"Photography is as the eye on the Buddha's palm" Wang Lin

  A silver-surfaced copper sheet prior to exposure in Photograph results in the formation of a layer of photo-sensitive silver halide, and exposure to a scene or image through a lens formed a latent image. The latent image was made visible, or "developed", by subjecting the exposed plate to the fumes rising from a quantity of heated mercury.

The South Korean photographer Atta Kim compared this process to Heidegger's Geworfenheit, Throwness.  

The metaphor between Geworfenheit and Photography introduces the latter as a fifth sense, the conscious eye. 

The term plays with the concepts of Being and Time and works around the interactions of the subject with its surroundings (instinctual reactions and interpretations). Heidegger's monistic view of the world introduces everything as in existence, only unnoticed.This touches photography in its power to reveal the unremarked. 

                               

Standing still in the middle of Tiananmen Square with her frozen expression, light blue umbrella and gaze lost in the distance this woman had a romantic longing to her that contrasted sharply with the severity of her surroundings. 

I chose photography to embrace my project because I profoundly see in it a gateway to Existential realisation.  

I spent my last weekend pouring over the photographic archives of Beijing's 798 Art District and was inspired by the words of many artists whose process resonated with that of which I am in search.

Side street food stalls

Beijing Street Vendor

Photography became for me a straightforward path to social awareness.

In our modernised, urbanised, globalised and always moving never stopping world, human relationships can be pushed to an insignificant portion of our lives, leading us to an individualistic understanding of existence. 

I believe the issue at stake resides in this "always moving never stopping" that defines contemporary societies. Taking a walk around Singapore's National History Museum, there it has quite a relevant Movie introducing the capital as a 24/7 human industry.  

In such circumstances it is hard to take a step back, it is hard to detach ourselves from our actions and take a moment to understand the stands we unconsciously take. 

Perspective is what we often miss, and in every sense of the term, perspective is what I found through my camera. 

Detail of the Forbidden City

 Beijing Hutongs reveal the other face of China, this Hutong's mouth is at the Forbidden City's mouth, from the Chinese Elite to the backstage, to the heart. 

Mother and daughter rest in the Forbidden City's gardens. 

Hutong's buzz with life, particularly when the clocks strike 5pm.

Unfortunately these veins of Beijing are being demolished and thus disappearing ever so fast.  

Photography, existential questioning, social awareness, and perspective... a base ground study for anthropology.

Many if the photographers I discovered in Beijing’s Art District compared their camera to a supplementary sense.

Art is this field of uncertainty and subjectivity.  I believe every Art has a purpose, underlying or straight in your face.  Rimbaud’s Letter to Paul Demeny, know as “The Visionary,” and very inspiring in this way since he talks of art as an eye-opening guide:

“We owe a duty to Society, you belong to the teaching profession. I say that one must be a seer.

So the poet is truly the thief of fire.”

Side street food stalls

Photography, when life such as a treadmill flies beneath you, or over you, is that stop in time like a deep in-breath. Photography is Pascal's eternal present, where the past and future resound in an immortalised present. I wondered, on a racing passenger bike as Ping Yao, Da Tong's street scenes blew past me what photography exactly meant to me, as a traveller. And it all came down to remembering time and capturing, grasping the power of a second. You travel and discover every second something completely new, unforseen. Travelling is the constand reminder that we are only travellling through. It is intruding another's life for some time and understanding with in the back of your mind the reality of the ticket that sooner or later will bring you back "home."
That day as I thought we passed a small winding street lined with grey bricks with a child kneeled at its center playing with the earth. The moment was gone before I knew it but somehow I had had the time to take a snapshot. To live eternally in every second of your life, to live in every street you pass. It could just well be. For what if I stopped here and rested a while? But we are always running. Somehow through every snapshot that milisecond is turned to gold, not frozen in time but endless in time, enabling you to persist in that memory, without living in the past but rather in an unlimited present, and to explore in depth every fold of it. 

Raw meat preserved under plastic in Beijing's summer heat.

Hutongs and chic cafés

The Sun sets in Beihai Park by the Houhai Lake. Beijing's parc life is particularly rejuvenating, early morning, late afternoon and weekends the population spends some time with the rustle of leaves in the soft breeeze and setting sun. A sweet philosophy of enjoying the beauty of life an hour or two in the day.  

