Walking Through the Shapes in Xuzhou

If you could walk through one and only one of these shapes, which would you choose?

Of course, I walked through them all, but I found the oval particularly alluring — I think because of how it contrasted with the far more traditionally-typical-in-China circle. In any case, all of these shapes can be found at the Chinese Museum of Huqin Art in Xuzhou's Yunlong Park.

Unreal Seaside Life in Guangxi

Today in Nanning I had a number of experiences with nature I rather enjoyed. This experience probably wouldn't count though:

Diorama at the Guangxi Planning Exhibition Hall in Nanning

I think that one bird might be looking at me on porpoise, despite the dolphins.

OK, another post, another day. I egret there there haven't been more lately.

Dolphins, a Log Flume, and Hu Jintao in Zhongshan: The History and Legacy of China's First Large-Scale Modern Amusement Park

Near one end of the Changjiang Reservoir in Zhongshan, Guangdong, exists a place of merriment, magic, and water. But when I recently passed the Changjiang Water World (长江水世界) park on a foggy afternoon, it was closed — as it is every day this time of year due to the colder weather.

At least a sculpture at its main entrance is still approachable.

A short walk away is the hard-to-miss entrance for the Changjiang Water World parking lot.

Unsurprisingly, there were no cars parked there at the time.

The other side of the parking lot is bordered by the Changjiang Reservoir's dam. Yes, this is your place for empty parking lot photos.

And the fun doesn't stop there. One of the historical photos displayed at Zhongshan's Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall captures a moment at the amusement park which previously existed at Changjiang Water World's current site.

Chinese caption for the photo:
"1984年5月24日，时任中共中央总书记胡耀邦在时任广东省省长梁灵光陪同下视察中山，图为他在中山长江乐园验“激流探险”

According to the photo's caption, Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦), who then held the highest office in Communist Party of China as its general secretary, and Liang Lingguang (梁灵光), who was then Governor of Guangdong, are checking out a log flume ride at the Changjiang Playland* (长江乐园), which had opened the year before in 1983. Hu riding a potentially soaking ride while wearing a suit strikes me as bold. In fact, according to accounts of the time, the 69-year-old Hu insisted upon conquering the water ride despite concerns over safety and it not being part of the original plans.

Hu was presumably not visiting simply for fun, but instead because the Changjiang Playland was the first large-scale amusement park with modern rides in China and seen as a potential model for others. The park also helped Zhongshan — where the first bumper cars were made in China – grow into the largest base of amusement park ride production in the country. They even make log flume rides there.

Perhaps the park inspired too much for its own good though. Soon the fun faded away and in 1997 the park closed, in part due to competition from other parks which opened in the region. Aging equipment didn't help either, although it was good enough to be sent to Leshan in Sichuan province.

In 2005, the site experienced a rebirth when the Changjiang Romantic Water World (长江浪漫水城) opened. The romance didn't last for long, and in 2009 the site was closed for redevelopment once more. In 2010 the first phase of the Changjiang Water World opened.

That park remains in existence today, as does Zhongshan's amusement park ride industry. But unfortunately, a list of rides at Changjiang Water World indicates a log flume ride no longer exists. So there goes any chance for a contemporary version of Hu's daring act at the park.








*Some sites now use "Changjiang Paradise" — a reasonable translation — for the park's English name, but according to photos of various old entrance tickets (see here and here) the park itself used "Changjiang Playland" as its English name.

A Photo of the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Zhongshan, China

I may have never seen a photo of President Hu Jintao looking at a fish if it weren't for the Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall in Zhongshan. So it seems fitting to now share a recent photo of the building.

While there are many memorial halls for Sun Yat-sen in China, this one is special since the city of Zhongshan, another name for Sun, is named after him and he was born in one of its villages. The exhibits inside are free to visit and include many other photos as well. As mentioned in the fish photo post, one of those will appear here later.

