china is somewhere i wd like to go: who can tell me what it is like really? i know several people who have been, on work or holiday – but none are accessible now that i want to pick their brains.
― mark s, Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― nathalie, Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
so if you were there just talk about stuff!!
― dave k, Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― keith, Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
China is an an aincent civilization with many traditions.
In China you can buy porridge off of vendor carts. Just because one can, doesn't mean that one should.
In China they give you jars of distilled, purified water to drink, for if an outsider to drink the tap water they chould die.
China is still very third world outside of the capitalist zones.
China is a lovely place with common people who don't have time to worry about America because they don't have enough to eat.
Single American dollars are worthless to us, but over a day's wage in some places.
In conclusion, China is a land of contrasts.
― JM, Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― John Adams, Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
the beijing metro has station maps with latin transliterations so you can read it better.
the forbidden city is pretty cool, although something of a tourist factory.
tiannamen (sp.?) square is a bit....disturbing?
dont get run over by bikes.
beijing looks like bladerunner.
there is a macdonalds in beijing in a 'traditional chinese style'...
there is also a delifrance there. its crap.
― ambrose, Sunday, 14 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
nixon: "truly this is a great wall"
― mark s, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Dan Perry, Monday, 15 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
In China, everyone who lives in a big city that is not Beijing hates Beijing. Everyone who lives in Beijing thinks everyone else is full of shit.
In China, bean curd is a form of punishment.
In China, the best food is often from Mongolia.
― Tim, Thursday, 18 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
why don't you both lie down? is the bed too narrow, or maybe you are too shy.
I have seen china but not stood on it. (from hong kong)
― halo halo, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 05:18 (twenty years ago) link
anyway there's a very famous poem by Zhang Ji about a temple near there along the canals:
Moonset; through the freezing air the caw of a crow;By Feng Qiao, breaking my rest, the fishing lamps glow;To me as I lie in my boat the dark hour bringsThe plangent repeated sound as the temple bell ringsAt Han Shan beyond Suzhou
Also, I predict that all the cosmopolitan city trash on this board would LOVE Shanghai. It's my favorite city ever.
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 06:00 (twenty years ago) link
i had read up a lot on shanghai before the planned trip and it sounded like the most space-age city ever (search the oriental pearl tv tower and pudong airport mag lev). the most daunting thing i came across in my reading was a photo captioned "over 3 million people gather on the bund to watch the national day fireworks" and i thought, jesus, that's almost the entire population of my country. on one street.
― angela (angela), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 08:36 (twenty years ago) link
― C J (C J), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 08:38 (twenty years ago) link
― NA. (Nick A.), Wednesday, 25 June 2003 11:25 (twenty years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 25 June 2003 14:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave M. (rotten03), Monday, 3 November 2003 09:23 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 3 November 2003 11:19 (twenty years ago) link
― Skottie, Monday, 3 November 2003 12:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Leee (Leee), Monday, 3 November 2003 21:36 (twenty years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 3 November 2003 21:43 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 3 November 2003 21:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Lara (Lara), Monday, 3 November 2003 22:34 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 20 June 2004 10:05 (nineteen years ago) link
lol everytime I try to go to youtube or facebook my gmail connection conks out
*shrug*
― british sb power (dayo), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 01:25 (twelve years ago) link
wait but aren't you in
― Autumn Alma Park Toilets (Schlafsack), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 01:26 (twelve years ago) link
Im in 上海 atm
― british sb power (dayo), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 01:43 (twelve years ago) link
Cripes! I thought the youtube and the facebook were banned outright there (clearly I'm wrong, unless you're on a vpn)
― Autumn Alma Park Toilets (Schlafsack), Wednesday, 15 June 2011 02:45 (twelve years ago) link
― De que estas hablando? (Tannenbaum Schmidt), Wednesday, 21 September 2011 14:00 (twelve years ago) link
Going for two weeks next month. Super excited and overwhelmed
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 11 May 2018 01:59 (five years ago) link
cool! where are you going?
― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Friday, 11 May 2018 02:02 (five years ago) link
Flying in/out of Beijing and then Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shanghai. Not trying to be completist or a busy tourist checking things off of a list. If we see a couple of Hedgehog gigs and visit a ghost city - that's a win.
― Elvis Telecom, Sunday, 13 May 2018 23:08 (five years ago) link
ive a mate lectures in beijing for a stint each year and was lucky enough to be anle to stay with him a few years back for a few weeks. amazing place.
― gneb farts (darraghmac), Sunday, 13 May 2018 23:24 (five years ago) link
xiamen and guangzhou are both super cool. i'm not sure how close you'll be to actual super cities. hangzhou/suzhou/others are within an 1 hour train ride (on the bullet train) from shanghai. both of those are great too. i am envious. enjoy!
