Travelogue 2024

He Art Museum

[Authors note: This is a try at something different. I include pictures of travel and local living in China with my other articles, so I thought why not focus on that from time to time? China was mysterious to me in 1997 and I’ve been surprised continuously ever since. I believe it is still a mystery to many who haven’t had the chance to visit. I hope to pull the curtain back a bit. Let me know what you think, your input is appreciated and will be put to good use.]

I’ve only recently made the discovery that there are endless little side quests available for a person in China with time, resources, and a modicum of curiosity.

Grinding relentlessly after stats for years in a game, life, that actually (whisper) has no final boss (someone could have told me?), eventually one looks around for diversions.

So let’s go to Foshan! Only an hour by train from Shenzhen, Foshan is a newly minted Tier 1 city. I’d prefer you didn’t ask me what that means… Foshan is a place I’m familiar with, having visited many, many times over the last two decades. Always visiting furniture exhibitions, furniture manufacturers, and furniture retail stores. Never did I spare a moment to consider the cultural surroundings. So this was like being invited to the house after years working in the barn. 

The He Art Museum is a philanthopic development that is a small part of a larger industrial and cultural development supported by the Midea Group. Midea is a world-leading electrical appliance manufacturer that has ballooned into quite the little global conglomerate through expansion into many diverse, ostensibly disconnected businesses. It just so happens, Midea was founded in, and still remains headquartered, in Foshan.

The museum was designed by world-renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando. Look him up, the guy is really amazing. he won the Pritzger Prize (that’s the Nobel for architects)!

The name, “He”, means harmony and balance, and also aligns with the surname (pronunciation, different character) of one of the Midea Group owners, He Jianfeng, son of the founder, He XiangJian.

As it ever was, so shall it ever be.

The building is worth a visit all by itself. We didn’t have high expectations for the art showcases, so we were not disappointed by the simple exhibitions. Gotta give these things time. The museum only opened two years ago. In a few years, there’s no doubt the He Art Museum will be a truly impressive landmark. Foshan as a city is really coming along. Signs of investment are everywhere, from the cavernous (largely empty) train station to the high rise apartment complexes in all stages of construction. 

Taking time to see and share the creative efforts of others is always worth it and good for the mind.

[Author’s Note: The plan is to drop in these short articles every so often, mid-week. These are in addition to the usual weekly series. Let me know what you think, your input is much appreciated.]

[Author’s Note: Thank you for taking the time to visit. All pictures were taken by the author or family member, unless otherwise noted.]

XiQiaoShan

The amount of investment and construction in Foshan is amazing. It feels like the heyday of China’s expansion. People are shifting from living and working in Guangzhou to using the Foshan-Guangzhou express train, only one hour, to live in Foshan and commute daily to Guangzhou. The population (as of 2023) is 7.5 million and certainly growing fast.

XiQiao Mountain is a 40–50 million year old extinct volcano, and today is a AAAAA-rated (as high as it gets) national forest and geological park. A person can walk all day amid gigantic granite boulders and formations, and gaze at picturesque waterfalls. That is, they could if the fog wasn’t so thick.

So we detoured into a revisit to the major Buddhist temple in Xiqiao, the Guanyin Temple. There is a giant (66m) statue at the top of a long series of smaller temples and stairs. Take my word for it. It is quite impressive if you can see it. 

These are the surprises that make travel exciting and challenging. Sometimes things break your way, sometimes not. Whatever happens, surprise inspires adventure and that’s the spice that makes existence interesting. We concentrated on the signs explaining the signifance of the various temples, noticed who donated, hit the little shops to get lucky gifts for friends and relatives, and just appreciated being together. I don’t remember being happier.  

Flower Fields of Wuyuan

The air was moist. As after a stormy night that threatens to hang over the day. Because, of course the weather has to make me worry. Soupy grey skies persisted all the way up into the hills to Huangling. The train is only 27 minutes from Jingdezhen at 200+ km/hr, less than half the time it takes the metro to traverse Shenzhen. 

Huangling Village has tourism potential aplenty. A 500 year history and architecture to prove it, and.surrounded by terraced fields filled with a crop that not only is commercial but also beautiful, the canola flower. All surrounding hillsides are entirely covered by terraces supporting canola flower production. 

Terraces make maximum use of the available land. Some are as large as a basketball court, while others are a few meters long. The most beautiful days of the year, when the flowers are in full bloom, is the last ten days of March and early April. Our visit was a few days past the peak, but still, there were plenty of influencers snapping away, and tour groups marching around following the flags of the guides. 

A business-minded eye may wonder why oil-seed is a good crop here. The canola flowers, also known as rapeseed, are sown in Fall and harvested in Summer, an odd growth season. The strain used is a recent innovation that can survive the mild-ish winters here. China is making a big push for self-sufficiency in food production. With this new crop technology, they might come close to full domestic production. 

The flower fields of Wuyuan county were our first sightseeing stop in a four day trip in and around Jingdezhen. China has countryside, culture, and a growing appetite to connect with a less hectic self. An hour or two walking these fields reset my mind and reminded me of growing up in Wisconsin. Feels good to refresh and associate with old memories and form new connections. 

Huangling Village

The rules of travel in China were impressed upon me quickly in the 90s: Best not to. Infrastructure was weak, flights often take off hours late, crooked taxi drivers, facilities and service were bad, and the crowds during peak times, difficult to describe. Who wants to shuffle shoulder-to-shoulder on the Great Wall?

This has all changed. Almost.

Airports and flights are more numerous and better. High speed trains are regular as clockwork and superior to flying. Apps, digital payment, and metro systems, have made getting from A to B simpler. Tourism is a growing industry with much improved, if still spotty, facilities and service levels.

The crowds are still the issue. But there is a solution to hand. Any travel “off peak” is much more comfortable. Holiday costs will be 2–3x normal. Arrive even one day earlier and avoid most of this, and crowds are noticeably lighter. That’s what we are doing this week ahead of the Qingming Festival, officially April 4 to 6. This series covers sights in and around Jingdezhen and Wuyuan County. This introduction is running long so more background in future chapters. This is the second episode. After Flower Fields of Wuyuan, we walk to Huangling Village.