In the last paragraphs I speak of memory and our predilection to forgetfulness. The reason why photography has become so important in my personal process and in my interaction with the world would because of how unbearable this truth seems to me. When evey moment every instance of your spinning life is full of meaning and weight, as it creates the thread of your history and thus as your experiences create you, it seems unbearable to forget what makes you who you are. Very edgy and wordy explanantion, but we'll pass my poor writing. 

Two, very, young guards at the entrance of the Forbidden City.

Workers' blouses in the old alleys of the Forbidden City.

Leaves rustle in the wind at Beihai Park, in the last sunrays.

Beijing streets and their colors.

I was walking in some Hutongs and conversing with one of the inhabitatns when he asked me to take a photograph of his street. My camera is digital, very useful to connect with people, so I showed him the snapshot of his home. It was very moving to see the happiness looking at that picture gave him and to see the true gratefulness in his eyes as he thanked me. He even went into his room to take out a pet turtle and asked me to go on taking pictures of the two of them. This man never asked me to send him the photos, it was never his intention to ask for them, even after proposing. But I think I understood that little mattered apart the happy reminder that somewhere in the world there was that memory, his reality immortalized. With Hutongs being destroyed by the day in Beijing, people's homes for generations being pulled apart there was that hope that the little Hutong south west of the Imperial City, where he lived with his turtle would remain in some memory, in some other dimension. Maybe it is just me, but anyways that's the interpretation I chose and its precious signification has stuck with me. 

I would strongly encourage you to check out Feng Jian Guo's work, concentrated on the destruction of Hutongs, giving a voice to what is disappearing. 

Historical Preservation in XXIst Century China.

The Forbidden Palace's "Nine Dragon Wall" (Jiu Long Bi)

Historical Preservation in XXIst Century China.

Historical Preservation, the key to Chinese Patriotism?

Brands, labels, milestones… In the last seven days I have walked through the golden archways inscribed in every foreigner’s mind at the mention of a Chinese voyage.

As with most major touristic attractions there is a basic denaturalisation of a site that is exploited by foreign eyes and flashes. The Forbidden City looses a part of its essence as it buzzes with anachronisms and hurried tourists with their list of places in which to set foot before moving off to the next hot spot. Maybe a lack of recognition and true understanding of its value? To go further, I would think these precious cultural and historic relics fade away because they become a purely commercial target where the depth of the message they carry is often distilled in a simplified and superficial introduction for tourist before anything else. Tourism runs a country, gives jobs, enables economical growth, encourages intercultural exchanges and introduces new perspectives. However, it is a very difficult subject that should be carefully dealt with since the subject of the game is the culture, history and thus identity of a people. 

As a tourist I was able to oberve the force and influence the Chinese Government exerces over the country's touristic activity. Tourists are carefully controled and surveyed not only for political reasons although these are mild, but mostly for economical purposes.  Indeed most tourists travel with local agencies which will provide them with tight and detailed schedules where stops at major selling points ensure tourism's profitability. For example, the Jade factory, Tea house, Silk shop, at all these shops the time spent in the souvenir boutique was made to be the longest. 

It was interesting to observe these different uses of a patrimoy. Also quite worrying to see these two uses meet between identity on the one hand, and its transformation into a commercial product on the other hand. 

How could I move away from the perfect tourist I was as I walked around the Summer Palace’s Garden? How to integrate my frolicking in the Silk and Jade Museums into an active comprehension of Modern China in its relationship with patrimony? I wanted to find the dynamic in not only learning about ancient China, but also using it to understand the people I meet through different layers of perspectives.

I started to not only look straight ahead of me, but sideways. Observing the Chinese that had come to learn about or to just be close to their heritage. I figured there were much more locals than I would have ever expected, coming in whole generational families, from infants to grandmothers. It was fascinating to see these people and their mixed reactions to their history.  It was very moving to observe the elder generation interact with cultural and historical relics. All along I tried to analyse if patient and penetrating gazes carried admiration, or incomprehension, or spite. For sure though, these sites awoke in the national population strong feeling and opinions and that could only be a reflection of the past century.

