Here are some photos to make you think

Welcome to the new look blog! I've given it a fresh coat of paint & a new header image, to signify the start of the Holland chapter (only 7 weeks too late). I'll post some fun things in the next wee while but in the meantime, I wanted to share a couple of snaps from the World Press Photography Exhibition I went to in Groningen over the weekend. It's hard core photojournalism at its finest; hard-hitting, often gruesome and unpleasant photos, but ones that really make you think. I liked how one of the photographers described his set as "challenging perceptions" - the idea of shaking up what you think you know and making you see things in a different light/perspective. So here you are.

This is the Photo of the Year, I personally think it's a bit blah but hey I'm not a judge.

>Pietro Masturzo, Italy.Women shout their dissent from a Tehran rooftop on 24 June, following Iran’s disputed presidential election. The result had been a victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad over opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, but there were allegations of vote-rigging. In the ensuing weeks, violent demonstrations took place in the streets. At night, people shouted from the roofs, an echo of protests that took place during the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

I personally found this set to be my favourite. Brutal, in-your-face, but so refreshingly honest. How can you not respect that?

It's nice hi-res so click on it to see more detail.

This set reminded me of City of God, the Brazilian film. This set is actually from Guinea Buisseau, where the Prime Minister got shot then chopped up with a machete, and people wrap up cocaine in condom pellets to smuggle across borders. I wondered how the photographer managed to get himself in these situations and be able to take the pictures, let alone publish them.

Link to the winners' gallery 2010:
http://www.worldpressphoto.org/index.php?option=com_photogallery&task=blogsection&id=20&Itemid=257&bandwidth=low

If you're in or near a city where the exhibition is going to be on display, I highly recommend you go.

Until next time
ML

Ewen Bell's famous China Photography Tour - Part 3

Welcome to sassy, savvy Shanghai. It's glitzy, it's glamorous, it's modern, it's commercial... but underneath it all it's still very Chinese.


The last stop on Ewen's photographic tour of China. My last stop on the 6-month tour of Asia, before flying to Holland to start a new life. A lot of emotions running through me at this point; mostly the conflict between wanting to keep travelling and just wanting to go home. After a few crushing lows in Vietnam involving calls to Canada & New Zealand at all hours, I'd had another one in Yangshuo and had come to the realisation that 6 months of continuous travel is just too much for me. It gets very weary having to hunt for food, hunt for accommodation and constantly hustle to get the best (or even the most reasonable) price. Being on the tour and having everything arranged was a big relief, but I just couldn't shake the underlying wanting to go home-ness and wanting familiar things-ness. I still can't shake them - at best you can distract yourself with new and interesting things, but generally you have to learn to live with them.

So Shanghai was everything we expected and more! The lights were brighter, everything was larger than life, and the hotel was LUXURIOUS beyond belief. It even had a gym! Yes I went for a good long run and it felt good.

We visited the antiques market in the Old Shanghai part of town. Totally unfindable if you don't know where it is - truth be told we nearly didn't find it even with Ewen and Yi Ran giving the driver directions. Inside was a treasure trove of carved jade pieces, calligraphy, old coins and trinkets of all descriptions. All of it on the top floor was authentic stuff, sellers come in from all around on Saturdays for the ghost market because it's so well known amongst local antique dealers. Downstairs are the regular (local) tourist stands selling mass-produced strings of jade, jade stamps, posters of Mao etc. and on the ground floor you can get your jade professionally strung & finished. I bought a beautifully carved jade piece which I had strung on red cord, very Chinese!


After the ghost market we headed to the local market of old Shanghai to take photos of a rapidly disappearing community. It was an interesting atmosphere, a mish-mash of things I'd seen in other markets. Old ladies dressed in pyjama outfits doing the daily grocery shopping (freshly cut frog by the kilo), smartly dressed ladies taking their smartly dressed dogs for a stroll while picking up some laundry, old men walking their grandchildren and just enjoying life out on the street. We saw all sorts, and it was a very interesting contrast to the sky-high steel & glass skyscrapers of the Bund.

Proud grandpa with baby

That is one angry cat

Filet of frog?