"Integration: Fusion and Adaptation" at the Wuhan Art Museum

"Integration: Fusion and Adaptation" is the fourth and current exhibition for the Wuhan Ink Art Biennale at the Wuhan Art Museum. As described at the museum:

The preceding three exhibitions present a chronological sequence of perpetuation and development, transformation and innovation, in Chinese ink painting since Ming and Qing periods. "Integration" showcases the richness of contemporary ink art through works that are rooted in tradition yet present new ideas, pieces that are more avant-garde in creative concept and method, as well as pieces by foreign artists working in ink.

One piece on display features Chinese calligraphy, common at art museums in China.

Less common is the calligrapher's home country — the U.S. — and the topic of the writing, which is captured in Michael Cherney's title for the work: Excerpt from Thoreau's A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (2012).

South Korean Shin Young Ho's piece Liquid Drawing_4207 (2015) doesn't include calligraphy, but it does have ants.

Li Huichang's Groan No. 66 (2015) has neither calligraphy nor ants, but there is still much going on.

One of the more colorful pieces at the exhibition is Paradise (2008) by Huang Min.

Finally, the piece I pondered most was Stop! (2015) by Liu Qinghe.

Like many others on display, the large piece of art is worth a closer look.

The Wuhan Art Museum has much more. One sign indicates this exhibition was supposed to have already ended over a week ago, so I am not sure how much longer it will be around. In any case, the Wuhan Art Museum is free. You just have to scan your Chinese ID card to open an entrance gate. If you are a foreigner, don't worry. You can walk around the gate — no need to stop.

Pondering the Writing Selection at a Beijing Museum

Lu Xun (September 25, 1881 — October 19, 1936), "a leading figure of modern Chinese literature", has had many fans in China, including Mao Zedong. At the Beijing Lu Xun Museum, the description of a piece he wrote less than a month before his death caught my attention in a way similar to a book I saw displayed at a Beijing bookstore.

On September 21, 1936, Lu Xun wrote For Future Reference III in which he chided self-deceit in Chinese characteristics, urged his fellow countrymen to see films and read books criticizing China. "We should read this, reflect and analyse ourselves to see whether he has said anything correctly or not, then make reforms, struggle and change ourselves without asking others for their forgiveness or praise. So we shall prove what the Chinese are really like."

Dinosaurs in Hong Kong

If you walk down Chatham Road South in Hong Kong, you may wonder if there has been a dinosaur invasion.

Fortunately, we all know such things are more likely in Japan.

Instead, what you're seeing is part of the Hong Kong Science Museum's current exhibition Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs. With 500,000 visitors in just three months, there can be long lines to see it, especially on weekends. I was able to go on a weekday, though, and happily entered without needing to stand in line.

On another day the line extended far away from here.

Once inside, you can watch a brief introductory video.

First they told me I only needed to understand 5,000 years of Chinese history...

Then, before you know it you're gaining first hand experience with dinosaur excrement.

There's a lot more than what's in this photo.

In case you didn't make the connection

And in the same spirit, how can one refuse the opportunity to make a Triceratops fart?

Although I love immersive learning, I'm glad they didn't try to replicate the smell.

If you're looking for something more intense, perhaps an interactive Tyrannosaurus rex will do the trick. [spoiler alert: a "secret" about this exhibit is revealed below]

Yes, something is looking at you.

A nearby sign explaining image recognition technology asks:

Is this Tyrannosaurus watching you with the 'image recognition' system'? Reveal the secret at the Tyrannosaurus Command Centre.

When I approached the T. rex and looked it in the eye, it let out a loud snort. I'll admit I was slightly startled. It is a T. rex after all. Curious to learn about its apparently effective image recognition system, I headed to the Command Centre where I learned I should have paid more heed to the quotation marks in the sign.

The kid who "attacked" me had already fled the scene.

To top it all off, what could be better to teach your kids than how to anger a Velociraptor?

The Velociraptor's mane reminded me of something. It took me a few minutes, but I think I figured it out.

In addition to these and other interactive exhibits, there is also an excellent collection of dinosaur fossils, many of which were unearthed in China.

