I was a late arrival to the virtual land rush. Tens of millions of homesteaders had already staked their claim and were well along their way to becoming successful farmers when I sowed my first plots of vegetables. By the time I raised a barn, sunk a few trees into the digital soil, and met a few of my neighbors I was anxious that I would never catch up. Others already had giant chicken coops, multiple cow milking operations, pig […]
For years I have adored hand-pulled Chinese noodles–how water and flour and a little magic in the hands of a master can become a tasty food. Many years ago a student of mine and I even went so far as to “intern” for a few months at a noodle shop in Beijing. Last weekend in Shanghai a friend took me to a nice hotpot restaurant in Shanghai. At the end of the meal a young guy in a white shirt with […]
Categories: Video clips • Tags: China, food
Every other year I teach a class, Museums, Exhibitions and Representation, which examines museums and display as socio-cultural phenomena. The course reviews a great deal of history and theory, and from the first time I taught it students were assigned a final project which would simulate an exhibit design process–a way to bring theory to bear on practice. On alternate years one of my colleagues, Brian Hoffman, teaches a historical archaeology class that has a large excavation component. The class […]
Categories: Teaching, Video clips • Tags: archaeology, collaboration, Hamline, museum, sociocultural anthropology
While out walking the streets of Nanjing last night I happened upon a little kid dressed up for the Lantern Festival (YuanXiao Jie). Cute as heck, if a bit confused why the big white guy was pointing a camera at him. [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Cc3LaC7jO4]
Categories: Video clips • Tags: children
This evening I spent a number of hours playing around with Google Labs Ngram Viewer, a fantastic tool that graphs word frequencies found in the huge collection of scanned books amassed by Google Books. It is as easy as choosing some keywords, selecting a language collection, choosing a timeframe and hitting return on your computer keyboard. In a flash the viewer graphs the frequency that the words occur in Google Books over time. Choosing multiple words separated by commas adds […]
A friend of mine just posted a link on Facebook to a very interesting image that is also beautiful to look at. It is a visualization of Facebook friend data–ten million Facebook friend pairs, to be exact. Mapped geographically against a black background the pairs create a striking image. The image’s creator, Paul Butler, a Facebook employee explains on a Facebook note that he created the image in an effort to map the “locality of friendship.” On one level it is […]
Categories: Random Reflections • Tags: China, Facebook, internet
Before it can be nostalgically remembered as “Shanghai’s Old City” and before newly constructed “traditional buildings” can be experienced by both foreign and domestic tourists as authentic “Chinese culture”, historical structures must be cleared. This afternoon I came across a set of photos I shot in Shanghai in April 2006, which show just such a clearing. The photos were taken in part of the old Chinese city section of Shanghai in the period between the local residents’ departure and the […]
Categories: End of Times, Photo Essays, State of Emergency, Urban • Tags: China, old chinese city, Photography, Shanghai, 拆
One of my students came to visit me in my office this afternoon to share a Chinese animation that he found very interesting. The Adventures of Li Xianji (李献计历险记) was, in his opinion, amazing because it was a sophisticated animation done by a Chinese artist–most of the best coming of Japan. He also identified with the mix of popular culture references–and references to foreign films and video games. We had a very interesting chat about the way that some of […]
Categories: Video clips • Tags: China, media
One summer of my early graduate school career I made friends with the very large man who managed the audiovisual collection at the University of Washington. I don’t remember his name. He was friendly in a grumpy sort of way and loved quirky films and videos almost as much as he loved rollercoasters. I had come to him with a request for some films for a class I was TAing, when we got to talking about China. He told me […]
Categories: China, Memory, Museums, Mythologies, Nostalgia, Photo Essays • Tags: China, Cultural Revolution, 紅旗渠, nostalgia, Red Flag Canal, red tourism
In the summer of 2010 I was lucky enough to be able to make a visit to Gao Village. It was a rainy day, and we were behind schedule when we arrived. I didn’t take as much video or as many photos as I had hoped. Above is a small selection of photos, and the short Flip video below documents our arrival.
Categories: Books, China, Photo Essays, Video clips • Tags: Gao Village, Jiangxi
MUSEUM FATIGUE