Beijing_1:7

Like Rome, Beijing is one of those eternal cities.
It's ancient, it makes no apologies, and it sprawls forever.
The Emperor's Summer Palace located on a lake is contained within the city.
Somehow on a map, the city looks compact enough to consider walking in districts of interest.
No way=the first place we made this mistake was at the Forbidden City. Enormous takes on a new meaning=walking from end to end is an all day event.
[photos in next post]

The ancient and modern constantly converge in the capital city:
Rickshas and the Metro built by Russia in the 70s.
Bell Tower and Drum Tower versus parabola shaped skyscrapers.
The city's population is growing at an exponential rate, threatening the hutongs with new People's Housing complexes and condos.
[hutong photos in a later post]

After this short intro to Beijing, I've divided the photos into seven other categories to follow. I'm hoping all eight sections will give a more rounded view of this incredible city.

Macau

Like Las Vegas, Macau is a city within a city: the veneer of gambling etched in meganeon on the surface diverts attention from the Portugese-Chinese cultural blend thriving just beneath the bling.
Long walks up narrow hills reveal this culture. Similarly, the Portugese architecture+decoration illuminate the exterior, while the Chinese underbelly exposes another reality.
The European gloss carries a sentimental familiarity, but for me, it's difficult to turn away from the Asian texture and visual richness.
Local cuisine is where both collide in unexpected, extraordinary ways.
I've been back several times since Macau is just a five minute ferry ride from Zhuhai, China.

Hungry Ghost

Singapore has celebrated its version of Halloween already. Mid-September is the time for a month of Hungry Ghost rituals.
Local legend tells tales of the Gates of Hell opening for a short time to allow earthlings to make ammends with unhappy ancestors.
In order to keep them placated so they won't create mischief or bad luck for the living, food is piled onto makeshift altars and incense is burned around the clock.
A huge yellow tent was set up in Tanjong Pagar park to mark the highlights of on-going rituals. Monks show up to chant and keep the peace.
It's a scary time for people in their heads but no costumes are worn---the Monks are the only people in drag in their saffron robes.
Unlike U.S. Halloween festivities which can be just another large moneymaking holiday, Hungry Ghost in Spore is just an annual local Taoist event.

Chinese TV

Chinese TV is garish like pattern + color overlays in hotel/restaurant interior design; the ubiquitous neon of shop signs along the city rim every night [Zhuhai]; or even the clunky color + texture choices in the landscaping in "peoples' parks".
It is as stylized and shrill as traditional Chinese Opera; it tends to take on a particularly surreal tinge as it parodies American game show, reality show, cop show genres, and commercials and cartoons.
It's wonderful. And it's in technicolor!!

Shooting the Gods with Nick

Luckily, the nine a.m. Singapore sky was solidly overcast--perfect for walking.
The streets were dark stained from a steady rain hours before, now slightly steaming and silent as Sundays in most cities, except for the sizzling sound of taxi tires on slick pavement.
After walking just ten minutes, our shirts were thoroughly damp. A slight breeze stroked us--a welcome relief in the rising heat, as we entered the Tanjong Pagar Taoist temple complex. We split into different directions as we passed through the modest anteroom and spent a focused hour recording gently worn tiles, roof ceramics, newly gold-leafed colonnade brackets and altar dieties.

Nick was collecting collage imagery for work on a photographic series on Religion + War. Formerly based in Washington D.C., he is a professional portraitist who also taught photo technique at the Smithsonian. His new work is visceral and un-politically correct.
I was just savoring the visual feast before me--as usual.
As we moved to exit, many folks were arriving to burn handfuls of stick insense as thick as your thumb for departed ancestors.

We clung to the deep building shadows now beginning to form as we headed to the Pagoda Street subway escalator. The eastbound MRT offered its dependable cool relief as we boarded a desolate train and careened toward Arab town mosques. A short while later, we found the main mosque was closed so we opted to find a cafe to smoke shi-sha and drink mint tea. On the way, we were distracted by fabric stalls, prayer shawl and hat boutiques, perfumeries and bakeries--typical of the Baghdad Street bazaar. Weaving quickly through the sensual overload of a few final vendors, we eventually settled into a shady table as the cafe attendant fired our brazier and attached the plastic mouthpieces to our waterpipe. The white applewood smoke bubbling in the filtering bowl below softly complemented the crispness of the tea.

We sat, contented, for several hours, pinned to our seats by the heat of the day--we ordered Moroccan lunch and talked about Nick's living for 13 years aboard a sailboat in the Caribbean Sea. The mundane aspects of boat life like how to properly kill an ocean fish for a meal, is surprisingly not by clubbing but by pouring alcohol into its gills=instant death by vodka!! We left the conversation there as we slowly meandered by foot to the local multiplex.