To get there from the flower terraces, a bridge over the valley must be crossed. It’s not for the faint of heart.

Huangling Village was founded in the Ming Dynasty; that is 500 years of history, and it is only 27 min by train from Jingdezhen. The buildings hug the side of the hill in a horseshoe shape, one layer stacked on the next. You can hear streams bubbling down the sides of the streets all through the village. 

The Main Street before entering the village proper, and also exiting, is properly commercial for the dedicated tourist; snacks, drinks, and souvenirs of all sorts. We had a nice lunch of chicken, rice, and vegetables before going in. 

Winding walkways and alleys open onto viewing platforms and demonstrations of traditional farming and drying methods that are easy to find and made simple to get in and out of. 

Some visitors choose to stay the night in the many small hotels and see the village at night. I can really see the attraction. We planned the day, and I have to say we felt rushed at the end to make the return train. The attractions we didn’t see, the shopping we had to jog past, I felt we could have used another hour or two. 

Wuyuan County and Huangling Village are must-see. We scratched the surface, really, there are many other sites (Rainbow bridge of Shangrao, Wolong Canyon, Yu’a Ancestral House) in many nearby villages. Just too many. I found it difficult to grasp the scale of the place from online information. Influencers must Amazing-Race-It from one position to the next! A more relaxed pace for me, thank you very much. 

Her Porcelain Palace

Drive only twenty minutes out of Jingdezhen, and you may find an unassuming exit with modest signage. You could be fooled into thinking you’re entering a quarry parking lot, or a temporary arrangement of construction dormitories, but then you turn a corner and there it is, a monolithic cylindrical structure covered in mosaic tiles. You have found CiGong, the Porcelain Palace of Jingdezhen.

Tickets are 20 yuan, thank you, collected directly at the gate.

You can be forgiven for wondering, “who put a giant ceramic birthday cake in the middle of the Jiangxi hinterland?” There just has to be a story here…and it is equal parts mundane and amazing. Step inside, and let your senses be immediately overwhelmed. There are motifs, carvings, statues, and mosaics covering every inch of floor, walls, and ceiling. Each balcony is whimsically pierced to look down into the courtyard below, or up to the open sky. There are no windows looking out and vision is constrained to this limited world. The exterior sort of disappears… 

The Porcelain Palace of Jingdezhen is the personal project of a local scion of industry, a Ms. YuErmei, who at the age of 82, decided that Jingdezhen was missing a monument. Her story is well told on a youtube video that is definitely worth a watch: https://youtu.be/jukU3h-hY2c?si=8E-YY_UUsHWtaHg6

Ms. YuErmei, whose name literally translates to something like “second daughter of the Yu family”, had retired after a very successful and profitable career in ceramics. She had started low at age 12 and worked in every step of the process, started her own companies, exported around the world, and earned a fortune. Upon retirement, the story goes, she traveled around the country, as one is supposed to, and she made the fateful decision to enter Tianjin. As it happens, Tianjin has an attraction marketed as a Porcelain House(see it here). YuErmei was taken aback; how could Tianjin, a port city with no history in ceramics, have a monument to porcelain, and all while Jingdezhen with 1700 years had none! So, with renewed purpose, she set out to correct this oversight. But what shape should her “house” take? A stop in Fujian caught her eye and inspired her (see it here) to make her now iconic design. 

At age 79, she bought this property and invested five years, 80 tons of porcelain in decoration, and $880,000. A million dollar vanity project, an ode to the history and might of Jingdezhen’s millenia of global porcelain dominance. Anyway, that’s the story. No doubt the gears of marketing and myth-making are just powering up to pluck the choicest morsels for consumption. Future generations are in for a treat. 

It is kind of corny, but being there, it quickly becomes quite fun. At first, you’re disoriented, looking for the museum, or graphic explanations. But there’s nothing but the art, and you forget yourself, having fun exploring and finding fun ways to make each other laugh and get pictures we would remember. You really forget yourself for a time. Even on this rainy day there were influencers going around looking for the perfect shots.

Ms. YuErmei is now 92 and her children have taken over development and management of the project. Her mission is complete. I, on the other hand, have a new bucket list mission. To see the Tianjin Porcelain House in person and fairly judge between these two behemoths. This contest must be decided, and I will be the arbiter.

First Steps on the Silk Road

This is Dongbu Village. Picturesque, placid, well off the beaten path. A special place for those who know to search it out. 

Dongbu has a special claim to historical significance that we just had to see, if only to say that we were there. Across this narrow walking bridge is a tiny wharf, and there, that was where ships were loaded with the raw materials of special Jingdezhen porcelain, mined from the surrounding Gaoling hills, to be sailed down river to the design and manufacturing cluster, making this unassuming village the first step of the famed sea route of the Silk Road. From here, China’s porcelain and ceramic goods and masterpieces shipped all around China and the world. Quite cool. 

If you want to know more about the subject, I can recommend The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan, a great read covering the impact and evolution of The Silk Road throughout history from varying perspectives. He seems like a genuinely nice and approachable person, if that matters to you as it does to me. If that was all Dongbu had to offer, I would have been satisfied. After all, this was one stop on a day tour we had hired a driver for. But Dongbu has tricks and ways to surprise and delight. 

Walking back from the wharf, we passed a weathered door welcoming visitors to the MUSEUM. I cannot resist a museum. We learned about the geological processes that made Gaoling Hills the rich source of kaolinite that is so crucial to the highest quality Jingdezhen procelain. Today, kaolin is finding uses in all sorts of diverse industries, from atomic energy, electronics, medicine, building material, and much more. Wonderfully, this is all explained in english, in a museum that cannot get too many foreign visitors. I really appreciated this kind attention to detail. 

One final treat, and this pushed Dongbu to the very top, voted Most Memorable by my youngest son. A lunch prepared by a local family that serves as a resturant for people passing through. That, and the narrow bridge that roused just enough nervousness without being dangerous. My boys are Big City Boys, so this country-livin’ is a vivid experience they won’t forget. 

