China | MUSEUM FATIGUE

I Love Beijing’s Sensitive Words!

June 11, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

Right in the middle of my visit last summer, Facebook disappeared. It was added to the list of sites blocked by the Chinese firewall. At the time I was in China, hanging out with my friends, so we really didn’t miss not seeing each other on Facebook. When I mentioned it at a dinner, the feeling was that it was only temporary blockage that would surely pass. Someone at the table even thought it might have just been a glitch […]

Categories: Fieldwork, Random Reflections • Tags: China, internet, 敏感词

A Haunting Photograph Revisited

June 9, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

In late spring 1999 I spent nearly four weeks traveling from Nanjing, where I was living at the time, overland through Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan. Fodor’s had hired me to update some chapters in their China travel guide, and after a year of fieldwork the opportunity to do some solo travel–and get paid for it–was a welcome opportunity. While most of my memories of that trip have faded, a select few are still very clear. I can’t remember […]

Categories: Essays • Tags: China, memory, Nanchang, Photography, revolutionary martyrs

Performing Cultural Revolution Nostalgia

June 7, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

I have been mulling over and trying to make sense of what exactly took place at the Cultural Revolution theme restaurant that I visited last week. I have photos, video, and some notes I wrote after returning to my hotel room that night, but none of them help very much. I thought maybe some time to reflect would make a difference, but the past seven days have just made things seem even more unreal. It all comes back to one […]

Categories: China, Food, Play, Politics • Tags: Beijing, China, Cultural Revolution, memory, nostalgia

2012 Apocalyptic Anxieties

June 5, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

For most of the last decade whenever I have visited China I have always been impressed with how positive everyone seemed when compared to the U.S. Sure China’s income gap is ginormous and growing, the environmental issues are huge, and the dislocations of urban and rural residents are unprecedented in human history. In the face of all of this,however, most of the Chinese people I have encountered in recent years–from close friends to taxi drivers–have been generally upbeat. While back in the U.S. we have had […]

Categories: China, End of Times, Mythologies • Tags: 2012, apocalypse, China

Using an iPad in China

June 3, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

I often travel to China with student groups or for research and never leave home without my MacBook. It is the place I keep things to read, write fieldnotes, store the many photos I take and keep in touch with friends and family through e-mail, Skype and Facebook. Lugging it around always seemed a bit much, and after a drop at the Tokyo airport last January that left a nasty dent in the corner of its otherwise immaculate aluminum frame, […]

Categories: Essays, How To • Tags: Anthropology, China, fieldwork, iPad

Replicating Terracotta Warriors

May 2, 2010 by Museum Fatigue

Last summer while doing a research visit at the Terracotta Warrior Museum in Xi’an and some associated tourist sights, I noted the proliferation of images and reproductions of the warriors. In this collection of images can you spot the “real” from the reproduced? Of course this is a trick question, because even the “real” warriors have been pieced together from fragmented remains! (This post is also a test of the photo-posting function on posterous.)

Categories: Fieldwork, Photo Essays • Tags: China, museum