Play in the City 2013

The lady in the photo slowly put down her cigarette, and looked at it. The lady in front of her was looking at her, probably waiting for her words. But she just sat there in silence. She didn’t speak a word until we left. Under the warm street lights, people were lingering slowly, slowly enough to make ten meters a long distance. So were we. We walked slowly with the crowd. Everything and everyone around us just slowed us down.

Chengdu is famous for its slow life pace. 256 B.C., Li Bing and his son built Dujiangyan, a hydraulic project which makes Chengdu a place without floods or droughts. When everything was very dependent on agriculture, this project greatly benefitted Chengdu, and made Chengdu a wealthy place. People never worried about their life in that period of time, and they spent more time seeking for a more comfortable lifestyle. There is an old saying: “Never go to Chengdu when you are young.” Because you will lose your ambitions, and will just indulge yourself in comforts at a young age. Today, there are people in the park who just sip tea for a whole afternoon. I asked my dad, “What is the meaning of sitting there and drinking tea for hours?” My dad said, “The meaning is that there is no meaning of it.”

(Photos from Chinese social network)

I was born and raised in Hangzhou, China, and I went living in Shanghai two years ago. I felt suffocated at first. Not that I was nervous about living in a metropolis, since Hangzhou was also a big city, but much cleaner and quieter than Shanghai. During the first week in Shanghai, I was claustrophobic of so many buildings, scared at how bare the streets looked without trees, and nearly car-crashed for several times because drivers never seemed to be aware of pedestrains' existence. And walking in the city that never sleeps, every neon-light was like a bullet to me, ruthlessly litting every inch of space around me, leaving nowhere to hide.

Yijing Lu

Nanjing is a wonderland where my hometown located. I am, actually, extremely proud to introduce this city as my birthplace, because this beautiful city absorbs me deeply due to the fact that Nanjing is not only covered with atmosphere of long history and flourishing culture, but also full of scenic spots and historical sites where I visited for several times with my parents and friends when I was young. To be honest, I am a girl who loves to research Chinese culture and traditions. Thus, in this paper, I am willing to introduce this city from the perspective of history and culture, and, of course, the relationship to me.

Under the Edification of History

Nanjing is a historic city which was chosen as the capital of China in ten more dynasties during the whole Chinese history. (details are showed in the following form)

Due to the fact that Nanjing is carrying massive history, several main streets and roads in Nanjing are named after the Used Name of the City as a kind of commemoration of the long history, such as Jian Ye Road, Jian Kang Road, and so on. Every time when I walk on those roads, I think about the stories and the heroes of those dynasties, and feel that all the sceneries of the roads around me are covered with historical mystery.

I don't have a photograph.

I mean, I could have one if I wanted, but I am terrible at making decisions. I couldn't possibly choose one photo from one city, from one home, from one chapter in my life and use it to illustrate how it shapes me and my mentality.

It is precisely my indecision that depicts the impact my life has had on my mentality. I don't want to have to choose, and deny all the other pieces of myself.

Richmond, Virginia

I'm seven years old. I go to a public school in the Fan district. My best friend, Grace, and I like to do silly things around the neighbourhood. Because we have no reason not to. We pick flowers that grow in the cement cracks in the alleyways. We crush the petals and mix them with her mother's expensive perfume, some lemon juice, a bit of white, silky hair conditioner, and other things that smell nice. Then we pour and distribute the ambiguously-aromatic concoction into ten red, plastic cups and place them neatly on a tray.

Our plan is to go from door to door around the block and sell as many of our perfume cups as we can. Prices are flexible, we decide beforehand. When a woman answers the door, we use our amateur entrepreneurial talents to convince her that smelling beautiful is being beautiful and we are just the two people who can make that happen for her. When a man answers the door, we improvise and explain the perfume cups also function as air fresheners and would make even the most odorous of rooms smell divine beyond belief, as is very likely the case.