For me, the more modern buildings of the 1980–90s on this lunch side of the river were a flashback to my days in the South China manufacturing cluster. White small tile exteriors, concrete construction, three or four floors. These were the homes, dormitories, and often the factories where products of all kinds were churned out as fast as possible, to feed a world hungry for stuff, and dollars. All of that is gone now, resurfaced with superhighways, skyscrapers, golf courses, and high rise housing. The dirty manufacturing towns of the south became newly minted Tier 1 megacities. But if you travel far enough, hours by train and car, and hundreds of years back, you can find remembrances of times past and connection in the lingering shadows of an older center of human creativity and industriousness. 

Ceramic Art Avenue, Taoxichuan

Jingdezhen, in China’s Jiangxi Province, has 1700 years of specialization in the mining, design, and manufacture of ceramics. The highest quality ceramics for Chinese rulers and international markets came from this early “supercluster”.

Today, this legacy of greatness is finding new life in museums, artists studios, and young designers showing their wares in open markets. One such market showcases the latest creations of local ceramic aspiring artists and master craftsmen in the setting of an abandoned ceramics factory, the Ceramic Art Avenue at Taoxichuan.

This space just oozes “cool”. These buildings and streets really are an old converted ceramics processing plant that ceased operation only since 1958. The original exhaust towers are still here and get a lot of fan attention. 

The real fun to be had is window shopping the stalls to see the wide variety and offers. Each table has a “theme” and no two are ever alike. Everything below is entirely ceramic, believe me! 😊 

There are many places to get your treasures in Jingdezhen. We walked around several, and though we did our buying at another market, nothing beats Taoxichuan for variety and novelty. If you’re after the best prices, other places will be, I estimate, ten to thirty precent less. But you want to get the real Jingdezhen ceramics, and to be sure that you have, look at the underside for this marking. Then you know you’ve got the real thing. 

The commercial and tourism potential of Taixochuan reminds me of Shanghai’s Xintiandi, Beijing’s 789 Art District, or Chengdu’s Taiguli. The potential, not the reality. The culture and history, the space, the architecture with an air of “cool” is there in spades, but I wonder. In a country with thousands of years of history, lots of places have potential. The other examples above all have the airports, train stations, metro, hotels, and national brands to facilitate the millions of visitors necessary for success. Even if those visitors were possible, Jingdezhen is quite far from realizing this potential. I sincerely hope that Jingdezhen and Taoxichuan make it, but the odds are challenging! Someday, we will return to find out. 

Tea Culture in Hanxi Village

The story of China’s transformation is often cast in terms of a rural to urban shift. Hundreds of millions of people moved from rural areas to urban, from villages to towns, cities to megacities. These young people came in pursuit of jobs and a better life for their parents and children. Now thirty years later, their children are grown and having kids of their own. Cities have changed too, massively improved infrastructure and quality of life, but also costs. An apartment in Shanghai starts around 100,000 RMB/m2. Yeah, you read that right. $1300/sf. Outside the city center, prices are lower; still, 50K (per meter!) won’t buy much. Is it any wonder that young people are questioning old assumptions about where they want to live, investing in an apartment, or getting married and starting families? 

While this happened, the countryside and ancestral villages have lost much of their populations and economic reason for being. But now, people are looking for relief from city life, looking to the countryside and rediscovering China’s natural beauty. Hanxi Village, about 45 minutes drive fro Jingdezhen, is the very definition of rural, but something interesting is happening there. Tea is grown around Hanxi, a black tea, not green, and the fields of tea are inspiring visitors to connect to nature, and find inspiration where not too long ago the future was in doubt. 

Coffee was my adult drink growing up, and I guess you can say I’m a Coffee Guy, but I appreciate a good tea. I was spared embarrassment, good, and a nice tea ceremony, sad, because this is not drinking tea. The driver we had hired for the day helpfully told us that this is scented tea used for stuffing pillows and scented bags, stuff like that. I resisted the urge to stuff my pockets. 

There is no charge to walk around the fields, but not in the fields. Nice gravel and plank walkways provide safe and easy access to high quality viewing platforms at intervals in a short 25 minute walk. I admit, it was really impressive, particularly so, being in such a rural area. 

These platforms were not built only for viewing tea fields, because there is also an Arts Festival, the “Arts at Fuliang” Festival, beginning in 2021. Arts at Fuliang was inspired by a Japanese arts festival designed in 2000 to bring visitors to aging and natural-disaster stricken villages. The lessons of Japan, a similarly aging nation, are being put into service here. We could see evidence of the festival in signage and location markers for installations throughout the area. There is one permanent installation set at the top of a hill, named “The Light of the Earth”, by Ma Yansong. When viewed at night, lights were illuminate the shape and be seen for miles around. 

There are many of these projects all across China, using design and art to bring in tourists and revitalize old communities. This is the impression I get from Hanxi, that if we return in five years time the state of investment and professional development will be impressive. Below, we can see an impressive convention center style building for showcasing the art show. This was in final stages of construction but shows the seriousness of investment going into the area. 

The rain and cloud cover obscured the hills and brought the horizon even closer, letting us distill our attention only to the orderly green rows of densely manicured bushes. Our visit lasted less than an hour, more than ample time to find peace of mind.  

Ancient Kiln and Folk Custom Museum

There’s a mouthful.

This AAAAA(5!)-rated National Tourist Attraction is a themed ceramic culture park plus a premium ceramics retail mall plus a protected base of production plus a school patriotism education base plus a national tourism scenic spot. There are also temples, lakes, and musical performances. It is big, bold, and ambitious, like the statue of the god who greats you. 

We had planned to split a day between this nature park and another museum, the Imperial Kiln Museum (more of that later). My compulsion to visit all museums is well known, but two majors in one day, with a three generation, five member family team? Nah. 

Beyond the entrance, walking through peaceful bamboo wooded areas, listening as streams flow by, all the while winking reminders of the ceramic art appear to be growing right out of the ground. 

