Back Like Disco

Blogger and Blogspot are still blocked in China - I guess Blogspot's long history of initiating riots is being held against it? Anyway I finally broke down and got myself a proxy, so expect to have updates coming soon, hopefully later today. I'll try to get back on a regular schedule.

I'm still contemplating getting a separate host for the blog, like hostgator. I hesitate, because I'm pretty much 100% happy with the blogspot software, and converting the blog over would be a huge time-waster, and ha ha I don't want to spend the money! But of course this is a China blog, and if it can't be accessed in China...

Finally, I'll probably roll out a separate blog about modern Chinese literature, in the next couple weeks.

State of the Blog Address

I've built up a small queue of stories and pictures, and I've decided to have regular updates on Wednesdays and Sundays mid-day (Shanghai time). I think I can stick to that for a ways. I might also have occasional small updates on other days, if I feel like it.

This blog is driven by the pictures I take, and I've largely re-converted back to film cameras. Unfortunately, I broke my film scanner by plugging it into a 220 volt source! Oh man! There's photo labs in Shanghai that scan film, but they're pretty sorry and a little expensive. So until I get a new scanner, that'll have an influence on what kind of updates I have, or sometimes just the quality of pictures I put up - particularly with my upcoming updates about SE Asia.

I welcome comments and suggestions about what type of updates to post, I'm interested to hear from anybody who follows suggestions made on this blog, and I'm dying to meet people who want to jam old-school Hawaiian music! Either post a reply, or send an email to jeff oaktowncrack com.

And while I'm at it, I noticed that a few old Shanghai movies will be screened at The Glamour Bar the next couple Sundays at 6:30 pm - "Street Angel" on the 15th, and "Crossroads" on the 22nd. They're both tops, especially Street Angel. It's 65 kuai, I believe the price includes a drink. The movies are also freely available for download off archive.org, I have an earlier post with the links.

Quick Note on the Earthquake

Just a quick note, as a number of people have called or mailed - I was in Shanghai when the earthquake happened, and am totally safe from any effects of the Szechwan earthquake. My Szechwanese friends had a few scares with not initially being able to get through on the phone to family, but apparently everyone I know is fine.

Those interested in donating to the cause may click through to the British Red Cross, or look at Shanghaiist's list of ways for those in China to donate.

Also: blogspot has a handy if over-due new feature to publish updates in advance, and it should lead to a more normal update schedule. I'll try to have an update every Wednesday (Shanghai time), with occasional updates on other days of the week.

My Part in the State Propaganda Machine

I was tickled pink to see myself quoted in the English Language edition of China Daily, the Chinese equivalent of Pravda. The article was kind of ridiculous, being a borderline plagiarism of Sinosplice and an article discussion. I am the witty commentator "Jeffrey D," quoted at the end.

In related news, I haven't updated this blog in far too long - I haven't quit on it, and I hope to have articles posted very soon. I don't think I'm going back to the once or twice a week pace, but I'll still be updating.

And I'll once again plug my translation/subtitling of "Scenes of City Life." It's free, it's cool like a fool, check it out!

Some thoughts

This blog is getting a little too expat-ish over the last few weeks. I don't think anybody who isn't an expat cares about the lifestyle, and there's plenty of other blogs that cover the topic, so I'll consciously be avoiding it in the future. Relapses are inevitable, of course!

While I enjoy posting about foreign places, maybe I've done it a little too much with regards to India. I enjoy travelling within Asia, and I'll continue to write about it. But I'll try to spread out these postings, rather than post them one after the other.

I took a few hundred shots with my Canon Ixus 850 last weekend. Mostly I was happy with the results, and it's very fast and pocketable, which were the main reasons I bought it. Still, I don't think I'll be using it in more "serious" situations.

I ran across Photoethnography.com the other day. Have a look at the amazing galleries with commentary, I also enjoyed her fetishism of old cameras. Along with Boston 1775, these are definitely the models of how I hope to improve my writing and photography.

Finally, Chinese New Year's is coming up. Basically it's a collosal waste of time, with no work, no Chinese teachers, and almost everybody I know out of town. My god. I'd be headed to the US, but my sister's wedding in Honolulu is just a few months away.

Excuses, excuses...

Again I'm giving the impression of having abandoned this blog...which I haven't! My home computer was touch and go for a while, and finally died. I hope to have everything sorted out by next week.

More Videos

Many thanks to reader Ka: I mentioned in my last update that I couldn't get a good video of making pulled noodles, and he uploaded a video of just that. If you can't tell from the video, everytime the cook folds the noodles over, it doubles the amount of strands:



Also, a couple of videos I liked, and grabbed off a Chinese rendition of youtube, tudou. The first isn't in Chinese language, it's some cute girl who's expert with a butterfly knife:



The second is in Chinese, with Chinese subtitles: a South Park parody on The Banquet, a recent big-budget kung-fu movie that's supposed to be bad in a really goofy manner. The parody is fan-made, of course, with the South Park kids speaking dubbed Chinese. Fan made parodies of Chinese movies are something of a phenomenon.

A Shout-Out to the PRC

Great news, this blog (and the rest of the blogspot.com domain) is no longer censored by the Great Firewall of China! So those of you looking via anonymouse can stop now. Anyway I'm in an overly drawn-out process of moving and don't currently have a internet connection. Exciting updates will be coming soon.

