spring2life take2

writing this in the last hour of 2008, there is not much left but wishing all of you a happy new year 2009. may there be peace around you and in your hearts.

i have rarely wandered in a park so full of beauty, even in late autumn, where it lacks the sensation of blossoming flowers. the temples we had reached only late in the afternoon, but neither me nor my colleague wanted to give in, even after 5 hours of walk.

only the sunset forced us to go on and find our way towards the exit, not knowing that leaving the park was possible throughout the night. but the golden light of this time of day we fully savoured.

that christmas hiatus was not planned (not to self: better write holiday posts in advance…), so ex post my best christmas wishes, alternatively seasons greetings to you all. there is a small number of china pictures left which i would like to share, starting with this view of the buddhist temple in the summer residence of the emperor together with the 21. century skyline of beijing.

walking and sightseeing in the middle of the crowd sometimes offers the opportunity to profit from posing meant for others, and this way i got the picture to the right. A lot of joy is in this pose, that’s why i like it.

found in the pond in the emperors summer residence. one of the empty, dried capsules of the lotos flower i picked up an brought as a material reminder of this place.

there are many aspects on which to judge a government ruling 100 years ago. the cultural revolution in china found resonance among the millions who suffered under a violent regime that in many ways abused human workforce just for the aggrandissement and luxury of the ruling class (and just a flash of thought: what will history books write about current governments and administrations).

still there are achievements, others but in a different way valuable from the revolutions results. a heritage of art forms that still lives today and articulates valid statements, not only in the field of gardening.

i’ve rarely seen such perfection in form as here, embedded in a perfect landscape, in the summer residence of the emperor in beijing. for me this is form brought back to the principle of absolute simplicity, stripped of all unnecessities, and in this way nearing perfection.

noise, smog and dust of beijing, all was left behind.

the weather on this my last day in china was as good as it could get: moderate warm (for november) and a nice mist in the air that did avert that summer-like steel blue sky. it created an extremely fine balance with the red painted wood and the still mostly green leaves.

the whole way around the lake in the emperors summer residence was a feasting in new vistas, new visual highlights. and, due to november, it was not too crowded, so i really could enjoy my time.

as I was quite often ask to pose for a photo together with chinese people (i guess a european man with a ponytail is regarded as even more interesting than a “normal” foreigner) i pretty soon lost my shyness and asked people to allow me make a picture of them. this way the group portrait of the three generations was realized.

… and sometimes of course i didn’t ask but tried my best to “steal” a shot. i just couldn’t resist this one.

the last day in beijing pampered us with blue sky and warm sunshine, ideal for a visit to the summer residence of the emperors. the place was busy with locals, and their exercising with the ribbons made up for a wonderful double arc with one of the most harmonious bridges i have ever seen.

so the very first meters in this park promised a wonderful restorative day after the cold marathon through the forbidden city from the day before.

40 taxi minutes away from the center of beijing, my hotel offered a great view over the suburb houses – 21st floor is a kind of vantage point. plus, i had a better impression of beijings smog – not that i did care too much for this. looking down was quite spectacular, photographing was more difficult as the window did open just enough to hold the camera outside.

you remember the good ol’ film days? when we had tri-x and pushed it to 1600 to get verrrry grainy b&w results? and were proud of the available light photography we were able to do then? at that days i would never have thought of snapping with a standard zoom lens late at night in not-so-well lit corners of the street, like here in beijing. a lot has changed, not everything for the better, but digital photography has brought me a whole new horizon of opportunities. available light among them, but also to shoot 500 frames without a single thought of regret…

found on the wall of a kiosk in the more touristic areas. well, that’s probably capitalism: to sell whatever is requested. and here in my county at home, militaria and obscene relics of 1939-1945 also are requested and sell only too well.

but the combination of heroic posters of the cultural revolution and the iuxtaposing movie? posters is extraordinary.

the lonely planet guide told: “you don’t have to search for the rikshas to drive you through the hutongs, they will find you”, and so it was. outside the north end of the forbidden city, you could merely walk for 5m without being asked for a riksha tour. As it was off season, there were maybe 50 rikshas for every tourist.

