By Wu Tong
While many foreign teachers head back home during Spring Festival, Edward Newson, a 31-year-old British teacher of English, set out to see China.
Newson, whose Chinese name is An Nuo, began teaching last September at China Agricultural University.
His plan was to go from Beijing to Kunming by way of Taiyuan, Pingyao, Xi’an and Chengdu. His students reminded him of the inconvenience beforehand, but Newson thought it would be a good opportunity to learn more about China.
The “biggest human migration in the world” left Newson a deep impression. He had heard that an estimated 300 million people, many of whom are students or migrant workers, go home to celebrate Spring Festival each year, surpassing the capacity of the railway system. But it wasn’t until he was wedged into a train car going from Taiyuan to Pingyao that he realized just how serious the situation is.
Like all the passengers, Newson was worried about finding a ticket. The first thing he needed to do after arriving in Xi’an was to wait in a long line to buy a ticket to Chengdu. He was relieved to get even a hard-seat ticket.
On his way to Kunming, he encountered an unexpected situation. After he put away his luggage and sat down, a Chinese woman who had failed to buy a seat walked toward him and set a plastic bucket in front of him and sat on his lap, closing her eyes to rest.
Newson was stunned at first, then responded in a gentlemanly manner and gave up his seat.
Newson had prepared four books, a pair of earplugs and MP3s for the 16 hours on the road. But because of the noise and the crowded environment, he soon switched his plan and began chatting with others. On his way from Chengdu to Kunming, he told passengers what it’s like to celebrate holidays in the UK, where an eight-hour-trip from the north to the south is hassle-free.
Newson said it was an unforgettable experience to see so many passengers sleeping on the floor of the carriage, trying so hard to get home. The family bonds in China made him recall memories of his own family.
He is planning to visit his parents back home when this journey is over.
Buying a ticket from Xi'an to Chengdu/Photos provided by Deng Xiaowei
By Wu Tong
While many foreign teachers head back home during Spring Festival, Edward Newson, a 31-year-old British teacher of English, set out to see China.
Newson, whose Chinese name is An Nuo, began teaching last September at China Agricultural University.
His plan was to go from Beijing to Kunming by way of Taiyuan, Pingyao, Xi’an and Chengdu. His students reminded him of the inconvenience beforehand, but Newson thought it would be a good opportunity to learn more about China.
British teacher Edward Newson experiences the Spring Festival rush.
The “biggest human migration in the world” left Newson a deep impression. He had heard that an estimated 300 million people, many of whom are students or migrant workers, go home to celebrate Spring Festival each year, surpassing the capacity of the railway system. But it wasn’t until he was wedged into a train car going from Taiyuan to Pingyao that he realized just how serious the situation is.
Like all the passengers, Newson was worried about finding a ticket. The first thing he needed to do after arriving in Xi’an was to wait in a long line to buy a ticket to Chengdu. He was relieved to get even a hard-seat ticket.
By Han Manman
More than 20 superstar snowboarders from 12 countries met in Beijing last weekend to compete in the 10th annual RedBull Nanshan Open at Nike’s Snowboard Park.
“It’s been awesome to see how the event has grown the last years, since I won it my first time,” said Finnish rider Juuso Laivisto, who won the $50,000 (315,550 yuan) first prize, his second time winning the event. “I was stoked with my win, there was definitely heavy competition today. The others were just a little unfortunate I think.”
Photo provided by Zhang Xian
By Han Manman
More than 20 superstar snowboarders from 12 countries met in Beijing last weekend to compete in the 10th annual RedBull Nanshan Open at Nike’s Snowboard Park.
“It’s been awesome to see how the event has grown the last years, since I won it my first time,” said Finnish rider Juuso Laivisto, who won the $50,000 (315,550 yuan) first prize, his second time winning the event. “I was stoked with my win, there was definitely heavy competition today. The others were just a little unfortunate I think.”
By Zhao Hongyi
Last year was not kind to the Chinese food industry. Crises included poisoned milk, recycled cooking oil, fake eggs and wines, dyed steamed buns, excessive fertilizer use and pollution of drinking water.
But while the above all captured headlines, many people worked behind the scenes to improve the country’s food, introducing concepts such as organic farming and farmers’ markets. They offered training and lobbied for officials to draft safety regulations.
This is the story of one of those people.
Japanese girl and her Organic
Farmer’s Market
In September 2010, Emi Uemura, an artist from Japan, came to Beijing and set up her Organic Farmer’s Market, or Country Fair, downtown. The market collected and sold organic products from farms in the suburbs around Beijing.
Over the past year, she worked on independent projects around town and collaborated with Vitamin Creative Space to create Mobile Farm, which grows plants in wheeled containers, and Calendar Restaurant, which uses food products grown from the farms.
Uemura has worked on many social projects, using meals as a vehicle for people from all walks of life to gather and discuss.
“I had no idea what to do when I came to China,” Uemura said. “Fortunately, soon after I arrived, we found the topic of organic agro-products.”
Uemura thought her organic market would attract artsy types, but it drew thousands of local farmers and foodies interested in healthy eating.
She and her colleagues realized it was a great opportunity to promote the so-called “Local Food Movement,” an ongoing movement popular in Japan, Europe and the US.
With her organic market setting an example, more locals bought small patches of farmland in the suburbs and began cultivating their own vegetables.
Social project of organic restaurant
Uemura and her colleagues did not rush to the suburbs. Instead, they created and promoted Mobile Farm, providing organic products to restaurants and setting up the concept of sustenance of space: they make full use of the spaces and corners in the buildings they live and grow organic food in boxes, squares and movable containers.
Now they produce vegetables and fruits for their Farmer’s Market and Calendar Restaurant.
In June 2011, Uemura and her friend Danmin Fang opened Calendar Restaurant in Wudaokou to remind people to eat seasonal foods.
The two women prepare dishes with organic ingredients and talk to visitors about the advantages of eating organic.
“Our restaurant is not for profit and is not open every day,” Fang said. In the last month of 2011, they held a class at the restaurant on how to prepare kimchi.
“Every one of us has the responsibility for the food crisis that happened,” Fang said. She believes that, as the final consumers, we need to think about the kind of lifestyle we want and pursue.
“Our market, farm and restaurant emerged as the result of this thinking,” she said. “It’s not an ideology insisted on by an artist from Japan.”
A long-term
commitment
The story of Uemura and Fang is only one example of the organic campaign beginning to gather momentum in the capital. More are coming to promote the planting and export of organic products.
In 2008, Joseph Jen, former deputy secretary of the US Agriculture Department and now one of the five co-chairmen of the International Union of Food Science and Technology, joined China’s Ministry of Health to hold an international food security forum in Beijing for three consecutive years.
Patrick Wall, former chairman of the European Food Safety Authority, reminded Chinese supervisors that “when a crisis happens, the most important point is to keep the consumer’s confidence. [But] prevention is much more important than solving the problems.”
