• Hanzillion: all hanzi belong to me! A student of Chinese collects the characters by taking photos from her daily life in Shanghai (via Shanghaiist)
• China Madness. It’s China. It’s mad. Gotta love it. (from Sara)
• The Rather Difficult Font Game tests your knowledge of fonts. It is, as the title says, rather difficult.
• You Grow Girl is a gardening blog for the crafty, DIY set.
Last night we went to a brilliant night of indie rock at D-22 in Wudaokou. The headliners were Canadian band You Say Party! We Say Die! with three fantastic opening bands from Beijing: Candy Monster, Guai Li, and Ourselves Beside Me. It was the attack of cute female lead singers channelling their aggression through music!
Candy Monster were an energetic, fun punk band from Shenyang:
Guai Li played a more straightforward punk. I loved the lead singer’s style–so Nana!
Ourselves Besides Me were an all-female band and the one that had the tightest songwriting and the most minimal performance style:
With their charismatic lead singer, You Say Party! We Say Die! inspired rock ecstasy amongst the true believers in attendance. Standing near me was a Korean fan who was wearing a Vancouver jersey in honor of the occasion, and You Say Party! We Say Die!’s shouty, hyper dance-punk and the band’s antics–the bassist climbed onto the balcony via the speakers!–had the crowd in the front moshing madly. At the end of the act, it got out of control and ended up with the two most obnoxious moshers throwing punches at each other.
A rather unfortunate incident: some fool threw beer at the band in the beginning of the first song, and it killed the keyboard.
It was still a great night!
While my friend and I were out meandering around Joy City Xidan, one of those new fancy malls that are springing up around Beijing like mushrooms, we went to a shop that practically screamed “quirky!”
The shop in question was Potato & Co. Here is part of their store window.
Not only did they carry friendly yellow toasters and funny turbaned pillows, but they also carried the “Sweet Toast of Mine” toaster, for the Guns and Roses fan or pirate who also loves toast.
As you can see from this picture, the “Sweet Toast of Mine” toaster also burns a skull and crossbones into your toast.
That is so fabulous that I have to repeat it again! It burns a skull and crossbones into your toast.
I think I’ve just convinced myself that what is truly missing in my life is pirate toast.
(Photo from Crave.)
One of my favourite sections of China Daily, the official English-language daily here, is China Scene. Divided up into regional sections, China Scene compiles the offbeat and slice-of-life stories around China, with fun illustrations.
Here is one example about a would-be thief:
Shoplifter is head-trapped (from February 27, 2008)
A shoplifter in Fushun, Liaoning province, in his attempts to escape got his head wedged in a plasterboard wall of a supermarket.
A security guard at the supermarket on Sunday shoplifted the shoplifter surnamed Zhao and gave chase. Zhao bashed his head against the plasterboard wall to break it but instead got his head stuck in it.
Zhao was identified by police as also suspect in an injury case that occured a year ago.
Liaoshen Evening News
Here’s another one from today:
Graduates hire threads for job interviews
A shop that hires clothes to local university students is doing brisk business in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan province.
The 20-sq-m shop has more than 100 types of clothes and charges between 25 yuan ($3.57) and 70 yuan for a men’s suit and 20 yuan to 45 yuan for a dress.
Customers who hire clothing can choose ties, scarves and accessories from the shop for free.
Most of the shop’s clients are local university students who want to hire outfits for job interviews and other social events.
Its boss expects the shop will be busier between May and August, the peak time for graduates to find work.
Dongfang Jinbao News
You can also read China Scene online (West, East, South, North, Central). These links will only go to today’s China Scenes, and alas, there are no illustrations.
(note: I also freelance for China Daily, but not for the China Scene section)
Apartment complexes are the jack-of-all-trades of Beijing’s buildings. Due to some contortions of the zoning laws and permits, apartment buildings often double up as office buildings–and more–because it is often much cheaper for tax purposes and economically viable for small businesses.
Scott’s office, which doubles up, even has that most luxurious of furnishings–a bathtub!
The mixed use means that hidden inside even the most boring apartment buildings are all kinds of interesting places.
We went to Hou Xiandai Cheng 后现代城 (Post-modern city) for the opening of the Flying White art exhibition at the FangArt gallery. It turned out that FangArt was actually a duplex inside Building 16. On the outside of the building, there is nothing that would distinguish it from being anything else but an apartment block.
In Soho Xiandaicheng（Soho 现代城), there is a venue called Wain Wain that is apparently simply a 35th-floor apartment that the owners turned into a Japanese bar. I haven’t been there yet, but it’s been written up as having fantastic views.
Ironically, according to this article from Biz Cult, one thing a Beijing apartment can’t be is a home office. A company office is no problem, but heaven forbid that you work from home.