the cold grey weather we had, just above freezing, perfectly matches the blue-grey colors here, with the chillies a perfect complementary in color as well as characteristic.

the chinese society undergoes a fast transition. this is strongly visible also inside the cities, where those who do not manage to be on the rising side live under very simple conditions. i did not want to think about winter temperatures in accomodations like this.

the exit gate of the forbidden city shone in such a fresh and strong red that it was almost painful in the eyes – and to the sensor, as the histogram showed. a friend later on told me that the preliminaries of the olympic games 2008 had included a real orgy in paint, even in the hutongs, the leftovers of the traditional beijing quarters, where all the roadside walls were painted grey.

of course this was only a make-up and was not connected to substantial improvements. the hutongs were a strong contrast to the splendor of the forbidden city, and a contrast to the modern, multi-story, skyscraper architecture that is the visible result of the olympics boom. the hutongs feature a similar red as the old parts of the forbidden city, but the rest is dreary and grey, except for the more touristic parts.

no words, in my eyes there is nothing to add to this harmonious arrangement

the forbidden city of course was full of people photographing, themselves like the lady in the lead picture (which i found amazing in the iuxtaposition of a single figure against those incountable roofs), each other, the architecture, also me. a european man with a ponytail is so extraordinary that especially gals wanted me to pose together with them. but how can i blame them when i was interested in chinese faces and people.

a long time ago i was quite good in fermi estimates, so i tried to get an idea about the numbers of pictures taken every day in the forbidden city, but alas, i was not able to do a qualified guess.

the availability of electronic gadgets was stunning and gave me a little bit of an idea about the development of spending capacity now in the middle class of china. and in terms of numbers, this middle class already is big.

instead of struggling with maths, i preferred to fall back to photographing roofs, tiles and numerous shades of red on the walls. satisfying that was.

in the maze of the forbidden city, you always get carried on by the masses of tourists (local tourists in my case), but when you manage to reach a corner you can stay for a while and watch the delicate beauty for example of the roof tiles.

in yesterday’s blog entry i already mentioned b. brechts “questions from a worker who reads”, and this thought accompagnied me throughout the palaces and palaces and palaces. it kind of gets a special connotation in china, as the masses are so big that it’s only to easy to not notice them as individuals as we would do naturally in our home country.

so it was a feast for the eyes, tiring a bit after 4 hours, and the border to the garden area was most welcome at that time.

leaving the hotel at 6:15 was not enough: there was already quite a crowd – 99% chinese – at tiananmen square, chatting in the cold morning air and all waiting for the flag to be brought by clockwork-like moving soldiers to the flag pole. and i was in the midst, all i could see were the camera displays of the fellows standing in front of me.

when the flag finally was rising, i was lucky to catch a glimpse over the heads to see the portrait of the chairman watching this ceremony.

tiananmen now of course is a highly political place, so there was quite a number of policemen to watch the spectators, and all lamp posts are equipped with dozens of cameras. therefore i was even more astonished to see dozens of homeless sleeping in the underpass leading to the “great hall of the people”. when i started taking pictures, again policemen appeared, this time not adressing me but instructing the homeless to probably pack their belongings and go.

beijing airport was impressive, to say the least. dimension-wise as well as in puncto tidiness, and at least from the latter those pictures should give an impression.

in europe it is common wisdom that societies with a socialist background usually have an enormous amount of hidden unemployment by entertaining low paid support jobs that would not exist in a pure capitalistic environment (don’t deduce from this statement that i would rate our capitalistic society higher – the last months have shown on which bubbles we have built). in beijing airport as well as on the streets of nanjing numerous amount of cleaning staff was re-cleaning clean things, to maintain the high gloss as here in beijing, or spotless clean motoways as in nanjing. impressive, but probably not a useful model for other parts of the world.

but as a billboard to the world, showcasing chinas prosperity and well-organisedness it presumably served the purpose.