Gale Prince, former chairman of the International Association of Food Protection and now president of SAGE Food Safety Consulting, agreed.
“Qualified professionals and technical trainings are the most important factors to ensure food safety,” he said.
Helen Yu, press officer of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Beijing, said the WHO has advised the health ministry and State Food and Drug Administration on topics such as food security management, inspection and risk evaluation.
The US Federal Drug Administration set up its first overseas office in Beijing in 2008. The office claimed that “they are focusing on the food products exported to the US only.”
Eight UN agencies, including WHO, have joined local Chinese government bodies to launch a project in six counties in the western part of the country to provide food security training to women whose husbands have left to find work in the cities.
At the end of last year, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce declared that more than 99 percent of Chinese food exports are clean and healthy.
“It’s only a short-term achievement,” said Wang Jun, professor of social sciences at Peking University. “The safety of food requires long-term commitment and supervision.”
By Zhao Hongyi
Last year was not kind to the Chinese food industry. Crises included poisoned milk, recycled cooking oil, fake eggs and wines, dyed steamed buns, excessive fertilizer use and pollution of drinking water.
But while the above all captured headlines, many people worked behind the scenes to improve the country’s food, introducing concepts such as organic farming and farmers’ markets. They offered training and lobbied for officials to draft safety regulations.
This is the story of one of those people.
Uemura's organic market draws thousands of local farmers and foodies interested in organic products. Photos provided by Danmin Fang
Japanese girl and her Organic Farmer’s Market
In September 2010, Emi Uemura, an artist from Japan, came to Beijing and set up her Organic Farmer’s Market, or Country Fair, downtown. The market collected and sold organic products from farms in the suburbs around Beijing.
Over the past year, she worked on independent projects around town and collaborated with Vitamin Creative Space to create Mobile Farm, which grows plants in wheeled containers, and Calendar Restaurant, which uses food products grown from the farms.
Uemura has worked on many social projects, using meals as a vehicle for people from all walks of life to gather and discuss.
“I had no idea what to do when I came to China,” Uemura said. “Fortunately, soon after I arrived, we found the topic of organic agro-products.”
Uemura thought her organic market would attract artsy types, but it drew thousands of local farmers and foodies interested in healthy eating.
She and her colleagues realized it was a great opportunity to promote the so-called “Local Food Movement,” an ongoing movement popular in Japan, Europe and the US.
With her organic market setting an example, more locals bought small patches of farmland in the suburbs and began cultivating their own vegetables.
By Zhao Hongyi
Jonathan and Danielle Jenkins are young and entrepreneurial, and at first glance, it looks like they have an ordinary business with an office and a website.
But they’ve added an interesting twist to an old business model. They gather orders from various overseas retailers and then buy in bulk from local factories, thereby letting even small companies in Europe and the US get the “China price.”
Along the way, they help struggling Chinese factories that have seen orders decrease in recent years.
They’ve dubbed their style “online foreign business 2.0.”
New business style lures clients
Yiwu, a coastal city in Zhejiang Province, is the largest production and market base in China of small items such as accessories, gifts, clothes and daily-use products.
It’s here that you’ll often find a young American donning a hunting cap and backpack. He wanders the market chatting with vendors and producers, learning about the various items on sale.
The man is Jonathan Jenkins, a 29-year-old businessman from the US. He’s usually accompanied by his wife, 24-year-old Danielle.
The couple arrived in Yiwu six months ago and quickly set up their business. In July, they began receiving orders from small retailers around the world.
They’ve taken more than 500 orders on their website, orderwithme.com, mostly for fashion accessories, for a total value of about $125,000 (790,000 yuan).
“Local Chinese factories issue orders for 50 to 100 pieces,” Jenkins said. “But most of the retailers in Europe and the US like to order much less than that.
“Our business is to collect diversified small orders from around the world and purchase in bulk from the factories.”
In this way, Jenkins can sell the goods to retailers for much lower prices.
For example, a high quality bag costs about 60 yuan from local factories. It can retail for at least four times that amount in the US.
The orders are diversified and sometimes strange, such as for “any item made of real bamboo fiber,” “something that looks like French-style antique furniture” or “quality LV imitations.”
“Some businessmen from Dubai, Kenya and Brazil asked me to open a branch of orderwithme.com in their countries,” Jenkins said, smiling proudly.
In the meantime, he’s helping many small factories in China, many of which have teetered on the brink of closure since the world financial crisis.
Chai Yizhen is an owner of such a factory in Yiwu. Her factory produces women’s handbags. She used to receive orders from wholesalers in Brazil, but saw an 80 percent decrease in business last year.
“It was Jonathan’s order for 3,000 pieces worth 100,000 yuan that saved my factory,” Chai said.
A month ago, TechCrunch Disrupt, an IT venture capital company in the US, selected Jenkins’ company among 17 candidates as an investment target. Order With Me won the title “start-up champion” and $3 million in venture capital.
Learning from failure
Jenkins may be young, but he isn’t new to business. He’s learned from a past failure.
In 2006, three years out of college, he went to Shanghai to teach English. During this time, he wrote online software to teach children English.
He invested $1 million in the project, but Shanghai’s authorities cut him off, saying he wasn’t allowed to sell online software that targeted students. To this day, he remains optimistic that the restriction will be lifted in the future.
Afterward, he toured sites and cities around Shanghai. Yiwu was among the cities he visited multiple times.
“I found there were many small items, like accessories and clothes, that were being sold for very low prices in the markets in Yiwu,” Jenkins recalled.
He quit his job in Shanghai and moved back to the US, where he opened a store to sell fashion accessories.
In the next three years, he made quarterly trips to China – Yiwu, specifically – to purchase items that were hard to find in the US.
But the problem was, he had to buy in bulk to save money – so much, in fact, that he couldn’t sell them all. The items began to pile up in his store, which quickly ran out of space.
It was at this time that he got an idea. Why not start a business in China and purchase for US retailers such as himself?
Jenkins is proud of what he does: he helps retailers in the US and producers in China.
“I always tell [the factories] to label their own brands,” he said. “The small accessories are great quality, but they’re sold so cheaply and are not branded.”
“A product must have a good name, like your child,” he said, “particularly when you are exporting your products worldwide.”
Unrivaled, in his mind
The Jenkins were classmates in college. When Jon told Denielle he would go to China to do business, she dropped out of school to join him.
The two married at the bank of West Lake, the most famous spot in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province.
The process hasn’t been completely smooth. When Jenkins tried to register his business, local authorities told him that they couldn’t give a trading company any tax breaks.
He decided to register his company as a consulting company instead.
Hangzhou is also the headquarters of Alibaba, the largest business-to-business online retailer in China. But Jenkins doesn’t consider Alibaba a rival.
“Alibaba is too big, and it can’t offer tailored service to retailers,” he said. “We pay particular attention to the quality of the products, particularly in the aspect of environment protection – like, no lead, no nickel and no cadmium.”