Juvenile Protoceratops

Jintasaurus meniscus with Suzhousaurus megatherioides, Beishanlong grandis, and Lanzhousaurus magnidens

Xiongguanlong baimoensis with Jintasaurus meniscus and a very large Daxiatitan binglingi

The well-designed mix of fossils and interactive exhibits can keep both kids and adults amused. Like the Zigong Dinosaur Museum I visited two years ago, I enthusiastically recommend a visit if you're in the area. Just make sure to catch it before Legends of the Giant Dinosaurs becomes extinct in early April.

Ephemeral Laughs from Yue Minjun and Roger Angell

Earlier today I saw the steel sculptures of laughing people created in 2009 by Chinese artist Yue Minjun now outside the Macao Museum of Art. After briefly considering them, I read an informational card and learned they share the title "The Laugh that can be Laughed is not the Eternal Laugh".

After a few moments pondering the possible meaning of the title, I found humor in it and laughed. Then, listening to my laughter, I broke into a louder laugh finding humor in the idea that my laugh could not be an "Eternal Laugh".

I suddenly went silent. Recursion. Absurdity. Eternity. For a seemingly timeless period, my mind floated.

And then I walked away to find something to eat.

Due to an unrelated recommendation, in the evening I read "This Old Man" by American essayist Roger Angell in The New Yorker. The topic of laughter appeared again, this time in Angell's personal reflections on life, death, and growing old:

I get along. Now and then it comes to me that I appear to have more energy and hope than some of my coevals, but I take no credit for this. I don’t belong to a book club or a bridge club; I’m not taking up Mandarin or practicing the viola. In a sporadic effort to keep my brain from moldering, I’ve begun to memorize shorter poems—by Auden, Donne, Ogden Nash, and more—which I recite to myself some nights while walking my dog, Harry’s successor fox terrier, Andy. I’ve also become a blogger, and enjoy the ease and freedom of the form: it’s a bit like making a paper airplane and then watching it take wing below your window. But shouldn’t I have something more scholarly or complex than this put away by now—late paragraphs of accomplishments, good works, some weightier op cits? I’m afraid not. The thoughts of age are short, short thoughts. I don’t read Scripture and cling to no life precepts, except perhaps to Walter Cronkite’s rules for old men, which he did not deliver over the air: Never trust a fart. Never pass up a drink. Never ignore an erection.

I count on jokes, even jokes about death.

Angell follows with a joke he's been told 4th graders will appreciate, and then he shares another joke:

A man and his wife tried and tried to have a baby, but without success. Years went by and they went on trying, but no luck. They liked each other, so the work was always a pleasure, but they grew a bit sad along the way. Finally, she got pregnant, was very careful, and gave birth to a beautiful eight-pound-two-ounce baby boy. The couple were beside themselves with happiness. At the hospital that night, she told her husband to stop by the local newspaper and arrange for a birth announcement, to tell all their friends the good news. First thing next morning, she asked if he’d done the errand.

“Yes, I did,” he said, “but I had no idea those little notices in the paper were so expensive.”

“Expensive?” she said. “How much was it?”

“It was eight hundred and thirty-seven dollars. I have the receipt.”

“Eight hundred and thirty-seven dollars!” she cried. “But that’s impossible. You must have made some mistake. Tell me exactly what happened.”

“There was a young lady behind a counter at the paper, who gave me the form to fill out,” he said. “I put in your name and my name and little Teddy’s name and weight, and when we’d be home again and, you know, ready to see friends. I handed it back to her and she counted up the words and said, ‘How many insertions?’ I said twice a week for fourteen years, and she gave me the bill. O.K.?”

As Angel reacted when he first heard the joke more than fifty years ago, I laughed and was surprised to hear the joke in the particular context it was shared.

What does Angell, at the age of 93, believing jokes to be so important mean? What does the "The Laugh that can be Laughed is not the Eternal Laugh" mean? I'm still not sure, but where these questions lead and how they relate fascinates me.