These are the real places where designs were conceived, clay was shaped, and everyone from the workers stocking the kiln wood, to the master craftsmen, to the merchants negotiating the comings and goings, it was all happening on this site, and it is STILL happening, right here in front of our eyes.

This is not your traditional museum. More like walking around a small town, this building over here will have memorabilia and profiles of the artists who have worked there, the next will be an active workshop, then a kiln surrounded by racks on racks of staged shapes ready to be glazed, and finally, galleries full of product for sale. 

And I mean, artwork for sale. I wasn’t prepared for this folk custom museum to more closely resemble a luxury mall. Whatever the ceramic equivalent of Louis Vuitton is, you will find it here. The Emporer, his household, and the governing administration were supplied by Jingdezhen, and from the looks of these shops and the prices, they must still be. These are one-of-a-kind, and priced accordingly. From small tea services to installations fit for a corporate lobby, they had it all. 

Signs at the entrance encouraged us to “visit the Forbidden City in the north, and visit the Ancient Kilns in the south.” That is shooting for the stars! But the Ancient Kiln and Folk Customer Museum left a great impression, surprised and delighted us, and justifies it’s confidence. 

Studio-Pei Imperial Kiln Museum

This museum is just eye candy and doesn’t care who knows it. 

The Imperial Kiln Museum in the heart of Jingdezhen is built on and over the grounds of the imperial kilns that supplied the Emperor and the government. The architects of Studio Zhu-Pei have elevated the buildings to the level of the museum pieces displayed within and paid full respect to the legacy and importance of the porcelain industry of Jingdezhen. 

The shape of the galleries are inspired by the curved domes of the old brick kilns used to fire the ceramics. In fact, some of the very bricks used in the museum are old kiln bricks. Kiln bricks lose their effectiveness over time, to retain and distribute heat, requiring the kilns to be renewed every few years. Over the centuries, many older homes in Jingdezhen recycled exhausted kiln bricks in their construction, spreading the DNA of ceramic making into the very bones of the community. To incorporate this into the walls of the museum is totally cool. 

The displays are amazing too, of course. You get the feeling that only the choicest pieces are on display; a vase here, a bowl there, always singly and encased in a tamper-proof display. There must be a full time staff working all day and all night to clean the fingerprints from the glass. 

But the real star of the show is the museum. 

The majority of visitors all shared the same mission: to hunt around for cool shots. Influencers, by the way, were everywhere. I doubt there were ten people there just to experience the museum. The average age must have been in the twenties. 

This museum opened only in 2020. Considering the impact of Covid, the museum has been accepting visitors for less than two years. This attraction really is a world-class project placed in the downtown center of a city only just promoted from fifth tier to fourth (find an explanation of the Chinese tier system here). 

That is a kind of stunning fact. A city with fourth tier access and infrastructure is hosting tier one attractions. To put that in real terms, the tickets for all trains going to and from Jingdezhen go on sale online two weeks before the holiday, and they sold out immediately. We will leave the park with one more image and a glimpse of the future. 

The China of the next twenty years will be entirely different economically and generationally from the China of the past twenty. These are big bets being made. The Studio-Pei Imperial Kiln Museum is a jewel in the crown and a fine representative of the proud history of Jingdezhen. 

The Purity of San Bao Village

An art institute where international students can learn, apprentice, and enjoy the simple life of working with their hands in an idyllic and creative setting.

That’s what I got from Google. There is so much more. SanBao Village harbors bigger dreams.

SanBao Village is really a twelve kilometer stretch of natural spaces separating oases of hotels and B&Bs, boutique restaurants, coffee shops, and artists studios and galleries. The walk through the beautiful hills is good for the fit, and there are ebike rentals and shuttle buses. .

SanBao became an international art institute thanks to founding members LiJianshen and LiWenying in 1998, who saw the opportunity to satisfy the need of young foreign artists who wanted to study ceramic art in Jingdezhen but didn’t know where to start. A few farmhouses were converted to studios and this is where we find the galleries and museums today. 

One minute you’re sharing space with the ducks, the next — after a good 25 minute hike — you’re sipping cappucino across from a five star hotel. 

SanBao was our last stop on a six day trip tightly packed with sightseeing, new restaurants, and lots of rain. Like most tourist locations in Jingdezhen, SanBao is oozing historical cool factor, but the infrastructure hasn’t caught up to the dream. I’d even say the planning hasn’t caught up to the dream. Can’t speak to the funding, but my guess is will be a slowly improving second tier center of attraction for the next decade.

To be perfectly honest, I got tired as the days passed. This was the first trip I really made knowing where I was a priority, and committed to sharing the experience. This approach to “mindful traveling” has been so healthy and positive for me, especially your warm comments of encouragement.

I learned a few lessons for future trips:

1. Schedule recovery time. We don’t have to work or play 18 hour days. Even an office job doesn’t have meetings from dawn to dusk (if you’re doing it right).

2. Consider ahead of time how to present the story, and think about the images that will support that story. I found myself back at the hotel, later back at home, asking why I didn’t get this or that shot.

3. Have a story in mind, but be ready to change it when something completely unexpected is discovered. This happened over and over, and instead of being frustrating, I was reminded why we should do what we can to go out and explore the world.

This is the last in the Jingdezhen Travelogue Series. I think this is our template for travel later in the year. We will be back next week with activities in Shenzhen.

Thanks again for all your support. Your claps and comments guide and motivate me!

TangLangShan

There are “Ten Peaks of Shenzhen”. This is the story of one of them.

Tanglang Mountain County Park is in Nanshan District, where my home is, yet this is my first visit. My experiment in “Mindful Traveling” has brought awareness of the historical richness and uniqueness of the faraway places that we visit, but also the realization that I know very little about the city that I have called home for twenty years. Let’s begin to remedy that.

Tanglang park is 15,000 acres, or 23 square miles, of heavily forested (87%) hills topped by Tanglang Peak. At 430 meters, it is not the tallest or the stumpiest, but it was voted into the Top 10 by Shenzhen citizens. Our boys had a school event at 3pm, so with limited time we struck off on one of the easier pathways winding up to Jimu Pavilion and the viewing platforms. One hour up and one hour down, if we hustled. 

