tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75305911504271387802024-03-18T07:38:43.204+00:00The Tour of All ToursA creative review of guided tours worldwide and thinkpad for art and tour projects. Review requests welcomed.Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.comBlogger233125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-67070399010148090482023-11-03T12:27:00.004+00:002023-11-03T12:27:50.969+00:00The Golden Tour - an odd sort of alchemy <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: black;">T</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwb96qlq_5hYzVfd05gNNvUqyZ83BtVF_-7CSQm9ty3fYCjOe-PcLHlCGmIVsv6VJE9OoSE2LlQ2SGq_FiRN67r8BQ0XKPGkJ8BB9ljc0PA6lHhi3WLbTBCwYcZ3uhx-STs25O5TcEELsUnmgvfdzVDF-5gwBYAq7kXtXYsGHuhD5VOvX5JSFT-objII/s4199/DSC_0084.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2792" data-original-width="4199" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDwb96qlq_5hYzVfd05gNNvUqyZ83BtVF_-7CSQm9ty3fYCjOe-PcLHlCGmIVsv6VJE9OoSE2LlQ2SGq_FiRN67r8BQ0XKPGkJ8BB9ljc0PA6lHhi3WLbTBCwYcZ3uhx-STs25O5TcEELsUnmgvfdzVDF-5gwBYAq7kXtXYsGHuhD5VOvX5JSFT-objII/s320/DSC_0084.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br />The clothes have arrived so I'm playing around with costume and sound. This is usually more of an afterthought but with this tour I want to embrace style above content so this comes first. It's clearly a dumb look. This offers me some cover and is entertaining too. Next is sound and the dumbest obvious sound I found so far is this:</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gKjNAZ1916I" width="320" youtube-src-id="gKjNAZ1916I"></iframe></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Along the way a quite decent image also popped up by accident. I might just have to use this sun reflection in the mirrored shades effect somehow. It's rather good.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc6Z9YdxYv5Ad2vthM209Fg1FOD2bEyKaJYninK5O6a1L3Y0JwJKEm8vm07Uo27aAJW4eMgVNWpOAZhokLQDUck6vINhX5xR9AKQPZGTi5bGwpEYViIzNHO4xJOc6Cr59tQGpfqfjrMT4UH_u4NG6OmmTxYYlvRJBZiqN5f2FA_e93hne9XMIs3vc4HAo/s2544/WechatIMG777.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2543" data-original-width="2544" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc6Z9YdxYv5Ad2vthM209Fg1FOD2bEyKaJYninK5O6a1L3Y0JwJKEm8vm07Uo27aAJW4eMgVNWpOAZhokLQDUck6vINhX5xR9AKQPZGTi5bGwpEYViIzNHO4xJOc6Cr59tQGpfqfjrMT4UH_u4NG6OmmTxYYlvRJBZiqN5f2FA_e93hne9XMIs3vc4HAo/s320/WechatIMG777.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">In all of this madness I did also manage to make a site visit and work out the locations where I will stop. It will be of a hit and run guerrilla style tour. Loud and tasteless and gone before anyone has time to stop it. In many ways it's a collection of many of the things I hate, but when you string them together in a deliberate way it becomes something else. You could almost call that a form of alchemy - the ancient art of turning base materials into gold. Let's see if there's still magic to be found in Nantou Ancient Town.</span><p></p>Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-91952395559251439292023-10-25T15:34:00.003+01:002023-10-25T15:43:26.110+01:00Back into Making Tours: The Golden Tour<p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFz5RX5O04BQz2oGGIP70eEgnTVWzswaB26HiQlQLMXXz3DZI76Mbz8HtwUzJkQ5cjjw9USUjaoURhmh0B1Vc5wumTYDwqiHdns-eKxpsLrTL9dL383loSPI_ncJCidvGUqQArEllKiu0Ul87hBt0SX5W9T7GyExzemEiHm9hyVnoiQo_HGePO1xZxrF8/s1080/WechatIMG731.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1054" data-original-width="1080" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFz5RX5O04BQz2oGGIP70eEgnTVWzswaB26HiQlQLMXXz3DZI76Mbz8HtwUzJkQ5cjjw9USUjaoURhmh0B1Vc5wumTYDwqiHdns-eKxpsLrTL9dL383loSPI_ncJCidvGUqQArEllKiu0Ul87hBt0SX5W9T7GyExzemEiHm9hyVnoiQo_HGePO1xZxrF8/s320/WechatIMG731.jpeg" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />After a long break, I am making another tour and it will get its first outing next month in Shenzhen. I will try to make it as bad a tour as possible from the content point of view while, at the same time, turning it into a spectacle. The Tours of Tours, which I was previously busy with, was smart and ironic; this is much more gonzo in style. The Golden Tour is going to be flashy, loud and in Chinese. My aim is to reduce the tour guide to being a colorful moving sculpture that spurts out unreliable information. </span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">There is a space of critique in here all the same. I am going to be using descriptions of the area culled from the internet which contradict one another. In this way the official narrative will be dirtied simply by association and the shifts in the narratives that come from using out-of-date information will only make it more layered.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">This is the sort of typical text that you can find in Chinese about the place:</span></p><p>Only by putting roots into the soil can one survive. Chinese people pay attention to the "root system". People on the loess land have their desire for a sense of belonging engraved in their bones and flesh, and they are inherited from the same origin. On the north side of the bustling Shennan Avenue, a four-column, three-door, double-eaves archway separates Nantou Ancient City from the outside world. It is like a door of time, inviting people to step in to see this ancient city with a history of thousands of years, and to discover the culture of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. of root system.</p><p>Nantou Ancient City, also known as Xin'an Ancient City, was once the administrative center of Lingnan coastal areas, a coastal defense fortress, a distribution center for maritime transportation and foreign trade. It has witnessed the cultural accumulation of this land for more than 1,700 years.</p><p>Over the past 1,700 years, the jurisdiction, county names and administrative offices have changed several times, but the people of Shenzhen and Hong Kong have never wavered in their feelings for this land. After the Opium War broke out in 1840, Hong Kong was separated from Xin'an County. Although Shenzhen and Hong Kong faced each other across the Shenzhen River, they did not let go of the brotherhood and kinship between them. After Hong Kong's return to the motherland, many compatriots returned to the ancient city for a walk. With the support of their roots, they no longer looked like a piece of duckweed.</p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Date: 25-26th November</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Place: Nantou Gucheng, Nanshan District, Shenzhen</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p>Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-32596998356808013492022-02-09T08:56:00.001+00:002022-02-09T08:56:09.701+00:00The Historiographic Tour: one for the future<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigXpcF_PO_DzSqJ1M175ep89lrnZ0zLb-TBw8EG6vBWVHaCHwW_wBEjOSjnyebxzndmOir2Ma5r8KlSY5VnOZgKG4B8kvunNrKkL_EFIsr10benX9-Pk7N4Ya6pyhB_ozZRSMpZ-EQU4hWeLSj5sfr1t1PPt0pmIlvc5p1gcN0s4_pjbyBBpILwOoB=s4000" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="4000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEigXpcF_PO_DzSqJ1M175ep89lrnZ0zLb-TBw8EG6vBWVHaCHwW_wBEjOSjnyebxzndmOir2Ma5r8KlSY5VnOZgKG4B8kvunNrKkL_EFIsr10benX9-Pk7N4Ya6pyhB_ozZRSMpZ-EQU4hWeLSj5sfr1t1PPt0pmIlvc5p1gcN0s4_pjbyBBpILwOoB=w400-h225" width="400" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">I was back in Beijing to perform a show and in the evening was going out to have a drink. I decided to ride a bike to Gulou as that is more fun than taking a taxi or subway. Somehow the riding took over and I never made it to the bar. That is liable to happen here as Beijing is both an inspiring city and it's too damm big so it takes forever to get from A to B.</span><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZTTGLycz7Xa46qlPRvKFq5778J3XyWmG1Y_Fm99TIwoRs7jhCq2nVm1NF170emSFPuy_K2L8VDCZ3RvL0ZoLmQklpK9xIUSzRevwNiIEefX9yLXHsz7vtlGEBMSevhXDS-J3l0vAFJwkrZE0Yp4Fdsx6Xvmtd63P_W9p6XBaq9i0El1o7qTe0m7N5=s4000" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="2250" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjZTTGLycz7Xa46qlPRvKFq5778J3XyWmG1Y_Fm99TIwoRs7jhCq2nVm1NF170emSFPuy_K2L8VDCZ3RvL0ZoLmQklpK9xIUSzRevwNiIEefX9yLXHsz7vtlGEBMSevhXDS-J3l0vAFJwkrZE0Yp4Fdsx6Xvmtd63P_W9p6XBaq9i0El1o7qTe0m7N5=w280-h400" width="280" /></span></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">The ride took me past several stations on the number 2 metro line. This brought me back to an idea I had some time ago about making a tour of the old city wall which was brought down to make way for the metro line. That would end up being a history tour and these can be interesting if the history is a vital enough one and the storytelling top quality. Usually, however, history tour bore the pants off me and that is probably why I never got round to making it.</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1BuzaDHSmFp2E5uHVVzAfYN9USAV2baeSJ3qGK5ugZBlabJLXmVL-AzN95bU_lNznQQvbtaqy1T6ZcTCN5GFGdvLX8xtPIxAg0ytqxf3oyEkhIHZnh5xe1UNwswqW73qIc4jLqHA0ww1ypH1tfz5KbJ0xSx4P49uw0NiNqa4K8IHTs2VuH4Kbqdle=s4000" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="4000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1BuzaDHSmFp2E5uHVVzAfYN9USAV2baeSJ3qGK5ugZBlabJLXmVL-AzN95bU_lNznQQvbtaqy1T6ZcTCN5GFGdvLX8xtPIxAg0ytqxf3oyEkhIHZnh5xe1UNwswqW73qIc4jLqHA0ww1ypH1tfz5KbJ0xSx4P49uw0NiNqa4K8IHTs2VuH4Kbqdle=w400-h225" width="400" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br />Something far more interesting struck me as a topic for a tour: a historiographic tour. That is to say, the topic of the tour should be not so much the history itself but the telling and the re-telling of the history. In this way, the history may be made far more current as it invites people to see alternative histories and to deconstruct the version that they are familiar with. <br /></span><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIdwz1kF0eBETatbLvGFLnS-HCsCKwE9FsIJwouSOgV0aCdVzU86aF4kR-okn0iQVPBKs-bLtb2CtVJ1_6hG38Q_giyRaokmF74GFCQrc-Qt_4OZj-jgHxejQ81GeVptk8RUjvkIlNEdK81fsBj4awBm9ThMEKrM5iXHDTVIcdfrpaS_sy-IsGg_1n=s4000" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4000" data-original-width="2250" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIdwz1kF0eBETatbLvGFLnS-HCsCKwE9FsIJwouSOgV0aCdVzU86aF4kR-okn0iQVPBKs-bLtb2CtVJ1_6hG38Q_giyRaokmF74GFCQrc-Qt_4OZj-jgHxejQ81GeVptk8RUjvkIlNEdK81fsBj4awBm9ThMEKrM5iXHDTVIcdfrpaS_sy-IsGg_1n=w225-h400" width="225" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">To be consistent with this theme in this location would be impossible: it would probably be deemed illegal as the control of history is a matter of state. In any case, it is not my tour to make; this is a tour for a Chinese person deeply engaged with this specific history. It would probably have to be made incognito and if it were to become popular would cause trouble.</span><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7Ukimj1BQeKQaDzItcvdL43_QdiA1bfQY0XeeQFRjL0g13K2WRHFbLaZL8g1UjBULYbVsbxhpfQPQHGjjp5cteh58VN-4oRCEF9wke6r-MGZR2H5pZLtDANaONxPcg_F1fMJ2aXTDH3TpBtPwJbJs87KEPlzTWzMRrQ_r-j4Zqzy3hjXHHNhXpOeq=s2400" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2400" data-original-width="1080" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi7Ukimj1BQeKQaDzItcvdL43_QdiA1bfQY0XeeQFRjL0g13K2WRHFbLaZL8g1UjBULYbVsbxhpfQPQHGjjp5cteh58VN-4oRCEF9wke6r-MGZR2H5pZLtDANaONxPcg_F1fMJ2aXTDH3TpBtPwJbJs87KEPlzTWzMRrQ_r-j4Zqzy3hjXHHNhXpOeq=w180-h400" width="180" /></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">The principle, however, is one that I certainly can take away from this frozen cycle ride, it was -8, and thawing out in the hotel afterwards I already began thinking of places ripe for such a tour. The time will surely come!</span><p></p><p></p>Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-43424205419873908922021-05-13T09:02:00.006+01:002021-05-13T09:16:05.227+01:00The Flying Tigers Tour of Changting<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w8aRR8gXMbI/YJM6P9_R7pI/AAAAAAAAHN0/LbljwlzFNhgxYpPuFYviGmmTnTlR6tF7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1620260308952.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w8aRR8gXMbI/YJM6P9_R7pI/AAAAAAAAHN0/LbljwlzFNhgxYpPuFYviGmmTnTlR6tF7QCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/1620260308952.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This tour started off as something quite different to what it became: a domesticated cat that turned into a tiger. The group I was visiting the town with were to be shown the historical town centre of Changting but as it was raining and the organizers simply said, if you want to see it, walk to your left seven minutes and look around for yourselves. This did indeed bring us to a brightly lit building that sat over the remains of the town wall.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7eBki97JtI/YJM6MkQizHI/AAAAAAAAHNs/S3ZHJIU6s94cSrPcCEwRzUvDHGiRlW48wCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1620260281052.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1576" data-original-width="2048" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7eBki97JtI/YJM6MkQizHI/AAAAAAAAHNs/S3ZHJIU6s94cSrPcCEwRzUvDHGiRlW48wCLcBGAsYHQ/s320/1620260281052.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Few seemed keen on braving persistent rain so my group was just three European guys. We had the idea of looking round the old town and seeing if there was an Irish Bar or something similar. We traipsed up and down sodden historical alleys and stumbled across a distinctly 21st Century toilet. Outside it has a screen that shows how many cubicles are inside and which are currently in use. In spite of this, there was still no toilet paper.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ouSp6fc7PmM/YJM6Px9mIsI/AAAAAAAAHN4/BZM7L5hmUrcnpfVtog4O3Y2c0VOVz5rhQCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1620260261747.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ouSp6fc7PmM/YJM6Px9mIsI/AAAAAAAAHN4/BZM7L5hmUrcnpfVtog4O3Y2c0VOVz5rhQCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/1620260261747.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">More or less giving up hope of finding that mythical Guinness we dropped into an insipid cafe then hit the street again. This sign caught my attention. I had known there was an American airbase in Changting and had even asked about it previously but our guide answered vaguely and changed the subject. Now we had stumbled across some traces of this history. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f2iLeq1iKgM/YJM6QnpvhWI/AAAAAAAAHN8/PeuvvpM8FAUZrMhKqrqkNP75toxbjIo-QCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1620260424423.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f2iLeq1iKgM/YJM6QnpvhWI/AAAAAAAAHN8/PeuvvpM8FAUZrMhKqrqkNP75toxbjIo-QCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/1620260424423.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Next to the banner were some pictures of the steely <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Lee_Chennault" target="_blank">Claire Lee Chennault</a>. A retired Texan airman, he was in China in 1937 doing a three-month air surveying contract then was propelled into the rank of colonel, aviation instructor and procurer for Chiang Kai-Shek's air force. His is a swashbuckling war story. Working basically as a paid mercenary for the Chinese, he formed a volunteer air corp known as </span><span style="font-family: arial;">The Flying Tigers which</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> recruited in the US and fought very effectively in China. They were later incorporated into the regular American air force which he re-entered as a Major. He emerged as a war hero, finished an honorary Lieutenant General and is buried in Arlington. In all the accounts, however, he comes over not as military brass but instead as "one of the boys." He is even meant to have opened a brothel in Guilin for his men with the <a href="https://www.geni.com/people/Claire-Lee-Chennault/6000000015604255147">justification</a></span><span face="Arial, "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; caret-color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-align: left;"> <span style="font-family: arial;">"his men needed sex and it was better to have his "boys" visit a brothel that was regularly inspected to reduce venereal diseases</span></span><span style="font-family: arial;">."</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XpDCpzg1NHY/YJM6Tm4hRTI/AAAAAAAAHOQ/VCDE5NU-BcovcXons8Z8MIYOasxno7XsACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1620260438037.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XpDCpzg1NHY/YJM6Tm4hRTI/AAAAAAAAHOQ/VCDE5NU-BcovcXons8Z8MIYOasxno7XsACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/1620260438037.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">As we were lighting up the pictures with our phones and studying them a man stepped around the corner and ushered us inside. We walked through a restaurant and into the 'museum' which was closed. He turned the lights on and showed us around. This was not really a guided tour, it worked more on the level of, here are some things, take a look.