The Wall Project

      The Earth is smaller now than it has ever been in years past. With each travel innovation and technological upgrade, the globe shrinks. Friends and family may be traveling on continents far from home, while you explore distant lands. Miles disappear as planes and trains grow ever faster, and worldwide communication becomes increasingly more advanced.
      For a recent trip to China, I wanted to explore the principle of a journey being more a thought process during travel, rather than the physical movement of time and space.
     Knowing that I have a very well-traveled group of friends, I decided to try an experiment, which was eventually dubbed "The Wall Project." The idea behind The Wall Project was simple: Collect souvenirs, trinkets and currency from as many countries as possible and photograph them on China's most famous site — the Great Wall. The project would emphasize the fluidity of global culture, and bring mementoes of travels past — my own, and those of friends and loved ones, which toyed with the concept of a journey being more psychological than physical.
        With the help of Facebook, I was able to collect 17 trinkets, from every corner of the globe. The nations represented were Mexico, Haiti, the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, Poland, Cambodia, Peru, the Philippines, Ireland, Kenya, India, Equatorial Guinea, Brazil, South Africa, Greece, Thailand and Hong Kong.
     Loading everything up into my backpack, we boarded a crowded bus leaving downtown Beijing, headed toward the section of the Great Wall known as Mutianyu.
The bus reminded me of my project: Seated behind us was an Australian man and his Japanese girlfriend; in the row of chairs across from theirs sat two elderly Jewish businessmen, who were in front of a Canadian-American couple, and a woman traveling with her parents from Singapore. A triad of French women took up the rear. Each traveler was there for a different reason, each with a different story.
     Somehow, from the 7 billion human beings spread across the six continents, 20 people from the far reaches of the planet had all ended up together on the same crazy bus headed toward the Great Wall of China. "My bus is something large in my mind. It is a cosmic bus holding sparks and back firing into the Milky Way and turning the corner of Betelgeuse without a hand signal." — John Steinbeck
     The pollution-induced haze was heavy as we caught our first glimpse of the Wall — a black silhouette against a sky, which had become a sheet of dull, throbbing light. The first step onto the Great Wall is ethereal — the feeling that your foot is touching something ancient, something solid enough to withstand a millenia of batterings from Mammon and Nature alike.
     After hiking along to the first watchtower, I decided to set up my trinkets for the first few shots. Grabbing a wrought-iron butterfly I picked up while in Haiti, I savored the irony of it. As I set up a carved-stone hippo on the battlement of the wall, I thought of the friend who had bought it in Kenya, and how it would have been a little over a year before that she was in an African market, purchasing that stone hippo. I tried to find the best way to make a South African armband appear in the photograph. Each trinket carried with it a unique story. Each trinket carried with it ghosts of past adventures. And each trinket carried with it the hope of a future journey.

Read more here: http://www.modbee.com/2012/07/17/2285766/the-wall-project-photos-at-the.html#storylink=misearch#storylink=cpy

China Pt. 3: Canton Lost

"Fading Act" A man demonstrates the lost art of Cantonese Finger Painting

     Our guide greeted us at the airport by saying, “I'm glad you made it, but please hurry. There is a typhoon coming.” At that moment, I knew I was in love. As we drove through the city of Guangzhou, which was formerly known as Canton, I remarked to my mom that it looked like San Francisco and Las Vegas, combined, and quadrupled in size. Egg-Carton mountains guard the back of the city, and the Pearl River runs directly through the Central Business District. Many districts are made up of small island chains that lie in the river. It was the first Chinese city I'd seen that actually incorporated color into it's design. The buildings weren't red and gray. To the untrained eye, Guangzhou looked like a Feng-Shui masterpiece.

