COLD MEAT 3 I got on the train, and began to wander through the train corridors. Suddenly, I had the feeling that it would be a longer trip than I had imagined. [ + ]
COLD MEAT 3
I got on the train, and began to wander through the train corridors. Suddenly, I had the feeling that it would be a longer trip than I had imagined.
Whole families were filling the gaps between seats. Walking through the train, I discovered three-storey compartments and row after row of bunk beds. I arrived at my seat. The man beside me saw my face (which must have betrayed the fact that my stomach wasn’t quite feeling up to such a long trip, alone), and offered me the window seat. We were seated four face to face with another four passengers, 50 cm away from other eight, and so on. A small fan moved its blades, but no wind seemed to follow its instructions. The train was now in motion, and, as if following an order, everyone took something out from their bags. A piece of… what was it? Now, I understood : dried meat. Dried meat in diverse forms: diced, in ribbons, and in flat rectangles of all sizes.
However the treats didn’t stop there. There were also chicken feet, available in white and black versions. Oh yes! They would eat the meat, gnawing off the flesh until they arrived at the bone, and then the fun would really begin. They would break the bones and suck out the insides in order to extract every last morsel. I was kindly asked, many times, if I wanted to eat some of these bones, probably because of my gaze, which was too inquisitive, and possibly interpreted as linked to a stomach that was craving some of this train food.
I opened the cola, and started forgetting that I had a sense of smell; I just wanted to forget everything. However, I had brought some dried soup with me, and there was a place on the train where you could get hot water. So, the next morning, I would be able to reconstitute the noodles and fit in with my travel companions, by slurping on hot soup.
I was shown that, throughout this long journey, I was never alone, I would be taken care of, and our differences were not categorical differences. Later on, I wondered how a whole culture could derive so much satisfaction from sucking bones and gnawing away at dry meat. The answer made me love this culture even more than I could ever imagine. The answer was the love that parents give to their children.
In the past, Parents would tell their children that the bones were the most delicious part of the animal, in order to justify why they, the parents, were not eating the precious meat, which would be reserved for the children’s plates. In this way, several generations grew up believing that bones were more precious than meat, as they were never given them to eat.
I understood more closely the feeling of “community spirit” and “neighbourliness ” in the lilongs during those unforgettable 18 hours of travel. I became a temporary part of a tight-knit community. Even without trying the bones. Yet they understood that I wouldn’t have the skills to enjoy this food, made for the road, for the transition from one story to another.
TREES Trees are a little bit of nature in the concrete jungle, and dispensers of shade. As a Spanish saying goes, “everything happens in the shade ” . [ + ]
TREES
Trees are a little bit of nature in the concrete jungle, and dispensers of shade. As a Spanish saying goes, “everything happens in the shade ” .
In the almost cruelly hot summers of Shanghai, nothing is put to its fullest use like trees. In the parks, it is under the leafy shade of the trees that people dance, practise martial arts and play all sorts of traditional Chinese games. Walking, driving and cycling is simply delightful under these huge canopies of coolness.
Chinese culture has a long tradition of gardens. They are places that are carefully planned as architectural artefacts.
In the emperor’s palaces, gardens were created for recreation, meetings and relaxation, as a meditative space in which to dwell. It is said that football was actually invented under the trees of one of these palaces by the concubines of an emperor. The girls got bored and started playing with a ball, forming teams, since there were so many of them for the emperor to choose from.
Plane trees were brought over by the French in around 1902, to embellish their concession, held between 1849 and 1943.
These providers of shade were first planted along what was then Avenue Joffre, which used to be a tram route, and which is nowadays known as Huaihai Road, one of the city’s most important shopping streets. And yet these plane trees, with their characteristic forms, have become a symbol of Shanghai, and the go-to location for brides and grooms posing for photos before their weddings.
THREE-DIMENSIONALITY Every turn you make, every step you take, however fast or slow you travel , you cannot fail to notice that Shanghai, despite being flat, is a highly three-dimensional city. When you take a taxi at night, you climb up and over and down so many bridges, flyovers and junctions, some as high as a ten-storey building. [ + ]
THREE-DIMENSIONALITY
Every turn you make, every step you take, however fast or slow you travel , you cannot fail to notice that Shanghai, despite being flat, is a highly three-dimensional city. When you take a taxi at night, you climb up and over and down so many bridges, flyovers and junctions, some as high as a ten-storey building. All the buildings display a cross-section of their living innards to the outside world. The light flooding in and shining out of their windows exposes the lives of their occupants to the random passengers of a car, just for an instant. I, sitting in the back of the taxi, get a glimpse of these lives, and it is then up to me to either abandon these memories or imagine the possible lives that these people lead.
[ - ]WALLS AND PATHS Many books have been written about the typologies of the built space in Shanghai, in terms of form, in terms of function and even in terms of the absence of both. Many have dissected its built forms and subdivided them into many categories. [ + ]
WALLS AND PATHS
Many books have been written about the typologies of the built space in Shanghai, in terms of form, in terms of function and even in terms of the absence of both. Many have dissected its built forms and subdivided them into many categories. But we can all agree that Shanghainese walls are both impermeable and porous, solid and fragmented, opening and closing gaps in the city.
In the Chinese tradition, it is written that ghosts cannot walk along paths that turn around corners. Furthermore, they have to take on the form of the bridges in Chinese gardens in order to cross the ponds they straddle.
In Chinese philosophy, a walk through a garden should command all of a person’s attention, as there is only one time and one space: the here and now. The lack or presence in a given dimension of railings, which are more decorative than functional, is to exalt this dimension of being. Being lost in one’s thoughts can result in one falling into a pond… in the here and now.