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nTPlKholV-k/YJM6R_1CTxI/AAAAAAAAHOI/ZurGPmEq8OEdaIZ8X0cdMqd3AajW49aDwCLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1620260498859.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nTPlKholV-k/YJM6R_1CTxI/AAAAAAAAHOI/ZurGPmEq8OEdaIZ8X0cdMqd3AajW49aDwCLcBGAsYHQ/w300-h400/1620260498859.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><span style="font-family: arial; text-align: justify;">One interesting thing that the pictures made much of was Claire's second wife <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Chennault" target="_blank">Anna Chennault</a> and the couple's two Chinese American children. There is an interesting history here: after the war the family returned to Chennault's home in Louisiana, where there was still a law forbidding marriages between whites and non-whites, and to a town where there were no non-whites. His status as a war hero apparently silenced any objections to his Chinese wife and mixed-race family. Little of the detail of these stories was conveyed in the exhibition itself, what came over more was a sense of gratitude for help in time of war and pride in connection to the outside world. The other feeling I got was that the exhibition did not need to happen and nobody in authority was going to make it happen. This was one person's passion project. </span><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C5PFjJnd_8M/YJM6Sibd9NI/AAAAAAAAHOM/eFGB2REVXss6hN9UOVSejE4MaWwDaTKsACLcBGAsYHQ/s2048/1620260543936.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-C5PFjJnd_8M/YJM6Sibd9NI/AAAAAAAAHOM/eFGB2REVXss6hN9UOVSejE4MaWwDaTKsACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/1620260543936.jpg" width="400" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This history is one that is not celebrated today, indeed it is more or less written out of the official script as</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> history is viewed as a resource to draw lessons from, and there are no useful lessons to be gained here.</span><span style="font-family: arial;"> This suppression of the history was very clear in the official tours of the town. We were told about the bombing of the town by the Japanese but it was never mentioned why it might have been bombed: it had an American airstrip. Later I even asked our guide, "where was the American airbase?" She said it was very far, a town four or five hours drive away. When I showed her these pictures from the museum she corrected herself and said it was just outside Changting. This conspicuous silence is due to the deteriorating political relationship with the US and it is manifested at the micro level up and down the country. This Flying Tigers collection was, therefore, surprising to find as it was clearly out of step with current policy. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">That might explain why the place felt it necessary to include some red references so nobody was in any doubt about their patriotism.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MiquVK00TvI/YJM6UIl8MSI/AAAAAAAAHOU/PABqTX13v9Qz0BXJFalkpb4cWFIImyjaQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1910/1620261233603.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1910" data-original-width="1273" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MiquVK00TvI/YJM6UIl8MSI/AAAAAAAAHOU/PABqTX13v9Qz0BXJFalkpb4cWFIImyjaQCLcBGAsYHQ/w266-h400/1620261233603.jpg" width="266" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">We had not forgotten our original purpose of finding an Irish Bar and by now it was woefully clear that was out of the question. Since the guy from the restaurant had been kind enough to show us around the collection, we ordered beers and settled into our Tsingtao. The place was dry, it had a warm wooden feel to it and they brought out a plate of complimentary peanuts. I was definitely warming to it then down the stairs came a Chinese colleague of ours, also on the trip. His group had found this place too and they were upstairs eating and drinking. He giggled and brought down a brown 1.5 liter bottle. He invited us to try "Red Army Coca-Cola." It was sweet, dark rice wine. It was quite easy to drink but between the bottle looking like an oversized hand-grenade and its earthy taste, I was sure it was perfect hangover juice. So, while we didn't find Michael's Blarney Stone, we did enjoy a stroke of luck and got both a nice place to drink and an unexpected tour of the Flying Tigers Museum of Changting.</div></span><p></p>Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-83455757092135747442021-05-03T15:28:00.010+01:002021-05-13T09:30:59.218+01:00Red Tourism: how I got surrounded by the Red Army in Changting, China<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-upBDb_7ARoQ/YItbLL8mKAI/AAAAAAAAHL8/1KCK73Vv8U0LVeK2llW0ya1roY5k6nXcQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1055.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="559" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-upBDb_7ARoQ/YItbLL8mKAI/AAAAAAAAHL8/1KCK73Vv8U0LVeK2llW0ya1roY5k6nXcQCLcBGAsYHQ/w419-h559/WechatIMG1055.jpeg" width="419" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This place, officially known as the Former Site of the Soviet Government of Fujian Province,Red Tourist is a classic 'Red Tourist' attraction. That term really deserves a bit of explanation as, on the face of it, it sounds about as awkward as Marxist-Leninist Ice Cream. Basically, Chinese domestic tourism has taken off in a big way over the last 10 years and people now travel much more within the country than they ever did before. At the same time, the communist party has discovered that it can insert itself into this trend by creating sites that celebrate its history and amplify its ideology. This is such a site.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fln0NpkQ0c8/YItcP8cbmOI/AAAAAAAAHMo/Ok6RyOnjde456Fux5tFvZtBtIQhqJ469wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1054.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="313" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fln0NpkQ0c8/YItcP8cbmOI/AAAAAAAAHMo/Ok6RyOnjde456Fux5tFvZtBtIQhqJ469wCLcBGAsYHQ/w417-h313/WechatIMG1054.jpeg" width="417" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The town is clearly not used to foreign visitors and nor was the guide. He seemed friendly enough and we had a translator, but many of his points and stories just seemed to go nowhere as we had no context for them. What did slowly become clear was that we were visiting a historic site that at one time was a communist party centre.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZBeWis1Hz4o/YItbLsJtRrI/AAAAAAAAHME/mLg8HFcQ6V0B_Jcn5jJ2Sy6C_fF_3LjswCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1059.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="316" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZBeWis1Hz4o/YItbLsJtRrI/AAAAAAAAHME/mLg8HFcQ6V0B_Jcn5jJ2Sy6C_fF_3LjswCLcBGAsYHQ/w421-h316/WechatIMG1059.jpeg" width="421" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We were told that Zhou Enlai, Mao's long-term sideman, described Changting as Little Red Shanghai back in the early 30s when it was under communist control. The meaning here is that you could get anything in Changting that you could get in Shanghai and even more, so plentiful and rich was the town. I'm quite willing to believe it was a prosperous countryside town in the early thirties when it was incorporated into the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Soviet_Republic">Chinese Soviet Republic</a>. How long that remained the case is a question and that it had everything Shanghai had and more, stretches credulity. This lead to two observations. The first is that this notion of it being better than Shanghai should be taken more on the level of propaganda, though that didn't stop one Chinese man on the coach repeating it like it was fact. The second is that the term soviet was used several times and when I asked whether and how much the Soviet Union were involved, the translator and guides did not answer the question. They pretended the question was something else or just flat ignored it. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='424' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dxHDRfFkiLEG-TfxzzFpWlQfNSmlgc9-dw-J1YblL0uMGt9vubSjQ7e-9pV0tjzLLGqX8ebc7-HFRo5EbWkiw' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Here, the guided recited the poetry of Mao in a deep and meaningful voice. This was a performance he obviously gave quite regularly and he looked a little bit pleased with it afterwards. The rehabilitation of Mao, who was at one point officially declared <a href="https://www.ips-journal.eu/in-focus/the-politics-of-memory/70-per-cent-good-30-per-cent-bad-2216/">70% good 30% bad</a>, seems more or less complete.</span></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lrIXARK5FYY/YItbJsfeCVI/AAAAAAAAHLo/eix4cvkuM5YBPlSfylwGbnYy1wktnvenACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1050.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="458" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lrIXARK5FYY/YItbJsfeCVI/AAAAAAAAHLo/eix4cvkuM5YBPlSfylwGbnYy1wktnvenACLcBGAsYHQ/w353-h458/WechatIMG1050.jpeg" width="353" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We were told about the many battle victories of the Red Army who were stationed and recruited in Changting in the early 30s but we were not told about their heavy defeat which precipitated the Long March. This form of history telling that only focusses on edifying episodes from the past can lead to the listeners coming to completely false impressions. I myself had to go and look up the history after this tour as it left far more questions than answers. Like with the other Changting tour I took, I have the feeling that the guides are not used to people asking questions or approaching their tour in a critical manner, so the many gaps in their narrative have never had to have been smoothed over.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BUfNPEoo8JA/YItbJESL4-I/AAAAAAAAHLk/bcJrgHi3OVMISxUKbU2qQBe9dKZetrnpACLcBGAsYHQ/s1269/WechatIMG1049.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1269" height="315" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BUfNPEoo8JA/YItbJESL4-I/AAAAAAAAHLk/bcJrgHi3OVMISxUKbU2qQBe9dKZetrnpACLcBGAsYHQ/w371-h315/WechatIMG1049.jpeg" width="371" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Outside it was the turn of the school groups: teenagers dressed up in red army uniform and sneakers. There were a number of such groups and they seemed to be the staple duty visitor on the morning I went. Each group had both their school teacher and a military person in charge of them. These trips are a form of day out for the local schools and they are justified as historical and ideological education. When the group spotted me they seemed to forget ideology for a moment and they swarmed over and wanted their photo taken with the tall westerner, somewhat to the annoyance of their military handler. One or two said, "Welcome to China" something I have not heard in a long time. This was when it truly struck me I was in the countryside where you get to play at being a minor celebrity just by being foreign. The kids were spontaneous and pretty friendly and I must admit finding myself to be the star attraction in a red tourist site made this visit an awful lot more fun. </span></div></div></div><br />Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com041 Zhaozheng Rd, Changting Xian, Longyan Shi, Fujian Sheng, China, 36630025.833975 116.35501825.833009339706834 116.35394511639404 25.834940660293164 116.35609088360596tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-16173740556963013702021-05-02T15:40:00.006+01:002023-11-05T01:14:55.275+00:00The Foreign Expert's Tour of a Chinese Environmental Project<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zqUMeLe2yew/YI0ZdTRTIOI/AAAAAAAAHNI/Sj38293Vrc4q49UGFxyWmmlHEsea76RXACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1062.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zqUMeLe2yew/YI0ZdTRTIOI/AAAAAAAAHNI/Sj38293Vrc4q49UGFxyWmmlHEsea76RXACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/WechatIMG1062.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">This tour was one organized for a small coach-load of foreign experts, of which I was one, and their Chinese handlers. We drove about half and hour out of Changting, not a big place in its own right, till we arrived more or less in the sticks. It was raining pretty hard as the guide lead us up a slope to our first stop: a tree that Xi Jinping had personally planted. This seemed to be the centerpiece of the park and between that and the driving rain, it got the tour off on a distinctly anti-climatic note. I had that same sinking feeling you get going to B-list tourist attractions the world over: this is a place of minor interest trying to pump itself up. </span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uqn1JUubYsg/YI0ZdWKgV1I/AAAAAAAAHNE/-ViRRdrWTNI09zXpQt-4lre4LziT8gDOACLcBGAsYHQ/s1439/WechatIMG1064.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1439" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Uqn1JUubYsg/YI0ZdWKgV1I/AAAAAAAAHNE/-ViRRdrWTNI09zXpQt-4lre4LziT8gDOACLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/WechatIMG1064.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Drying ourselves off inside the visitor centre, we were treated to a mind-numbing video that featured lots of aerial photography. If you have sat through videos like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT3ZdsSxgbM&t=255s" target="_blank">Amazing China</a> you'll be more than familiar with this shock and awe aesthetic.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Sp6kVxejLkQ/YI0Zd2cV3kI/AAAAAAAAHNM/-0n_u6ZDPM85u7JuT3Yl5OzHoEIvl4BNgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1066.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1440" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Sp6kVxejLkQ/YI0Zd2cV3kI/AAAAAAAAHNM/-0n_u6ZDPM85u7JuT3Yl5OzHoEIvl4BNgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/WechatIMG1066.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We came to an exhibit that showed President Xi planting the tree we had visited earlier. Not only was there the picture to prove it, there were also the holy relics used in the act: the plastic bucket, the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">spade and the </span><span style="font-family: arial;">sun hat that </span><span style="font-family: arial;">the then governor of Fujian Province used to plant the tree</span><span style="font-family: arial;">. As he was not the president at that time but just the governor of a minor province, I started to wonder why the park had kept the ephemera of his visit, as the personality cult only seemed to have started later.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iCVDQwXZdxU/YI0ZdPcFGDI/AAAAAAAAHNA/qsgtpTV77jE235B-EaVTb_c8XbWoHsXqgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1379/WechatIMG1061.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1379" height="314" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iCVDQwXZdxU/YI0ZdPcFGDI/AAAAAAAAHNA/qsgtpTV77jE235B-EaVTb_c8XbWoHsXqgCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h314/WechatIMG1061.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The visitor centre felt like its purpose was not so much to educate people about environmental protection but rather to convince them that the government was, and always has, been doing a good job. Something, however, didn't add up. In general they pursued the same general line as this article in </span><a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1167071.shtml" style="font-family: arial; text-align: left;" target="_blank">The Global Times</a>, <span style="font-family: arial;">"In the 1940s, the area of soil erosion in Changting county, East China's Fujian Province, was nearly 1.5 million mu (1,000 square kilometers), covering one third of the county's land area. However, after 70 years of efforts, the county has undergone a complete change, and little trace of the past can be seen." Yet when I asked the guide why there was so much erosion in the first place the guide said it was because the people were so poor they had to cut down all the trees for power. This doesn't exactly sit well beside the description of Changting as an extremely prosperous town during the early 1930, a so-called 'little red Shanghai.' It must have fallen from that position after that time and indeed in this photo they show the barren hills of 1988 and 1989. The most obvious conclusion is that the real conservation work only began in the 90s.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dx3lAASxiCGNbmI9CvtlcixRsgxsEAekfxNxqLNvbd1XYUWX3c27mBaSxLphNYutE8ReQpbmRYu8R-lJnIt-g' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The videos that are shown around the centre are generally all like this: they attempt to beat you into submission. They all feature this sort of stirring heroic voice which, I heard, is popular with old people. The thing that struck me about the videos is they all used demo versions of the software; you can clearly see DEMO written in the corner of all of the videos. This, how should I say it, broke the spell of the park's magnificence. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HFpQHGXjMyE/YI0ZkC3G-KI/AAAAAAAAHNQ/G3IJVrSq1MULHHNXnV0fhMitoTdRiHNZQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1439/WechatIMG1067.