the title of this blog is 上海有什么空灵的，which to me means "what artistry/intangible aspects does Shanghai possess." It's kind of a rhetorical question, but I left out the question mark because I don't mean it to be sarcastic. I really don't know the answer yet, and I've heard a lot from Lonely Planet and others that Shanghai is soulless.
So, every post will be something in (perhaps small, but I hope never meek) opposition to the sentiment that nothing meaningful happens in Shanghai besides making lots of money.
I may come out of these two weeks never wanting to go back to the city, but I need to try to find something in it. I will, and this blog will be exclusively devoted to those times when I find:
expression
care
passion
honesty
in Shanghai.
3 comments:
shanghai's got soul. when i was in hangzhou, a prof of mine from tufts who'd earned her master's at the theater academy there set up a visit for me during a large festival they were having. it's one of three such academies in all of china, and was an absolute hotbed for intellectual and artistic stimulation.
i met a handful of really interesting chinese theater people, saw a really provocative taiwanese show (serious political issues done all next wave / avant-garde? in the PRC? nice.), and actually got myself on a date with a directing/translating student there. she took me around a bunch of shanghai and we ate and drank in dives, ironically did touristy things, and marvelled at the technocentric hyperreality of Pudong from a safe distance across the water in the increasingly antiquated (but fascinatingly 1930s or so america) Bund on the west bank.
i say: have a great time. if there's a city you'll look for soul and find none in china, it's probably beijing. i've had my least fun there. but didn't you live there for a while? and wasn't there something to find even there? good luck, man, keep us posted.
oh, and by the way: at my premiere theatrical performance in new york city (after college), a car exploded. yeah. we're doing a intra-city tour of Comedy of Errors in parks, and when we were in Astoria last weekend, a car on the street behind us on the East River caught on fire and exploded. boom. it was during Act V, so we finished up the play and bowed just as a cop came driving through the park and the audience to get to the scene. it was sweet.
so, that and the fact that it's 7 am and i've yet to go to sleep because i'm finishing up take-home work from the office pretty much sum up what my life has been and will be like. lots of theater and busting my ass to support it. i live on the upper west side with three tufts friends, btw, which is the last possible piece of information that situates 'what's up.'
do that stuff.
-david
i also would like to take this time to point out what time you posted. i don't know if you remember, but i'll have you know that that number has followed me just as aggressively all these years. i sure hope you know what i'm talking about.
"...this blog will be exclusively devoted to those times when I find: expression, care, passion, and honesty in Shanghai."
Hmm, looks like this is going to be a pretty empty blog. hahahah. I kid, I kid. ^^
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