My first two years working in China, 1997–98, I barely even knew Shenzhen existed. We lived some ways north, in Changan, a very concrete and sheetmetal factory town. I remember the Mattel (of Barbie fame) factory across the street from the squat block building that served as our dormitory and office. The street would be clogged with container trucks and hundreds of workers clocking in and out at all hours. Back then we would work 28 days straight, then go to the Fuyong Ferry Terminal direct to Hong Kong for a weekend to recharge and reapply for a 30 day tourist visa. Back then there were no business visas, and I remember the company I worked for was the first in the furniture industry to register a trading office, despite furniture export taking place since 1992. 

An overcast sky, relatively cool, perfect for long walks; threatening rain, but holding off just for us. As you can see, we shared the route with a diverse cast of characters. Locals were joined by Hong Kong day-trippers, parents with school-age kids, trail runners getting their workouts in on the predictable surface, and there was even a group of youngsters guided by teachers performing Three Kingsdoms lectures and telling stories. 

Rounding a corner, we’re greeted with a warning that always surprises me, though I should know by now. South China has monkeys. Not large, and not many, and you never ever see them in city settings (as in India), but in the forests, they are definitely hanging about. So watch out. These little buggers are known to steal anything not nailed down. 

The mural didn’t oversell the experience and wasn’t a minute too soon. Right around the corner, we see the first one, calmy sitting in a crook of a tree, minding its business. Everyone stops in their tracks, stares, and then there’s one over there, and two small ones playing in the trees. The leaves rustle, and one is walking on the wall behind you. 

Someone tosses a banana to waiting hands, because, of course. Everyone gets what they want. The celebrities get the attention and the spoils, and the paparazzi their momentoes. The security guards stand by watchfully. What can they do? Seriously, we should not feed our junk food to these animals. Yet doing so is always irresistable. 

Quickly, we walked on. My wife and I had been to Emei Mountain years ago and experienced the frighteningly more aggressive Emei monkeys. Those work in gangs on single tourists and extort sweets. I guess they are the same species, but they sure seemed larger, and they didn’t mind showing their teeth. 

Jimu Pavilion beckons, so we trudge on. My hips and knees don’t take the pounding as readily as years before. I still fear the descent more than the trip up.  

I used to hike a lot. Growing up rural, and in spite of wanting more than anything to live in a city, I would wind up on this or that hiking trail in Hong Kong or Dongguan on the rare weekends. Hong Kong has hundreds of kilometers of excellent hiking trails. The Hong Kong Trail that snakes around the island, or the Maclehose Trail in the New Territories. You could see monkeys there too. It hits different when you’re out there on your own. I always trekked alone in those years. I didn’t know what I was doing, or what to do. 

I want to compliment the quality of facilities and services all along the route. Top notch, all the way. Restrooms clean and comprehensive, drinking water, and even food trucks! This Coffee Bus was positioned 160m below the summit. You may give me grief for harping on how much China has changed, but if you know, you know. 

The stairs started from here, just a few short minutes of perfect steps all the way to the top with rope railings in place. This park really is one of the best maintained that we’ve tried here.

Jimu Pavilion sits at the summit so when you see it, you’ve made it. From the peak we can see all of Shenzhen Bay and into the northern end of HongKong’s New Territories. 

We can see much of Nanshan District from here. The bay and the coastal plain, just fifteen years ago most of the land was submerged. That’s right, much of the land past the white apartment towers and all the tall office buildings was built on reclaimed land. 

The bridge in the distance is the Shenzhen Bay Bridge connecting Shenzhen and Hong Kong. This is the location of the famous Shenzhen Bay Park pictures that I use in so many articles. And our apartment is somewhere out there! 

Shenzhen has so many nice parks, peaks, museums, music halls, libraries, and so much besides. While we are discussing and researching the next trip to take place later in the Summer, exploring our home city and getting to know it better is a solid idea. 

Shenzhen's Newest Library

I was a strong reader growing up, and I still am. 

I remember the public library in Arcadia, WI, of the Carnegie Foundation endowment that helped fund small libraries in the early 1900s. The smell of that old wood floor and brick-walled building. I remember books about black and white hollywood monster movies from the 50s, Wolfman and Dracula, and alien invasions. It’s funny what sticks in the mind. I still love a great library. Peaceful and quiet, nobody bothers you.

Shenzhen’s newest library, “the north division” is a work of modern art and technology. The total area under six floors is 72,000 square meters. This is a “smart” public library, also the functioning city literature archive, document collection and editing center, network data center, and dispatching center. This is a forty minute metro ride from where we live. Not exactly close, but worth the trip!

I have had a library card for the Shenzhen system since 2022, so this isn’t my first library. We usually frequent the older library in Futian district. The Futian branch is 50,000 square meters but older and doesn’t compare to the comfort and selection of this one. This new branch has 8 million(!) books and seating for 2500 people. 

All of the books in the above wall are English, which makes me so very happy. The feast of colors and the obvious age of the books show how many people must have enjoyed and benefited from reading before us. Like a giant cousin of my grandmother’s bookshelf upstairs in the country house. There were stacks of National Geographics where a ten year old could see the world. She had The Odessa File, which I wasn’t old enough for but read anyway. Her copy already looked thirty years old. I never stopped to think why she and grandpa had a book about hunting nazis. 

What we can see and explore is not the whole story. Under the six floors, there are three floors of underground storage area, fully automated and intelligent using an ASRS (auto-storage and retrieval system), which will deliver the book you want in under eight minutes. My wife tested the system to find a biography of LinYutang and it worked like a charm. 

This library and the art museum that sits right across the square were both designed by German studio KSP Jürgen Engel Architekten. I think it has a real German aesthetic. The impression is competence and efficiency first and comfortable enough where it counts. 

Libraries supercharge personal growth, and contribute to making societies fairer. Information set free raises everyone’s fortunes. Spending time here basking in the sights, smells, and (quiet) sounds of learning makes my heart at peace and anxiety about where the worlds heading less. 