In an otherwise generic article about Beijing, the Miami Herald points out that “Every modern apartment complex is really its own little alley-laced hutong where traditional Chinese city life unfolds.” Mixed uses, the jumbling together of residential and business spaces, is certainly a part of that tradition.
I often wonder what Jane Jacobs, the doyenne of urban thinkers, would have thought of Beijing, and especially of Beijing’s apartment complexes because they could be read as a paradox of the ideas she espoused in The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Modern Chinese apartment complexes have their own characters and cultures, and certainly Chinese apartment complexes are far more mixed-use than American ones. But, at the same time, she undoubtedly would have deplored the destruction of the hutongs that created the modern apartment complex and likely thought that they were uncomfortably close to the rationalist city planning ideals that she particularly resisted. (Disclaimer: it’s been a few years since I read Jacobs with a critical fine eye as my copy is at home in Los Angeles.)
(Picture from Wain Wain.)
What kind of interesting things have you, dear reader, found in Beijing’s apartment complexes?
- DIY Ceiling Cat, from Tubbypaws, itself an adorable blog about papercrafts
- How Wong Kar-wai lost his way by Grady Hendrix of Kaiju Shakedown
- The Misadventures of Hello Cthulhu. A webcomic that dares to ask who is more evil, Sanrio characters or the dread lord Cthulhu. Hilarity ensues.
- Chinese cooking video: Mark Bittman makes shrimp with bok choy and black beans. Associated article on how to cook with black beans.
I often have days in Beijing when I simply want to see something green, instead of the usual smoggy, dreary urban jungle. Luckily, last Friday I had the opportunity to visit Agrilandia, an organic Italian farm in Shunyi district on the outskirts of Beijing.
Even though it was a cold and drizzly sort of day, there were still many interesting things to be done. My friend and I took a quick walk around the premises, visiting the fish pond and checking out the noisy chicken yard, where curiously, all the chickens were roosters.
We also went to the strawberry greenhouse, where American and Japanese strawberries can be hand-picked for 30 RMB/jin or 50 RMB/jin. As I’ve never been strawberry-picking before, there was not a moment to be lost! The secret to picking strawberries–from a fellow strawberry picker–is to select the ones that are small and red.
(I used to have a strawberry plant that produced beautiful flowers–that’s where the strawberries come from–but only about five actual strawberries. At the time, I didn’t know when they were good to eat, so eventually my strawberries would overripen on the vine.)
Later we also explored the second greenhouse, where Italian herbs (quite rare and hard to find in China) and other fruits and vegetables were grown. The herbs included capers, mint, Italian basil, thyme, rosemary, and others I couldn’t quite identify. The scent in that particular greenhouse of growing plants, healthy soil, and herbs was wonderfu.
I ended up buying a potted mint plant for just 10 RMB, and it is currently growing like mad on our windowsill. I use the mint leaves for one of my favourite teas, mint and Lady Grey, my Japanese friend’s take on Moroccan mint.
Agrilandia also has a terrific restaurant where they serve what is grown on the farm–you can’t get more local than that! We had a buffet that included gorgeous salad greens and honey chicken; it tasted even better knowing the source of what we were eating and how they were grown.
Finally, Agrilandia also has two highly amusing illustrations for their bathrooms.
As readers may be aware, I have been on the search for the Totoro bun from Tous Les Jours for a while now. I have finally found him!
The Totoro bun was found lurking in the Nurenjie 女人街 branch of Tous Les Jours. I had been on his trail for many weeks now, waiting to catch a glimpse of this elusive bun. Each time, I was unable to find him, just missing him.
The Totoro bun in his natural habitat.
But finally, victory was mine!
The Totoro bread costs 6 RMB, and he is very tasty with bits of chocolate for his whiskers and fur. Inside, he is filled with a sweet cream. I felt a bit evil for how much enjoyment I got from eating a Totoro!
In case you don’t know what a Totoro is, he is the title character from the movie Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro) by Studio Ghibli. He is very popular, especially in Asia. Here’s what he looks like from the film.
Whenever I pass by this large birdcage on Xi Dawanglu (西大望路）just outside the Blue Castle complex, I have to wonder who thought of putting a large birdcage in the middle of the Central Business District of Beijing. Did a developer look around and think, “What this city really needs is a birdcage?”
On a more personal note: because I pass by the birdcage all the time, it inspired me to create quirkyBeijing.
Trader Joe’s, meet Trader Zhou’s.
Trader Joe’s in America, a grocery store mostly known for its excellent and cheap natural foods. (And two buck chuck.)
(Image from Business Week.)
Trader Zhou’s in Beijing, a wine shop.
No two buck chuck in there!