A Bridge over the Pearl River

      The Pearl River Delta is on China's southern coast, near the border with Hong Kong and Macau. It is right along the Tropic of Cancer; every day temperatures reached about 90 F. and it would thunderstorm for about 1 hour every afternoon, around 3:00. My camera lens literally fogged up when I stepped outside. Despite the humidity, the air was far cleaner and generally more breathable than anywhere else in China. We actually saw the sky when it wasn't raining. Guangzhou itself is around 13 Million, but is considered part of the Pearl River Delta Mega-City; comprised of Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and several other smaller cities. Altogether, the population is estimated to be upwards of 40 Million, causing it to be considered by many as the most densely populated region on Earth. The region, due to it's proximity to Hong Kong and it's strategic positioning at the far south-eastern coast of China, was among the first to receive economic reform, and holds many important financial institutions. Because it's economy is so much farther developed, they have been able to place attention on making life quality better for their citizens. Mopeds are illegal, and cars aren't allowed to drive on the sidewalk. The infrastructure of the city is much more evolved than that of Beijing or Henan Province. Health Care is apparently more easily accessible, and to ride the Metro is free for residents.

      We were staying at the Guangdong(The name of the Province) Victory hotel, which was located on Shamian Island. Shamian is an island on the Pearl River, separated from the “mainland” by a distance of about 10 feet. During the European Occupation, Shamian was where the French and English set up their concessions. Now the old consular buildings are galleries, businesses, and hotels. The southern part of the island is a large public park, where folk musicians play and people gaze at the glittering cityscape. The Island is a popular place with professional photographers doing photo-shoots. On any given day, you could see hundreds of couples getting their wedding pictures done. Sometimes the photographers would be arguing over who got that street section. From what we gathered, the different agencies provide newlyweds with rental dresses, hair and makeup, and a photo-shoot on Shamian Island.

      Our guide, “John,” was Cantonese, along with the majority of Guangzhou's(Canton's) population. Cantonese people, although they belong to the Han ethnic group, are very distinct culturally. They speak their own language and posses a more “Bohemian” feel than most of China's population. But most noticeable is their diet. To use John's own words: “We eat everything.” Once, I asked him if they used alternative energy in Guangzhou yet, because the air was so much cleaner than the rest of China. I tried to explain alternative energy by telling him of how back home in California they were attempting to use kelp as an energy source because it grows nearly a meter every day. He replied that in Guangzhou, they wouldn't try to turn it into electricity. “If we had something that grew that fast, the first question would be, 'can we eat it?'”

      I'm addicted to tea. Some would say it's merely an unhealthy obsession. Living so close to San Francisco's Chinatown has forced me to grow up with some of the most delectable teas in the world only an hour BART ride away. If you're ever in the SF Area, I recommend the Red Blossom Tea Company in Chinatown. It's honestly the best shop in all of San Francisco. Anyways, when I was researching things to see in Canton, I discovered that it is the port where nearly All the Tea in China(Yes, I was silently chuckling as I wrote that) is exported from. There is an entire district of the city, Fangcun, which is a dedicated tea market: the largest in the world with over 5,000 vendors. Mainstream teas, such as Jasmines and Oolongs rest in large barrels on the street, while the rare finds such as Pu-Erh and roasted Tung Ting sit on shelves suspended from the ceiling. I even encountered several teas I had no idea existed: I picked up a bundle of Guangdong Bamboo Tea, an herbal tea used exclusively for medicinal purposes that is made of, you guessed it, bamboo leaves. Tangerine Tea is black tea, aged inside a hollowed out tangerine; the darker the tangerine skin, the older and higher quality the tea inside. Both the Tangerine and Bamboo tea were bitter, and unlike anything I'd ever tasted before, but utterly delicious once you got accustomed to them. Even in such a global society as the one in which we currently live, there are some things that don't make the trip across the pond. I purchased several kilos of tea, a tea table for performing Gongfu Cha, and an Yixing teapot. Yixing is a special type of clay only found in a certain region of China; this clay has chemical makeup which allows it to absorb the flavor of the tea being brewed in it, and after several years of continuous use and care, the addition of tea leaves is unnecessary. If an Yixing pot is left for a long period of time without use, however, the clay begins to crack. There are Yixing pots that are centuries old, passed down from generation to generation.

