MUSEUM FATIGUE

Anti-Cheating Posters on Chinese University Campus

June 26, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

A few days ago I just happened to be visiting a university campus in the outskirts of Shanghai during the beginning of finals week. Along one wall in the lobby of the teaching building I noted a number of very interesting posters discouraging cheating on tests. Done in different styles they all had a singular message—don’t cheat on your finals. I imagined how a similar set of posters posted on an American campus would be received by students taking tests […]

Categories: Education, Surveillance • Tags: cheating, China, final exam, posters, testing

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“Care the Brand, Share the Dream”: The New Words of China’s “Foreign” Brands

June 22, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

In China one often hears the lament that China has no great globally recognized brands. While China may be the world’s workshop, the absence of name brand products desired in international markets is seen as an indication of not having quite reached the next rung of the market capitalist developmental ladder. Chinese may make products, but don’t create great brands. This, of course, stands in stark opposition to the fervor with which China’s new wealthy classes snap up objects of […]

Categories: Consumption, Cosmopolitanism, Language • Tags: brands, China, Chinese brand names, fashion, name brand products

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Adjusting Floor Numbers to Avoid Bad Luck in a Chengdu Hotel

June 19, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

When I teach Introduction to Anthropology I often like to use simple examples to relativise taken-for-granted categories. “Common-sense” examples usually communicate these the best—so I might talk, for example, about what categories of animal constitute food or how daily life is inflected by tiny habits, rumors or superstitions. I often mention, for example, lucky numbers in China—most often used for phone numbers or car license plates that have variations of one, six and eight in them. I usually also mention […]

Categories: China, Everyday Things, Mythologies • Tags: 4, bad luck, Chengdu, Chengdu Qixin Da Jiudian, elevator floors, hotel elevator, superstition, unlucky numbers, 四, 死

Urban Demolition: Jiuyanqiao, Chengdu, June 2014

June 19, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

My hotel room offered a nice perspective on the demolition of the building next door. The bulldozers were tearing down an old Mao-era building clearing the space for future redevelopment. No doubt the space will become something like the other buildings near it—perhaps a shopping mall, office building or hotel. Off in the distance, across the bridge and to the right is the “preserved” old buildings of the entertainment “bar street.” I remember when the original Jiuyan Qiao was demolished in […]

Categories: Ruins, Space • Tags: Chengdu, China, demolition, 拆

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Fashion is Most Glorious!

June 19, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Walking on Chunxi Lu in Chengdu I passed a full sized advertisement which draws upon the imagery and language of the Cultural Revolution. Featuring a worker, peasant, soldier trio the text plays on slogans common during the CR. The CR slogans I’m familiar with, but I’m a bit unsure about the exact translation of the edited ones in the advertisement, so hopefully someone can help me with this. Below I have given my best shot at these phrasings and then […]

Categories: Advertising, China, Nostalgia, Politics • Tags: Chunxi Lu, Cultural Revolution, 红色年代, 革命, fashion, marketing, nostalgia, Revolution, slogans, 口号

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What The Photograph Takes, What the Photograph Misses

June 12, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Fujiazhuang Beach in Dalian presents a dizzying array of of activities and actions, social and personal trajectories of participation and involvement—all jostling up against one another on a small strip of sandy shore. My first day there, as I walked its length I saw a huge group of Russian children having a squirt gun fight next to Chinese couples cuddling nearly fully clothed on beach blankets. While some young men fished at the shore, a large group of retirees sat sunning […]

Categories: China, Mythologies, Photography, Scripts • Tags: Dalian, wedding photographs, 婚纱

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Beijing Menu Designates Specific Foods to “Say No!” to Smog

June 11, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

At one restaurant in Beijing, market capitalism has found an answer to the city’s now legendary air pollution—ordering the right foods off the menu. While collectively dealing with the causes of pollution is not a political option available to Beijing residents, according to the restaurant menu the effects of the pollution can be addressed through correct individual consumption. On the menus at Jindingxuan Restaurant (金鼎轩地坛店) specific foods are designated as “resisting haze and clearing out toxins” (抗霾排毒)—specifically good for “saying no” to smog. The […]

Categories: China, Consumption, Food • Tags: air pollution, Anti-Haze, Beijing, 金鼎轩地坛店, market capitalism, menu, pollution, smog, 抗霾排毒

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Experience Japanese Culture Free of Charge! Let’s Try!

June 9, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Just as I was heading to the gate to catch my flight leaving Narita airport I passed a last-chance culture display. In the vast neutral space of the terminal the small tatami covered stage, complete with paper screen, umbrella, lantern with Japanese characters and a koto was like some kind of cultural drinking fountain. A last sip before leaving? A final opportunity to get with Japanese culture, to collect a final experience, to take a photo. It was even free! Free culture […]

Categories: Culture, Exhibitions and Fairs, Japan, Representation, Scripts • Tags: display, Free culture, Japanese Culture, music, Narita Airport

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American Breakfast in Japan

June 9, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

What makes a breakfast “American?” I considered this question after ordering an “American Breakfast” at a restaurant at Narita Airport. If the first meal of the day had an elementary mythological form the meal served to me was a Levi-Straussian ideal. It was an hr-breakfast—a meal reduced through the necessity of rough translation to its barest essential “American” form. Its bland color pallet, processed form and simple textures and flavors spoke to its role as simple morning fuel. Its […]

Categories: Food • Tags: American, American Breakfast, breakfast, food, Japan, Narita Airport

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Mystery Object #19: Breasts and Personal Technology

May 31, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Subject to continual upgrade cycles and constant and dependable obsolesce, our personal technology resist the attachment and love that we develop for them. While we take them everywhere and learn to depend on them for communication, entertainment and even to find a bite to eat—the technology pushes back and resists our advances—never retaining the object-histories that might give them human meaning over time. With no history our personal technology never develop the patinas of value that speak to their interaction […]

Categories: Bodies, Gender, Mystery Objects, Technology • Tags: accessories, affection, breasts, crack chic, iPhone, mouse pad, personal technology, puni puni, steampunk

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