Hardly thirty years after the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which took place from 1966 to 1976, it seems like China is moving back to a veneration of its prestigious past.

A particular photographic exposition in the Summer Palace gave me a lot of insight into China’s difficult relationship with its Historical Heritage. The exposition traced the site’s History from the ancient Dynasties to Mao’s reforms and finally ended with its current recognition in the World Heritage List.

It was a strong reminder of how the Cultural Revolution (Wenhua Dageming) massively destroyed relics worth thousands of years of history and culture. And how Mao’s Communist Party had wanted to demolish “the old way of thinking” in denying the legitimacy of institutions such as Culture and Education.

Walking through the Forbidden City under renovation since 2002 contrasted sharply with the above realisation. The project is the largest restoration the City has known in the last two centuries and will take more than ten years to complete at a cost of over 2 billion Yuan!

I found it ironic how the money used today, in these astonishing amounts, to re-glorify China's heritage is inscribed with Chairman Mao's portrait, the very leader who supervised the destructive cultural revolution. (photograph taken at the Lama Temple, which received particular government support for its renovation)

I found these numbers from a very interesting article finding from the website of Houston’s Chinese Consulate. It presents an interview with Jin Hongkui the Director of the Palace Museum and of its renovation project.

"Fully restore the grandeur of feudal times"

"The renovations mean to carry forward our tradition"

If you look closely, Chinese propaganda, discrete or in you face, is everywhere in Beijing streets. Should it be on Tian Anmen Square,  in the metro, back alleys or school books... the Chinese are constantly reminded of their patriotic duty. The influence is very subtle and usually uses indirect reverence of China's past superiority through insistence on culture and history with the spirit of 

wealth, success, pride...

Chinese youth is brought up with the expectation that their country has in hand the cards to master the world. There is an assurance that although China may not be amongst the first today it is in its blood to saddle the world. The way I express these thoughts may seem negative but I do not want them to be subjective, and they are certainly not accusations, certainly not saying that the chinese are haughty. It is simply fascinating to observe a country's self perception, to see what it finds and takes out of the cultural/historical propaganda that feeds them the hope for tomorrow. The understanding that it has been done in the past and thus can be reproduced. The desire to reproduce what their ancestors have achieved before them.
I thought this was particularly striking in the eyes of this young boy (see above) , fascinated by the Imperial Palace as his chinese audio-guide is surely spelling out China's strength to him, a tool of Chinese empowerment.

I further looked into the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of Cultural Relics adopted as early as1982, the birth date for the current Constitution of the People’s Republic of China (under Deng Xiaoping).

I was surprised to see how the Law articles have in the past years started to use a particularly flattering vocabulary when referring to China's cultural/historical relics, mostly representative of an imperial past removed from socialist and communist values: «Inheriting the splendid historical and cultural legacy of our nation.» 

As I try to understand this major shift in policy and the goals motivating this new vision, my attention lingers on another extract from the Constituional Law regarding the protection of cultural relics :

«…building a socialist society with an advanced culture and ideology. Article 1»

Chinese patriotism is the message at the heart of the Government’s communication with its people. Road signs effectively read “Patriotism, Innovation, Inclusion, Virtue” as a part of the Beijing’s Spirit Campaign these four words promote socialist core values. 

Since the 80’s, China has know an economic explosion that has thrown the country at the forefront of the world’s globalised interface and in recent years there seems to have been an increasing Sinophobia… No, but actually.  Although sinphobia might be a joke of bad taste, I have often dealt with side remarks such as “the Chinese are everywhere” “America’s dept is in the hands of the People’s Republic of China” or, “will Chinese rule the world?” I guess this was not helped by the internet craze presenting the average Human as a 28 Year Old Chinese Man. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4B2xOvKFFz4)

The Chinese have a lot of pride, a healthy pride that is translated into values such as hard labour and determination.  After all China is one of the world’s oldest nations, largest populations, the leading civilisation in the arts and sciences for centuries and today’s fastest developing superpower. It is not for nothing that China in Mandarin is Zhong Guo, which means the Empire at the center if the Universe.

The Globalisation of international markets and relationships has placed China in a challenging position. Indeed after a politically and culturally tormented 2Oth century China must catch up with the rest the leading powers in order to establish itself and recover its prior position of greatness and authority.