This old man was proudly walking the street with a book about the disappearing old Shanghai, which has a picture of him in it

I'm not sure why he's carrying a mattress

We finished up the tour with cocktails on the observation deck of one of the tallest towers (I forget which one - a tall one), followed by one last fabulous dinner at Grandma's restaurant (or something like that) - Ewen's favourite restaurant! And I must say, the pork was fantastic. It was all fantastic! If my metabolism hadn't been in overdrive from constant travel and I hadn't lost 8kg in punishing tropical climates. I'm sure I would have packed it on in these 2 weeks. (As it were, I've packed them on here in Holland, as expected)

I had the last 2 days to myself to unwind & prepare for the move to Europe. I moved to a hostel downtown (a very nice and very professional hostel, I might add, with own cafe/restaurant and comfy lounge suites, probably the best hostel I've ever stayed in), strolled along the Bund, took the obligatory pictures of the Pearl and meandered up & down Nanjing Road. Close to the hostel was a huge shopping mall filled with western brands, so I indulged in a little (actually, a lot) of retail therapy and spent a whole day in the mall trying on jeans and jumpers in prep for Europe. I introduced myself to Zara, Esprit, Benetton, M.A.C., and a raft of other international brands, bought a pair of jeans and cute cartoon cat jumper, ate one last Big Mac Combo and on 27 September, said goodbye to Asia for good.

~ breathe out ~

Ewen Bell's famous China Photography Tour - Part 2

18-22 September 2010

A short internal flight and we're in Yangshuo. The tourist trail has well and truly found this place, the main street is choking with souvenir stands, fisherman pants, "carve your name in 5 minutes" jade stamps, 'antique' Mao memorabilia, pizza stands, hamburger stands and of course tour operators selling trips on the Li River. After big bad Beijing I was quite pleased to be in a town reminiscent of Chiang Mai/Hoi An/Luang Prabang in miniature. Our hotel was the cutest place I've ever seen, the Magnolia Hotel - a little boutique place with open courtyard and upstairs indoor balcony, dark antique wood panels and furniture, just gorgeous. And it had a laundry place across the road!! I actually cried out "laundry!" when I saw it :P

Our cruise on the river was just like the tourist brochures say, stunning. The cruise came complete with cormorant fisherman, unfortunately he'd been tainted by the evil influence of capitalism and this photo cost me Y20 ($5. Exorbitant!)

These guys had gone so far as to hire a couple of the cormorant guys to pose for them with the setting sun in the background. There was a whole tribe them, kitted out with the obligatory embarrassing tourist gear. See exhibit A: umbrella on head.
Ewen had a couple of real treats in store for us in Yangshuo. First was a visit to the Xinping market, a 100% locals-only market in the next village 1hr bus ride away, where we saw cages and cages full of ducks, chickens, rabbits, you name it! Also saw freshly prepared wonton soup, mooncakes being made (had to take a cake mould home, only Y20!), and freshly sliced leg of pork being bbq'd.



The second treat was a cooking class! I'd been taking cooking classes in most countries I visited, and was eager to learn Chinese cooking in China. Eggplant is currently in season, and we learned to cook a mean Yangshuo eggplant dish consisting of thin sticks of eggplant, black bean sauce and chilli sauce all stir fried on high heat, not cooked all the way through so it's not soggy and retains some of its flavour. It was so delicious we nearly fell off our chairs!

Steamed stuffed mushrooms, tofu and eggplant flower

During our stay in Yangshuo we ate our daily breakfast at a cafe around the corner. We also had dinner there once, in a special upstairs VIP room. Of course, true to Chinese tradition, they brought out way too much food which we dutifully did our best to eat, one dish was another fabulous eggplant dish that Yi Ran called "Hidden Dragon". Basically a whole eggplant top & tailed to make a cylinder, cut around it to form a spiral, coated in tempura then fried. The secret is to splash the hot oil into the slits in the eggplant to make it bend outwards, so it looks like the spine of a dragon. My favourite meal in all of China!