A number of Chinese businessmen have started similar businesses, such as Light in the Box and Dino Direct.
But “the price they are selling at is comparatively expensive, and we can offer tailored services to our clients,” Jenkins said.
He has plans for the future as well, but for now, he’s enjoying his success. That failed education software company, for example?
“I’ll earn back that money in a few months,” he said.
By Zhao Hongyi
Jonathan and Danielle Jenkins are young and entrepreneurial, and at first glance, it looks like they have an ordinary business with an office and a website.
But they’ve added an interesting twist to an old business model. They gather orders from various overseas retailers and then buy in bulk from local factories, thereby letting even small companies in Europe and the US get the “China price.”
Along the way, they help struggling Chinese factories that have seen orders decrease in recent years.
They’ve dubbed their style “online foreign business 2.0.”
Jon and Danielle at an Yiwu market. Photo provided by Jonathen Jenkins
New business style lures clients
Yiwu, a coastal city in Zhejiang Province, is the largest production and market base in China of small items such as accessories, gifts, clothes and daily-use products.
It’s here that you’ll often find a young American donning a hunting cap and backpack. He wanders the market chatting with vendors and producers, learning about the various items on sale.
The man is Jonathan Jenkins, a 29-year-old businessman from the US. He’s usually accompanied by his wife, 24-year-old Danielle.
The couple arrived in Yiwu six months ago and quickly set up their business. In July, they began receiving orders from small retailers around the world.
They’ve taken more than 500 orders on their website, orderwithme.com, mostly for fashion accessories, for a total value of about $125,000 (790,000 yuan).
“Local Chinese factories issue orders for 50 to 100 pieces,” Jenkins said. “But most of the retailers in Europe and the US like to order much less than that.
“Our business is to collect diversified small orders from around the world and purchase in bulk from the factories.”
In this way, Jenkins can sell the goods to retailers for much lower prices.
For example, a high quality bag costs about 60 yuan from local factories. It can retail for at least four times that amount in the US.
The orders are diversified and sometimes strange, such as for “any item made of real bamboo fiber,” “something that looks like French-style antique furniture” or “quality LV imitations.”
“Some businessmen from Dubai, Kenya and Brazil asked me to open a branch of orderwithme.com in their countries,” Jenkins said, smiling proudly.
In the meantime, he’s helping many small factories in China, many of which have teetered on the brink of closure since the world financial crisis.
Chai Yizhen is an owner of such a factory in Yiwu. Her factory produces women’s handbags. She used to receive orders from wholesalers in Brazil, but saw an 80 percent decrease in business last year.
“It was Jonathan’s order for 3,000 pieces worth 100,000 yuan that saved my factory,” Chai said.
A month ago, TechCrunch Disrupt, an IT venture capital company in the US, selected Jenkins’ company among 17 candidates as an investment target. Order With Me won the title “start-up champion” and $3 million in venture capital.
By Han Manman
When American Jocelyn Eikenburg, 33, married a Chinese man in 2004, it was still rare to see a white woman tie the knot with a Chinese man.
Things have gradually changed since then, but it’s still uncommon to find couples in interracial marriages who talk about their experiences. Certainly it’s rare to find someone as candid about it as Eikenburg, who runs the website Speaking of China.
Through sharing her stories of love and family – the good and bad – Eikenburg has become a leading voice for those who want to learn about the dynamics of a relationship between a white woman and a Chinese man.
“Are Jewish women more likely to marry Chinese men? How my anti-Japanese Chinese husband changed his mind about Japan …”
These are among the topics from Jocelyn Eikenburg’s blog Speaking of China, a personal account of how an American woman found love in the Chinese countryside – and the things that happened next in the cross-cultural relationship.
She writes about how she met her husband, a Chinese man from rural Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province with the English name John, in 2002 at an online company in Hangzhou when working.
They met through a mutual friend’s arrangement. Eikenburg fell in love during the summer of that year after John took her out for her birthday.
“He treated me to a five-course dinner at a cozy little vegetarian restaurant in Hangzhou, and then whisked me over to a bench under the willow trees on Su Causeway, where we sat under the stars beside the West Lake and eventually had our first kiss,” Eikenburg recalled. “It’s still hands down the most romantic evening I’ve ever had.”
The two decided to get married in 2004.
However, it wasn’t always smooth sailing.
Eikenburg said she knew that most Chinese are expected to get married and have children. “But I was raised to believe that children are a personal choice. I never really had a strong desire to become a mother,” she said.
“So you can imagine how I felt when my mother-in-law tells me, after our wedding ceremony, that I need to have children as soon as possible,” Eikenburg said, adding that while her husband told her he understood it wasn’t the right time for kids, he also mentioned he expected to have kids sometime.
“We ended up having a major argument about it,” she said.
The two grew up in different places, and cultural differences are sometimes the cause for arguments. Eikenburg used to get upset when John spoke to her in a voice that sounded gruff, but John never understood why.
“But when I visited his family and watched how his parents and relatives spoke, I noticed they used this kind of voice all the time, and it wasn’t perceived as angry or threatening in any way,” she said.
“It took an observation for me to finally ‘get it,’ but I could have avoided years of arguments if I had tried stepping back from my anger to have a conversation with my husband about it,” she added.
Eikenburg said communication is really necessary “because many times, you might perceive the same thing in drastically different ways and not even realize you’re doing it,” she said.
Feeling like there weren’t enough foreigners in China exploring what it means to be in love in China and become part of a Chinese family, Eikenburg started Speaking of China in 2009 and shared various stories about her marriage and about the relationship with her in-laws.
“Many of my readers – foreign women or Chinese men in relationships – have told me my site is like a community to them, a place that connects us all together,” she said.
To answer the various questions from her readers, Eikenburg began a column called “Ask the Yangxifu” (foreign wife).
“The most common question I receive from Chinese men is where to meet foreign women, while foreign women are often unsure of how to ‘read’ Chinese men,” she said.
Eikenburg’s blog won followers not only from China, but also worldwide. She was named one of the “101 Inspiring Women Bloggers to Watch for 2010” by US-based WE Magazine.
John has become Eikenburg’s biggest fan and supporter. And when Eikenburg has an idea for a story – whether about Chinese culture or cultural differences or the unique experience of being in a relationship with a Chinese man – she’ll first ask John about it.
“His perspective, as a Chinese man and PhD student in psychology, is so insightful because he often can get to the heart of behavior and culture in a way that no one else I’ve known really can,” she said.
Eikenburg said she is also working on a memoir about her marriage, which she hopes to publish in the next few years.
Currently in the US as John pursues his doctorate, Eikenburg said they are determined to return to China next year after John finishes his program.
“I’m so eager to return because I’ve always loved living in China,” she said.
Remember that most Chinese still date with the intention of marrying. That’s not to say people don’t break up. However, most of the time, people will only date someone they consider marriage material – and that’s different from what many foreign women are used to.
