Helen Couchman’s Workers

Beijing-based artist, Granite Studio friend, and occasional anonymous commentator Helen Couchman has been winging around the world this past month promoting her new book Workers.  Last December, Helen snuck onto the construction site for the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube and offered to take the portraits of any worker who wished to have his or her photograph taken.  Helen then returned the next week and presented each person she photographed with their own copy of the print to keep.  The Australian newspaper The Age this week features an audio slideshow of Helen’s photographs and commentary on her project.  Be sure to check it out and congratulations, Helen!

August 7th, 2008

Beijing 2008: Changing priorities and the “No-Fun” Olympics

There’s a scene in the movie Animal House, where Dean Wormer informs the Delta Chis that the fraternity has been placed on “double secret probation.” I now know how that feels. There’s been a lot of talk in the pubs and online about what some have dubbed the “No Fun” Olympics.  Restaurants and bars are closed, new restrictions put in place, never mind the crackdown on visas which drastically reduced the foreign imprint on the city.  It a few of us wondering how these campaigns meshed with the goals of the Olympics, one of which had been to showcase Beijing as a modern, international, and cosmopolitan city.

The answer: Priorities shifted.

Those aspects of Beijing that the resident foreigner population enjoyed the most–the casual funkiness of the rooftop patios and street fairs in Nanluoguxiang, the let-it-all-hang-out vibe of a Sanlitun’r Saturday bacchanal, the mix of cultures from around the world, and the different gatherings and meetings to discuss topics related to China and beyond…

Well, that’s not really part of the plan.  It was too casual, too loose, too…dare I say it…fun.

As I wrote yesterday, the Olympics are a chance for the world to come to China, but this time (unlike, say,

August 7th, 2008

A long way to drive…

Walking from the office to the local xiaomaibu for my usual breakfast of champions (two diet cokes and a jianbing), I happened to bump into a Dutch fellow who inquired of me where he might find a market that sells bacon and eggs.  Eggs are easy.  Bacon in this part of Haidian? Not so much.  We got to talking and it turns out that he drove to Beijing from Holland in a 44-year old Volvo.  He says the ride was uneventful, though the Chinese border guards did raise their rifles as his car appeared on the highway coming towards them.  After some comical raising of hands and “Don’t Shoot!” it turned all to the good: they let him and his car in, and he’s staying here on campus for the Olympic Games.  No word on whether he ever found his ration of bacon.

 

August 7th, 2008

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