Once we'd had enough of tourist town, we took a bus up to the Long Ji rice terraces for some R&R. Unfortunately it started raining that day and the traffic was terrible - one accident had blocked the entire road for miles in either direction. Our driver managed to jig up a deal with a driver on the other side of the crash; we would get off, carry our stuff to the other bus and switch with the passengers on the other side. Easy!

At the bottom of the rice terraces we were greeted by lots of little old ladies who wanted to carry our bags - 5' tall, Yao tribe, extremely loud and obnoxious, wearing traditional clothes and carrying bamboo baskets on their backs. They make their money by carrying tourists' suitcases up to the guesthouses, a good 1hr trek uphill. At only ~Y30 per piece, this is a huge weight off your shoulders (literally) and frees you up to take pictures and just enjoy the hike. The ladies themselves are hilarious - they fight with each other who gets to carry the heaviest bag, it looks like they're gonna get left behind but once you're halfway up the mountain they come skipping along and overtake you, no sweat.

A few of us had come down with a tummy bug and, combined with the rain which made sunrise a bit defunct, used this as an excuse to take a couple of days off and just relax. Not a bad place to relax, given the circumstances :)

The view from my room

"Hello? Yeah I can pick up a loaf of bread. Do we need any milk?"

No ears needed for these glasses

It was refreshing to be in a cooler, less humid climate, to be in the rain, to be able to lie around all day, do some photoshopping/emailing, and not feel pressure to be productive. Just what the body & soul needed :) By the 2nd evening I'd pepped up and was eating generous servings of fries - a surefire sign that I'm on the mend.

Final chapter - Shanghai - coming soon!

x ML

Ewen Bell's famous China Photography Tour - Part 1

So I'm in Beijing, people think I'm Chinese (which I am, but also am not). I'm suffering the first stages of re-entry shock; I sometimes feel like a retard, especially when I say things like "ooh McDonalds" or "ooh a billboard/cinema" but I have gotten so used to being in a 3rd world environment! It's especially hard to see food wasted - our meals are always much too big for the group and there's tons left over, I feel awful knowing how many people are starving and will never even see food like this.

I've checked into my luxury hotel and have had a loooooong hot shower and am enjoying chilling out in air-conditioned coolness. It feels so good to be in a proper hotel, especially considering I'd stayed in hostels, guesthouses and some really crappy crap holes over the last 5 months. It's definitely a nice end to a long adventure of roughing it :) That afternoon I meet Alta, who is to be my roommate for the trip, and at 6pm we head down to the lobby to meet the rest of the group. There are only 7 of us plus Ewen and Yi Ran, our local guide. Ewen needs no introduction (visit www.ewenbell.com or www.photographyfortravellers.com if you REALLY don't know who Ewen is by now). Yi Ran is 23, works in marketing at Disney China and we hit it off right away; she's lots of fun, a great shopping buddy and just a really nice girl overall. The rest of the group consists of:

• Elaine from NYC, writer, art lover and eternal seeker of fun
  
• Alta from SA, well-travelled, collector of ceramics and able to provide some much-needed bluntness at times
• Kathy and Karl from the US, Karl a certified practitioner of Chinese herbal medicine and Kathy a retired professor of biology
• Lou & Jean from US, Lou the self-processed master of the universe and everything photographic who had his own methods for everything and carries a tripod EVERYWHERE - day and night, and Jean, his 1950's housewife follow-him-everywhere-cos-he's-the-boss-and-he-knows-everything wife, also complete with tripod.

And me, the 20-something backpacker with a huge appetite for local food, local culture (especially the food) and just life in general, who's used to slumming it and has no patience for spoiled, difficult travellers.

Sounds like the setup for a reality TV show, right? :P That night we had dinner in a crummy, dark, scary corner of Beijing's old district (the hutongs), which just happens to be the BEST Peking Duck restaurant in Beijing.

Later that night Yi Ran and I went shopping in this street:
And the next day the group headed to the Great Wall. We were so lucky with the weather, we had a beautiful orange sunset which gave spectacular photographic results. We went to the Jinshanling section; the tour normaly goes to Simatai but it was closed for renovation. Jinshanling is a good 3hrs drive from central Beijing; most people go to Mutianyu which is a lot closer and therefor more crowded. We had the wall almost to ourselves. It was an amazing feeling to be standing on the wall itself, it stretches for some 8800 km across the country, and when you're standing on one of the towers you can see it go on for as far as the eye can see. It was a good, steep climb to get up onto the wall itself. This, of course, was cause for celebration.

