Sensual City Studio

A SHANGHAINESE DAY 1

Anything can happen anywhere in Shanghai. Within its flat landscape, ideal for cycling, are superposed numerous layers of matter, human realities and emotions – a landscape that can be easily broken down or built up in this metropolis, where motion is the only constant, and where the juxtaposition of time, space and its actors are agents of both the city and its motion  .
Everything moves. Lynch said that there are static parts of the city and there are mobile ones: citizens. However, here in Shanghai, the static parts disappear, are relocated, recreated, created, all at once. In a very short period of time, you can find yourself living in a different city, without having crossed any threshold.
The mobile parts, actually, are the parts that are most adaptable and which embrace change, as something that was meant to be. The citizens circulating around the city sometimes view the place they live as a small town: a town where everyone knows their neighbours, the stallholders on the market, and their evening dancing partner; a village within the city, where some of their family members moved to join them in an effort to make their dreams come true; a village where I can be myself – a Shanghainese.

CONFUCIUS AND LEARNING

I came to a Confucius temple, and a school. I understood, then, the link between the roots of beliefs passed on from one generation to another, in the spatial sense: the inseparable link between Confucius and knowledge in China.
When a friend of mine arrived, she had many items with her: incense sticks, paper, red silk thread, and a wooden panel.
The transformation of these items then started to take place.
On the paper, she told me to write all my needs and hopes concerning my studies. Then, by adding the red string to them, they would become “gaokao [university entrance exam] wishes”.
The wooden panels became “prayer cards”, a tradition that is believed to have originated in this very temple in Shanghai.
Together we then hung them in a tree, where other students’ prayers already hung, so that they would be received by Confucius  .
Before that, though, we paid our respects by kneeling in front of Confucius and lighting three incense sticks each, which we then placed inside a huge vase made for this purpose.
After finishing our respective rituals, we went to one of the largest book markets in Shanghai, where an amazing array of rare books, manuscripts, comics, propaganda posters and other items from various Chinese eras were waiting to be discovered.

COLD MEAT 2

It was a sunny morning, but I seemed to be suffering from stomach problems. I still don’t know if it was because of the excitement, or because of the extravaganza of a dinner I had last night with my Chinese friends.
I arrived at the piazza in front of Shanghai Railway Station: a huge, bare piazza. I turned my head to the left, and there was a clock; I looked further to the left still, and there was a huge electronic billboard, displaying everything from advertisements for watches to the weather, as well as the departures and arrivals of trains. The rest… was just people – people everywhere – and a selection of their belongings.
I thought I might need water and something to eat for the road. I decided, for the first time in my life, to buy a Coke. My dad always said that  in case of stomach troubles, the best solution was to drink some Coke and relax;  cola is even good for repairing cars. In the store, I found the Coca-Cola; however, finding something to eat was proving more difficult than I thought. I just couldn’t find something I was able to, or wanted to, eat. In most cases, this was because I simply couldn’t understand what was inside the plastic wrappers containing edible material.

EIGHT

“Luck” is probably the best translation of the word for “eight” in Chinese culture.   It has many interpretations and can be used in many different ways. For example:Bā   sounds like the word for prosperity and wealth. In different rituals, one can use the power of the number eight in a date to multiply good fortune.
There is also a visual resemblance between the digits “88” and 囍, the shuāng xĭ,   meaning “double happiness”. Furthermore, when turned on its side, the number eight resembles the mathematical symbol for infinity.  My impression, therefore, is that eight is the number of infinite luck and happiness.
The number eight is viewed as such an auspicious number that even being assigned a number containing several eights is considered very lucky. Chinese people devote a lot of money and effort to having the figure eight in their telephone numbers and car registration numbers.

KITCHEN 1

No matter how delicious Chinese food is, and how keen you might be to learn how to make it yourself, DO NOT GO INTO THE KITCHEN! The Shanghainese say that heaven has Chinese food but hell is its kitchen.