Keep your past relationships to yourself. One of the Western wives I know once told me her husband never wants to hear anything about her ex-boyfriends, and I’ve heard the same from others. At the same time, be careful about sleeping with a guy too soon. It may reinforce the “foreign women are easy” stereotype and, if you’re with a more traditional guy, it might make him decide you’re not marriage material.
Keep an open mind, because you’re dealing with a man who grew up in a different culture, who was socialized to do things differently from you. I encourage people to read anything they can about Chinese culture, because it helps you understand him a lot better. If you haven’t yet, start studying the language even if he speaks great English – it will come in handy when you meet his family and friends later on.
By Han Manman
When American Jocelyn Eikenburg, 33, married a Chinese man in 2004, it was still rare to see a white woman tie the knot with a Chinese man.
Things have gradually changed since then, but it’s still uncommon to find couples in interracial marriages who talk about their experiences. Certainly it’s rare to find someone as candid about it as Eikenburg, who runs the website Speaking of China.
Through sharing her stories of love and family – the good and bad – Eikenburg has become a leading voice for those who want to learn about the dynamics of a relationship between a white woman and a Chinese man.
Eikenburg and John at their wedding ceremony/Photos provided by Jocelyn Eikenburg
“Are Jewish women more likely to marry Chinese men? How my anti-Japanese Chinese husband changed his mind about Japan …”
These are among the topics from Jocelyn Eikenburg’s blog Speaking of China, a personal account of how an American woman found love in the Chinese countryside – and the things that happened next in the cross-cultural relationship.
She writes about how she met her husband, a Chinese man from rural Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province with the English name John, in 2002 at an online company in Hangzhou when working.
They met through a mutual friend’s arrangement. Eikenburg fell in love during the summer of that year after John took her out for her birthday.
“He treated me to a five-course dinner at a cozy little vegetarian restaurant in Hangzhou, and then whisked me over to a bench under the willow trees on Su Causeway, where we sat under the stars beside the West Lake and eventually had our first kiss,” Eikenburg recalled. “It’s still hands down the most romantic evening I’ve ever had.”
The two decided to get married in 2004.
However, it wasn’t always smooth sailing.
Eikenburg said she knew that most Chinese are expected to get married and have children. “But I was raised to believe that children are a personal choice. I never really had a strong desire to become a mother,” she said.
By Han Manman
A popular saying goes that if you were to fly over a Chinese city, you’d be able to see people playing mahjong from the sky.
The modern version would require an update: you’d be able to see foreign faces as well.
More foreigners have taken up mahjong in recent years, giving this ancient game an infusion of new blood.
Falling in love
with mahjong
This past Christmas was the first that Joe Mathieu spent in Beijing. Having arrived from the US last year, the 31-year-old software engineer for a local IT company spent the holiday with his Chinese friends.
He was invited to a Christmas party held by his friend, Xu Li. Mathieu knew there’d be mahjong, a game he loves but doesn’t play as well as his Chinese counterparts.
He recalled Xu teaching him the game when he arrived in Beijing. “At that time, I hoped to learn more about Chinese culture and get integrated into Chinese society as quickly as possible,” Mathieu said.
“Xu suggested that I learn Mahjong. She said the game is combines probability and skill, that it’s not a simple game people get quickly bored of.”
Xu even told her friend it could stave off dementia – not a concern for Mathieu just yet, but perhaps a reason why so many elderly play.
Gradually, Mathieu got the hang of it.
“Playing Mahjong requires a person to think analytically. At some point in a game, a player has to adopt a certain strategy and yet be willing to change it later on in response to opponents’ moves,” he said.
Mahjong is believed to have originated in China in 500 BC. The game is similar to rummy, played by four around a table using 144 pieces of tiles known as tonz.
The players’ seat positions represent the four different cardinal directions. Each game has four rounds named after prevailing winds.
Players draw and discard tiles to their hand and try to form certain combinations for varying amounts of points. The game is usually played for money.
“No wonder many said Chinese are clever – maybe because they’ve been playing mahjong since a young age,” Mathieu said.
Mathieu has become so fascinated with mahjong that he even goes online to play when his friends aren’t available for a game.
“I will teach my family how to play when I back to America,” he said.
Gaining popularity worldwide
Mahjong has legions of devoted fans across China and abroad. There are several variations of the game, but the basic principles remain the same.
Under the Beijing-based World Mahjong Organization (WMO), which was established in October 2005, several member organizations from China, Japan, the US, Germany, France, Denmark, the Netherlands and Hungary promote the game in their home regions.
Various mahjong tournaments and championships have been popping up worldwide in recent years.
Mahjong tournaments in Europe are now drawing as many as 500 entrants, said Tina Christensen, president of the European Mahjong Association. The group was present in Yichang, Hubei Province last month at the 5th China Mahjong Forum and Championship.
Christensen said players travel around Europe to play all the time.
“It’s very interesting to hear players of different nationalities suddenly speaking Chinese: ‘chi,’ ‘peng,’ ‘gang’ and ‘hu,’” she said.
Christensen said players are ranked based on their performance at four European tournaments the organization holds each year.
“Our mission is to bring healthy, friendly and scientific mahjong to as many people as possible,” she said.
Application for world heritage
Chairman Mao Zedong once said that mahjong is one of China’s three national treasures, along with traditional Chinese medicine and The Dream of the Red Chamber.
Now, a group of mahjong lovers is applying for the game to become recognized as “world heritage.”
A semi-official organization under the Ministry of Culture has said it will work with WMO to prepare an application for the game to be included on the world list of Intangible Culture Heritage.
The current lobby is a second attempt to get mahjong on the UNESCO list. In 2007, the committee submitted an application to the ministry to include the game as an item on China’s national intangible cultural heritage. This was considered a first step before applying to UNESCO. But the committee received no reply.
The committee expects the new application will be innovative in that it will feature multiple countries.
Ma Xiaomei, president of the Chinese Promotional Committee of World National Culture Exchange, has said that the environment will be favorable for a new application, since many local mahjong associations have worked to promote the culture behind the sport and standardize the rules.
“The goal is to raise people’s awareness of mahjong has a culture that can be beneficial to people’s minds and health and elevate their quality of life,” Ma said.
Ma said in recent years that the essence of mahjong has been reduced, and its image distorted. “So, there is a need to reverse that trend,” he said, referring to the fact that mahjong used to be a gambling game in China.
“This is more difficult than protecting some other dying cultural heritages. As long as our application is not rejected outright, it will be a victory,” he said.
Jiang Xuanqi, the secretary-general of the WMO, said the body consists of more than 20 national associations in the US, Europe and Asia that will support the committee in its attempt.
Yukari Kugimiya, a member of the Japan Mahjong Sports Association, said she supports the game’s inclusion on the list.
“We need to include a social image for mahjong. I sometimes think Chinese people have the gene for mahjong. It’s in their blood,” Kugimiya said.
By Han Manman
A popular saying goes that if you were to fly over a Chinese city, you’d be able to see people playing mahjong from the sky.