Here's the wall at sunset:

During our stay in Beijing we also visited the Drum and Bell towers, Temple of Heaven, the hutongs and the Summer Palace. It's great being on tour with other photographers; just like in Cambodia, there are plenty of people to bounce ideas off, ask questions, swap lenses and just talk general camera geek stuff. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! And Ewen is a fantastic guide, he takes the time to sit with each of us one by one, see how we're going offer advice, and answer any questions we have. He obviously is very passionate about his craft and is willing and eager to share his knowledge with others. You don't see this very often with pro photogs.

Some pictures from around Beijing:

MMMMM spicy chicken at the Summer Palace
Suzhou St, Summer Palace

Hwa cha - flower tea
The Temple of Heaven
Photographers being photographers :P

Crazy cat lady of Beijing

On the 3rd night we took an overnight train to Xi'An, home of the Terracotta Warriors. Surprising to all of us, the city is a great place to visit in its own right. It's a major point on the Silk Road, meaning over the centuries it's had lots of Muslim influence from nomads & traders, and as a result has a large Muslim Quarter with a huge mosque. what that also means is there's a fabulous evening market with lots of BBQ meats, unleavened bbq breads, dried fruit, fresh walnuts and lots of other middle-eastern-type foods. We ate a delicious meal of bbq lamb skewers seasoned with cumin, roast chicken and chewy bbq garlic bread, so non-Chinese but so delicious! Another winner, Ewen :) Being within a few days of the harvest festival meant the markets were overflowing with moon cakes... even more NOM! :D (by this point it's clear Ewen loves his food as much as I do - AWESOME)

Pictures from Xi'an

The Terracotta Warriors
McDonalds in front of the Drum Tower. Juxtaposition?
Fresh walnuts
Moon cakes!
BBQ MEAT NOM NOM NOM

After Xi'An we head to Yangshuo: limestone karsts, touristy shops & restaurants, rice terraces. Stay tuned...

x ML

Big Bad Beijing and my struggle with China's messed up mindframe

Alternative name for this blog: millions of Chinese... and me

Ni hao! Welcome to the city of ... well, everything! After a looooong time in 3rd world countries, it was a big shock to the system to see skyscrapers, space-age apartment blocks, international brand names on billboards, McDonalds and 7-Eleven again. I wasn't sure what to expect from Beijing, or from China in general really. It's not really on the backpacker circuit; I'd spoken to a few travellers who'd been there and said it was roadblock city re: language and general tourist-helpfulness. I'd studied a few key Mandarin phrases and dutifully copied out my guest house address in Chinese, as I'd read they don't even read English letters (this is true). My passport, visa and face (take off glasses, please) were carefully scrutinised at customs, then I was on my merry way to the hutongs!

Problem #1: it turns out I can't copy Chinese characters very well. To me, they looked fine, but the taxi driver either couldn't read them or (I suspect this is more likely) he couldn't find the particular hutong I was staying on, so he said he couldn't read my address. The hutongs are the old part of Beijing, a rabbit warren of alleys and pathways where cars don't really fit, only rickshaws & motorbikes, and you need a London-cabbie-like photographic memory to know your way around. Unfortunately, I had a Beijing cabbie who drove around the block three times shaking his head, so in the end I jumped out and walked to avoid paying over 3x the price. Ended up just wandering and found it in the end. The hotel was the cutest place, it was a collection of rooms all arranged around a central courtyard, old-style! Breakfast at the hotel was uber expensive so I decided to eat steamed pork buns on the street - 60c and DELICIOUS! :D

I had a great dumpling dinner at a place around the corner, then walked around the lake area that evening. It's a huge touristy/shipping/going out area which is heaps of fun to wander around at night time, just soak up the atmosphere and the city lights. It felt really good to be back in civilisation (I even had McD's here), back around people who dress to the fashion trends and not out of necessity. It really felt like re-entering the real world (well, the developed world).

