As spring is imminent, someone has decided that in the meanwhile, it’s nice to have placeholder blossoms attached to the still barren trees. Why not? It’s a lovely burst of colour in an otherwise grey and cold Beijing.
In an earlier blog entry, I wrote about Chinese names. More specifically about the use of English names by Chinese people. Today I came across an article reviewing a book called In China, my name is… Two Dutch authors have done a little research into the phenomenon, presenting, through photo portraits and short interviews, some of the reasoning that lies behind the names people choose.
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Here are some quotes from interviews with the authors:
>Influencing your destiny was one of the reasons people gave for choosing their names (…)
What did you find out about the way people chose their English names?
The largest group who are adopting [English names] are the younger generation of the big cities. They are much more modern then previous generations and are used to influences from the Western world. We noticed that the choice of an English name, for Chinese, is often based upon what others like or think will fit their character. Chinese society is still built on collectiveness. People want to be an individual and express themselves but within their social group they want to be respected.
Do you think foreigners consider different criteria when choosing their Chinese names?
It is almost the same process as Chinese people go through actually. Some non-Chinese names are difficult to pronounce so foreigners choose a Chinese name for easier communication. It was great to see our foreign friends choose their names, they’re like a second identity. You want this identity to sound good and have an interesting meaning.
> Thirty years ago it was unimaginable in China to express your identity let alone have an English name. Everybody had the same identity; wearing the same Mao suit was one way to show that. The opening up policy has already had a great impact on society and culture and our book shows just that.
I’ve been in Beijing this last week, visiting friends, but also re-visiting familiar places, buildings, street corners. One of those re-visits was to the enormous LED screen at The Place, a shopping area, which I happened to pass on my bicycle as this dizzying animation was playing above the pedestrians heads.
> click on the images for a larger version
The Sun Yat Sen fabric market is not exactly a place where you leisurely browse to find nice fabrics for your home sewing. Rather it’s a sprawl of gigantic buildings filled with booths each selling its specific product. Booths dedicated to eyelets, to zippers, to lace, to ribbons. To appliqués, to trimmings for sleeves and collars, to sequins, to laces, to needles, to clasps, to buckles, to glass buttons, to plastic buttons, to wooden buttons, to metal buttons, to elastic, not to mention to a huge variety of fabrics. The sheer volume of stuff is almost upsetting. It’s too much for my senses to handle. My brain shuts down in a panic. Not only is the amount of goods hard to deal with, also the flow of traffic inbetween takes place at a manic pace. Cyclists and tri-cyclists, laden with rolls of fabric, weave through the pedestrian traffic, their load sticking out, miraculously not knocking anybody off their feet. At a zebra crossing, traffic wardens blow their whistles incessantly, trying to stop cars, pedestrians, cyclists, carts from ignoring the red light. The sound of their whistles is just one soundtrack. On top of that is the constant honking of horns, yells of cyclists letting everyone know they’re coming through (no matter what), bicycle bells ringing, and let’s not forget the guys carting around large speakers blasting some popular Chinese music in order to sell CDs. This soundscape, combined with the complete anarchy within the traffic flow make for a pretty intense experience.
The well-known Louis Vuitton print, or references to it, can be seen just about everywhere: of course on fake LV handbags. But also on socks, scarves, stickers to decorate your mobile phone with, underwear, fabric, plastic carrier bags, hairpins and so on and so on.
A couple of days ago in the Guangzhou metro, I saw this woman wearing her LV inspired sleeves. These loose sleeves are worn mostly by women, and small children, over their coat sleeves. I guess they’re meant to keep the coat clean and whole. People wearing them are often engaged in activities involving dirt and grease (like streetvendors), and small children are of course crawling and climbing all over the place, including rather filthy floors.
So anyway, this woman is wearing loose sleeves that I associate with low income labour, yet sporting a motif that refers to one of the most ridiculously chic brands in the world. (Even though it’s not an exact copy: it says LS, not LV and the shapes that make up the pattern are not very precise replicas of the original LV shapes.)
Encounters as these fuel my curiousity about the cultural meaning of the act to copy from the Chinese perspective. I hope to address this later on in this blog.
A hairdressing salon hangs its towels out to dry. With their various blue hues, and the way the they’re interlocked with the coat hangers, the towels form a cascading waterfall of colour between the grey murky tones of the surrounding walls.
click on the images for a larger version
The art of piling and balancing boxes is taken to great heights here on Jiefang Lu in the vicinity of Metropolis Shoe City. And not only here, but around many commercial areas in Guangzhou, I’ve witnessed amazing towers of boxes piled meters high, either on the back of bicycles, or on small trolleys. The main, flabbergasting, mindboggling, incredible feature is that very often, the boxes aren’t tied together in any way. Nor are they attached to the vehicles of transportation. They’re simply arranged, loosely, one on top of the other. Presumbly their weight is enough to keep them aligned and in balance. On occasion, I’ve seen towers of boxes almost 3 meters high being negotiated through busy traffic on the back of a bike. Inevitably, every now and then a tower collapses…but mostly the young men, mostly boys, manage to weave effortlessly through the pedestrian crowds to deliver their packages safely. I watch and marvel.
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