The modern version would require an update: you’d be able to see foreign faces as well.
More foreigners have taken up mahjong in recent years, giving this ancient game an infusion of new blood.
Various mahjong tournaments and championships have been popping up worldwide in recent years. CFP Photo
Falling in love with mahjong
This past Christmas was the first that Joe Mathieu spent in Beijing. Having arrived from the US last year, the 31-year-old software engineer for a local IT company spent the holiday with his Chinese friends.
He was invited to a Christmas party held by his friend, Xu Li. Mathieu knew there’d be mahjong, a game he loves but doesn’t play as well as his Chinese counterparts.
He recalled Xu teaching him the game when he arrived in Beijing. “At that time, I hoped to learn more about Chinese culture and get integrated into Chinese society as quickly as possible,” Mathieu said.
“Xu suggested that I learn Mahjong. She said the game is combines probability and skill, that it’s not a simple game people get quickly bored of.”
Xu even told her friend it could stave off dementia – not a concern for Mathieu just yet, but perhaps a reason why so many elderly play.
Gradually, Mathieu got the hang of it.
“Playing Mahjong requires a person to think analytically. At some point in a game, a player has to adopt a certain strategy and yet be willing to change it later on in response to opponents’ moves,” he said.
Mahjong is believed to have originated in China in 500 BC. The game is similar to rummy, played by four around a table using 144 pieces of tiles known as tonz.
The players’ seat positions represent the four different cardinal directions. Each game has four rounds named after prevailing winds.
Players draw and discard tiles to their hand and try to form certain combinations for varying amounts of points. The game is usually played for money.
“No wonder many said Chinese are clever – maybe because they’ve been playing mahjong since a young age,” Mathieu said.
Mathieu has become so fascinated with mahjong that he even goes online to play when his friends aren’t available for a game.
“I will teach my family how to play when I back to America,” he said.
By Han Manman
Chinese snowboarding officially went global last year after some of the world’s most famous snowboarders descended on the capital to showcase their talent. As a result, a growing number of China’s youth have developed a keen interest in the sport.
How things change in a decade.
Ten years ago, Steve Zdarsky first arrived in China and found no trace of the sport he loved. Now called the “pioneer of Chinese snowboarding,” Zdarsky’s efforts to promote snowboarding have been relentless. He’s had a close and personal look at how China’s snowboarding lifestyle has arisen.
Serious injury
Zdarsky, 31, was born into a skiing family in Styria, Austria. His grandfather, Nathias Zdarsky, was an early ski pioneer and is considered one of the founders of modern Alpine skiing technique. Zdarsky’s father runs a small ski school in Austria.
When Zdarsky was 3, he already had his own skateboard and ski shoes. His father hoped the little boy could one day become a famous skier.
At 12, however, Zdarsky discovered snowboarding. Watching boarders on the slopes, the boy fell in love with the bold, free-flowing sport, and decided to switch from skiing.
At the time, many Europeans felt snowboarding was too wild, too freestyle. Some came to associate the sport with the counterculture, which included booze and drugs. Zdarsky’s decision to switch to snowboarding disappointed many in his family, especially his father.
“After that, he refused to talk with me for two years,” Zdarsky said.
But his enthusiasm for the sport only increased. At 15, he turned professional. Then, he began trying alpine snowboarding, an exciting but risky variation.
One time, he got buried under an avalanche and almost died.
“If the rescuers arrived five minutes later, I would have died,” he said, adding that when he was rescued, he had become incontinent and was covered with his own urine and feces.
At the age of 18, a freak collision knocked him out, caused him to lose six teeth and chipped a bone in his knee.
Zdarsky said he spent the next year thinking about his future. When he got back on the snowboard a year later, he was hesitant, no longer fearless. He decided he needed to change his life.
And that’s when he began to study economics and Chinese – the latter because his mother liked Chinese food.
“I was a pretty good student, so the Austrian government sent me to China to study,” he said.
Coaching in China
In 2000, Zdarsky arrived at a university in Shandong Province to study Chinese.
He was still not fully recovered from his snowboarding injuries, but he couldn’t resist heading to Yabuli Ski Resort, one of the largest ski resorts in China, during the winter.
He told the people there he was a snowboarding instructor, though no one had heard of the sport before.
“In fact, there were only a few people who had ever snowboarded in the entire country at that time,” he said.
Zdarsky was determined to introduce the sport to the country. Eventually, his name began circulating among the skiing community, and he was introduced to people in Beijing to help at Nanshan ski resort – to build a snowboarding culture.
Zdarsky’s job was to teach ski instructors how to snowboard, and to translate a snowboarding manual into Chinese.
At first, Zdarsky was unhappy and lonely, as few of his friends were willing to take up this new activity.
But as more foreigners arrived in Beijing and took up snowboarding, slowly locals did as well.
“Now, we’ve got 200 really hardcore snowboarders who are out here every day,” he said. “They live it, they breathe it. We’ve even got people living on the mountain so that they can snowboard all year-round.
“They live the lifestyle, they only hang out with snowboarders, they spend the time to download all the movies and learn all the tricks.”
Further development
Many local snowboarders say that if it weren’t Zdarsky, snowboarding would not be anywhere close to where the sport is right now in the city.
Zdarsky has trained more than 20 snowboard coaches and at least 10 professional snowboarders. He’s most proud of creating the Red Bull Nanshan Open, China’s first international snowboarding event.
“At first, we just wanted to hold a Chinese snowboarding party, but we never thought the party could one day be as well known as it is now,” he said.
The Nanshan Open began in 2002 when a small group of friends organized the first snowboarding competition at Nanshan. As the contest grew, it was recognized in 2007 by the Ticket to Ride (TTR) World Snowboarding Tour as a 3Star event (6Star is the highest level).
The event was upgraded to 4Star status in 2008, and in 2010 became the largest Asian event on the tour.
After a decade of driving the Chinese snowboard scene, the Red Bull Nanshan Open will celebrate its 10th birthday in style on January 14 and 15. It is expected to be upgraded to 5Star status and become the largest slope-style snowboard competition in Asia.
“Fifteen years ago, the Chinese had nothing, no money, no cars. Now, every day you see something new,” Zdarsky said. “So in the last 15 years, people have gotten richer, they have more spare time, they want to do something during the winter, so there’s snowboarding.”
He said he thinks more Chinese will fall in love with the sport in the future.
And for all his success, Zdarsky now has the support of his father.
The snowboarder said he might stay in China for the rest of his life. It’s here that he met his wife, a former snowboarder for the Canadian national team.
“She fully understands my snowboarding dream and supports my career here,” he said. “Snowboarding is my life.”
By Han Manman
Chinese snowboarding officially went global last year after some of the world’s most famous snowboarders descended on the capital to showcase their talent. As a result, a growing number of China’s youth have developed a keen interest in the sport.
How things change in a decade.