The Six Banyan Pagoda

      Visiting the Temple of Six Banyan Trees was a surreal experience. We did not realize that it was still an active temple, and were rather surprised to find some 50 monks, chanting around three golden Buddha statues, each around 30-40 feet high, when we arrived. The central pagoda was built around 1200 years ago, and the religion practiced was a variant of Chinese Buddhism, with many elements of Dao mixed in. I became excited when John informed us that there was a vegetarian restaurant on the the temple grounds, however, it was open only to the lamas. The ancient beauty of the pagoda, temple, and surrounding gardens contrasted starkly with the modern hubbub of bustling Guangzhou; not that it isn't a beautiful city, it's just beautiful in a completely different way. The English language really is inadequate.

The Chen Hall

      The Chen Ancestral Home, also known as the Guangdong Folk Art Museum, doesn't boast as lengthy history as most of China's historical sites at a mere 120 Years Old. It's doors and very floors are covered in ornateness. Different forms of artwork native to the Guangzhou area are on display. Some rooms are set up as they would have been in a wealthy Cantonese home during the early 20^th Century. The ancestral altar is still provided with bowls of burning incense even though the building is now a government run art museum.

"Old Canton" Stalls at the Qing-Ping Market

      Across the canal from Shamian Island lies one of China's most notorious places: The Qing-Ping Market. Despite government efforts to clean up the market's act, it still remains as a haven of grit and grime in a very “glitter-minded” city. I loved it. It's primary function is that of a medicine market, although there are several vendors selling tea, family altars, and pet supplies. The market is in Guangzhou's oldest district, the last collection of precolonial buildings in the city. The aged apartments are several stories high, and the bottom floors are reserved for market stalls. Blankets covered in drying seahorses, legs of some unidentifiable animal, and mushrooms the size of small children are common sites at Qing-Ping. All was fine, until we came to the “live produce section.” I really don't want to recall too many details, but there were many animals, being sold in a less than humane way, that in the Western world it is considered wrong to eat, IE, kittens.

"Changing China" The Canton Tower at night

The CBD New Town

      The Canton Tower is currently the world's second tallest tower, and it looks huge from it's base. We went up into the top, and the view is dizzying and impressive. However, when viewing it from the Pearl River, it actually doesn't appear much larger than the surrounding buildings. Apparently, around 6 years ago the city decided that they wanted to redesign their downtown area. They tore the entire Central Business District up, renamed it New Town, and built it up anew as a modern testimony to the power of a centralized government mixed with an international financial center, and completed it with a synchronized light show. The result is truly astounding. The seventh tallest building in the world, the IFC Building, is directly across the river from the Canton Tower, and the city's less recognizable buildings bask in their neon. We took a night cruise down the Pearl River, on a “Dragon Boat” decorated in it's own floating light parade. There was a musician playing a zither on the top deck of the boat, and the weather was perfect. The city's color changing LEDs danced, as if in sync with the music. An ancient pagoda stood next to the Canton Tower, overshadowed by it's sheer mass. In the cab on the way back to our hotel, John told us when he would bring us to the airport in the morning. It was our last night in China.

      At the airport we said a teary goodbye to John. It's funny how attached you can grow to someone after spending 7 days with them. As we stood in line at customs, we took one last glimpse of the “Making the noises is forbidden” signs that were plastered all over the public transit hubs. We saw one final Red Guard, standing sentry on the Chinese side of the Immigration line. Our flight to Tokyo was delayed because of another typhoon. We'd only been there for 17 days, but it already felt strange being out of China, on the No-Man's-Land of an international airport. We boarded the plane, and I took one last glance out of the picture window facing the mountains. Goodbye, China.