Has the government chosen to highlight the importance of Historical relics as a reminder in the eyes of local population of past Superiority, presenting it as goal just two steps away?

Historical preservation as a form of propaganda?

Article references

http://houston.china-consulate.org/eng/nv/t52837.htm

http://www.china.org.cn/english/environment/34304.htm

Kaolin, Petunse, Feldspar and Quartz

Detail of the Inner Courts in Beijing's Forbidden City.

Kaolin, Petunse, Feldspar and Quartz

All articles and photographies by Indrani Lukomski.

Beijing's Forbidden City.

The journey begins in the shy light of curiosity and wonder for the unknown. 

"China" and the five abstract letters that staple most of the products we handle daily. The Chinese controversy, the Chinese fear, the Chinese mystery of an immense land, rich history and powerful influence.

Detail of railings in the Palaces of Beijing's Forbidden City.

I grew up in Singapore and, although I was in an International school, witnessed the south-east Asian culture in a city-state where 76% of the population is of Chinese descent. My interest in anthropology is a result of experiencing Singapore's difficult transition between a traditional concept of culture and the modern notion of globalization. For example, when I was  small I used to ride horses through a Chinese traditional forest cemetery: it is now a metro station. Everyday the island loses a little more of its cultural/historical heritage, a reality that I find truly distressing. Singapore is a high-speed train launched on the tracks of modernization; China however, is still in the process of emerging and opening itself to the world. This huge country with an untouched center is struggling with modernization and building upon a troubled past while having to acknowledge the importance of cultural identity. I am particularly interested in the use of heritage for product development regarding the preservation of ethnic minority cultures. I have also taken a recent interest in one of the biggest challenges of our globalized era: the loss of fully half of humanity's social, cultural and intellectual legacy, languages. "Language Death", particularly evocative of China's current situation, is a great issue in both linguistics and anthropology. This also justifies my determination to master the Han language in order to understand and look deeper into its linguistics. 

Learning Mandarin has always been close to my heart and this constantly motivated me to put more effort into my studies. Such a drive would be the result of a childhood in Singapore, where the Montessori School I attended (age three to five) had us draw traditional Mandarin characters to keep our minds occupied in a smart way.  Having spent the first eight years of my life in Asia, studying Chinese is part of my cultural identity and I find learning the language rewarding on a personal basis: because my work resonates with my experience it is more meaningful. More than a connection to my origins, Chinese also reinforces my admiration for the asian language and culture. Starting Chinese has been a revelation since it enabled my passion in Anthropology and linguistics to coincide with my dedication to Asian studies. I am captivated by the power of languages and believe Chinese is a perfect example. Indeed, my multilingualism (I speak and write four languages), allows me to see the true difference between Chinese and other languages: calligraphy. I love History of Art and the more  I learn about traditional Chinese art I find it particularly evocative as a testimony to Chinese culture and history. Calligraphy is an important component of this art and learning Han characters therefore embodies for me a direct gateway into China: I see the complexity of the language and vocabulary as a reflection of the country's rich cultural array. When learning a new character I always have fun comparing the simplified and traditional versions. As I analyze their evolution through time, I recognize in Linguistics a powerful form of history. My professional interest in the field was recently confirmed by my enthrallment for the works of anthropologists such as Claude Lévi-Strauss or Wade Davis. The latter, in his work The Wayfinders, has a saying that in my opinion is in complete syntony with my approach to the Chinese language "a language is the vehicle by which the soul of each particular culture comes into the material world". Indeed Chinese has never been homework to me, but rather a pleasure… and an escape. I feel very peaceful as I trace characters, for their study seems to transport me 6,000 miles away, to Southeast Asia. If I am ready to invest so much time and energy in learning the language it is because my desire to become an anthropologist has married my interest in China.

 Fortune Telling (Suan ming)  in Beijing's Hutongs.

I have created a fascination around China without ever experiencing it directly. The two above paragraphs are extracts from my application to earn a fellowship for a two month study of Mandarin in Beijing. And I am now writing these lines from a Hotel accross from the Beijing University of International Business and Economics. I will be participating in Duke's study in Beijing Program thanks to the Richard U. Light Fellowship at Yale University, where I just finished my Freshman year as a French International student. 