Some Videos

These are some videos I made a while ago. Nothing serious, I was fooling around with my camera's "video" button, and just recently posted them to Youtube. I expect that in the future I'll be more often using video on this blog, don't worry they'll be of a higher quality! Press play on the screen to watch the video, obviously. All the clips are just 15 seconds or so.

- The Bund - this is taken from the crowded viewing plaza of the Bund. On my side are the buildings on turn-of the-20th-century banks, on the other side of the river are the turn-of-the-21st-century skyscrapers. Check out the huge crowds. This is about as crowded as Shanghai gets.



- Suzhou's Taoist Temple of Mystery - the scene in front of the temple on a lazy Sunday. I turn a 360 and it can perhaps induce motion sickness, but I think it give a good feel for what it's like.



- Happy Avenue - as a warning, this is basically a bunch of noise, serving as the end of a song. The band was actually pretty cool, if inconsistent.



- Shangai Rapping - To the best of my knowledge, Shanghainese can't rap. Give it a look and see if you agree.

Some More Meta-Blogging

I try to keep this blog about the Slums of Shaolin rather than about me, but a few random salient points:

- I've been slow on updates lately. I really do plan to make this blog two updates/week. That should start soon, but lately I've been way busy with travelling, Visa red-tape, and studying lingo. I should have an update tommorow and another a few days after that, and I'll get to work correcting errors in earlier updates.

- A lot of the photos are now being taken with my cool new Panasonic FZ7! It definitely should result in better pictures in a wider range of settings, and the super-zoom is very handy. I still use my old Canon A510 because it fits in the pocket easier. I also got a camera cell phone, the quality sucks but it's a good spycam so I'll probably use it from time to time.



- Probably everybody reading this from China knows about Anonymouse, which easily allows one to circumvent Chinese censorship. For those who use the Firefox browser, I found an add-on that makes using Anonymouse a simple right-click.

- Big ups to Shanghai blogger Micah Sittig, who has referred to this blog a few times and subsequently gotten me mentioned in UCB's conservative student newspaper, among other places.

- Don't know if it will interest a single person who isn't related to me, but I'm looking into giving this blog a vanity-press run if it's cheap & easy to set up. More later if that happens.

- If anybody is reading this from Shanghai and wants to jam the Hawaiian music, give a holler either to jeff oaktowncrack com or as a response on this page. If anybody has anything they're interested in me writing about, the same.

- I won't blog about it, but here are my photos to Zhujiajiao, a water-town near Shanghai.

- For those in Shanghai, I noticed bootlegs of "Suzhou River" at the video store on 42 Tianlin St., near Qinzhou St. I believe it's the best Shanghai movie ever, and worth a watch. I'm sure you can find it elsewhere, but on the other hand it is officially banned in China and I hadn't seen it around before. I've mentioned this movie before on the blog.

- Last but certainly not least, congratulations to Tina, Libor, Dave, Emiko, & Sophia on coming nuptials!

A Meta-Blogging

This posting isn't actually about Shanghai - just a quick word about the blog itself, for those who may be interested. I recommend skipping ahead to the Suzhou River article!

So: This blog will be in the format of various topics being talked out and photographed. The idea is two fold: first, it's a motivation for writing and taking pictures on a number of subjects that might skip my mind otherwise. Second, I don't think the literature on Shanghai is very good, and I hope that eventually this blog becomes the best look at the city, or at least better than what I've seen so far.

There's several things I want to avoid. This is not a personal webpage where I talk at length about me and what I did over the weekend, I want to keep this interesting for people whether or not they know me. Some blogs are a replacement for sending out mail to everybody. That's not at all my intention and I hope to keep in touch with all of my homebodies. Some blogs have wacky links and smarmy commentary on news articles. I have no interest in writing this, although many of the articles on shanghaiist.com are very good and I recommend a look at that site, especially for Shanghai residents. Most commentators on foreign places play armchair sociologist. It's easy (even inevitable) to do this, but I'll try to keep it to a minimum - although TalkTalkChina does a good job of it.

The pictures are taken using a digital Canon A510. I like it because it fits in the pocket and the photographic settings and focus are all easily adjustable. However the camera is on the cheaper end and it frequently shows, especially with blowing up shots, or in dark places where I'd like to use higher ISOs. I hope to get a higher-end camera soon, to use in addition to the 510. When I photograph, I like candid shots and zooming in very tightly. My big pretention is I try to go for the natural-light feel, and will very rarely use the flash.

The writing is something I feel I need to work on. I want to avoid using slang words, but keep things from getting dry. I also intend the words to accompany the photos, rather than stand alone. Perhaps this will evolve over time.

I've mentioned the censorship: China blocks the blogspot.com domain as an after-effect of anti-Japan protests blamed on bloggers. However, actually posting the blogs is done on blogger.com, which isn't blocked. Also it's not all that difficult to get around the domain block. Still, if the block isn't lifted soon, I'll consider moving this site to another domain.

I hope to write about features of the city I find distinct, as well as looks at neighborhoods and events. I'm happy to hear any suggestions on what to write about. Also, please mail if you have any questions or comments.