanjiang, Dongguan. On November 1 and 2, 2013, I visited...
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