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="1439" height="300" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HFpQHGXjMyE/YI0ZkC3G-KI/AAAAAAAAHNQ/G3IJVrSq1MULHHNXnV0fhMitoTdRiHNZQCLcBGAsYHQ/w400-h300/WechatIMG1067.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">By the time the tour came to its inevitable conclusion, a group photo holding a red banner supplied by the work unit, I had had more than enough of the place. I felt like they were taking me for a fool and just spoon feeding me propaganda that I was expected to regurgitate whole. There was indeed a team of China Daily reporters who just happened to be waiting for us on site, interviewing us and expecting us to do just that. I gave vague replies that would neither land me in trouble nor be of any use for their article. With distance I now am left with a different impression still. As something of an environmentalist myself I am pleased to see this work taking place. It should not be taken for granted. What's more, I get the impression that China is starting to make greater efforts at environmental protection than before and that this park is not an isolated phenomenon. Given the one-party-system that is in place, particularly as it currently is, it is not at all surprising that the park seems to be more about politics than it is about nature. So while that side of the visitor centre can produce an unintended effect, at least with foreign visitors not accustomed to such sycophancy, we should not allow that to obscure the fact that something meaningful is still taking place. That, finally, is what will matter more in the long run.</span></div>Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-77719330531715059242021-04-18T09:43:00.007+01:002021-04-19T10:18:09.150+01:00The Quick-Fix Photo Tour of Shapowei<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNeJRApPjAg/YHesJ-n-7-I/AAAAAAAAHLE/0Y6kgNPfoxQmU9sLSl8EFLEN_tpEZj1agCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1025.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mNeJRApPjAg/YHesJ-n-7-I/AAAAAAAAHLE/0Y6kgNPfoxQmU9sLSl8EFLEN_tpEZj1agCLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/WechatIMG1025.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;">I have a passion for quick-fixes and have been taking photos of them for the last five years. It seemed like it was about time to share a bit of the fun with other people and how better to do that than in the form of a tour! This is, therefore, a new tour and a slightly different format to my previous ones: it is a photo workshop as much as it was a guided tour. Still, I must admit: I am back on the street and giving a tour once more. It feels good to be back!</span></div></div><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-XVVtlaSMs/YHerSLV14kI/AAAAAAAAHKM/_m3C6-B3mWczVtuYk-eXDLYuSjnkfjAygCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1028.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q-XVVtlaSMs/YHerSLV14kI/AAAAAAAAHKM/_m3C6-B3mWczVtuYk-eXDLYuSjnkfjAygCLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/WechatIMG1028.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div></div> <br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The tour is the opposite of most Xiamen tours in the sense that, instead of stopping at one scenic site after another and working our way through the checklist, we seem to stop at things like this: a plastic bag tied around wires on the forgotten side of a building. There is, however, just as much to say about this sort of place as there is about the statue of some leader or an exquisite beach, this assemblage of plastic is raw creativity.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KD0mdKF9dM0/YHerS-_lBpI/AAAAAAAAHKU/AW-2nPUBihIeBg7IbiUsGjY6rsjSR-VAwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1031.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KD0mdKF9dM0/YHerS-_lBpI/AAAAAAAAHKU/AW-2nPUBihIeBg7IbiUsGjY6rsjSR-VAwCLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/WechatIMG1031.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The sort of tours I like are open to unexpected things happening and this one was no exception. As I was waiting to begin the tour I got talking to an Italian student who is studying at the university. I ended up convincing him to come along on the tour and he made a useful contribution to the discussion. What's more, when I set the participants the challenge finding and taking a picture of a quick-fix themselves, he took me to his single-room apartment as it is a nest of quick-fixes. It is also in a fashionable part of the city and costs just 800 rmb a month, that's about £80, so it's no wonder it is like this.</span></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KXU19BMjwG4/YHerSk5BwmI/AAAAAAAAHKQ/iIL4qHg9KWo7ophS2BDNjzG9QR03QlilACLcBGAsYHQ/s1440/WechatIMG1029.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1080" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KXU19BMjwG4/YHerSk5BwmI/AAAAAAAAHKQ/iIL4qHg9KWo7ophS2BDNjzG9QR03QlilACLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/WechatIMG1029.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div></div><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This is the sort of picture the participants came up with themselves. What I like about these pictures, when they are at their best, is that they reveal a story. You can see how someone went about filling in the space and how they worked it out as they went along. What's more, you start to see recurring problems when you record a number of these quick-fixes. With these recurring problems you see common solutions but so too do you notice innovative ones, some of which are exemplary while others could be classed as bodges. Recording the whole range is worthwhile. </span><br /><br /><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f9aFuNox3NM/YHesRA3uMDI/AAAAAAAAHLI/RndlQtrYCYQEkITdHpf5WjuDrp-2MCh6QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1361/WechatIMG1026%2B2.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1361" data-original-width="1020" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f9aFuNox3NM/YHesRA3uMDI/AAAAAAAAHLI/RndlQtrYCYQEkITdHpf5WjuDrp-2MCh6QCLcBGAsYHQ/w480-h640/WechatIMG1026%2B2.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;">We finished the tour in a community space where we looked at the photos and I gave some advice on how to improve them, both when taking them and through editing. This was, finally a photography workshop in the shape of a tour. It felt good to invite the participants to be active in the tour by first taking pictures then later spotting their own quick-fixes. What I learnt from giving the tour is that taking a good image is not only a technical task it is also deeply connected to thinking visually. It is necessary to have a clear idea of what you are looking at and where the focus of it is, in order to capture the phenomenon with clarity. This has lead me to realize that this tour could be useful to anyone who has to use images when presenting research as it helps to bring the idea of the image and the reality of it, into greater congruence. Learning in action.</span></div>Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0China, Fujian Sheng, Xiamen Shi, Siming Qu, 民族路24.43795 118.08800824.437461616969934 118.08747155819702 24.438438383030068 118.08854444180298tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-70972316735853027542021-04-04T07:38:00.003+01:002021-04-04T07:38:33.038+01:00Quick-Fix Tour of Shapowei: A New Tour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nlLE5ktZLX8/YGledw9ypYI/AAAAAAAAHJ4/L8CJkxBpBaUbyVJwqV_P6pJ3DEEU1hNSACLcBGAsYHQ/s1387/qft.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1387" data-original-width="1040" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nlLE5ktZLX8/YGledw9ypYI/AAAAAAAAHJ4/L8CJkxBpBaUbyVJwqV_P6pJ3DEEU1hNSACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/qft.jpeg" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;">After a bit of a pause, I am back into making tours. Tomorrow I will give a tour of the Shapowei neighborhood looking at the phenomenon of quick-fixes or improvised repairs. The tour will not only investigate them and look at the stories they can tell, it will also be about how to take pictures of them. I'll share some of my five year's experience of photographing them and help the people on the tour to make their own quick-fix photos. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">As this is a new tour and it will be experimenting with the form it will be done on a free/pay what you like basis. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Start point: front gate of Shapowei Art Zone, Xiamen. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Time: 14.00-17.00</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Date: 5th April.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Reserve via WeChat: billaitchison</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">For a taste of what quick-fixes look like you can take a look at the <a href="https://chinaquickfix.tumblr.com" target="_blank">China Quick-Fix</a> photo-blog. </span></p>Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-87598321292630231542019-06-18T08:23:00.000+01:002019-06-18T15:55:50.784+01:00Shanghai Tour To Return Next Month<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Back in 2016 I made a Tour of All Tours in Xintiandi, Shanghai. It was a pretty good show, I believe, and I made it for a festival with the intention that a broad public could get to see it. After 11 of the scheduled 13 shows I was informed the authorities were stopping it because it, "was not positive enough about Shanghai." It was objective, it did not try to sell the city but neither did it lay into the place and rubbish the city. I guess it just feel foul of an over zealous censor. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I don't believe in rewarding censorship with silence as that will only encourage them to do it more. My solution then was to give the last two tours privately and to make them about the censorship itself. In this way the censor actually breathed some new life into the show, though not that which was probably intended. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Three years later I have a request to run it again so will be back on the beat looking at how to thread the two shows, the original and the "uncensored" version together and to give it all a contemporary reading. If you happen to be in Shanghai around the middle of the month and are interested in joining the tour get in touch and it can be arranged.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-27400904414763117912019-03-02T12:49:00.000+00:002019-03-02T12:49:57.379+00:00The Confessions of a Celebrity Stalker Tour<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some tours are pure industry products: profitable, predictable and more or less pointless. They only become interesting when they start to go wrong and off script. Other tours, however, are a world away from the tourist industry and their existence is far from inevitable. This quasi celebrity stalker tour was clearly one of the latter. Given its slightly deviant nature, which I have chosen to focus upon, I have anonymised both the guide and the celebrity who he focuses upon in the tour. We'll call our guide Steven and the subject of the tour Morrissey.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Steven gives guided tours and told me he is working on a new one: Morrissey in Birmingham. As Brum is not the cantankerous</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Mancunian's typical stomping ground I was wondering whether he could pull this one off, given the tenuous connection. I needn't have worried, if you are used to being creative about giving tours you could give a tour of the neighborhood's public toilet and it would still be better than the tedious local history tour of the church. We began informally: at his front door. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iRkqu0uSyGs/XHAMkK9PrvI/AAAAAAAAGyc/cbEyo-7kDjIfQhml-Qe14TUUFbsgUt1MwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20190203_092402.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iRkqu0uSyGs/XHAMkK9PrvI/AAAAAAAAGyc/cbEyo-7kDjIfQhml-Qe14TUUFbsgUt1MwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20190203_092402.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We made a number of stops along his road; a building with an interesting window; a wall upon which small objects are habitually left; a junction with an unusually far view. We arrived at the first Morrissey stop. This house, or one of the neighboring houses, is where a former partner of Morrissey once stayed for several months. That was before they were together so it is most unlikely that Morrissey himself ever visited this road but the vaguest scent of Morrissey is attached to the building all the same. I think that the slightness of this connection made the tour all the quirkier for it was really trying hard to find someone where they were not.</span><br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AXfRvG0qGLk/XHAMmTOrgVI/AAAAAAAAGyk/61sSXsdUaZom7AegBw8J73cafu6bL0JkQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20190203_093358.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AXfRvG0qGLk/XHAMmTOrgVI/AAAAAAAAGyk/61sSXsdUaZom7AegBw8J73cafu6bL0JkQCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20190203_093358.jpeg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These abandoned suitcases seemed like a gift to the tour: objects just itching to be dragged into the web of stories and observations about the neighborhood. It turned out Steven only had four Morrissey themed stops on the tour so these other signs were taken up eagerly. They were not deliberately spun into Smiths stories however, they were allowed to just be whatever they were. To have done so would have tuned this into a display of storytelling and ingenuity rather than to have retained the stalker feel that it was slowly accumulating.</span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F7xPdfNp15k/XHAMnpLZa7I/AAAAAAAAGyo/FiIlTISerIoGGz5pB12nJqEKL-qObMB4wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20190203_100511.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-F7xPdfNp15k/XHAMnpLZa7I/AAAAAAAAGyo/FiIlTISerIoGGz5pB12nJqEKL-qObMB4wCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20190203_100511.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This was an interesting stop because he confessed to having met Morrissey's niece here. She has become an acquaintance of his and through her he got to finally meet the man himself, albeit fleetingly as he departed from her birthday party. This sort of connection is purely about Morrissey the private individual and not about his music. It is here that I started to see the transgressive potential of this tour. This is not a tour about the music <a href="http://www.newmanchesterwalks.com/walks-tours/music/the-smiths%E2%80%99-manchester-hand-in-glove/">such as those that run regularly in Manchester</a>, this is one that invites you into the invasive and obsessive point of view of the stalker. </span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s5Rd5qzoRCw/XHpxTLEfcLI/AAAAAAAAGzk/X2mGHgfl5w4HKc2zfZbsjPOYp06YQLVeACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20190203_102733.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-s5Rd5qzoRCw/XHpxTLEfcLI/AAAAAAAAGzk/X2mGHgfl5w4HKc2zfZbsjPOYp06YQLVeACLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20190203_102733.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What made the tour bearable was his self-consciousness that this really was not upright material fit for a regular tour and the fact that he was playing at it much more than actually living the life of the celebrity stalker. Tours that genuinely slipped over the edge and became an invitation into a criminal or certifiable person's mental geography would be a difficult sell. The film <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_Bites_Dog_(film)">Man Bites Dog</a>, however, does precisely this through following a charismatic and funny serial killer and Gogol's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Souls">Dead Souls</a> does something similar, both the two of these twisting the knife in half way through, becoming darker and testing the viewer/reader. Thinking this through further then, this would be an original way to go about a Jack the Ripper Tour. Yes it would inevitably be slammed as sensationalist and unethical unless you found a very clever way to both do it and to not do it at the same time. This tour did not try to do anything of the sort and was instead wrapped up in a set of observations, local insights and invitations to observe closely. As a tour that was by far the safer choice, for a performance, this does incline me to stray into the more transgressive space, albeit with a very solid alibi.