And that I noticed a connection between Yue Minjun's sculptures in Macau and Roger Angell's essay from New York City ...

... makes part of me laugh.

Healing and Hugs in Taipei

If you are looking to get over a failed relationship, some help can now be found in Taipei. As reported in Want China Times (via Shanghaist):

Hundreds of people flocked to an exhibition, centered on failed relationships and their ruins, in downtown Taipei Saturday to take part in a hugging event that organizers hope will heal locals who have experienced broken relationships.

The visitors, mostly young girls, held cards reading "Can I hug you?" or "Can you hug me?" during the event, in which strangers are expected to share stories about their previous relationships.

Organizers of the exhibition, titled Museum of Broken Relationships, also had an elephant mascot on standby for those who were too shy to ask for hugs from humans.

The exhibition began in Croatia and according to its website:

The Museum of Broken Relationships grew from a traveling exhibition revolving around the concept of failed relationships and their ruins. Unlike ‘destructive’ self-help instructions for recovery from failed loves, the Museum offers a chance to overcome an emotional collapse through creation: by contributing to the Museum's collection.

Whatever the motivation for donating personal belongings – be it sheer exhibitionism, therapeutic relief, or simple curiosity – people embraced the idea of exhibiting their love legacy as a sort of a ritual, a solemn ceremony. Our societies oblige us with our marriages, funerals, and even graduation farewells, but deny us any formal recognition of the demise of a relationship, despite its strong emotional effect. In the words of Roland Barthes in A Lover's Discourse: "Every passion, ultimately, has its spectator... (there is) no amorous oblation without a final theater."

If you are interested in attending, the exhibition will remain in Taipei until September 1 (details here).

The news about the hugging reminded me of an experience I had in Taipei in April. While walking around a popular shopping area, I met five friendly people.

They held signs declaring "Free Hugs -- Share Your Love", and I hugged everyone. There was no mention of failed relationships. Instead, they said their goal was raising money for a children's charity.

Both events were remarkable to me since Taiwan was a bit more "conservative" regarding hugging when I first stayed there over 10 years ago. So even when the The Museum of Broken Relationships leaves Taipei, a variety of opportunities may remain for hugs in Taipei. Finding an elephant to hug might be harder though.

A Partial Yet Telling Story: The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Two days ago, March 16, was the 45th anniversary of the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. In commentary about the republishing of an important story in LIFE magazine, Ben Cosgrove revisited the horrific tragedy:

Two simple syllables, My Lai (pronounced “me lie”), are today a reminder of what America lost in the jungles of Vietnam: namely, any claim to moral high ground in a war often defined by those back home as a battle between right and wrong. For the Vietnamese, meanwhile, the March 1968 massacre in the tiny village of My Lai is just one among numerous instances of rape, torture and murder committed by troops — Americans, South Vietnamese, Viet Cong and others — in the course of that long, divisive war...

On March 16, 1968, hundreds (various estimates range between 347 and 504) of elderly people, women, children and infants were murdered by more than 20 members of “Charlie” Company, United States’ 1st Battalion 20th Infantry Regiment. Some of the women were raped before being killed. After this mass slaughter, only one man, Second Lt. William Calley, was convicted of any crime. (He was found guilty in March 1971 of the premeditated murder of 22 Vietnamese civilians, but served just three-and-a-half years under house arrest at Fort Benning, Georgia.)

In another recent article deserving attention, David Taylor for BBC News reported on tapes revealing important context for some of the decisions made in the U.S. during the Vietnam War:

Declassified tapes of President Lyndon Johnson's telephone calls provide a fresh insight into his world. Among the revelations - he planned a dramatic entry into the 1968 Democratic Convention to re-join the presidential race. And he caught Richard Nixon sabotaging the Vietnam peace talks... but said nothing.