                               

China Pt. 2: Henan Province

     I have a thing with public transportation. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's just the feeling I get when I think that the hundreds of other people sitting around me are all separate individuals, going to hundreds of different places to do hundreds of different things; yet they're all interconnected, everyone traveling together for however brief a time. Maybe it's because trains look really cool. Either way, for me there's a certain draw to taking public transit. Which is why when I found out that there was a bullet train that went from Beijing to where I was going to be staying in Henan Province, I got really excited. Little did I know, China's train system is not quite what it looks like from the photographs. Nothing in China is.

      The Beijing train station is the most hectic place I've ever been, which is saying a lot. There are little to no signs that are not in Chinese, and the tickets are half in Chinese and half in English, yet completely incomprehensible English. Somehow, the ticket had printed with my last name being “William” instead of Senn. As the security guard checked my ticket, passport and visa, I was thankful that he couldn't read English. Somehow we found our gate, and waited. There was one non-Chinese person that we could see in the entire seething mass of population. He was a German-born Brazilian who had an accent that I would have sworn was Australian. He was spending the summer backpacking around Asia. As the vast numbers of people began to descend the steps onto the platform, we bade goodbye. When we boarded the train, there was no seat unoccupied. In fact, some had set up portable folding chairs in the aisle ways.

      Speeding through China's abandoned towns and half-destroyed cities is unreal. The pallor of the air surrounded the buildings. Rows and rows of identical skyscrapers stand together in large groupings. Gray is the color of everything. Sickly rows of vegetables and rice paddies cover the rural landscape. Ancient pagodas and temples lie in disrepair near the rusty skyscraper forests. Eventually, we came to cross the Yellow River. It's unmistakable. The golden waters snaked along in every direction.

      Everyone in Beijing had told us that Zhengzhou(Pronounced Chen-Cho), Henan(Huh-Nan) Province was a small, rural city. What they had meant was that it was a city of 9 Million. A small rural city the size of New York. The train station was clean and modern, much more so than that of Beijing. The surrounding buildings were clean and modern looking, and it was obvious that aesthetic was something the city had really put a lot of effort into. Due to a confusion at the station, our guide had not been able to meet us there. Henan Province is one of “those” places, where non-Chinese people don't really end up. There are no major tourist attractions, it's far away from the nearest major city-center, and it is still one of China's most impoverished regions. Somehow, we communicated enough with a taxi driver to take us to the hotel where we had our reservations. We had decided to stay at a Holiday Inn, which was my mom's pick after I chose the courtyard alley hostel in Beijing. We noticed that certain cultural aspects were much different here. For instance, we left a tip at the restaurant where we had eaten dinner; it's not common in Chinese culture(It was actually illegal to tip up until the mid-90s), but in Beijing, even in the smaller, more out of the way businesses, it had been accepted without question. The waitress came running after us, screaming something in heavily accented Mandarin, handing us back our money. In Zhengzhou the natural language is Qin, a dialect of Old Mongolian, but as Mandarin is the government language, everyone in the cities speak it. Even in Beijing the accent is heavy. Every sentence is ended with a hard “AR” sound. My mom and I eventually dubbed Beijing Mandarin as Pirate Chinese.

      Crossing the street in Zhengzhou was no easy task. In fact, crossing the sidewalk alone was pretty difficult. Due to the difficulty of obtaining a car and drivers license, many citizens have taken to riding electric mopeds. The problem: it seems that there are little to no laws governing the traffic of electric mopeds. They can ride on the street, or on the sidewalk, in any direction, at any speed, with any number of people on them. Walking across the sidewalk involves advanced preparation, intense listening, very fast running, and lots of luck.

