the hunt

The second day in Beijing and I have to say I didn't manage to get out very much. I am here for 12 days as part of a cultural exchange program between Asian and European dancers and musicians organized by the Asia Europe Foundation and the China Dancers Association. Our first day started with a press conference with many formal speeches and a question and answer with the press, including incidentally a camera man from the omnipresent CCTV. As it turns out, the woman in blue seated at the central table is China's first 'white swan' (ie: China's first Ballerina), which makes her quite a celebrity! The second half of the day included presentations of all the participants who, coming from all over Asia and Europe, all have very different histories and backgrounds.

I slipped out for an hour during a tea break and went visiting the neighborhood. I tried to get a closer look at the Koolhaas construction site across the street but after walking around the entire block (which took more than half an hour), I concluded the best view was the one I had from my street corner the first night. The building site is surrounded by a huge empty billboard that completely blocks the view from the front, as if they don't want the building to be seen until after it's completed. I tired to sneak in at several entrance points but could only watch the flow of workers coming and going from the gateway. They say they work around the clock and I can believe it. The building looks suspiciously like the CCTV logo . . am I hallucinating?

Okay, I have a 6 am wakeup call so I'm gonna hit the sack. Tomorrow we are leaving for Guizhou a region close to the Yunnan province where there are still many ethnic minorities living a relatively undisturbed traditional lifestyle. I am very curious and will be sure to report!

xu

p.s. I tried to open a flikr site for all the photos, but many blog sites seem to be unaccessible. This one goes on and off from time to time, but so far so good. Seems they have a very strong internet surveillance team so I will try to keep away from any forbidden language . . .






The best view I could have was by sneaking in though a back parking lot. Does anyone else think it looks like a transformer?