Both of the articles were especially poignant for me not just because I'm in Vietnam at the moment, but also because they reminded me of a visit earlier this month to the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City. The museum is undoubtedly a one-sided portrayal of the brutalities committed during the Vietnam War -- something reflected in the name of the museum's earliest incarnation, Exhibition House for U.S. and Puppet Crimes. I am not going to wade into debates about whether all of the claims made there are accurate, whether certain displays are better described as history or propaganda, and whether some photos are unfairly not representative. Regardless of these issues, the museum effectively communicates at least some of the inhumanity and hypocrisy which occurred during Vietnam War. I also found it notable that several displays highlighted the opposition to the war found even within the U.S., and most of the English text did not contain the same style and degree of rhetoric I have often seen at similar museums in China.

I will share some photos of what I saw there and also share some thoughts about one display which particularly caught my attention. Like the museum itself, the following will not necessarily be a fully representative overview.

First display in a room labeled "Aggression War Crimes"

English caption to the photograph: "Little Phan Thi Kim Phuc burned by U.S. napalm bomb (Trang Bang, Tay Ninh Province in 1972)."

In an exhibit about the effects of chemical weapons such as agent orange

English caption: "Dan Jordan's family: he was officially acknowledged as an agent orange victim. His son has congenital deformations on his hands. Jordan and other veterans took the lead in the class action against chemical companies that settled with $180 million in 1983."

Smaller English text: "Robert S. McNamara, former U.S. Defense Secretary, confessed error in his memoirs 'In Retrospect -- The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam'"

English caption: "These are some rewards to a U.S. Veteran for his service in Vietnam. The medals were offered to the War Remnants Museum on June 1, 1990 as protest against the Vietnam War. From William Brown, Sgt. 173rd Airborne Brigade, 503rd Infantry.

An outdoors exhibit area

At one moment during my visit to the museum I was reminded of a painting by Cambodian Vann Nath which I saw several years ago at the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia:

Vann Nath was one of only seven prisoners who left the Khmer Rouge's S-21 "security prison" at Tuol Sleng alive. The above painting was amongst many others, all of which Van Nath drew to depict acts of torture committed at the prison. The act in the painting sure looked like water boarding -- a point not lost on a reader of Andrew Sullivan's The Dish.

And here is the photo I saw in Vietnam that caused me to think about Nath's painting:

The English caption for the photo:

"They decide on a water torture. A rag is placed over the man's face and water is poured on it, making breathing impossible". Members of the 1st Air cavalry use water torture on a prisoner 1968.

It was another chilling reminder of a torture method recently used by the U.S.

I'm glad I visited the War Remnants Museum. So much in the museum deserves consideration for what it says about America's past actions or about Vietnam today. Although the museum suggested to me that Vietnam has yet to fully come to terms with its own past, as an American I was most focused on what it indicated about my own country. In a later post, based on my own experiences I will partially address a related question I have been asked, often indirectly, by Americans who have not been to Vietnam: What are Vietnamese attitudes towards Americans today?

Finally, as I wrote this post at a small cafe in Ho Chi Minh City, a friendly Vietnamese waitress with whom I have had several pleasant conversations peered over my shoulder and looked at the above photo. After a few moments of silence, with a sadness in her voice she slowly said, "My country."

I glanced back at the photo and replied, "Mine too."

Old War Movie Posters in Melaka

The other day I spent some time at Melaka's Democratic Government Museum. I haven't seen any museums dedicated to this topic in China, so it seemed like a good change of pace. While there, I noticed a series of posters for older Western-produced war movies involving Malaysia. I couldn't find any commentary, but they were placed near a display about Japan's occupation of Malaysia during World War II. Below are photos of the posters for the movies Malaya (1949), Uppdrag i Malaya (1957), Operation Malaya (1953), Outpost in Malaya (1952), and The Rape of Malaya (1956).

The posters first caught my attention because of their visual style. But it was some of their words that made the biggest impression. Maybe phrases similar to "In Malaya, you kiss a girl with your eyes wide open and a gun in your hand!" could be found on movie posters today. But there is much to consider about the choice of words in "They were women.. and they were white... at the mercy of the Japs who knew no mercy!"

Anyways, maybe I will later watch at least one of these movies. Any recommendations?