At last I meet my virtual friend.

This voyage comes at the end of, first a lengthy anticipation and old admiration, but also it is the suite to an intricate first year in University and in my growth in general. The last months have been a turmoil of questioning my surroundings and above all the choices I have made and am making. Recently, under the pressure of integration to my new american/university life environment I have had to define my values in order to adapt without changing. But what are my values? And how to follow them without imposing them while all along staying authentic and resisting to the general wave? My Freshman year was a firework of extremes, with a first and second semester radically opposed. June, July and August away from a mountain of readings, writings, problems and suffocating daily rush, I am taking my summer to find a balance, and hopefully on the way, to find myself. 

Through everything China represents for me, my quest could not be better lead anywhere else than in Beijing's winding Hutongs.

Busy streets, shops and cafés by the Houhai Lake, Central Beijing.

A journey of the Self through the discovery and acceptance of the Other. China is a difficult place to generalize and understand as an outsider. The People’s Republic of China with it’s Communist government, economic appetite and complex culture is a challenging and defying environment for a foreigner with the occidental perception and its tendency to valuate, judge and lecture.

As a basis, these two months should confirm, or disprove the firmness of my interest in China, or in foreign cultures and anthropology in general.  My expectations, preconceptions and the opinion I have of China will be confronted to reality and in the game my own values will be provoked. It is for me to learn how to go further and try to understand the causes and explanations to cultural barriers. Only in this way can I see my maturity crossing paths with the ability to interact accordingly with China and embark on an adventure of honest learning and discovery.

Burning incense (xiangbang) at a Chinese temple.

I also see in China’s actual position in the Globalized world a reflection of the struggles of the younger generations, such as mine for example (70’s, 80’s and 90’s). A struggle between identity and marketing, between personal values and social branding. A struggle between sustainability and development (personal life VS carriers for example). A struggle between the public image and the internal voice (Chinese cities VS the predominant rural China)…

A young man does an offering at the Yonghe Lamasery, a Tibetan Buddhist Temple.

As I look into contemporary Chinese issues I was surprised at how easily I related to what I read and how much sense it made as I understood it in resonance with everything happening around and in me.  

This is a good gateway into explaining the title for this Travel Blog.

In English we sometimes refer to porcelain as “china”. Chinese pottery dates back to more than 18,000 years ago and was exported to Europe since there porcelain craft was unknown until the late 17^th century. “china” is one of China’s oldest masteries and has became a staple of its refined heritage.

However, this fine, delicate and smooth item of luxury is essentially composed of Kaolin, a rough and rudimentary clay mineral. And somewhere in the recipe, with the Kaolin and some other stones, the last and certainly most precious ingredient is Quartz Crystal.

Kaolin and Quartz. Two particularly opposed ingredients that create the mystery of “china”, unknown and incomprehensible to the occident for such a long time. The rough and delicate: complimentary to a rich product/heritage.

The Emperor of China usually used the dragon as a symbol of his imperial power.

Detail of plunging roofs at the Yonghe Lamasery Temple.

And indeed, isn’t China, the country, the culture and the history a strong and severe spirit with rough conditions that somehow is parent to one of the greatest civilizations with the earliest Renaissance? There is so much to understand behind the surface, so many complexities, so many mysteries and wonders. It is what I felt walking through the Yale Art Gallery’s magnificent collection of Chinese porcelain. The charge of a cultural heritage and a story in every crack and pattern. Seeing how such a rough material gave something so precious and fragile.

And talking about fragility, let us not forget how China has become branded. And maybe how “china” the porcelain has become a globalized product with the dangers of China throwing its heritage onto the Global market... yet again a brand mark of my generation?!

A "Coffe and Tea" chain integrates the Forbidden City despite preservation protocols. 

All of this will motivate my observations and reflections throughout my blogging, which will will always echo upon this introduction and the process I have just exposed. 

A woman relaxes in one of Yonghe Temple's peaceful courtyards.

I also hope this blog will be a platform for interaction between Occidental and Chinese Bloggers. I would really hope to exchange experiences and opinions and engage in conversations, maybe even debates, in the commentary section. 

Hutong view of Children playing.

Thank you for your support and interest!

 

Nanluoguxiang Hutong.