Ten years ago, Steve Zdarsky first arrived in China and found no trace of the sport he loved. Now called the “pioneer of Chinese snowboarding,” Zdarsky’s efforts to promote snowboarding have been relentless. He’s had a close and personal look at how China’s snowboarding lifestyle has arisen.
Zdarsky has helped build a snowboarding culture in Beijing over the past 10 years. Photos provided by Steve Zdarsky
Serious injury
Zdarsky, 31, was born into a skiing family in Styria, Austria. His grandfather, Nathias Zdarsky, was an early ski pioneer and is considered one of the founders of modern Alpine skiing technique. Zdarsky’s father runs a small ski school in Austria.
When Zdarsky was 3, he already had his own skateboard and ski shoes. His father hoped the little boy could one day become a famous skier.
At 12, however, Zdarsky discovered snowboarding. Watching boarders on the slopes, the boy fell in love with the bold, free-flowing sport, and decided to switch from skiing.
At the time, many Europeans felt snowboarding was too wild, too freestyle. Some came to associate the sport with the counterculture, which included booze and drugs. Zdarsky’s decision to switch to snowboarding disappointed many in his family, especially his father.
“After that, he refused to talk with me for two years,” Zdarsky said.
But his enthusiasm for the sport only increased. At 15, he turned professional. Then, he began trying alpine snowboarding, an exciting but risky variation.
One time, he got buried under an avalanche and almost died.
“If the rescuers arrived five minutes later, I would have died,” he said, adding that when he was rescued, he had become incontinent and was covered with his own urine and feces.
At the age of 18, a freak collision knocked him out, caused him to lose six teeth and chipped a bone in his knee.
Zdarsky said he spent the next year thinking about his future. When he got back on the snowboard a year later, he was hesitant, no longer fearless. He decided he needed to change his life.
And that’s when he began to study economics and Chinese – the latter because his mother liked Chinese food.
“I was a pretty good student, so the Austrian government sent me to China to study,” he said.
By Han Manman
As Jews fled Nazi Germany in the years before and during World War II, no destination was too exotic as long as it provided safety and shelter. Japanese-occupied Shanghai was one of the cities most willing to provide asylum. More than a half-century later, people in China are still trying to dig up information about this unique group of immigrants, whose memories barely survive with the current generation.
Few traces of the original refugees remain.
Dvir Bar-Gal, 46, has worked for a decade to restore Shanghai’s Jewish past. This Shanghai-based Israeli photojournalist has raced against the rapid urban development of the city’s suburbs to save certain gravestones that he calls “precious Jewish footprints in Shanghai.”
“In Jewish culture, it is very important to respect our ancestors and past,” Dvir Bar-Gal said. He is an impressive man with a raw presence and a deep voice.
“The Jewish gravestones tell stories,” he said. “They are remnants of the city’s Jewish past and shall be respected.”
He added that old Jewish gravestones can be found scattered across Shanghai’s fields, along rivers, or used as construction blocks for pathways and walls.
It’s all there for historical reasons.
During World War II, as many as 20,000 Jews took refuge in Old Shanghai.
Prior to 1951, there were four Jewish cemeteries in Shanghai, according to historic records. In 1951, these were moved to an international cemetery located in the western suburbs of the city. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) the cemeteries were demolished and the graves and headstones were smashed and thrown away.
No one knew what happened to the graves and stones, nor how or where to look for them.
Bar-Gal estimates that there may have been around 4,000 Jews buried in Shanghai. But he couldn’t find any trace of their gravestones other than sporadic pieces he discovered by chance.
His mission began by accident when he discovered a Hebrew tombstone dating back to the 1930s in a Shanghai antique shop in 2001.
“I first got news that two Jewish old headstones were up for sale in an antique shop in Shanghai,” Bar-Gal said, adding that when he arrived with an Israeli friend, one of the stones had already been sold. They brought the other one.
Bar-Gal said they asked if the antique dealer had access to any more stones.
“At first he said it would take months to find another such stone. However, two days later the antique dealer called us saying he had more stones,” Bar-Gal said. This was when he learned that Jewish headstones could be located even after almost 35 years without a trace.
Bar-Gal paid the dealer to take them to the place where the stones came from.
“He brought us to rural areas west of Shanghai. One by one, we found a number of stones, some broken, some intact,” he said.
But Bar-Gal faced many obstacles to getting those gravestones and figuring out their backgrounds.
“The lack of paperwork is only a fraction of the problems I’ve encountered,” he said. “Sometimes local villagers get suspicious when a foreigner wanders into their fields with a flashlight and a hoe.”
Some marble slabs Bar-Gal found were put to use by local villagers as washboards, steps and even as part of their home foundations. “But most villagers were happy to sell the slabs to me for less than 100 yuan each.”
Funded in part by a grant from the Sino-Judaic Institute at Stanford University, Bar-Gal also hired teams of workers to dig out the headstones.
Bar-Gal said many stones were found from strange places as villagers would turn the stones upside-down for cultural reasons. Many Chinese villagers believe that tombstones bring bad luck, and therefore place them with the inscriptions on the underside, believing that they will no longer be considered tombstones once the inscriptions are no longer visible.
This local custom has magnified the difficulty of the search, since every time a suspected gravestone is discovered, it must be flipped over to be studied, Bar-Gal said.
In addition to unearthing the heavy blocks from fields and riverbeds, Bar-Gal also interviewed locals and slowly put together the pieces of Shanghai’s puzzling Jewish history.
Bar-Gal has so far found more than 100 gravestones and about 30 families related with them, as well as some Christian gravestones.
One of those belonged to the grandmother of American Lily Klebanoff Blake, who several years ago joined Bar-Gal in Shanghai and traveled to the rural area where he had retrieved the stone from the riverbed. She also met the Chinese farmer who helped him recover her grandmother’s marker.
“It was still covered in mud, but I felt compelled to show my respect for my grandmother by washing the mud off the gravestone,” Blake said. “Touching the gravestone, I felt an uncanny connection to my grandmother, who died when I was four years old.”
Bar-Gal set up a website (shanghaijewishmemorial.com) to keep a record of the gravestones he has discovered in Shanghai.
“More than 70 of the gravestones are still lying quietly in a warehouse, waiting for their grandsons and daughters to come back for a reunion,” he said.
Besides his continued effort to find and figure out the identities of more gravestones, Bar-Gal is also writing a book and making a documentary about the search and restoration of the Jewish graves.
To raise awareness of Jewish history in Shanghai, Bar-Gal has become a tour guide in recent years, taking Jewish tourists to explore Shanghai’s Jewish past.
From time to time, he’ll talk about the history of Jewish people in the city. His stories include how Jews first started businesses in Shanghai during the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and how Jewish people managed to find a haven in Shanghai during World War II.
“My final goal is to make a respectful memorial that will be open for the public to visit to respect the history of the city and the people who lived and died in it,” Bar-Gal said.
