> Flashing stairs leading up to a karaoke club.

A Cinderella-esque skyline
In Guangzhou city centre, along the banks of the Pearl River, after dusk, light displays bring buildings and bridges to life. During the day, the contours of the hotels, apartment buildings and offices that line the river are smudged into forgettable oblivion by the greyish humid, smog-filled air.

And then, as soon as darkness has fallen, they’re dolled up with colourful neon or LED-lights and screens. Vying for attention like assertive wallflowers at a school ball, mindless yet mesmerizing animations, shapes, colour-shifts, often spanning the whole facade, turn them into the belles of the ball. Only to be turned back into black shadows again as the clock strikes 10 pm.

*CLICK HERE FOR MORE ACTION:
http://www.remarksfromhome.com/2010

My eye is frequently drawn to Chinese characters shaped out of various materials, often improvised and clearly do-it-yourself. Such as those constructed out of glass “gems” that I posted earlier.

Here a couple more:

Near the busstop where I often wait for the number 3 bus from campus to town, I noticed this banner hanging at eyelevel. More to the point, I noticed the character that had been added to the original message by punching holes in the fabric. It was the character 不 [bù] meaning no or not.

The horizontal strip of red fabric, and the yellow message printed on it, make up a format that is ubiquitious throughout China: that of government (either national, regional or local) slogans. Whoever had punched those holes, had made an adjustment to the banner that negated the message*. The bright sunlight cast sharp shadows, and in the case of the banner, it’s shadow projected very clearly only the message NO.

Whether intentional, or coincidental, it conveyed a very strong visual statement.
To see the whole banner, click HERE.

*(don’t)DO IT NOW, DO IT FOR YOURSELF, KEEP AWAY FROM SMALL GOODS BEING SOLD ON THE STREET

Where do you think your Christmas decorations come from?
Yes indeed, Christmas cheer,
Made in China.

In China I often meet young people who introduce themselves by their English name, rather than their Chinese name. The difficulty a foreigner might have in pronouncing their real name, is, I guess, the main reason for this. Another reason, I suspect, is that an English name gives an air of importance. It’s like a fashionable outfit of a well-known label, an accessory contributing to the image they want to project. The names that are chosen vary from conventional names such as Anna, Phoebe, and Andrew to stranger choices like Bottle, Radio and Wing. What determines these choices? I’m not sure. Sometimes it’s loosely related to the phonetics of their Chinese name. I imagine that it can refer to the meaning of their proper name. (Chinese names often consist of characters that translate into terms like: beautiful flower, or brave warrior). But how does one come about choosing Radio as a name?

Just as some Chinese use English names, many foreigners in China are given Chinese names. This must have to do with unpronouncable consonants, and alien syllables. In my case, I was given the name li ye (part of ga-bi-li-ye) by my first Chinese language teacher back in 2005. Various characters could have been chosen to represent these two sounds, happily my teacher chose characters that have a meaning that suit me and my trade well:

丽;  [lì]  -> beautiful
叶;  [yè]  -> leaf or page
Not bad for a graphic designer.

Initially this name meant little else to me other then that it made introducing myself to Chinese speakers easier. Now, after almost 4 months of living and teaching in Guangzhou, I have grown affectionate towards it. When my name is called, which happens during teaching alot, my ears are attuned to the sound: leee-yeah.

li ye is the name I’ve been responding to the most these past months, and it feels liberating, as if it reveals to a part of my personality that I’ve been repressing. Is li ye the same person as Gabrielle?

December 2nd was the final teaching day after a 12 week course with Class 06. After working hard at finishing their assignments, and putting together a presentation for the head of the department, the class, with fellow teachers Hong Rongman and Zeng Yu Lin, invited me out for dinner. Above a teeny clip of the dinner table. Afterwards we all went to a karaoke bar, of which I fortunately do not have any clip, as my first experience at singing along with a bad cover version of Madonnas’ “Like a Virgin” should not be recorded for history. It was bad. I did, however, very much enjoy watching the students sing and dance…some of them have truly great voices. It was the first time I had been to a karaoke club, and I found it quite disarming. Their style of singing ranged from shyly singing along to outrageous play-acting, making believe that you yourself are the star. It all seems so innocent and sweet.