      When we first arrived at our hotel, we were surprised to find our guide waiting outside our room. She introduced herself as “Yo-Yo” which was pronounced Yuyu. It is customary for Chinese who study English in college to take an “American” name for themselves to use with foreigners. We had already met a man named Star, a girl called Apple, and several “Bobs” so we were surprised that she kept her actual name when she introduced herself as Yuyu. Or so we thought. A few days after we met her, she informed us that her Chinese name was Han-Wei, and Yo-Yo(Yuyu) was her American name. Yo-Yo was one of my favorite people I've ever met. Her laughter filled an entire room, and her smile beamed through the pall of the air. She lives in an apartment with her husband, daughter, and mother-in-law. She loves children, and at the time was trying to save up enough money to pay the government fee to have a second child.

"Transitions"

      Zhengzhou was clean and modern, to an extent. Once my mom commented to Yo-Yo that she thought it was more beautiful than Beijing. She replied something along the lines of “You cannot say that!” We weren't sure if she meant we couldn't really think her small town of 9 Million was more beautiful than Beijing's 23 Million, or if we were really not supposed to say that. Either way, we dropped the subject.

     The Zhengzhou Zoo was an entertaining place for a vegetarian who values animal rights. Turtles are kept in an open container, where people throw money on their backs for good luck. Some turtles are literally pasted in cash. You can go fishing in the pond, and keep your catch for 1 Yuan, or around 15 Cents US. Salamanders, gold fish, and turtles were all available for sale; inside containers shaped like Angry Birds. Our guide swore that the tusks on the elephant were fake, and that they had been removed by the government and sold. She also said that the tiger wasn't really making that sound, they were just playing a recording of it to make you want to go look at the tigers. There's a good chance she was right, it was China after all. And of course, we saw the pandas.

"Off the Beaten Path"

      We went to a cloth market outside the city. This was one of my favorite things we did in all of China, not because I wanted to buy cloth, but because we got a glimpse of “Old China.” But an Old China that's still living, and still a part of daily life. We were pretty far off the beaten path. Women sat in rows with foot-pedal sowing machines making clothing to order. Rows of zippers and bolts of silk hung over the dirt pathway. There I was, meandering through a cloth market in rural Henan Province. It felt surreal. Afterwards, our guide took us to a great food-street, where I bought some tofu stir fry, served in a plastic bag with chopsticks.

      The next day, we flew out of Henan, and took a 2 hour flight to Guangzhou, our last city we were to visit before flying home. We bade goodbye to Yo-Yo, and the small rural city of Zhengzhou. As our flight broke through the layer of haze, we saw a blue sky for the first time in nearly 2 weeks. I silently hoped that some day I'd be back in that airport, heading to a crazy little cloth market outside the city.                                               

China Pt. 1: The Spirit of Peking

       The plane en route from San Francisco to Beijing was crowded. After 13 wrenching hours of flight, a fellow passenger stood up, looked in my direction, and shouted, “Welcome to China!” A flight attendant announced over the loudspeaker that visibility in Beijing was “Under one mile today,” with a hint of irony in her voice. People poured out of the airliner as it was being gutted to travel across the Pacific once more.

      Our van from the airport careened down a crazy, spinning Hutong alleyway. It was at this moment that I determined that China must be called the Land of the Dragon because of it's twisting roadways. Road Laws seem to be more Road Guidelines in China. The “right of way” is decided by whoever has the guts to pull into the intersection. Electric mopeds catapult across sidewalks, down streets, and through walkways in herds, like startled antelope with no where to run. Pedestrian traffic is left to take it's life into it's own hands. If you can run fast enough, you can cross the street.

      Wangfujing is Beijing's central shopping street. Grime covered buildings tower over streets caked with dusty pollution. A soft haze lends an ethereal element to the scene. While commercial centers, filled with designer Western clothiers dominate, traditional family businesses still carry on as they have for countless years. Wangfujing Cathedral stands as a black sheep; something which neither belonged in Ancient China nor it's confused identity crisis in which the nation currently rests. An unfinished shopping mall advertises Dairy Queen ice cream and Forever 21 Clothing. The notorious Beijing Night Market lies only a few blocks away.