“The gravestones are a precious heritage of the Jewish presence in Shanghai,” he said. “Jews share a passion to value our own history because it’s a scattered history, and I feel responsible for continuing this project.”
Dvir Bar-Gal/Photo provided by Southern People Weekly
By Han Manman
As Jews fled Nazi Germany in the years before and during World War II, no destination was too exotic as long as it provided safety and shelter. Japanese-occupied Shanghai was one of the cities most willing to provide asylum. More than a half-century later, people in China are still trying to dig up information about this unique group of immigrants, whose memories barely survive with the current generation.
Few traces of the original refugees remain.
Dvir Bar-Gal, 46, has worked for a decade to restore Shanghai’s Jewish past. This Shanghai-based Israeli photojournalist has raced against the rapid urban development of the city’s suburbs to save certain gravestones that he calls “precious Jewish footprints in Shanghai.”
Bar-Gal hired teams of workers to dig out the headstones. Photo provided by Dan Levin
“In Jewish culture, it is very important to respect our ancestors and past,” Dvir Bar-Gal said. He is an impressive man with a raw presence and a deep voice.
“The Jewish gravestones tell stories,” he said. “They are remnants of the city’s Jewish past and shall be respected.”
He added that old Jewish gravestones can be found scattered across Shanghai’s fields, along rivers, or used as construction blocks for pathways and walls.
It’s all there for historical reasons.
During World War II, as many as 20,000 Jews took refuge in Old Shanghai.
Prior to 1951, there were four Jewish cemeteries in Shanghai, according to historic records. In 1951, these were moved to an international cemetery located in the western suburbs of the city. During the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) the cemeteries were demolished and the graves and headstones were smashed and thrown away.
By Han Manman
While China in recent years has made an effort to improve the living conditions of disabled people, much disparity still remains in how they are treated, especially as it pertains to employment.
A recent photo exhibition held by Handicap International shows seven disabled Chinese and the stories of their life and work. The exhibition is a call for the public, particularly employers, to provide more chances for disabled people.
Dream high
In spite of her disability, Jiang Ruiyan believes she can do many jobs as well if not better than most people.
Her confidence stems from her work experience as a site code engineer for a local IT company. Jiang has reason to be proud: she’s the leader of a project that will be launched this week.
But her success has been a long time coming. When she first graduated several years ago, she found it almost impossible to find a computer-related job in Beijing, even though she was well qualified.
Interviewers were blunt with her, saying things like, “We are deeply moved by your spirit as a disabled person, but your image doesn’t comply with the image of our company.
“I can’t accept this kind of reasoning because I don’t think a job where I’m behind the computer all the time will affect a company’s image,” Jiang said.
Once, on the way to a job interview, she even heard someone behind her say, “Why don’t cripples just stay home?”
Lacking an income, Jiang had to live in a bare house for several months. Two years later, she found her current work.
“I informed the company about my physical situation, but this time, without even an interview, I got an offer,” she said.
“Writing code is like writing beautiful articles for me,” she said. “When I imagine millions of people everyday browsing my websites, I feel very proud and feel I’m needed by society.”
Jiang said her colleagues treat her as an equal.
“It’s their encouragement that makes me forget that I have physical limitations,” she said. “I live an active social life and a healthy life.”
Life with dignity
Jiang’s story was one of the seven that was presented in a photo exhibition titled “Employ Ability – A time for High Visability,” which opened last Friday in Beijing on the eve of the 20th International Day of Persons with Disabilities.
Jointly held by Handicap International and the French Embassy, the exhibition presented stories from people living in Beijing and Tianjin.
The exhibition’s young photographer, Sun Zhiyuan, is visually impaired. His work provides a unique perspective on positive examples of people with disabilities being active in different work environments.
Deborah Bickler, China representative of Handicap International, said she hopes the exhibition will help more disabled people find jobs in China.
“We hope it will raise awareness and greater understanding amongst companies and organizations about disability – and even more importantly, of people’s abilities, whatever their apparent ‘disability,’” she said.
Jiang said she has lots of very talented friends who just need potential employers who are willing to look past their physical differences.
One of her friends, a self-trained painter with other artistic skills, has tried to get a job for six years but hasn’t managed anything.
“Work for people with disabilities is very important because it helps them integrate with society and express their worth,” Jiang said.
Bickler said the ability to earn a living and contribute to one’s family income is one of the most important factors in creating acceptance of people with disabilities.
“While a person may have some kind of impairment or disability, they have many other abilities,” she said. “In giving an opportunity to someone to use their abilities in the workplace, it can give that person dignity and purpose.”
More understanding necessary
According to a report by Handicap International, the disabled make up 15 percent of the world’s population, and almost a fifth of that number suffer significantly. A quarter of the global population is directly affected by some kind of disability, as a caregiver or a family member.
Domestically, there are more than 80 million people in China living with disabilities; more than 60 million live in rural areas.
Xu Ling, an official from the China Disabled Persons’ Federation, said in 2010 that the unemployment rate of people with disabilities in China was 8.6 percent, twice as high as the overall unemployment rate.
“The real unemployment rate for disabled people is even higher,” she said. “Even among the disabled who have a job, there are still problems such as low-end work and unfair pay.”
However, Xu said the government has made great efforts to improve the working conditions for the disabled.
According to a statement released by the China Disabled Person’s Federation (CDPF) on Monday, 3.76 million disabled people nationwide received some form of vocational or technical training between 2005 and 2010.
The CDPF said in the statement that it will train another 1.8 million disabled people in next five years, and it will launch a variety of programs to train millions more.
More than 4.4 million urban and rural citizens with disabilities are currently employed in China.
Figures from the CDPF indicate that more than 2 million disabled people have set up their own businesses under the country’s preferential tax policies and with financial support from the government.
Bickler said besides government effort, society should be more understanding of this group.
“Rather than the disability being the limiting factor, it’s more often the lack of understanding and existing stereotypes that are built-in barriers to the employment of people with disabilities,” Bickler said. “But it’s good to see that even if some obstacles remain, the recent change of attitudes and the willingness to find solutions to overcome some of these barriers to employment is starting to occur.”
By Han Manman
While China in recent years has made an effort to improve the living conditions of disabled people, much disparity still remains in how they are treated, especially as it pertains to employment.
A recent photo exhibition held by Handicap International shows seven disabled Chinese and the stories of their life and work. The exhibition is a call for the public, particularly employers, to provide more chances for disabled people.
A disabled boy watching the exhibition last Friday/Photos provided by Handicap International
Dream high
In spite of her disability, Jiang Ruiyan believes she can do many jobs as well if not better than most people.
Her confidence stems from her work experience as a site code engineer for a local IT company. Jiang has reason to be proud: she’s the leader of a project that will be launched this week.
But her success has been a long time coming. When she first graduated several years ago, she found it almost impossible to find a computer-related job in Beijing, even though she was well qualified.
Interviewers were blunt with her, saying things like, “We are deeply moved by your spirit as a disabled person, but your image doesn’t comply with the image of our company.