The Art of Alphonse Mucha

[Author’s Note: Includes tasteful pictures of the female form.]

For me, going to an art show is like Augustus Gloop going to Wonka’s. I find the combination of quiet, unique and beautiful imagery, and the history fascinating. Bring on the chocolate river! Let’s visit the Art of Alphonse Mucha at the Seaworld Culture and Art Center in Shenzhen.

This modern style museum opened in 2017. I remember my wife and I walking and first noticing it. “Shenzhen has things like this!?” was our reaction, betraying our long history and the humble origins of this city. The museum and surrounding park were both designed by Japanese architect Fumihiko Maki, his first project in China. 

Alphonse Mucha(1860–1939) is a Czech painter, illustrator, and graphic artist. He is best known for theatre promotion posters featuring stage actress Sarah Bernhardt. The show starts here, with the posters and the partner that made Mucha famous. 

What stood out to be immediately was the facial expressions nd expressive postures. The most subtle shades of emotion, and variety of expressions, the perfect coordination and balance of head tilt, body language, hand position. It was like looking at photographs. He grabs your attention, doesn’t let it, and directs you to the message. The man was made for marketing.

Below is the first painting in the gallery, I think advertising a comedy. The only man facing the viewer, maybe the only man there, the side-eye he’s giving the revelers, his black suit, the visual leaps out and demands that you wonder what he is thinking at that moment. I would buy a ticket just to learn. He’s me at any party.

The Muse, Sarah Bernhardt. Mucha’s first poster of her made him famous and revolutionized poster design. The long, narrow shape that showed off her height and figure, the captivating expressions, always the flower motifs. These were a hit and instantly collectible. Ms. Bernhardt got all the juiciest roles, even some traditionally for men, Hamlet! 

The late 1800s saw a convergence of mass production techniques, affordable consumer goods, and the relaxing of advertising laws, which in France previously prohibited large prints on streets and buildings. Brands and trademarks began to demand packaging design and commercial advertising. Mucha’s talent for feminine vitality and grace made him truly popular with the public. I’d like to see AI try to do this! 

But for me, it is all about the expressions, full of mystery, and yet bringing us into confidence. 

In the early 1900s, Mucha’s work was so much in demand that he published a book of decorative elements that other artists and craftsmen to transfer to wood, metal, ceramics, or paper. I can’t get over the lady on the front cover. She is summoning something evil and delicious, I’m sure of it. 

But for me, it was all about the faces. Mucha understood human nature, a trait I’m always looking for. 

We’re very fortunate to have a resource like the Seaworld Culture and Art Center so close to us. Fortunate for so many things. The Alphonse Mucha show was a brilliant way to celebrate May 1st. I’m grateful to be able to share some of what we saw with you. 

Gankeng Ancient Town

Shenzhen’s Hakka History

Historical places have an immersive cool factor that people love to connect with. The older and the more relatable, the better. Preserved old neighborhoods, or Ancient Streets, exist in nearly every major city in China, bringing history close up for everyone to appreciate. Xian, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, ChongQing, Luoyang, Changsha, Guangzhou — I’ve seen a few.

Shenzhen has been my adopted home for 23 years. Techhub-Shenzhen, Special-Economic-Zone-Shenzhen, gateway to the Pearl River Delta Megalopolis, it all happened so fast that we easily forget that Shenzhen only began the journey to “global technology hub” in 1980. Prior to that, to us business-minded folks (pity us), Shenzhen was thought of as a fishing village.

But Shenzhen City did not exist prior to March 5, 1979. Bao’an County was removed to establish Shenzhen City, and a new special economic zone. Later, Bao’an was restored, and Gankeng Village now is part of the Buji District of Bao’an County. Gankeng Ancient Town (formerly Gankeng Village), is a redevelopment project by OCT (not OCP, different, but yeah, kinda the same). By the time I hit the scene in March, 1997, you’d never know that Shenzhen was only 18 years old.

These tourist destinations are designed for family fun and education. Everyone has their needs met. There is architectural and cultural history, cool shopping, influencer hotspots, and food, lots of traditional foods. The kids just go crazy for these treats. The big kids, too. Something about the setting makes everything taste better. 

Old becomes New in these new imaginings laid over 300 year old alleyways. In a world where the old is more often bulldozed to make way for even wider freeways and even taller skyscrapers, it is nice to think about walking in the footsteps of others centuries before. 

This worn blockhouse was built in 1921 to “resist bandits and protect the village”. When bandits attacked, villagers would barricade themselves in the blockhouse. For 20 years it has stood against said bandits, the Japanese, and finally, the Kuomintang forces. Today the cramped space tells stories of the resistance, the counter spy back-and-forth, and the punishments and damage the village suffered. In this location, the first radio station connected the southern resistance to central planning, sending vital back and forth communication of positions and plans. There used to be 500(!) of these towers in the Hakka area. This may be one of the last. 

A nice free museum welcomed us in from the increasingly persistent rain. Hakka history and culture is mapped out in detail. Originally from the North, the Hakka people migrated south in a series of moves after the fall of the Song dynasty (1270).  

Very interesting how this branch of the Han never fully assimilated with other southern populations, maintaining a separate-though-related language and their own customs and beliefs. Today we can find Hakka populations all over Southeast Asia, in Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and even as far away as Jamaica. The effect of the blockhouse, the repeated migrations, reinforces the sense that there was a history of conflict in this area that the museum sort of glosses over. Moving on!   

Do you know what snuff is? This is a snuff shop! You can laugh, I know I’m like a kid visiting the adult store. I thought snuff had gone the way of the Victorians. Apparently, snuff is finely ground tobacco leaves, and it originated in Brazil, got to the Europeans in the 17th century, and by 1650 had reached China. The little decorative bottles look really neat. 

There are so many uses for this snuff 🤭!

You can: knock yourself out, clear your heart, stop snoring, alleviate mental depression, stop a stuffy nose, ventilate your lungs, relieve vertigo, and expell rheumatism!

I made a deal that when we come again, I get to try. Which one?