      The Temple of Heaven, one of the landmark sights of China, shows a genius for acoustics. The little details make this site truly amazing- it's design is more simplistic than that of the Summer Palace or the Forbidden City; it's wonders are subtle. On top of the “Circular Mound Alter” (Really? Of all the names?) there is stone which lies in it's center. When standing atop this stone, you can hear your voice come from all directions. In the Hall of Echoes lie three pavement bricks, when standing on the first brick you hear your voice once, on the second brick twice, etc. The gold gilding remains as a shimmering reminder of China's wealth and power.

      Tienanmen Square. One of Communism's last outposts in the 21^st Century world. Famous for it's 1989 Massacre and it's gargantuan portrait of the country's late leader, Chairman Mao Zedong, Tienanmen Square is a testimony to a national pride unheard of in the Western World. The deceased body of Mao is on display in a glass casket, and the Monument to the People's Heroes is still the dead center of Beijing. What many Westerners mistake for a tribute to the Red State is really a place as conflicted as the rest of the nation which it represents. The Tienanmen Square Protests of '89 were actually preformed by orthodox communists, who set themselves against the economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping and his successors. The Square is eerie in it's very presence. Red Guards and police vans still patrol the Square regularly, as if to make sure that everyone remembered where exactly they are. As an American who is not altogether the most patriotic person, Tienanmen Square served as a truly fantastic reminder that although our nation is far from perfect, we really do have something to be grateful for.

      Rising into the smog like a majestic bird, the Hall of Supreme Harmony is one of the most awe-inspiring sights that Man has ever created. The Forbidden City, with it's elaborate gardens, soaring rooms, and incredibly attention to detail cannot be described with the inadequate English language. “Beauty” simply does not cover half of the awe of the Imperial Palace.

A monk outside the Summer Palace

      The only thing I found truly striking in the Summer Palace was a large photograph, probably from the mid-sixties, printed onto a display board. The English caption simply read, “Pu-Yi and Mao Zedong.” The photograph featured two men shaking hands. If I hadn't read up on the history of China's last emperor, the picture wouldn't have appeared any different than any other photo of Mao. There are lots of those. Pu-Yi was China's last emperor. His story is one of the most understated tragedies of modern times, and I'd highly encourage you to read a more detailed account. Something about ending up as the gardener in the palace you grew up in puts a perspective on how much control we have truly have over our own lives.

      Snaking along the hills outside of Beijing's suburban areas is China's most iconic sight: The Great Wall. It truly is amazing, and I wish I could've spent more time climbing it. “He who has not mounted the Great Wall is not a true man.” -Mao Zedong

The Hutong. The one with the yellow front was our hostel.

      Beijing's magic lies in it's subtleties. Sure, there are the awe-inspiring sights of Ancient China and modern innovation, but the true spirit of Peking is embodied somewhere deep in an unpaved Hutong alleyway, where roast sticks of tofu can be found for 1 Yuan, and people are sitting outside, enjoying the evening over a cup of tea and a game of mahjong. One of my favorite experiences in China occurred in the Hutong Hostel we were staying in. To my knowledge we were the only guests staying in the courtyard home, which had been converted into a hotel/hostel. The staff was comprised of students who all lived together in the home and managed the guest rooms. One evening, my mother and I were invited to join them for a Dragon Boat Festival Party, as it was Dragon Boat weekend, one of China's larger holidays. We were told to return in an hour, so we went for a walk around the hutong where the hotel was located and the surrounding alleys. Upon returning, we found that the lobby had been decorated and that they had baked us special lotus-wrapped dumplings that are only served during Dragon Boat. They wanted us to play a game with them, and it turned out that the game they had in mind was something similar to charades. We played charades for nearly 2 hours. Our Chinese is terrible, and their English was comparable, but we still had the time of our lives. I have the feeling that those 2 hours that I spent in a hostel in a little alleyway somewhere in the urban sprawl of Beijing playing charades will stick with me for quite a while. 

My mother and I with the staff of our hotel