“I can’t accept this kind of reasoning because I don’t think a job where I’m behind the computer all the time will affect a company’s image,” Jiang said.
Once, on the way to a job interview, she even heard someone behind her say, “Why don’t cripples just stay home?”
Lacking an income, Jiang had to live in a bare house for several months. Two years later, she found her current work.
“I informed the company about my physical situation, but this time, without even an interview, I got an offer,” she said.
“Writing code is like writing beautiful articles for me,” she said. “When I imagine millions of people everyday browsing my websites, I feel very proud and feel I’m needed by society.”
Jiang said her colleagues treat her as an equal.
“It’s their encouragement that makes me forget that I have physical limitations,” she said. “I live an active social life and a healthy life.”
By Han Manman
For many, art seems like a lofty concept, to be glimpsed only at museums or performance centers.
But some believe the true test of art is how much of it is absorbed into daily life.
Australian couple Tiffany Hambley and Andrew Toland belongs to that latter group. Using the city and its culture as their source material, the couple tries to reflect on the city and the changes taking place within.
Beijing T-shirt project
“Do you believe people can have a silent conversation with the city and with each other?” Hambley asked a local who was looking at a wall on which hung more than a hundred T-shirts, each with words written on them.
Hambley, 33, is one of 11 artists who participated in the Urban Play public art exhibition in Landgent Center that began last week.
Featuring installations, videos, performances and sound art, the exhibition is an attempt to create a new experiment in art within the urban space and explore urban reality from an artistic point of view.
In the past three months, Hambley has traveled the highways, streets and alleys of Beijing to collect interesting slogans written on T-shirts.
“Nobody notices me writing down their T-shirt slogan, but I think some people have wondered why I stare so intently at their chests,” she said.
One of the slogans that really caught her attention was a T-shirt worn by a fashionable young woman walking down Wangfujing shopping street. It was a phrase from American comic Louis C.K.: “Everything is amazing and nobody is happy.”
“This was a T-shirt that had a really big impact on me. It makes you stop and wonder about the deeper meaning of these T-shirts,” she said.
For Hambley, the presence of the T-shirt slogans is part of what makes this city so interesting and refreshing.
“The most surprising thing for me was that the cool slogans are not all worn by young people. I saw lots of interesting T-shirts being worn by older people, including grandparents,” she said.
“From my project, I would like to show people that printed language is another part of the urban environment we live in, and to encourage people to keep their eyes open to the small daily mysteries that make life in Beijing so rich and compelling,” she said.
Public art as dialogue
Hambley’s husband, 35-year-old Toland, also participated in the exhibition.
Toland is an architectural designer and his particular interest is promoting public understanding of and appreciation for architecture.
He presented “Beijing Obscura,” an installation of three interlocking pyramids, each of which functions as a camera obscura, a device for projecting images from outside the room onto surfaces inside the container.
According to Urban Play’s press release, “As visitors enter the pavilion they are confronted with a series of blurry images projected onto the floor. These images are real-time projections of the world they have just left outside captured by the three camera obscuras.”
“Modern Beijing is represented as a fractured, merging, inverted dream-world of living pictures within the darkened, reflective space of the camera obscura container,” Toland said.
For the couple, showing art publicly offers the opportunity for a kind of dialogue without language barriers.
Toland said it was interesting to see the various responses from the public.
“People would often stop and ask us what we were doing, and even though we speak only a little Chinese, we would do our best to explain,” he said. “These interactions were very valuable to us and allowed us to engage directly with our audience.”
The couple said they loved interacting with Beijing residents and workers and they believe art should reach ordinary people.
“If art exists only in a gallery, then only people who regularly visit galleries will see it,” Toland said. “Public art is art that ordinary people might be able to encounter in their everyday lives.”
He said in Australia, there are a number of good public art initiatives. Even though it is a relatively young nation, Australia is developing a sense of its own distinct culture.
Beijing is a big city with a great number of creative people from around China and the world, so it should have more public art shows, he said, adding that there is a great opportunity for Beijing to channel the creative energies of the many people living here.
“This will require more skilled and visionary curators with an interest in public art, and organizations with authority over public space – either businesses like the Landgent Center or the local government – to see the value of public art and give more opportunities,” he said.
Creative path
Toland and Hambley, both from Sydney, have loved creative activities since they were young. Hambley wrote stories from a young age and won several prizes and awards, while Toland loved art and architecture. His father was an architect, and the young boy liked seeing his drawings and models.
They met on the first day of law school and started to fall in love when they realized how many interests they shared.
After completing their law degrees and working for several years, they felt like they wanted to do something more creative in their lives.
The two decided to give up their law careers. Hambley pursued writing while Toland became an architect.
“We have been a couple for almost 15 years, and we feel very lucky to have met each other when we were so young,” Toland said. “We were able to encourage one another to take greater risks in life and seek a more creative path.”
The two are currently in Australia and considering a move to Beijing.
“We are now looking for longer-term opportunities that might allow us to come back to live in Beijing in the future,” Toland said.
By Han Manman
For many, art seems like a lofty concept, to be glimpsed only at museums or performance centers.
But some believe the true test of art is how much of it is absorbed into daily life.
Australian couple Tiffany Hambley and Andrew Toland belongs to that latter group. Using the city and its culture as their source material, the couple tries to reflect on the city and the changes taking place within.
Tiffany Hambley and Andrew Toland/Photos provided by Andrew Toland
Beijing T-shirt project
“Do you believe people can have a silent conversation with the city and with each other?” Hambley asked a local who was looking at a wall on which hung more than a hundred T-shirts, each with words written on them.
Hambley, 33, is one of 11 artists who participated in the Urban Play public art exhibition in Landgent Center that began last week.
Featuring installations, videos, performances and sound art, the exhibition is an attempt to create a new experiment in art within the urban space and explore urban reality from an artistic point of view.
In the past three months, Hambley has traveled the highways, streets and alleys of Beijing to collect interesting slogans written on T-shirts.
“Nobody notices me writing down their T-shirt slogan, but I think some people have wondered why I stare so intently at their chests,” she said.
One of the slogans that really caught her attention was a T-shirt worn by a fashionable young woman walking down Wangfujing shopping street. It was a phrase from American comic Louis C.K.: “Everything is amazing and nobody is happy.”
Hambley believes the presence of T-shirt slogans is part of what makes this city so interesting and refreshing.
“This was a T-shirt that had a really big impact on me. It makes you stop and wonder about the deeper meaning of these T-shirts,” she said.
For Hambley, the presence of the T-shirt slogans is part of what makes this city so interesting and refreshing.
“The most surprising thing for me was that the cool slogans are not all worn by young people. I saw lots of interesting T-shirts being worn by older people, including grandparents,” she said.
“From my project, I would like to show people that printed language is another part of the urban environment we live in, and to encourage people to keep their eyes open to the small daily mysteries that make life in Beijing so rich and compelling,” she said.