I took a picture when I was in Paris the summer of 2012. It was originally meant to capture the metro station, so I would remember how different they seemed from those I knew at home. I happened to also catch a small huddle of people in the picture, though. They are laughing together, waiting for their train. Looking back, this represents everything I feel about cities.

I could say, as I had originally written down in my notes for this essay, that I judge a city based on its public transportation. But this isn’t quite true. Just as I meant to capture a photo of the metro station and ended up with a shot of a group of friends, I really judge a city based on the people in it (and perhaps I see the most of these people on the transport systems, which is why I jumped to that train of thought first).

When I go into a city, I’m mesmerized by all of the people walking around. It’s hard to imagine each of them having their own lives and stories, yet they do. When you see someone laughing, you know they have their own private joke, one you won’t ever be privy to. You can catch so many glimpses into so many lives when you’re in the city. And I thrive in that knowledge. Sometimes it even helps me to feel like I know people, even if I don’t know a single soul there.

Phoenix

MLord

Play in the City 028

Sunday, September 08, 2013

Spider-Art

            The subject of this photograph is a picture titled Spiderman, by Sigmar Polke, which can be found at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, New York. It cannot truly be called a painting, because it is composed of “cut-and-pasted painted papers on canvas” (MOMA). However, I will refer to it as such to more clearly distinguish it from my photograph.

            Spiderman’s title character is a seemingly emblematic feature of New York. Like many superheroes, Spider-Man fights evil in a big city, but unlike DC Comics characters Batman and Superman, he baldly claims his city to be one of our own. On the same trip on which I took this photograph, I passed a street performer dressed as the famous webslinger. On another, I watched the Broadway production Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. My habit is to buy a T-shirt to commemorate every place I visit, and for my New York memento, I bought one of the shirts available for purchase in the lobby of the theater.

     This is a part of the photo series Follow me, taken by a Russian photographer Murad Osmann. Travelling around the world with his girlfriend Nataly Zakharova, he  documented their trips by taking photos in which Nataly always holds his hand, leading the way. In retrospect, this is just like the relationship between me and the city. I feel like we're holding hands whenever I walk on the streets and alleys of the city. I lead the way, but the city is always behind me, following closely. I've lived, laughed and loved in the city. Here is my home.

     "City creates the theater and is the theater", as Lewis Mumford writes in What Is a City. We all live in a city theater. We perform our lives and dramas here. However, this is not just a theater for fictional plays. This is also our real-life stage.

            Every trip into the city feels like a new and exciting adventure, even if I do exactly the same thing every time I am there. The favorite destination for my sisters and I is the food carts in the center of town. My sisters always have Pad Thai from their favorite cart and I almost always have a sandwich. Even though we have done this same trip so many times, the thrill of being in the city has never gone away.

            Walking around the block full of delicious food carts, I get to see all sorts of people that also call Portland their home. During the lunchtime rush, people from all walks of life gather on the sidewalks surrounding the carts as they eagerly search out their food. I always have to walk around the block two or three times just to figure out what kind of food I want. With so many choices I look in awe at each cart until I settle for my usual, a sandwich. As I spend around fifteen minutes looking around confused, my sisters decide if they’d like to split Pad Thai and figure out how spicy they want it to be.

If I knew one thing for certain at that point in my life, it was that we were lost: completely, utterly, and irrevocably lost.  We had been walking by the river for almost an hour, vainly trying to find the pedestrian bridge that would take us to Sawyer’s Point and then across the water.  To this day she still tries to tell me that it was my fault we were lost, while I insist endlessly that it was hers.  All I know is that we were wandering in over a hundred degree heat without water and without the faintest sign of life from anything but the cars roaring repeatedly over the bridge three miles away.  By the time we retraced our steps back to the center of downtown Cincinnati, we were both exhausted, but we still had an hour to burn before we could catch a ride home.  We walked around the empty blocks of office towers, brushing past the meager crowds and barren lobbies.