They have a funny relationship/attitude towards Mao Zedong and the whole communist thing. It's still very communist; any incoming media is censored or blocked (e.g. Facebook - China says NO), to the point that they will give you incorrect weather information if it's too hot or too cold, so you won't get stressed or freak out. Beijing was having a heat wave when I was there, but according to the news it was fine.

But regarding the memorabilia, of which there is plenty, they have definitely realised that there are a few bucks to be made. They admire and honour Mao's memory despite the horrendous bloodshed and shitting all over centuries of history, which would ordinarily inspire hate or grudges for generations to come (example: Germany). But there's an irony and a tongue-in-cheek-ness to their current attitude, Mao's face is emblazoned on everything from coffee mugs to schoolbags and notebooks to women's underwear. Old-school communist posters appear on a lot of tourist merchandise; some done in the old style but with a modern twist on the message, and some genuinely antique wartime posters. The new stuff has a cleverness and sarcasm to it that I honestly did not expect from the Chinese; with such an upset history you expect people to tiptoe around it (example: Germany) rather than make money off it. I don't image I could get a coffee mug like this in Berlin with an old Nazi poster on it.



So anyway, the Chinese are a funny bunch. The new generation is ultra modern, totally plugged in, but at the same time really traditional, family values, live with their parents until married, they're almost Japanese ... except for the efficiency. They don't have any. They don't want any. And they don't understand why foreigners want stuff done on time. Then there's the spitting - all the time, everywhere, by everyone. YUCK.

I wasn't sure how they would treat me in China, I wasn't sure how I'd feel either. Am I Chinese? Am I Dutch? Am I a New Zealander? Or a combination thereof? All through Asia, the locals had spotted that I was part Asian which was kind of an "in", and actually quite nice. But I still stuck out as a tourist, by the clothes I wore, the camera I carried (the general air of rich Western-ness) and of course, being 5'7. Beijingers, on the other hand, are fashionable (they dress in Zara, Esprit, Uniqlo and of course Prada, Escada, True Religion and Louis Vuitton) and because they have better access to nutrition, they're regular height. With sunglasses, I was just one of them. Good? NO. I've never felt so Western as my first day in Beijing. It was a strange, disconnected feeling; this is where my blood and my ancestors come from, I've grown up with Chineseness around me, but I feel no connection to this place at all. I've come to realise that language plays a huge part in cultural belonging; not only knowing a language but the nuances of how you speak - look at how Londoners can tell what part of town they're from just by the accent. So not knowing any Chinese except for "yes" and "no" (apparently my pronunciation of "how much" was so offensive the dumpling vendor just stared at me), I felt like a complete outsider in the middle of my own people. Not so nice. (Ironically, I know a lot more Japanese than Mandarin and managed to make some inroads in Japan)

Situation: Chinese-looking person in Beijing (me), doesn't speak Chinese. LOGIC DOES NOT COMPUTE. CONTINUE SPEAKING CHINESE. REPEAT.
My solution was to just walk away :(
Funnily enough, later on the tour I encountered Situation #2: Western-looking person speaking Mandarin (Ewen). LOGIC DOES NOT COMPUTE. DO NOT UNDERSTAND. SHAKE HEAD. REPEAT.

Anyway, with my cultural observations (and frustrations) out of the way, here's me at the Forbidden City:

and going to the Peking Duck restaurant

I joined the tour group in the evening of day 2. I checked into the 5-star luxury hotel uptown, had a looooooooooong shower and watched some DVDs in my bathrobe, it was a totally blissful experience to not be in a hostel any more :) It was great to finally be on Ewen's China Photography Tour, I'd spent a good 2 years looking forward to it! There were 7 of us, plus Ewen and Yi Ran, our local guide. Yi Ran is 24, female, very tall and lots of fun, we hit it off right away! It was set to be a great tour, stay tuned for the next chapter!

Coming up: the Great Wall, Beijing's crazy cat lady, Terracotta warriors, calligraphy, rice terraces and the bright lights of Shanghai. Don't miss it!


ML x