― 龜, Monday, 14 May 2018 11:42 (five years ago) link
yeah if you want to see a show guangzhou/xiamen? are good too, i GUESS. the thing is things change there so fast but c:union, t union or loft 345 in gz, xiamen i'm even more out of date.gz is a great city to explore too... good metro system not incredibly spread out, architecturally space age dubai shit, urban villages, downtown cantonese arcaded streets, colonial on shamian and environs, and one of the most multicultural cities still taking in people from southeast asia and africa and the middle east as well as being the new home of people from all over the country... any metro stop on any line, get off and you can spend an afternoon getting lost in the few blocks around it usually.
― XxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxXxxxx (dylannn), Monday, 14 May 2018 15:48 (five years ago) link
i'm not sure how close you'll be to actual super cities
i meant to say ghost cities here. the most famous one (or at least the one western media wrote about the most) is ordos which is in inner mongolia, probably a few hours at least away from beijing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/19/an-update-on-chinas-largest-ghost-city-what-ordos-kangbashi-is-like-today/#53de364b2327
― 龜, Monday, 14 May 2018 15:57 (five years ago) link
ditto what dylannn said about gz. if yr into hedgehog-y stuff, a good gz label to check is Qiii Snacks - that bandcamp link has links to their douban/insta/etc which could help you filter current venues.
re: xiamen, real livehouse was the main venue last i heard (here's a friend writing about visiting xiamen a few years back, seeing some shows etc).
― etc, Monday, 14 May 2018 22:18 (five years ago) link
Thanks for the link! Have been putting away links to record stores. Getting the visas tomorrow morning. Itinerary is GZ, Shenzhen, HK, Shanghai, Beijing. Currently working on accommodations. Super-stoked!
― Elvis Telecom, Thursday, 24 May 2018 03:24 (five years ago) link
So in the end we skipped Shanghai and stayed extra days in HK and Beijing. Still processing everything. Want to go back
― Elvis Telecom, Friday, 29 June 2018 17:04 (five years ago) link
HK and Shanghai are somewhat similar in vibe, I found. I'd give HK the upper hand in atmosphere and experience though. Nowhere like it. Maybe Singapore, although I haven't been there
― global tetrahedron, Friday, 29 June 2018 18:04 (five years ago) link
Singapore is nice but much more organised and is likely to come off as a bit sterile if you like HK outside of Central. Little India is kind of nuts though.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, 29 June 2018 18:06 (five years ago) link
I’d love to go back to China properly but prefer Yunnan province to the big cities in the East and haven’t really worked out a way to do it justice in a week, or whatever I can take off work. Will be in HK in November though.
― Wag1 Shree Rajneesh (ShariVari), Friday, 29 June 2018 18:15 (five years ago) link
in beijing for the first time as i said on another thread 12 years excepting brief stops at the airport the most recent under public security bureau escorts up to customs. not much to say. it's changed as much as i expected and has all the bad traits of chinese cities' central cores magnified:yo old neighborhoods torn down to make way for generic developments, the same shopping mall copied again and again, walking becomes a march down the unshaded sidewalks running along massive boulevards looking for somewhere to take refuge that is not costa coffee or another mall. you can see places changing even over a few days ex. a visit to the lama temple last week and a few days later even more of the shops have been bricked up, stop in at one of the few restaurants left (again costa coffee and kfc are there) and it's shuttered seemingly permanently the next day with a blue tarp wall in front.i'm struggling for much interesting to say and but i wanted to say something about beijing and beijing living up to images of beijing, put in examples here of mid to late 90s films like in the heat of the sun, east palace, west palace, later the world, and then wang shuo, xu zechen's running through beijing, michael dutton's streetlife china, early 2000s chinese tv set in beijing like home with kids, chatty zhang damin's happy life which were probably the sunniest depictions. for writers, especially, it seems to be a place to go to get a writer-bureaucrat job while on the side writing about your hometown. it is filthy and grim and anything you get attached to will disappear and it is defined by the presence of the central government and police and a more focused intense presence of both that can feel oppressive coming from even provincial capitals. maybe something to say here about the position of beijing in the party conception of national literature or whatever with the hometown and the native place as the source of authenticity???? i don't even know. if you've never been here, it's probably exactly like what you imagine but with more malls and a surprisingly extensive and well-maintained subway system. just trying to say something. i'm sure there are interesting enclaves in beijing like any city but i couldn't find any. but i know if you went to tokyo and stayed in shinjuku or shibuya there's no chance you'd wander into koenji or kita-senju or wherever but beijing seems to make it harder to make those discoveries. a lot of fuckin malls though and they have baskin-robbins which is cool. also finally went to tiananmen square for the first time which was a weird experience. i'm coming back in august.
― XxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxXxxxx (dylannn), Saturday, 30 June 2018 13:20 (five years ago) link
positives: as everywhere in the country and especially noticeable coming from tokyo almost everyone not working in customer service is chill and chatty and helpful. i'd rather spend the day walking around beijing than most north american cities. still some interesting book shops and book markets. amazing food if you know what you're doing. baskin-robbins.
― XxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxXxxxx (dylannn), Saturday, 30 June 2018 13:29 (five years ago) link
sorry, i wrote baskin-robbins twice here but meant dairy queen.
― XxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxXxxxx (dylannn), Wednesday, 4 July 2018 12:30 (five years ago) link
I have not yet been to China but I was talking to a Chinese girl here in Germany the other night and how I'd like to visit China, and she's like, why, it sucks, there's no creativity, it's all censorship, ugh. She's living in Chicago now and liking it by comparison. I like to hear people talk about how the places they're from suck, I learn a lot more than I do from like tourist reports. nb I explained how I think usa life sucks and she was puzzled. probably it's american privilege to talk about how much the usa sucks and that like, my son's egyptian and senegalese friends are just like eye-roll at me, they want to go to NYC.
― droit au butt (Euler), Wednesday, 4 July 2018 12:48 (five years ago) link
usa life does suck compared to china though
― 龜, Wednesday, 4 July 2018 13:42 (five years ago) link
yeah that's what I thought! even if just on food + public transport grounds. this girl has an almost perfect american accent, so she's probably pretty bourgeoise so maybe the party is holding her down, also I don't know what it's like being an intellectual young woman in china (she's a phd student in the humanities in the usa)
― droit au butt (Euler), Wednesday, 4 July 2018 14:01 (five years ago) link
off to Shanghai for training next month, will have personal time there and in Hong Kong afterwards
first time to China!!! should be weird good!!
― Cardigan B (King Boy Pato), Sunday, 12 August 2018 08:20 (five years ago) link
Two of my favorite places! It will definitely be weird good.
― mom tossed in kimchee (quincie), Sunday, 12 August 2018 14:56 (five years ago) link
i'll be back in beijing from the end of this week to the 26th if anyone you know is there alsolast visit was my first time there in over a decade, and fairly dull, wish i was going to any other city in the country but i'll dig in a bit deeper this time.
― XxxxxxxXxxxxxxxxXxxxx (dylannn), Tuesday, 14 August 2018 03:07 (five years ago) link
I'm going to Guangdong for work in November and may have a free Sunday. I vaguely recall passing through Shenzhen years and years ago but have never spent any time in the area.
Would anyone recommend Guangzhou over Shenzhen, or vice versa, to look around?
― ShariVari, Monday, 14 October 2019 09:30 (four years ago) link
There are clear bits of Guangzhou you can go have a look around - I would recommend some places from my time there (2013-2016) but can't be sure they haven't been developed since.Shenzhen is interesting but everything is so spread out, doesn't seem to be any clear downtown area as far as I can remember, and of course no old town.
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, 14 October 2019 09:34 (four years ago) link
Thanks! Guangzhou looks most likely. Is Tianhe the most logical place to be based for museums, etc?
― Srinivasaraghavan VONCataraghavan (ShariVari), Monday, 14 October 2019 20:56 (four years ago) link
Not really! It's all new developments there, also will be a bit more expensive. Yuexiu is where the interesting old stuff is. The best thing to do imo is wander round the old streets south of Ximenkou. Sorry to say the only museum I ever went to there was the art gallery who owned the huge housing estate I lived on - sometimes they have good stuff on, sometimes not, but nobody seems to go there, which is... good? http://www.timesmuseum.org/
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Thursday, 17 October 2019 12:31 (four years ago) link
Belated thanks for this. I ended up going to the Chen Clan Academy, which was very interesting, and wandering around Ximenkou. It was good advice!
I'll probably have to come back to Guangzhou next year for work but i'm also thinking of taking advantage of the visa to spend a few winter days in Harbin to see the festival / architecture.
― Srinivasaraghavan VONCataraghavan (ShariVari), Thursday, 14 November 2019 00:44 (four years ago) link
It really sucks having a site like ILX being completely unaccessible for days as it has been recently. The Great Firewall seems to be increasingly restrictive in recent months.
― viborg, Monday, 9 December 2019 05:27 (four years ago) link
Don't know if I want to go now.
This is mindblowing. To do this so publicly knowing the whole world will see this. It has to be CCDI taking Hu away. Even Li Zhanshu looks unsure what’s going on. Li Keqiang bemused. Wang Yang stares fwd, doesn’t even look at Hu. pic.twitter.com/nPtHFkx0WD— Mike Gow 高英智 (@mikeygow) October 22, 2022
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 22 October 2022 10:59 (one year ago) link
tbf the auld fella was looking a bit doddery and unwell, almost Biden-like, I don't think there's any more to that than that
― Fronted by a bearded Phil Collins (Tom D.), Saturday, 22 October 2022 11:07 (one year ago) link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Jintao#Retirement
― StanM, Saturday, 22 October 2022 11:22 (one year ago) link
I bet it was just his parking meter that had expired.
― StanM, Saturday, 22 October 2022 11:27 (one year ago) link