And while we’re on the subject of relieving aches and pains, how about free booze? This is traditional Hakka rice wine, also known as Yellow Wine, or Mother’s Wine, because it was often brewed by women in the home. The wine can be used in cooking, most commonly in a ginger chicken dish, or drunk directly. 

Is it funny, how we will plan vacations around major holidays, waiting for months in anticipation of the chance to fly a few hours to some new city? The truth is, I have never explored my home city beyond a few functional locales that could be counted on ten fingers! My haunts include a coffee shop or two, the library, the park, Shake Shack, and not much else. We get into grooves and repeat the same routines over and over. I will never get tired of visiting Ancient Towns. They show how modern cities and traditional culture can not only coexist, but thrive. 

Granddad's Bluff

[Author’s Note: My brand is Asian experiences, but we aren’t always in Asia, and the world contains so much wonder and cool stuff to share. Following a recent family trip to Wisconsin and New York, there are a few experiences I just must share.]

LaCrosse, Wisconsin (population 50,000) was the large town of my childhood. My Grandparents would get in their Chevy Blazer on the weekend and drive out to the superstore of the day to buy groceries for the family feasts. I may recall it was Shopko? We would get to eat at a restaurant like McDonalds or Old Country Buffet, perhaps rarely a supperclub like Nob Hill. They showered us with treats. Good times for a kid.

Now that we’re all grown up, my Mom, brother, and sister live in Lacrosse so I visit every year or so. More frequently these next few years, lest you think me a poor son. We decided in lieu of zoning out on Netlix to enjoy the summer weather in The Great Wisconsin Outdoors. My brother, who is a sportsman of some skill, suggested hiking Grandad’s Bluff.

This area of Wisconsin is called a Driftless Area, so named due to not being covered by the thick ice glaciers that came south out of Canada over the past 2.6 million years. When the ice sheets bypassed the area, the hill and valley topography remained unchanged by the glaciers that rolled over everywhere else, grinding down the hills and filling in the valleys with debris. This Driftless Area is what we see when looking out from Granddad’s Bluff. The plain where the city stretches, to the Mississippi and on to Minnesota. 

We are walking on trails designed for biking. As we walk around the switchbacks, I imagine bikers bombing down the trail, leaping over boulders, barely skidding around corners. 

Sure enough, here they come...

But not the trim speeding daredevils throwing caution to the wind, but middle-aged couples toiling painfully up the trail or (very) cautiously picking their way down around the hairpin corners. Always so nice, mindful of walkers, and always, always with a greeting.

These trails were built by professionals and it really shows. Signage is bright and easy to follow, the trails are color coded, and easy to understand. If I’d been there myself, I doubt I’d have gotten lost! Anyways, my brother knew where to go. 

But there’s more than just a hike to the summit. History leaves traces for those on the lookout. Anyone would walk right by this slot in the hill and never give a second thought. 

Here’s what the “fissure” looked like in 1865… 

This is the tramway viewed from the bottom, used to send sandstone mined from the bluffs above, down to the plain and river.

Like all towns, buildings utilized the surrounding forests for materials, but wood structures only take a town so far. After a series of devastating fires, the city decreed that new buildings be constructed from stone. The surrounding sandstone bluffs provided the new fuel for growth of the city.

Stone, cut from the quarry site, was pulled by horse to the top of the tramway and sent down by rail. How were the empties pulled back up? The weight of the cars going down pulled the empty cars up using long cables. This quarrying continued almost uninterrupted until the 1930s.

The bluff already known as “Grandad” was a tourist attraction and city landmark, already famous, and the source of debate between citizens and quarry developers who wanted to start blasting.

Local papers got involved and a public outcry led to the Hixon family, led by Ellen Hixon, to contribute $12,000 to a fund dedicated to purchasing Grandad’s Bluff for the city. If you’re thinking, hey, that’s not going to get very far, only $3000 more bought the land and funded roads and other improvements. Inflation, right?

Mark Twain put his feelings concerning Lacrosse the best, when in his book, “Life On The Mississippi”, he said, “Here is a town of 12,000 to 13,000 population, with electric lighted streets, and blocks of buildings which are stately enough and also architechturally fine enough to command respect in any city. It is a choice town, and we made satisfactory use of the hour allowed us, in roaming it over…” Ha! I was content with three days. Save some for next time, yeah? 

This short series will take in sights from our two week Summer working vacation. After spending time in Chicago, IL, Madison and LaCrosse, WI, and New York, I feel compelled to say something about America and our impressions.

America is booming. Construction and signs of activity are everywhere. When we visited in 2023, Wisconsin was visibly robust, but New York was still in Covid shock. That is not true in 2024. Streets and shops are busy. Construction is everywhere. The business leaders, school adminstrators, and educators that we met with are optimistic.

But I don’t want to gloss over the unevenness of the prosperity. You can say I am far from those who are left out. That’s fair, but not as much as you think. What I want to highlight is that when we say as much, the reaction from many people is a mix of skepticism and a sense that I shouldn’t be commenting positively on America. There is a sense of pessimism overhanging many people. What surprises me is how the pessimism is welcomed, even defended.

Americans have always been scared of their own shadow, and seem to enjoy the sport of finding bogey monsters to fret about. But I think this goes beyond that. Fear is a powerful motivator, ratcheted up to get us engaged and moving where politicians, so-called business leaders, and others want us to go. Not where we want to go. If we’re feeling down about the state of the world, it’s worth our time to pause, pull back, and look broadly at our direction. Humanity still has everything to play for.

An Afternoon At MoMa

Three Installations that made me uneasy. 

We started visiting New York during the 2000s, as an essential part of decompression and recovery after attending the exhausting and mentally draining Las Vegas Home Furnishing Market. I know what you’re thinking, “Cry me a river, with your painful trips to sunny Las Vegas.” But you may not appreciate the full picture; fly in from Hong Kong, four days conversing with innane people you don’t care for, four sleepless nights because jetlag… I was hallucinating by the time we were allowed to escape. 

My wife and I are Big City Folk, and New York is the utimate Big City. The diversity of food, people, sights, it never grows old for me. When will China embrace food carts on every corner? And we always start by checking what’s new at MoMA.