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com6Unnamed Road, Birmingham B13, UK52.451566946734879 -1.902152379505196252.432218946734878 -1.9424928795051963 52.470914946734879 -1.8618118795051961tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-43975283003546517462019-01-12T08:20:00.004+00:002019-01-12T12:46:59.026+00:00The Spontaneous Combustion Tour<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-75LF7Kb420Y/XBw8qo6I8cI/AAAAAAAAGwk/EUYtejegIrMz_Wqcrtxcszeoswv26RbeACLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-12-12%2Bat%2B11.11.40%2BAM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="913" data-original-width="1600" height="364" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-75LF7Kb420Y/XBw8qo6I8cI/AAAAAAAAGwk/EUYtejegIrMz_Wqcrtxcszeoswv26RbeACLcBGAs/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-12-12%2Bat%2B11.11.40%2BAM.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Spontaneous Combustion was conceived as a site-tour of Nanjing to prepare for a </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">performance</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">festival next year. In true Last Minute Live Art style, it turned into something else.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When we assembled at the famous Gulou roundabout we were asked to sign a declaration that stated LMLA was not responsible in the case of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spontaneous_human_combustion">spontaneous human combustion</a> and we were taking this tour entirely at our own personal risk. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We then vacated the busy street for an elevated park tucked beside Gulou. The tour began with a rapid-fire manifesto reading of sorts: what Last Minute Live Art is and what it has done. That over, w</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">e each produced and showed one another objects as we'd all been requested to bring one with us</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We then set out towards our first destination, the supreme court of the Republic of China back in the 1930's, now a dilapidated ruin, a testament to being on the losing side of a civil war. At the back of it was a tennis court fallen into disrepair, thick with a carpet of leaves. Here we made improvised performances: walking, pushing, rearranging, looking, showing, balancing and so on. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After a solid lunch of noodles we made our way to the second site, the River Yangtze or Chang Jiang as it is known here. With no particular agenda we just hung out by the river and started playing. Each of us did this in different ways, sometimes alone, sometimes together in groups. This slowly granted the group a sense of permission.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Somehow we ended up in a tug-of-war contest that began as Europe vis China, but when it was obvious that Europe was vastly outnumbered some Chinese came to our assistance, including this granny. There were jokes about Taiwan.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ek2lzb5VkS4/XBw8qGTCgRI/AAAAAAAAGwc/Geo3kvZbR4EEZGyDsWy_XH9w7xZYxISYACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181216_165752.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ek2lzb5VkS4/XBw8qGTCgRI/AAAAAAAAGwc/Geo3kvZbR4EEZGyDsWy_XH9w7xZYxISYACLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181216_165752.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There was another more formal style of performance by Gao Shu Yi by the water's edge and this was followed by the burning of the papers we signed at the start, along with one or two things other things added to the fire, I remember a woolen hat ablaze.</span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/QKs2y2O1R3M/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QKs2y2O1R3M?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is some video of the tour along with some of the other Last Minute Live Art events from 2018 in this short round up. This Spontaneous Combustion Tour was a good start at making open-ended artist tour. It was very quickly put together and it strikes me that in order to make spontaneous combustion happen more effectively it can help to prepare the situation more in its favor. There will be more of these events in 2019 so lets see how far it can go in the direction of spontaneous participatory street performance!</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com6China, 鼓楼广场绿地购物中心5楼32.058781798252362 118.7835748639167832.05205329825236 118.77348986391678 32.065510298252363 118.79365986391679tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-76739382222160576842018-11-11T12:17:00.000+00:002020-04-16T08:56:11.385+01:00The Roaming Through 40 Years of Shanghai Tour <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OpBzmwxTfI0/W-e-NEJBeqI/AAAAAAAAGts/7pKgJOLdcBggkkz16dNzU7_jjOGgUDiUwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181109_133829.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OpBzmwxTfI0/W-e-NEJBeqI/AAAAAAAAGts/7pKgJOLdcBggkkz16dNzU7_jjOGgUDiUwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181109_133829.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today's tour had all the potential to be something rather special. It was a walking tour of the older part of the city centre with artist interventions. A collaboration between an art festival and a walking tour company. We gathered waiting for it to begin.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The tour was given in Chinese with no translation so I was a bit on the outside of it all. I got bits and pieces of it and actually that was enough to realise the sort of tour it was: an anecdotal historical building tour of the neighborhood. Even though there was enough space to gather everyone on the pavement, we still spilled out into the road, the guide included.</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xE2ykvg_TxE/W-e-Pb986gI/AAAAAAAAGt4/ix3DhjkLMWsmubaglujLRsqzBzc-DoTpACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181109_135657.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xE2ykvg_TxE/W-e-Pb986gI/AAAAAAAAGt4/ix3DhjkLMWsmubaglujLRsqzBzc-DoTpACLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181109_135657.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The ostensive theme of the tour was the last forty years of history - that is to say the period of opening up and reform of the Chinese economy - and how that is manifested in the local area. Normally forty years would not be enough to make something historical in the typical frame of the guided tour but given the pace of change in China and Shanghai in particular this could have been interesting, even if it is working to a government agenda. The reality was more loose and we stopped beside older buildings and talked about their histories quickly letting go of the economic reform theme. This turned into a tour of old buildings with stories connected to them, the standard fare of local history tours. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AYKKOjzrES0/W-e-QFO0g4I/AAAAAAAAGuA/ajGaUJLuJDko41ZWoCP0BhfVYXnJhyOcQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181109_141039.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AYKKOjzrES0/W-e-QFO0g4I/AAAAAAAAGuA/ajGaUJLuJDko41ZWoCP0BhfVYXnJhyOcQCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181109_141039.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The public taking this tour was a mix of artists and a general public who were looking for a local history tour. It seemed as if the art interventions were not so welcome, finally. One of the group, July Yang, made a commentary performance while we were walking between stops and I later joined in, repeating the Chinese commentary imperfectly. When we arrived at the next stop we were asked to be quiet.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wV456imMusY/W-e-QT7yaaI/AAAAAAAAGuE/0xzQ4jHSiicY0slUJSkToBOR9RAPOJKRwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181109_141417.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wV456imMusY/W-e-QT7yaaI/AAAAAAAAGuE/0xzQ4jHSiicY0slUJSkToBOR9RAPOJKRwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181109_141417.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The guides used a microphone and portable speaker even though the road was not so loud and the group not so large. I felt this was more about establishing authority, though one of the ladies (there was a rotating cast of guides) probably did have a quiet voice. The stories were not particularly interesting and didn't connect to build into anything more than a series of curiosities. </span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pct8pzStotM/W-oNJOrLjdI/AAAAAAAAGus/U7DG5cWcQsoYVROJ4Qe_Uk9jkLeil5YawCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181113_072947.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1040" data-original-width="1600" height="414" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pct8pzStotM/W-oNJOrLjdI/AAAAAAAAGus/U7DG5cWcQsoYVROJ4Qe_Uk9jkLeil5YawCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181113_072947.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This got me thinking that, rather than choosing 40 years as a theme (and then breaking it) how about a much shorter time period? What if you were to give a tour of what has changed in a neighborhood over the last week? Immerse yourself in the contemporary and use that as the way to get to the story of what is happening.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tUBvcYCahX8/W-e-S-3SJSI/AAAAAAAAGuI/vA7nbxPJD7gBN79z1jjVEzkT6QRqxG3xwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181109_141639.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tUBvcYCahX8/W-e-S-3SJSI/AAAAAAAAGuI/vA7nbxPJD7gBN79z1jjVEzkT6QRqxG3xwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181109_141639.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There were some things I noticed along the way such as this sign recruiting female staff of between 160-170 cm and 20-35 years of age. This seemed much more interesting to me than these disconnected stories, which, to make matters worse, did not even deal with the appearance and material qualities of the buildings very much. If a tour can make you see something afresh and then understand something from it then it has done something useful. This tour did nothing to alter our perception, the guide simply stood in front of the building and told a story about it.</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zWyeSwykL7I/W-e-TZQsFPI/AAAAAAAAGuQ/MB2CYdvlwWMIej4wPIVYxZQmWx3uldwcwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181109_145321.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zWyeSwykL7I/W-e-TZQsFPI/AAAAAAAAGuQ/MB2CYdvlwWMIej4wPIVYxZQmWx3uldwcwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181109_145321.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The weather was, however, very pleasant. It was great just to be outside on a mild autumn afternoon like this.</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DNIzMIHtlS4/W-e-S3w7A4I/AAAAAAAAGuM/c0bUnkwq0iwHAmuj3_KPCjyDtppWTORhgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20181109_150239%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DNIzMIHtlS4/W-e-S3w7A4I/AAAAAAAAGuM/c0bUnkwq0iwHAmuj3_KPCjyDtppWTORhgCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20181109_150239%2B2.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We entered a building and I was fascinated by this little room, which looks as if it is rouge construction added at a later date. This got me looking for quick-fixes, of which there were plenty, and then exploring the environment of the tour using different themes again. Rather than suffering the mediocre, it seemed much more fun to make something else out of the day. I didn't share this with the wider crowd, just one or two of the artists, as I could see that to do so would disrupt the plan in a way the local history guides were completely unprepared for. A tour with two guides could be good, but the two should agree some basic house rules in advance so that the tension can be a respectful and healthy one rather than an acrimonious one. This was not the occasion, but I should try to find the time to do just this. What would make it all the better would be to propose a route and let different people make their tours of it, then jam them together. That would be fun!</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-76731545122664226372018-06-09T02:46:00.000+01:002018-10-08T14:33:33.655+01:00Tour Workshop in Hong Kong<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rkkjwfm1mbc/Wxsh7OvpIBI/AAAAAAAAGko/Zbxi5u6qIGwsLwBOx2HvsvMaO8i_tXDkgCLcBGAs/s1600/34645948_1664786476970912_3973802303168708608_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1129" data-original-width="774" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rkkjwfm1mbc/Wxsh7OvpIBI/AAAAAAAAGko/Zbxi5u6qIGwsLwBOx2HvsvMaO8i_tXDkgCLcBGAs/s640/34645948_1664786476970912_3973802303168708608_o.jpg" width="438" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following last year's workshop and festival in Hong Kong, I'll be returning with another extended workshop on making cultural tours. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll be teaching between August 5-12 and then Indy Lee and Uncle Hung will continue the next weekend. We'll be working on how to generate original content, how to draw themes from locations and how to perform tours in a dynamic way.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GSkmEoSvWRw/Wxsh7SvOLnI/AAAAAAAAGks/aTrcuR4-hA4_tbXFRjpeTD16UHNjWuG7ACLcBGAs/s1600/34604303_1664786823637544_473284131636117504_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="460" data-original-width="773" height="380" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GSkmEoSvWRw/Wxsh7SvOLnI/AAAAAAAAGks/aTrcuR4-hA4_tbXFRjpeTD16UHNjWuG7ACLcBGAs/s640/34604303_1664786823637544_473284131636117504_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The working area will be around the bustling streets of Sham Shui Po and if you are prepared to put in extra hours researching your tour there's no reason why you shouldn't have your very own tour of Sham Shui Po ready by the end of the workshop. If you are already busy you can certainly expect to learn some new skills and innovative ways to make and give tours.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QEdTYwkTFwY/Wxsi3YUypII/AAAAAAAAGlA/KBR3BAHdNIg-QFQFv9BOyW3Bw6_n4-8fACLcBGAs/s1600/34649066_1664786953637531_2745242129512005632_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="495" data-original-width="774" height="408" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QEdTYwkTFwY/Wxsi3YUypII/AAAAAAAAGlA/KBR3BAHdNIg-QFQFv9BOyW3Bw6_n4-8fACLcBGAs/s640/34649066_1664786953637531_2745242129512005632_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What's more, it is not all work and no play. On the 10th I'll be giving my Hyper Heritage Tour, which I made last year. This is a chance for the participants to see how all the theory works in practice, and to learn a bit about Hong Kong cinema at the same time.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qabdi4rhPq0/Wxsi237Vz7I/AAAAAAAAGk8/9lsFrKF48J4Uhnv-atT-YKF4GFAaIjpdwCLcBGAs/s1600/34752567_1664787080304185_1179493999115763712_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="439" data-original-width="774" height="362" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qabdi4rhPq0/Wxsi237Vz7I/AAAAAAAAGk8/9lsFrKF48J4Uhnv-atT-YKF4GFAaIjpdwCLcBGAs/s640/34752567_1664787080304185_1179493999115763712_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'll be leading the sessions in English and there will be Cantonese translation available, if required. Meet you in Hong Kong!</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com125 Fuk Wing St, Un Chau, Hong Kong22.331935635052911 114.1627355548400822.33009963505291 114.16021405484008 22.333771635052912 114.16525705484008tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-17948460675524252462018-05-15T02:34:00.001+01:002018-05-15T02:38:58.073+01:00City Centre: a networked walk <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cqOgdykr9Go/Wvo5VQkrBSI/AAAAAAAAGjw/TYsSve9IIFUCaGWuoK2h9KwsUvixRIyFwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180511_091428.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cqOgdykr9Go/Wvo5VQkrBSI/AAAAAAAAGjw/TYsSve9IIFUCaGWuoK2h9KwsUvixRIyFwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180511_091428.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I learnt about </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">City Centre </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">through the <a href="http://www.walkingartistsnetwork.org/">Walking Artists Network</a> and the idea was people in different places around the world would all follow the same instructions for a walk on May 12th. In this way we'd walk together while also being apart. The walk is one of the many collected in the book <a href="https://www.triarchypress.net/waystowander.html">Ways To Wander</a> and Blake Morris, who made the call out, has made it his job to <a href="https://awanderisnotaslog.wordpress.com/">try out the whole book</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Choosing a meeting place was not too hard as there is a general consensus, even among Nanjingers, that the centre of the city is Xinjiekou. At the very centre of this area (in the background) is a roundabout, the intersection of the city's main, north-south and east-west roads. At our meeting point, a silly elephant sculpture. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7FFLyCI3vfw/Wvkhp9qktqI/AAAAAAAAGhY/P-TCKDKEK28EVNPl-Xys9YyKVN1rzCHOgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_105207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1191" data-original-width="1600" height="476" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-7FFLyCI3vfw/Wvkhp9qktqI/AAAAAAAAGhY/P-TCKDKEK28EVNPl-Xys9YyKVN1rzCHOgCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_105207.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Our first task was deciding which direction would lead us out of the city centre. This was a weighty decision as it would determine much of what would follow and since many of us knew the city well it was also an unwelcome one. I didn't want to already have too clear a picture in my head of where I'd go and what I'd see so it was left to a game of spin the bottle. Our clothing remained in place as the bottle pointed to the west.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zbUi1z9xQwk/Wvkhr8Y6IoI/AAAAAAAAGhc/h9nYzcAknp4s0X5Byd1QPoa21RxN0yTpACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_105512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zbUi1z9xQwk/Wvkhr8Y6IoI/AAAAAAAAGhc/h9nYzcAknp4s0X5Byd1QPoa21RxN0yTpACLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_105512.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In order to take our modest <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West">Journey to the West</a>, we had to descend into the subway station as there are no pedestrian crossings at street level. I have always found this surrendering of the centre of the city to an inaccessible traffic roundabout deeply troubling and I'm irrationally happy when, late a night, I see pedestrians climbing over the barriers and running across the roads. Underground, there is a mirror of the roundabout above with the 24 exits of the station spiraling out from it. At the centre of this underground pedestrian junction, it <i>is</i> possible to reach the centre. This is what it looks like.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7J9RtlHMF8M/Wvkhwv75srI/AAAAAAAAGhg/0DYJ7NeYqlYyRgiaRcECa-o_rhzDdU27QCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_105507.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7J9RtlHMF8M/Wvkhwv75srI/AAAAAAAAGhg/0DYJ7NeYqlYyRgiaRcECa-o_rhzDdU27QCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_105507.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Below the central axis was a large model of a luxury real estate development out in the far suburbs. The city is busy eating up the surrounding countryside and as this is a powerful economic force right now it was perhaps fitting to see how, at the very heart of the city, it was the suburbs that we found. We knew we were never get this far out in our walk, but it was good we found them all the same. To understand the city it is necessary to understand what is happening out on its edges right now.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R67ugj4Gfx8/WvkhzNDxfeI/AAAAAAAAGhk/YWM71mClcp8IozTpfr-VehgNX8dEppB_wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_110406.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-R67ugj4Gfx8/WvkhzNDxfeI/AAAAAAAAGhk/YWM71mClcp8IozTpfr-VehgNX8dEppB_wCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_110406.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following the walking instructions of <a href="https://www.triarchypress.net/tom-hall.html">Tom Hall</a>, we edged our way outwards. It is, in many respects, so familiar a score that I already had a good idea of what we'd find. The expectation and the reality are rarely identical, however, and formalising the process of walking out from the centre might just, I figured, change the nature of the experience. What's more, I also wanted to see how it would be to conduct this walk with a group of people, who would come, what we'd talk about and how this group's experiences would compare to other walkers elsewhere.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uabP8b-kAkk/Wvkh8-iZ20I/AAAAAAAAGh0/QeR7_8o_ljAGP8nSRCyrQoGy4yayPNtkgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_112252.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uabP8b-kAkk/Wvkh8-iZ20I/AAAAAAAAGh0/QeR7_8o_ljAGP8nSRCyrQoGy4yayPNtkgCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_112252.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We covered some distance. The buildings became less lofty but so too were the roads more narrow so there remained a sense of clustering wherever we went. As we headed further out the shops changed and became shabbier, bowel challenging noodle bars, pink light massage parlors and electric scooter repair shops. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o77YwQjOUGc/Wvldu3s6QLI/AAAAAAAAGjM/3sWDhUX4x-UHM3GBwq6pOz3eAF1Nc8utQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_113105.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o77YwQjOUGc/Wvldu3s6QLI/AAAAAAAAGjM/3sWDhUX4x-UHM3GBwq6pOz3eAF1Nc8utQCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_113105.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then, all of a sudden, we came up again the old city wall from the Ming dynasty, which dates back roughly 600 years. None of us were quite sure whether this delineated the edge of the city back then or not, but it clearly was a boundary of sorts both then and now. Today, it marks the edge of the city centre while the contemporary perimeter wall is invisible and forever being moved further and further out into the countryside. Nowadays, satellite towns orbit around Nanjing in the hope of being incorporated in the sprawling metropolis. The city has become rhetorical and speculative, a shape-shifting creature that is far more than just an accumulation of bricks and steel. </span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MLvpcXKWG7s/WvlX5CgpyrI/AAAAAAAAGi8/JeNA1h6_VwkZAFqTShd96Naz2EL-AHoSwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_114530.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MLvpcXKWG7s/WvlX5CgpyrI/AAAAAAAAGi8/JeNA1h6_VwkZAFqTShd96Naz2EL-AHoSwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_114530.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the ubiquitous features of the city is the shared bikes. They followed us wherever we went. These two seemed to be enjoying a private moment together, in plain sight. </span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-reFVy1ZRXpE/Wvkhjw-McPI/AAAAAAAAGhw/1QfEglyWiiM6Uz3Ke9E2nlraNM1tef-bQCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_0474%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-reFVy1ZRXpE/Wvkhjw-McPI/AAAAAAAAGhw/1QfEglyWiiM6Uz3Ke9E2nlraNM1tef-bQCEwYBhgL/s640/DSC_0474%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As we got further out there was more water. If we would have walked further, we would have reached the Yangtze in an hour or two. We had to content ourselves with the Qinhuai River, a tributary that flows through the city.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TAvdj15djuQ/Wvor21qXrPI/AAAAAAAAGjc/I-Q3vC84_40Mmd5ZEmUntgP-qwlANyKIgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_114957.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TAvdj15djuQ/Wvor21qXrPI/AAAAAAAAGjc/I-Q3vC84_40Mmd5ZEmUntgP-qwlANyKIgCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_114957.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The texture of the city is not uniform and as we left the centre we came to modern residential developments. The one in the foreground is called New City while the old city centre remains visible, a ghost haunting the broken horizon. The city has, in several locations outside the centre, tried to start again and reinvent itself as a 21st century conurbation. These attempts, such Hexi, are usually partial as the real economy cannot fully support an entire community living in luxury high rise apartments. Metropolitan aspirations are then redesigned and more familiar patterns of services and uses of space reassert themselves. New City had so far staved off the bulk of this by not including a commercial centre. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5UzX9CqrdeU/Wvor-vYN26I/AAAAAAAAGjg/h-djSwW84PgfbGyBnQIBYPaI2vipNlg2gCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180512_115701.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5UzX9CqrdeU/Wvor-vYN26I/AAAAAAAAGjg/h-djSwW84PgfbGyBnQIBYPaI2vipNlg2gCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180512_115701.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To the south was this lake, part of the unfortunately named Wanke residential compound.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H9SPM4qKnGA/Wvkh50p0LJI/AAAAAAAAGiI/ZG-I4eKf46kBqScFUCIZF7kOBiv7rZHHACEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_20180512_120741%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-H9SPM4qKnGA/Wvkh50p0LJI/AAAAAAAAGiI/ZG-I4eKf46kBqScFUCIZF7kOBiv7rZHHACEwYBhgL/s640/IMG_20180512_120741%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Walking around the large expanse that Wanke had carved aside for itself, we came to older residential neighbourhoods. These shielded off ailing public housing that was kept alive through patchwork interventions, the equivalent of architectural life support. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UyhHn4syABM/Wvkh_6DxK3I/AAAAAAAAGiU/UfwIi-DyP3ojw9a8LuwIMDVOouL1Ryy0QCEwYBhgL/s1600/IMG_20180512_122108%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UyhHn4syABM/Wvkh_6DxK3I/AAAAAAAAGiU/UfwIi-DyP3ojw9a8LuwIMDVOouL1Ryy0QCEwYBhgL/s320/IMG_20180512_122108%2B2.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FfUIofA71EE/WvkiqeYa13I/AAAAAAAAGic/o6VNarlod-4Qdj6-8W6z03WP_aIIx1XnQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180402_121806.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FfUIofA71EE/WvkiqeYa13I/AAAAAAAAGic/o6VNarlod-4Qdj6-8W6z03WP_aIIx1XnQCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20180402_121806.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had expected that this journey would lead us from the familiar to the unfamiliar so I was surprised when, just as I was saying it is time to grab lunch and head back into the centre, we came across this park. I realised I had been here before. Just a month earlier I had come here for a photoshoot and the picture was still on my phone. We made an approximation of the happy couple then headed back to the centre via another route.</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d16R0LO9BNY/WvkhkCv6OdI/AAAAAAAAGiU/rDbd8-9FhB8y7Y_spDs_VILYMApi75GBgCEwYBhgL/s1600/DSC_0476.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-d16R0LO9BNY/WvkhkCv6OdI/AAAAAAAAGiU/rDbd8-9FhB8y7Y_spDs_VILYMApi75GBgCEwYBhgL/s640/DSC_0476.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To get a sense of completeness it was to the exact same spot we returned. It turned out that the walk did break some ice and engender fresh connections. From this new group I expect more activities; next month we pledged to walk again. As for the other walkers elsewhere in the world, I'll add links to those walks below, as and when I find them.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0China, Jiangsu Sheng, Nanjing Shi, Gulou Qu, XinJieKou, Han Zhong Lu, 2号金陵饭店3522房 邮政编码: 21002932.0418133669588 118.7841367721557632.0416028669588 118.78382177215576 32.0420238669588 118.78445177215576tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-55396836429569206582018-05-08T00:32:00.000+01:002018-05-08T00:37:26.719+01:003-Day Way-Losing dates confirmed and booking details<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h3KFOQvYNEU/WvDZBUwY5aI/AAAAAAAAGgQ/rTmVqMCHmlYqA4o0lFeuxTbKBJLUdQvjACLcBGAs/s1600/WL%2B2018%2Bcopy%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1083" data-original-width="1600" height="432" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-h3KFOQvYNEU/WvDZBUwY5aI/AAAAAAAAGgQ/rTmVqMCHmlYqA4o0lFeuxTbKBJLUdQvjACLcBGAs/s640/WL%2B2018%2Bcopy%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The picture says it all: 20-22 July. Well, it says the most important part, I could add that the adventure will begin at Bicester North train station at 12 noon and we will consult maps on phones and start plotting our return to known society at 4PM on the 22nd.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PnrnUCEw2AA/WvDhcfWq-SI/AAAAAAAAGgk/7JWaxmjOPVwkZLJsHztkQxomSlagozSbwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC05678%2Bcopy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PnrnUCEw2AA/WvDhcfWq-SI/AAAAAAAAGgk/7JWaxmjOPVwkZLJsHztkQxomSlagozSbwCLcBGAs/s640/DSC05678%2Bcopy.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Please note: this tour may be uncomfortable as we do not know where we will be eating or staying and will have to find solutions as we go along. It will involve some walking and possibly public transport. The tour fee is kept deliberately low but all food, accommodation and any additional travel costs will be paid for by the participants. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FaBC2vz2eBM/WvDhgIPdalI/AAAAAAAAGgo/wTQe_d1rCRkqWdjLK4qlzHFs0OAaD1r0QCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC05640%2Bcopy.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="360" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FaBC2vz2eBM/WvDhgIPdalI/AAAAAAAAGgo/wTQe_d1rCRkqWdjLK4qlzHFs0OAaD1r0QCLcBGAs/s640/DSC05640%2Bcopy.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: justify;">To book a place on this tour please go to the </span><a href="https://www.eventbrite.com/e/3-day-completely-lost-way-losing-tour-tickets-45879541945" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: justify;">EVENTBRITE PAGE</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: justify;"> </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q46kiAPPd-s/WvDhb9ZQQcI/AAAAAAAAGgg/bcnoTTQoNP4fcjbgYjN3RZVR1z84xScnwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_3288%2Bcopy.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q46kiAPPd-s/WvDhb9ZQQcI/AAAAAAAAGgg/bcnoTTQoNP4fcjbgYjN3RZVR1z84xScnwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_3288%2Bcopy.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com6Town Walk N, Bicester OX26 4HR, UK51.903718720468532 -1.150131225585937551.893921720468533 -1.1703012255859375 51.913515720468531 -1.1299612255859375tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-73093393259385216582018-04-18T01:52:00.000+01:002018-04-18T02:00:13.698+01:00The Tour of Republican Era Nanjing<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LFXPCmNwu4Q/WtWap_FGt_I/AAAAAAAAGfU/uFDktg--CKUaRqvlgExgmqnY7ESyCUbCQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180416_101620_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LFXPCmNwu4Q/WtWap_FGt_I/AAAAAAAAGfU/uFDktg--CKUaRqvlgExgmqnY7ESyCUbCQCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180416_101620_HDR.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The city of Nanjing is not as well-known outside of China as it perhaps deserves to be: a city of 10 million people and a former capital, it falls into the sizable ranks of the second-tier largely unknown cities. This </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">tour of the Gulou district was given by a Scottish postgraduate student of Chinese art who lives in the area.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On a generously warm Monday morning in April, four of us assembled outside of Xuanwumen metro station and made our way from point to point. The locations we stopped at were generally buildings of historical importance. Surrounding these sites, however, was the usual clutter of Chinese city streets: advertising, infrastructure from a bygone age and the ubiquitous shared bikes. These </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">historical</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> buildings are not necessarily well preserved, indeed some are run down and slowly crumbling. We passed an old man peeing against the side of the the former foreign ministry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The tour was focussed on early 20th century history and more specifically on the brief period of time </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">between 1928 and 1937</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> when Nanjing was once again the capital of China. This could have been a real political can of worms but we were more flirting with the subject than giving a pointed critical perspective upon it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And this was probably a wise choice since the vast majority of English speaking visitors simply require a Nanjing 101 introduction. Still, knowing what I do, I would have enjoyed a particular take upon the material rather than the presentation of the most consensual aspects of it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of our group turned out to be a historian and long term resident of Nanjing. He was gracious enough not to turn this into a tour with two competing guides, something I witnessed in East London a few years ago. This was one of the many moments we were handed out cards with pictures of republican era politicians. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When we stepped away from the important sites and looked at this wall, which sports pictures of the neighborhood's architecture, the tour took a different direction. This was the one moment we talked about how contemporary politics had a role to play in shaping an indifference bordering on neglect of the area's history. We were touring the former institutions of state of the KMT, the rivals to the communists, and this was a history that was not politically expedient. Indeed Nanjing remains the, in name only, capital of the Republic of China (Taiwan) and so this tour would never be given in this sort of form in Chinese. As small-scale tourism for foreigners it could be tolerated but if it were given in Chinese there would be too much political investment in its contents to allow it much freedom to deviate from the party line.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the local tourism centre, basically a lonely room with a scale model of the neighborhood, it was possible to gaze over the district once again. The model looked so much more elegant than the actual streets, as often happens. Looking over this model of the Gulou district gives me the idea of a tour that utilises the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droste_effect">Droste effect</a>. I can imagine a tour that represents itself within the tour, and that representation in turn contains its own image of itself. Such a tour has a wicked potential for self-conscious commentary. Having met a VR specialist last week and heard about some of the current possibilities, this is not as fanciful a notion as it may seem. That would indeed be a tour of tours - a tour in which all of the tours would have to appear superficially identical while the commentary framing them would be free to roam wild.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com777 Zhong Shan Bei Lu, Gulou Qu, Nanjing Shi, Jiangsu Sheng, China, 21000832.06410107001772 118.7776565551757832.050644570017724 118.75748655517579 32.077557570017717 118.79782655517577tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-28897404054338230402018-03-01T04:09:00.000+00:002018-03-01T04:19:01.650+00:00Engeki Quest Yokohama: Invitation From Far Away<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The third and last of the journeys I took using the gamebook Engeki Quest was the route titled Invitation From Far Away. I was instructed to start at this ship.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Having already completed two of the routes I was familiar with the format and had found my own way to interact with the book. If I was uncertain about a location I didn't worry too much as I might get back onto the route at the next point; if I fell off the route completely I could still use it as the start of my own adventure.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was asked to remember people and events from my memories and weave these into a story. At the same time, small dogs were clamouring for attention and demanding to be part of that story too. These worlds didn't belong together so some accommodating needed to happen.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When asked to cross the road, either over the right hand crossing or the left hand one, my curiosity got the better of me and, as well as crossing over the right, I went back through the text to see what would have happened if I had followed the other side. I wanted to know what the consequences of my choices were. As expected, the two paths merged again soon after but by taking the left crossing you get to read a short additional piece of information. While the final destination is the same and routes very similar too, the precise manner of getting there does differ and what you bring to it will alter it a great deal more. To get the most out of this gamebook, then, you have to concentrate on the experience of going through it and not upon the satisfaction that comes with its completion. By chewing over each part and allowing it to add to the overall picture that you hold of the route, the experience becomes more distinct.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I was directed into the lobby of an elegant hotel, like all the other readers of this route. Clutching my copy of Engeki Quest, ready to present it if anyone asked what I was doing, I looked around. I was left in solitude to continue my story. Neither the concierge nor other readers of the book entered into it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the internal courtyard I was invited to sit and think of an old teacher of mine. I was always too much of a rebel to remain close to my teachers and besides, in the UK we don't have the same tradition of remaining connected to our former teachers. I thought hard and finally came up with Mrs Pearson, my secondary school biology teacher. She had the unenviable task of teaching sexual education to a group of 30 teenage boys. She managed to hold enough order in the classroom that she was able to teach us the basics, so for that alone she deserves praise. Thank you Mrs Pearson, you probably prevented some major embarrassments and even accidents!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A few times, when reading the book, I was told to look for a number such as the number of the top left umbrella holder. This number then directed me to the next text entry in the book. In this way there was some interaction between the real life locations and page numbers: you could only find the next entry if you were actually in the location and could check the numbers for yourself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As an ending, I was asked to imagine Mrs Pearson coming down the stairs. I had to think hard to picture her from back in my schoolboy days and guess how she now looks, seeing as she must have retired. I would not recognise her in the street but on this blue carpeted stairway, within the frame of this quest it was easy enough to imagine talking to her, now as an adult rather than as a fourteen year old, awkwardly self-conscious boy. "What brings you to Yokohama?" I might begin, and she might reply she recieved, "an invitation from far away," from her nephew who was getting married here in Yokohama. And so the story would roll on.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-17017313328249223052018-02-27T09:17:00.002+00:002018-03-13T00:47:18.706+00:00The Tour of Yasukuni Shrine: dark tourism, war criminals and a broken audio tour<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This Shinto Shrine, located in the centre of Tokyo, is a famous yet highly contentious <a href="http://www.dark-tourism.com/index.php/japan/15-countries/individual-chapters/464-yasukuni-shrine-a-yushukan-tokyo">dark tourism destination</a>. It shot to prominence in 2013 when Japanese president <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-25518137">Shinzo Abe visited it to pay respects to the country's war dead</a>, which this site commemorates. Among those honoured are Class A war criminals. This broke international protocol and immediately provoked angry responses from China and Korea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had downloaded the app My GPS City which said it offered an audio tour of the shrine. It only featured short text entries for a handful of spots, the map didn't work and other functions were disabled too. It was, in effect, an advert for the real app and a waste of space on my phone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I picked up the paper guide provided by the shrine and wandered through the gnarled trees. A few things struck me. The shrine was established following a civil war during the Meiji era and later evolved into a national shrine commemorating losses against foreign nations. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The names for wars were unfamiliar, there was "the China incident" and "the Greater East Asian War" AKA WW2. Additionally,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the English is clumsily written and in need of a proofread. It is obvious no native speaker was ever let close to the text, which says something in itself. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I came across this panel and immediately connected, eager to see if the audio guide would be as stiff as the brochure. Strangely, however, the audio would not load. I walked to several different corners of this expansive shrine, tried different pages and the Japanese site too, but this audio guide just wasn't happening. This struck me as profoundly odd as I had not experienced this sort of failure of technology before in Japan. This would be the last place I'd expect the technology to seize up so I could only guess there was something to do with the content or management behind the withdrawal of this service. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4_3Idis9d1k/WpS9KXrdICI/AAAAAAAAGas/bB9AiDpBEcc5b3oqKClJD-yV6X7zvv1YQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180223_141756.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4_3Idis9d1k/WpS9KXrdICI/AAAAAAAAGas/bB9AiDpBEcc5b3oqKClJD-yV6X7zvv1YQCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180223_141756.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nobody wanted to offer an audio guide then, so I meandered through taking in one "incident" after another. A number of the panels showed Japanese soldiers in China.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kmZaFBfrZ4o/WpS9KpzXEbI/AAAAAAAAGaw/sdPD_se4MjUwjhO0DBBnD2ixE2mq3Ce7wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180223_142411.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kmZaFBfrZ4o/WpS9KpzXEbI/AAAAAAAAGaw/sdPD_se4MjUwjhO0DBBnD2ixE2mq3Ce7wCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180223_142411.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The other visitors to the shrine on this chilly February afternoon were mostly middle-aged Japanese men. There can be different motivations for coming to this site and not all who gather here will be right wing nationalists. What is striking, however, is the demographic portrait of the new right that </span><span style="background-color: white;">Furuya Tsunehira paints in her article on</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><a href="https://www.nippon.com/en/currents/d00208/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">cyber nationalists in Japan</a>: <span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">it is<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> prec</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">isely the same group. Contrary to what</span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> she asserts, I also got the impression during my two-week stay that they were not a spent force but were exercising growing <a href="http://time.com/5546/japanese-nhk-officials-world-war-ii/">political influence</a>. An interesting thing she points out is that "</span></span><span style="background-color: white;">history education in Japanese public schools is woefully inadequate, and instruction on modern and contemporary history is particularly sparse." </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bDGfV1ISY0A/WpS9OjmtMBI/AAAAAAAAGbI/ZHIFALCen6k42M_fZ0OsWWe3IzdSTWakwCLcBGAs/s1600/Screenshot_2018-02-24-10-52-56-580_com.gpsmycity.iwtmaster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="900" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bDGfV1ISY0A/WpS9OjmtMBI/AAAAAAAAGbI/ZHIFALCen6k42M_fZ0OsWWe3IzdSTWakwCLcBGAs/s640/Screenshot_2018-02-24-10-52-56-580_com.gpsmycity.iwtmaster.jpg" width="360" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The version of history which pervades the shrine is one I heard echoes of during a talk a few days earlier that characterised Japan as a victim of the second world war. The shrine sets itself up to be a religious site that simply honours the fallen but it does so in such a way that it proposes a completely alternative narrative of the 20th century. The museum, which I did not visit, has been singled out by other visitors as particularly guilty of "<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/stop-talking-about-yasukuni-the-real-problem-is-y-sh-kan/282757/">a retelling of the war from the perspective of the ultra-right wing</a>." I now regret being too tight to pay the 1000 yen entrance fee.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0QWuJjwbJSY/WpS9NGmaFKI/AAAAAAAAGa4/KbeAk_GiILg4Z-VoPI-dN24kDzBYgGngQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180223_142705.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0QWuJjwbJSY/WpS9NGmaFKI/AAAAAAAAGa4/KbeAk_GiILg4Z-VoPI-dN24kDzBYgGngQCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180223_142705.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There were statues thoughtfully acknowledging the contributions animals made to 'preserving peace in the nation' or Japanese militarism, depending on your point of view. This got me thinking that, if animals' spirits are also enshrined here too, what is the limit of who is in and who is out? The dogs that died in the wars did not choose to have their spirits enshrined here anymore than the soldiers did, it was simply decided that they'd be honoured here. What if they don't want to be enshrined? Did they get a choice? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Then comes the question of the Canadian POWs who were used as slave labour in Japan during the war and who died in their droves due to mistreatment and malnutrition. They too made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of the Japanese war effort, but I'd be surprised to find their spirits enshrined here, though I could be wrong. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The section of the video around 1 hour 20 features the Yasukuni shrine and a Canadian survivor meeting</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Japanese veterans. The failure of their otherwise sound memory when it comes to the crucial details of war crimes is telling.</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BETex5ndEpQ/WpS9NtmZwgI/AAAAAAAAGa8/WzL9wTaYB7U7PhqY51FOwNWm5miylZd6ACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180223_143223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BETex5ndEpQ/WpS9NtmZwgI/AAAAAAAAGa8/WzL9wTaYB7U7PhqY51FOwNWm5miylZd6ACLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20180223_143223.jpg" width="240" /></a><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wQS1rKUSqnQ/WpS9OAzd0pI/AAAAAAAAGbA/aa52kxC6QI4O_6p2ndpxLx5giGu1VnRdgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180223_143409.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wQS1rKUSqnQ/WpS9OAzd0pI/AAAAAAAAGbA/aa52kxC6QI4O_6p2ndpxLx5giGu1VnRdgCLcBGAs/s320/IMG_20180223_143409.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A special memorial had been put up for the Indian judge <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radhabinod_Pal">Dr Radha Pal</a> who sat on the Tokyo Trials of war criminals and who differed in his opinions to the rest of the panel of judges. The paper that is given out on this memorial is very selective in what it takes from Pal and never mentions things like, "</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: sans-serif;">Pal never questioned whether atrocities were committed by Japan at Nanking, he just suspected that the accounts included exaggeration." This would put him in the camp of those who downplay the</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <a href="http://www.history.com/topics/nanjing-massacre">Nanjing Massacre</a> not those who <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38673407">outright deny it like Toshio Motoya, owner of APA Hotels</a> (a major Japanese hotel chain). Pal's stance may be</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> seen within the frame of </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Indian independence </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">and his major point is that the justice that was administered was a victor's justice that ignored colonial grievances.</span><br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZqX9NrCDsuc/WpURk8gNfwI/AAAAAAAAGbo/uhfXHILHwXYn626EYyIfkeSfxdRXa4ZvwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180223_135623.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZqX9NrCDsuc/WpURk8gNfwI/AAAAAAAAGbo/uhfXHILHwXYn626EYyIfkeSfxdRXa4ZvwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180223_135623.