The three installations I’ve picked out to highlight are all large, fill a single room, engage multiple senses, and for me, summon a vague sense of unease. What common thread ties these together for me, if for no one else?

This is Montien Boonma’s House of Hope. Mr. Boonma (1953–2000) was a modern sculptor from Thailand who specialized in using local materials and motifs to evoke traditional culture.

House of Hope uses thousands of prayer bead strands to mimic the shape of a house or temple. These beads were crafted from special traditional Thai herbs and spices, the intended effect to give an olfactory as well as visual experience. I can’t recall any lingering scents in the space, maybe that is due to the age of the piece (1995).

The sounds of the gently swaying strands is memorable, quietly clicking as one tapped into another, then they into others. I imagined going up the steps and walking through the hanging strands. Being surrounded by the gently swaying beads, disrupting the flow. Wondering if the strands would tangle and hold me back. 

This is Richard Serra’s Equal. Mr. Serra (1938-March 2024) was known for just this type of large scale, post-minimalist work. He emphasized the relationship between the viewer and the setting.

Equal (please watch this excellent Youtube video) is four pairs of stacked forged steel units. Each block is roughly 5 feet x 6 feet and weights forty tons. Yes, tons. Notice the blocks are not symmetrically posed, and are also imperfectly square, making the angles and gaps attention-worthy.

There is a great sense of the weight here, and one can’t help wondering how heavy these blocks are, how could they possible have shifted these into this confined space. Maybe these blocks have been here forever and MoMA grew up around them? The entire impression is one of impossibly ancient artifacts. What use could humans have had for such monuments? 

This is Mike Kelley’s Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites. Mike Kelley (1954–2012) was an American artist who specialized in found objects. His many influential works combined many talents and collaborated with many other artists and musicians, as well as being a prolific writer himself.

Deodorized Central Mass with Satellites is made from stuffed animals collected from secondhand stores, thrift stores, and yardsales. The name comes from the strcuture of the piece; one central large cluster and thirteen satellites arrayed around.

Look closely at the bundles. All faces, eyes, are turned inwards. Though there are many eyes, none look outward. Yet.

Notice the pointed diamond-shaped protrusions on the walls? These are “deodorizers”, spraying a fine pine-scented mist into the air. I don’t recall noticing the scent here either, maybe the space is too tall, or my nose isn’t sensitive. 

Is this about wasteful consumer culture? Perhaps repressed trauma? The initial impression is first about the colors. The eye is drawn magnetically to the bright colors in the white space of the tall room, not even registering the shapes and spacing. These masses of fuzzy flesh hang heavily, not moving, awaiting some call to return to awareness. 

What thread connects these artists and their works for me? My darker imagination and obsession Howard Phillips Lovecraft, of course. The distorting, dangling bead-tentacles, the cyclopian architecture of At The Mountains of Madness, and the many-armed-and-eyed Shoggoths. Probably not a connection the arists expected.

I didn’t see it until partway through this writing. What gets me, and why I’m always thinking about his stories, is the completeness of the world he created. I contemplate changing, and how people can change. If we want to imagine we are someone else, you cannot change one, or many, things. You must change everything. This is why we remain who we are.

The Albertine, New York

This French bookstore was worth waiting seven years. 

As mentioned here, the first time we visited New York was around 2015, a hectic recovery vacation after the Vegas Furniture Market before returning to Asia. I remember we stayed at the St. Regis, because one morning an episode of 30 Rock was filming there.

I had made a list of all the places we needed to see. Couldn’t get them all in a long weekend, but we hit the highlights. Times Square, the M&M Store, MoMA, Magnolia Bakery, you know, the top tier sights. After these, bookstores are my priority, before Amazon shuttered them all. The Strand (historical and cool), The Rizzoli (stately and classical), The Argosy (stuffy and creepy); as the years went by, my family and circumstance allowed me to get to each. But the Albertine…

In 2017, our boys were 8 and 4 years old, so family outings required extensive prep and baggage. A quaint French bookstore that you need to walk halfway up Central Park to visit just wasn’t agreeable. Then 2019, Dad was quite frazzled by some events happening at work, and again, the drive wasn’t there. The next four years, we all lost that time, and much else besides. Come 2023, the Dotta Family returned to The Big Apple, but we had to meet this guy, see this friend, you know how it is, we’ll get to it next year.

And so, finally, Summer 2024, everyone is healthy, untroubled, and amenable to letting Dad see his bookstore with the distinctive ceiling.

The Albertine is in partnership somehow with the Cultural Services division of the French Embassy, its stated mission to bring to life the French Government’s commitment to French-American intellectual exchange. This shop acts as a hub that partners with other bookstores across the country to install “French corners” in bookstores where French selections are offered. 

The interior design feels so warm and familiar to me. US Furniture designers’ worship this style. I can’t tell you how many designs I worked with lifted elements found all over this store, from the parquet floor pattern to the cherry burgundy of the bookshelves, the silver filagree borders, to the square little metal caps on the table legs, it is all comfortingly familiar. It felt like coming home, though our own home has nothing like it. 

A component of the French formula that American’s no doubt find baffling is the pricing policy. The Albertine complies with French law that states that book prices cannot be discounted more than five percent. These “fixed” book prices are in place to protect publishers and booksellers in France and preserve a thing dubbed “biblio-diversity.” While this sounds a noble mission, I notice the aim isn’t to support authors specifically. I suppose America didn’t invent trickle-down economics or need to inspire the French. 

The ceiling of the second floor is a hand painted mural of constellations, stars, and planets. Sitting under this canopy, the warm wood tones, the worn soft leather, I could really settle in and read for a few hours uninterrupted. Also, I don’t read French. Yep, most of the books in this French bookstore are in French. 

In half an hour, maybe less, it was time to go. Was The Albertine worth the wait? It certainly was to me. Seven years is a long time to wait, but we didn’t stand still. My boys have grown, my wife and I have grown closer, we have weathered challenges and, dare I say, made progress in our lives. We came when we were ready. The Albertine waited for me.