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If I compare this site to the</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="color: #0000ee; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-decoration: underline;">Imperial War Museum</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cenotaph,_Whitehall">Cenotaph</a> in London, there are some similarities in that they both offer self-serving narratives of war and colonial expansion. There is also a religiosity to the latter site with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/aug/07/charlie-gilmour-prison-david-mitchell">severe sentences handed out</a> for decidedly minor crimes committed there. These sort of sites have this tendency the world over. Where Yasukuni differs is the degree to which it has become embedded within political narratives as a result of the version of history that is projected here. For as long as the versions of history told in Japan and those relayed by its neighbours remain so far apart this site will remain a hot dark tourist site. This will almost certainly remain the case for some time to come as neighbouring narratives are not without their own self-serving particularities too. One just has to compare the Beijing and Taipei WW2 </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">museums </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to see this most evidently. This is not inevitable; France and Germany managed to </span><a href="http://www.dw.com/en/joint-german-french-history-book-a-history-maker-itself/a-2078903" style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">jointly produce a history book</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> that is read in both countries. Reconciliation can happen when there is a desire to make it happen. Given the existence of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society">shame cultures as opposed to guilt cultures</a> in East Asia, however, this sort of joint initiative looks as far away as ever as it would entail considerable loss of face. Yasukuni will, therefore, remain divisive for many more years. I just wish they'd fix their audio guide so the full mendacity of it can be fully appreciated.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-61836341098403784392018-02-22T09:01:00.001+00:002018-02-22T09:15:02.028+00:00Engeki Quest: Angel's Trick<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N8cBtsot17g/WorfNZ_hL2I/AAAAAAAAGZE/vq-4wlpDeScKLCwRTTTHnPDEnUacTTyTgCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0468.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-N8cBtsot17g/WorfNZ_hL2I/AAAAAAAAGZE/vq-4wlpDeScKLCwRTTTHnPDEnUacTTyTgCLcBGAs/s640/DSC_0468.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Following the instructions in the game book <a href="http://bricolaq.com/?page_id=33">Engeki Quest</a>: Yokohama Passage, I went to the starting location of one of the routes, a metro station on the edge of Chinatown. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cNDN7ZMqaRE/WorfRaDOUoI/AAAAAAAAGZY/6o6LVmV1ccY3SoanEd-Xk--kvUg64fDOQCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180216_110052.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="1600" height="468" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cNDN7ZMqaRE/WorfRaDOUoI/AAAAAAAAGZY/6o6LVmV1ccY3SoanEd-Xk--kvUg64fDOQCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180216_110052.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Upon arrival the book invited me to imagine I had been told to go there to meet an ex-girlfriend who had not told me why she wanted to meet me: maybe to get together again or possibly something else... I thought of someone, scanned the station in vain for them, then was directed to a cafe where they were also not to be found.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-srDnelu3k1g/WorfPLASUHI/AAAAAAAAGZI/oEbxwFc6rFgOQZZX4-dKR5iYEOc1gicgQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0482.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-srDnelu3k1g/WorfPLASUHI/AAAAAAAAGZI/oEbxwFc6rFgOQZZX4-dKR5iYEOc1gicgQCLcBGAs/s640/DSC_0482.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I managed to follow the route as far as a park where a pair of hawks were being fed by an leather faced pensioner. They were both impressive and intimidating. How this scene related to my ex was left for me to decide. Was this a metaphor of a doomed relationship or was there a fresh hunt taking place, and if so, who was hunting whom?</span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IjxgbiFI1no/WorfP44Rd4I/AAAAAAAAGZM/TlCDg-FKNG4sEb97g25m32eS8hk7Nw93ACLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0488.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IjxgbiFI1no/WorfP44Rd4I/AAAAAAAAGZM/TlCDg-FKNG4sEb97g25m32eS8hk7Nw93ACLcBGAs/s640/DSC_0488.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At this point the trail went cold and I could not, for all my efforts, find the next point on the route. No matter, I thought, I'll continue the search on my own! I found what looked like a clue: she also had small feet.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This left me with the question, where to find her? I crossed over a bridge as I figured she being Chinese and it being the first day of Chinese New Year, Chinatown would be my best bet.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vxwvoPUvPiQ/WorfValI_zI/AAAAAAAAGZo/aCAoc-yL5A0Hg5iks1SnXvWeKUUwVJGQwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180216_115142_STEREO.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-vxwvoPUvPiQ/WorfValI_zI/AAAAAAAAGZo/aCAoc-yL5A0Hg5iks1SnXvWeKUUwVJGQwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180216_115142_STEREO.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I scanned the faces of the steady pulse of people going back and forth. Doing this reminded me of the Situationist idea of the '<a href="https://www.brianmassumi.com/textes/Urban_Appointment.pdf">possible render-vous</a>' a potential encounter with a stranger, though here the meeting is a one-sided one in which the other person provides a frame through which to view the city. That said, it was necessary to really try and identify her in this giant identity parade, without this genuine effort it would have been just another afternoon in Chinatown. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-75S34JWjMI0/WorfT5HcKtI/AAAAAAAAGZk/FA5opeOBsOwqWhYlPapX6edrQJbFEAIJwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180216_115015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-75S34JWjMI0/WorfT5HcKtI/AAAAAAAAGZk/FA5opeOBsOwqWhYlPapX6edrQJbFEAIJwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180216_115015.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Seeing this line of qipaos jolted me: I remember a picture of her in an almost identical one for a Chinese New Year dance. Even if I were not getting closer to her specifically, I was definitely on a parallel trail. What's more, seeing these bright colours, so alien to Japanese tastes, made me see China in a new way. China the land of loud voices and gaudy design. I was caught by a surprise nostalgia for Chinese bling.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qGQ_7SRAwyM/WorfTSX7b0I/AAAAAAAAGZc/wLQ1G-eHYrEqUUV1EucH5P5vIlhOD0czwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20180216_115048.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qGQ_7SRAwyM/WorfTSX7b0I/AAAAAAAAGZc/wLQ1G-eHYrEqUUV1EucH5P5vIlhOD0czwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20180216_115048.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I considered getting supernatural assistance as I had once visited a fortune teller with her. Could they tell me where she was? Maybe they could but they would do so in Japanese or, if I were lucky, in Chinese. Chances are, however, they would not even go there but stick to the safe topics of health, marriage and career. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After completing a circuit of Chinatown I realised that this search was not so much a possible rendezvous, it more akin to a staged disappearance. I once worked with the collective <a href="http://shadowcasters.blogspot.jp/">Shadow Casters</a> on examining the traces left behind by people who disappear like </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/493224/Lord-Lucan-brother-claims-he-did-escape">Lord Lucan's blood soaked car at Beachy Head</a> so that we could then made trails using a similar logic. This trail, like the Engeki Quest book that started it and the search for Lord Lucan, was growing cold. I had come up with many associations but, predictably enough, no concrete leads. There was one final strategy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I sent her a new year's wechat greeting only to get a "XXXX" has enabled friend confirmation. This was a sad and unexpected ending to the tour as last time we communicated it was totally positive. What has happened since? I cannot tell and it is probably something more on her end, but in any case, it was time to bring this Engeki Quest to an end. Her story is an exceptional one that really needs telling; it is shocking, twisted, the stuff of movies even, and I now know I only ever got a very partial side of it. As a tool with which to see the city it is fine, but it deserves space to be told in its own right one day. I'm just not sure I'm the person most able to tell it straight so it might just come out in another way: as a possible rendez-vous, as a staged disappearance or, most probably, as a work of fiction.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-3440013411962823492018-02-19T13:25:00.002+00:002018-02-19T13:37:29.650+00:00Engeki Quest Yokohama: Passage of Painters<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://bricolaq.com/?page_id=33">Engeki Quest</a> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is multi-authored, analogue </span><a href="http://gamesvsplay.com/a-brief-history-of-gamebooks/" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">tree literature</a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> mapped onto fixed locations. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That is to say, it</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">is a choose-your-own-adventure style book that leads the reader on themed treasure hunts through Yokohama.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dsPlbjiUuhs/WorE_LZe4yI/AAAAAAAAGYY/jjCSmcj6YkAdluDCM4FDphuh95DzRIgxQCLcBGAs/s1600/DSC_0406%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1065" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dsPlbjiUuhs/WorE_LZe4yI/AAAAAAAAGYY/jjCSmcj6YkAdluDCM4FDphuh95DzRIgxQCLcBGAs/s640/DSC_0406%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There are eleven routes in total and this one is titled The Passage of Painters. The book gave me a starting point to go to and searching for it brought me past the cardboard boxes where the homeless sleep and a boarded up underground shopping mall, the sort of place that could feature in a Takeshi Kitano movie </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">crime scene</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">. This introduction to the dysfunctional side of the city set my imagination off in a very specific direction that it never quite came back from. Naturally, I soon bumped into a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemmy">life-sized Lemmy</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I made my way from point to point with some difficulty. Having to look closely for the clues, sometimes going back upon myself and re-examing sites, made the experience more interesting. There is a fine line between between the connections being subtle and being downright opaque, however, and there was a moment I thought I had lost the trail when looking for a police box. It was only after I looked inside this building and discovered a policeman inside trying to look busy that I knew I was back on track. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I rather liked how the places the text threaded together were normal locations and not spectacular heritage sites. It inscribed everyday life within a fantastical idea of being a painter and creating the city through images. There was no strong narrative driving this artist's journey forward, the state it proposed was more akin to spending an afternoon strolling and sketching.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The shopping passage that forms the spine of the route is a long line of shops that begins upmarket and tapers off into second hand stores. At one point the book urged me to buy goods or a service from one of them. The kimono was too expensive, the shoes too small, the male potency products too mysterious so I played it safe and got chocolate biscuits. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The male potency products fell into place a moment later when I was directed to this car park in search of bright colours. Yellow, green and blue I did indeed find but to my right I also noticed some new clothes and shoes lying on the concrete beside a car. A visibly agitated businessman then walked briskly over to them, picked them up and stuffed them into the car. He then drove off in haste. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Walking over to where he had emerged from, I discovered the source of his excitation: Yokohama's red light zone. There were no girls in windows like in Amsterdam, this was more discrete and in places plain mysterious. There were absent minded men standing out of doorways with inflatable mattresses set on the wall behind them or mannequins dressed in school uniforms placed inside flashing neon light displays. What's more, there was a weirdly large number of these places; it makes up a kilometre of sleaze running parallel to the city's shopping passage. Seeing this, I was not thinking of painting the city any longer, I was trying to understand the gender roles in Japanese society.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Towards the end, I passed a pet store where this little fellow was trying to attract my attention and get me to take him home. That was not to be but as it was Chinese New Year the next day and it was turning to my year, the year of the dog, we spent a moment connecting, big canine to small. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The route came to an end, like it began, at a metro station. It required some patience and the suggested time length of 90 minutes can be doubled. If you enter into it with time to spare and open to whatever happens then it offers a much more interesting time than the tourist brochure will have in store for you. It situates the experience much more in the reader's imagination than in the sites themselves and as such, frames you as player and co-creator. While I never fully entered into the story the book was telling, it enabled me to open the page onto another. That story was one of the unspoken and unseen coming to the surface, a naked city where tensions were no longer buried behind layers of politeness as thick as the white paint on a geisha's face.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-37622944919755860642018-01-14T15:24:00.000+00:002018-01-17T03:03:23.240+00:00Lost in Shenzhen: dropping in on Shenzhen Fringe Festival<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I've steadily been Way-Losing this year: getting lost in Xiamen, London and Brussels. The next stop on this erratic path was Shenzhen, China's modern boom city.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I spent two days with</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the Shenzhen Fringe Festival (who supplied these photos) leading groups into less well known corners of the city. It is interesting to compare the character of the two trips as they are not at all alike.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One day we travelled wholly on foot and made our way around Nanshan District. The conversation was good and we saw layers of the city's history with more clarity than usual. The tour had a feeling of control which only relaxed when we began following people in the street. These stealthy pursuits brought us into gated communities.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">They also brought us to hidden farms, spied upon through gaps. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Previous Way-Losing tours have gained their sense of purpose through the conversations we had along the way, sometimes about the places we stumbled across and other times about the ideas and stories they triggered. In this way, narratives emerged which sometimes proved so seductive that they seemed to offer uncanny predictions of how the tour would evolve. That is the effect of a strong but open narrative: it creates a compelling frame with which you can make sense of what you see. Shenzhen was different. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The places we found were certainly important but it was not so much conversations that brought the experience</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">together</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> for me, it was images. For the first time, the tour took on a primarily visual logic. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The way this worked was through an accumulation of observations and photos such as this one of a sheet hanging in an alleyway that shows the stars and moon in the night sky. These observations, and the images that resulted from them, created a visual record that became increasingly specific and inter-related so that by the end of the tour I was looking for something very specific to complete the series. </span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h9nDJaCv5qI/Wlt0_MVwJWI/AAAAAAAAGVU/0KmMH0HPHy4fi_Fbv87QlPHKj3e7Ha3VACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20171126_182646_HHT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-h9nDJaCv5qI/Wlt0_MVwJWI/AAAAAAAAGVU/0KmMH0HPHy4fi_Fbv87QlPHKj3e7Ha3VACLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20171126_182646_HHT.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And at the end of the tour I found it: both the moon and a downward vertical movement from LED lights hanging in a tree that was like a shooting star. I was not looking for this precise image but rather one that had the necessary elements that could draw the series to a conclusion. Walking through and looking at the city in this way tunes us into the poetic potential of shopping malls and construction sites, overgrown parks and bubble tea stalls. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Once again walking with the eyes closed was a useful addition to the tour; an effective way to sever the links in the mental map. What it also seemed to be very good at doing was to sensitise the ears to the diversity of sounds in the city. I think I usually perceive only the more immediate and important sounds and this experience brought to my attention a great many more sounds, and with them, people and activities. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">An interesting thing that one of the participants said was that they never felt really lost because they were always within a narrative of sorts. I can see how this can be true: even though none of knew exactly where we were we had a sense of purpose and within a story that we were spinning as we went along.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Finishing at a Sichuan restaurant was a quite ideal way to round off the journey and let everyone share so</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">mething they</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> had seen or thought along the way. It also marked the fact that we had now become a group and were no longer strangers to one another. This social side to Way-Losing is important to nurture as this experience is usually only as good as the people you have it with. I was lucky that Way-Losing and the Shenzhen Fringe Festival seemed to attract a fairly young, educated and curious crowd who threw themselves into it and embraced the proposition. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And here is the Sunday group after a long day's walk and subway ride. Yes, that is a Christmas scene behind us: reindeers in a Christmas Grotto, lost somewhere in Southern China.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-83764161038112438022018-01-14T12:09:00.000+00:002018-01-14T12:10:01.564+00:00100,000 page views for the Tourofalltours blog<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PwpsW903f9s/WltFU13vj8I/AAAAAAAAGVA/Nzhr5th92uEZiJSg7KoieXhtlpD62oANQCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-01-14%2Bat%2B7.52.36%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="134" data-original-width="1378" height="62" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PwpsW903f9s/WltFU13vj8I/AAAAAAAAGVA/Nzhr5th92uEZiJSg7KoieXhtlpD62oANQCLcBGAs/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2018-01-14%2Bat%2B7.52.36%2BPM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Tourofalltours blog has just recorded its 100,000th page view. That is some sort of milestone; when I started this I simply thought I was recording some thoughts about a show I was making in Stuttgart. Things have come a long way since then, the blog has grown in scope and volume, I have become immersed in the world of tours and have taken this work around the world. I want to say thank you to Art Tours who commissioned the very first Tour of All Tours back in Germany in 2013 and to all the people who have supported this work along the way, either by helping me make further tours or offering me a place on their tours so I could review them for the blog here. I'm looking forward to the next 100,000 and where that will take me. Hope to see you somewhere along the way and thanks for reading and for your comments!</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-65074932629434478772018-01-07T02:19:00.000+00:002018-01-07T14:47:53.052+00:00Hyper Heritage: Hong Kong's Sham Shui Po and Shek Kip Mei from street to screen and back again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had the opportunity to recently revisit Hyper-Heritage and give this performance tour once again. It's a walking tour that starts in Shek Kip Mei and leads a group into neighbouring Sham Shui Po in Kowloon. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">While it was at first conceived as a tour of the city's cinema heritage, over time it grew and became more specific. It narrowed down to be about the connections between the way the city is depicted in its movies and the reality itself. I wondered, for example, how a place can have such a prolific cinema industry and not start to become effected by the images of itself it creates. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Many of the films I talked about were shot in the neighbourhood we walked through so we were, on the one hand, making a tour of film locations. We were also, however, visiting former cinemas that had become repurposed and their former life almost entirely erased.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ZorZ00rnb4/Wk9IGzJUbiI/AAAAAAAAGSM/qrR3Vz-pTH4wNJwHAEDttsZVN4iUyk1JwCLcBGAs/s1600/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-03-29%2Bat%2B4.22.03%2BPM.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="869" data-original-width="1600" height="346" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6ZorZ00rnb4/Wk9IGzJUbiI/AAAAAAAAGSM/qrR3Vz-pTH4wNJwHAEDttsZVN4iUyk1JwCLcBGAs/s640/Screen%2BShot%2B2017-03-29%2Bat%2B4.22.03%2BPM.png" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By surveying the films shot in the area it became possible to see what the area represents. Because it is a poorer neighbourhood with a lot of public housing and a bustling street market, it is no surprise that it often plays the backdrop to crime movies. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because the films were not universally familiar I had to sometimes summarise their plots and even act out one or two scenes. This was quite fun as it gave the tour a more varied mode of engagement and this is a direction it could go further in: recreating scenes on their original filming locations. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I made a point of including some older films as well as more contemporary ones. Indeed, I managed to go right the way back to the origin of Hong Kong's cinema, the 1909 silent comedy Stealing a Roast Duck.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the things that emerged for me was the fact that this part of the city, which is in some ways neglected and perceived as lacking in history, does have a heritage. Buried within its past and sometimes captured on the silver screen, are many contentious episodes that are not so well understood today.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This role of cinema as site of history education and contemporary political debate was made most strikingly evident in the 2015 movie Ten Years, which closed the Hyper-Heritage Tour. The tour, then, shows how there is a battle for control of the city's narrative and how this battle takes place in the contested space of popular entertainment. Researching and giving the tour has certainly helped me to better appreciate and read some of the many layers in Cantonese cinema and I'm very happy to have been able to do this in a less obvious part of the city rather than the media saturated HK Island. I have to thank <a href="http://www.cccd.hk/">CCCD</a> and the <a href="https://www.gs.cuhk.edu.hk/admissions/programme/arts#ma-in-cultural-management">Chinese University of Hong Kong</a> for the invitation to make this work and my student collaborators for their help in researching it. Thank you!</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-48348138570734200792018-01-04T08:37:00.000+00:002018-01-05T00:59:15.198+00:00The Tour of Hunan - From Zhangjiajie to Changsha - dispatches from the frontline of tourism in China<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b6k4Kq3yM28/WkpfIUoatwI/AAAAAAAAGQc/S-SRWZcj8DwRl1gaSlSdNnQqriYTngGLwCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20171116_090623.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-b6k4Kq3yM28/WkpfIUoatwI/AAAAAAAAGQc/S-SRWZcj8DwRl1gaSlSdNnQqriYTngGLwCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20171116_090623.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Tour of Hunan was a four-day coach trip that was run by a local tour operator designed to show foreigners the highlights of the province. The coach became our second home, my back slowly locked itself into the shape of seat. They managed to turn a holiday into the chore by packing in as many iconic sites scattered across the four corners of Hunan as possible. Each day we seemed to drive for around six hours, starting in the early morning with shorter rides later in the day. With a 6.30 AM wake up call each day, it felt like work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By submitting to this gruelling timetable we were able to catch attractions like this bed that Mao once slept in. This is a tricky exhibit as it has to ride a fine line between looking both stately enough for the Great Helmsman and yet humble enough for a junior scholar in a backward province. I must have taken a lot of effort to find that sweet spot in the middle!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And here he is again leading the coach through his home province. His presence seemed strangely apolitical, he seemed to function more by offering an, albeit premature, celebrity endorsement of the sites. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The historic towns we visited were the homogenised type that had been given the tourist makeover. Coach after coach spilled out tourists who raided the streets buying up souvenirs and fake luxury brands. While this scene of consumption could be anywhere in China, the tourists themselves add some local colour. Buddhist monks were even getting in on the act, I like very much the disciple, here sporting a red Hello Kitty bag that almost matches his robes.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The drum shops reminded me of Lijiang in Yunnan, a tourist town that has been similarly transformed and which sports an unlikely number of them. These shops seem, at first, completely arbitrary and it remains a mystery to me who actually buys these drums. What I do see in them now, however, is that they evince the growing contact between China and Africa which they frame within the field of leisure. I should like to better understand what Africa currently represents in the tourist mindset here, this is something very much in flux.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We had a rotating cast of tour guides. Our primary guide had a habit of talking too much about stuff of no relevance. For example, when she was telling us what the dinner would be one evening, she launched into a story about fish, which we weren't going to have, and how her daughter had got a fishbone stuck in her throat and had to go to the doctor to get it removed only to be told there was no bone there. Well meaning but not informed about the sites at all, she went on extended improvisations with the microphone at the front of the bus. Alongside her was a local guide who spoke no English but who took care of the restaurant and hotel bookings.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">At most of the sites we visited we there were then guides specific to the attractions we were being wheeled in front of so we'd sometimes have three levels of simultaneous guides, none of whom really made the place any the more interesting but who did at least keep up some sense of momentum.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I had recently come across a tongue in cheek article on cocktails you can make with ingredients from a Chinese convenience store. Over the four days I tested them all. This Baileys style drink was probably the most palatable. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The interminable coach rides between sites were, on one of the days, augmented by the driver adding in some private business of his own. We made a stop to pick up some boxes and bags at a petrol station the the edge of one of the towns and then made a large swooping detour for him to go to his home town where the coach pulled and his wife ran to meet us and take a sack of pomelos from the bottom of the coach. Cocktail time.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vg0177IGK7c/WkpfkVI4LwI/AAAAAAAAGRM/59ETx4v71YA3u0FuabY26FuRH_glTtMVgCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20171118_161624.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Vg0177IGK7c/WkpfkVI4LwI/AAAAAAAAGRM/59ETx4v71YA3u0FuabY26FuRH_glTtMVgCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20171118_161624.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the parks was full of monkeys. They seemed like used to the tourists and this one was not in the least phased by the circle of phones that surrounded it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The cable car ride to the higher peak was not for those with vertigo. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.zjjpark.com/">Zhangjiajie</a> is stunning, an unreal assemblage of oversized toothpicks bound together with lush tree cover. We were given fifteen minutes to take pictures before it was time to move on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One of the more absurd things the guide kept on stressing was that the mountains featured in the film Avatar. Even though this blockbuster movies was meant to lend the site greater kudos, it only brought it down in my mind to the world of aspirational CGI and middle of the road acting.</span></div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cvmVD4jAEFY/WkpfpNcYDDI/AAAAAAAAGRY/ZmVEvVTfB9McHPleMx6-6NeYQ9b6mKPFACLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20171119_125008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cvmVD4jAEFY/WkpfpNcYDDI/AAAAAAAAGRY/ZmVEvVTfB9McHPleMx6-6NeYQ9b6mKPFACLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20171119_125008.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There was even a video machine there which could film you and then stick you on top of a dodgy animated bird flying high over peaks of Zhangjiajie. They had a special talent for making something very ordinary and kitsch out of an absolutely stunning natural location. </span></div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wuT7Iy3KBwA/WkpfresQ48I/AAAAAAAAGRc/1codcBLOW0E6KBNk9I2r4D1yEND9ZGP3wCLcBGAs/s1600/IMG_20171119_132025.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1563" data-original-width="1161" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-wuT7Iy3KBwA/WkpfresQ48I/AAAAAAAAGRc/1codcBLOW0E6KBNk9I2r4D1yEND9ZGP3wCLcBGAs/s640/IMG_20171119_132025.jpg" width="474" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We were vastly outnumbered by the domestic tourists who had a much clearer idea of what to do with a site like this. Their's was a near military style sweep: go to prime photo spot, selfie sticks out, take turns with group shot, break into solo and duet shots then move on the next site. Our tour was a pale, self-conscious imitation of theirs: we have the photos too but ours are not as cleanly composed, are far fewer in number and we never managed smiles like theirs. Being a tourist requires practice.</span></div>
Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7530591150427138780.post-44293429073443735992017-12-30T10:13:00.002+00:002017-12-30T15:04:37.619+00:00Way-Losing is coming to Tokyo<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I have heard it said by many people that Tokyo is like a maze; that it's a city that it's frustratingly difficult to find your way in. The image of the city that I have from a distance is of a sprawling neon metropolis with signs, roads and alleys pointing in all directions. It could almost be imagined as a Tardis city. Like Doctor Who's vehicle that contains an impossible amount of rooms for its constrained exterior, it is a city that morphs and expands when you enter inside it right up to the moment you squeeze into your hotel sleeping pod. That may be true or that may just be a fantasy or the experience of the </span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">newly arrived foreigner encountering</span><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"> Japanese spatial logic. I will be fresh off the plane making my first visit to Japan so will be in a good position to put this to the test.</span></div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rb938RVruf8/WkdlxvTHYwI/AAAAAAAAGPo/-Jt2gMerTgoZyJ5UmtbcxkqXYst0SMDmwCLcBGAs/s1600/WL%2BTokyo%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="511" data-original-width="779" height="418" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Rb938RVruf8/WkdlxvTHYwI/AAAAAAAAGPo/-Jt2gMerTgoZyJ5UmtbcxkqXYst0SMDmwCLcBGAs/s640/WL%2BTokyo%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To co-incide with Tokyo Performing Arts Market (TPAM) I'll be getting people lost in Tokyo and Yokohama. This will happen between February 11th and 20th and there is the option of giving a private Way-Losing Tour in the area for a further week too - contact via the website. Exact times and starting points to be announced upon arrival. Below are some nice things people have said about Way-Losing this year:</span></div>
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Bill Aitchisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03835654665441118215noreply@blogger.com2