Shanghai Scrap

Regular readers might have deduced that Shanghai Scrap is in the midst of its own version of the Deng Xiaoping’s famed Southern Tour over the last week or so. This afternoon, as part of this sally through Guangdong Province, I arrived in Qingyuan – a city that I visited a few years ago, before it was devastated by a ten-month drought. According to China Daily, rainfall is down 14% over the first ten months of the year, and some 55,000 hectares of farmland have been “shriveled.” Pointedly, the same article notes that – despite the drought – the region is still supplying significant amounts of water to Hong Kong and Macau. Whatever the cause, the view of the Bei Jiang River from my hotel window suggests something is seriously amiss in these parts. Click to enlarge:

Yesterday morning I opened the drapes in my Guangzhou hotel room and what a surprise: I’m located directly across the street from the convention center hosting the 7th Annual Guangzhou Sex Festival. Believe it or not, this was inadvertent – I’m (still) in town for another event located in an adjacent hotel. Then again, I’m also a big believer in providence and so I did the natural thing: had some breakfast, grabbed a camera, and walked across the street (you know, being a journalist and all).

I wasn’t sure what to expect. My brief reading suggested that it was a salacious trade show of sorts; the morning headlines – featuring a family planning official’s suggestion that the state distribute sex toys to migrant laborers – intimated a debacle. Reality, however, was a bit more bland. More shoddy than salacious, the event is a run-down trade fair attended by retirees (male), unemployed young men between the ages of 26 and 35, and a handful of migrant (male) laborers capable of affording the RMB 30 (US$4.30)  entry fee. Women were outnumbered by 50 – 1, I’d say. Here, for example, is a pretty good representation of the demographics in the form of a small sample of the large crowd that surrounded a video of a (swimming-suit-clad) couple demonstrating certain, ah, techniques.

Now you may ask, “Why spend your golden years watching swim-suit clad soft porn at run-down trade shows?” Well, take it from somebody who now knows: there’s absolutely nothing erotic – much less, titillating – about booth after booth full of condoms, vibrators, dried bull genitalia (directions not included), and “essence of kangaroo.” As a result, the only booths that attracted crowds at the Guangzhou Sex Festival were those showing video or photos of skin – including, I’m truly sorry to note – the exhibition of photos showing the rather unpleasant effects of certain STDs. But, I suppose, you take what you can get, and regardless of whether or not the images in question suggested health, somebody (often, many somebodies) was snapping furtive photos of them for latter viewing. See, for example, the photo after the jump. In it, I’ve circled all of the men taking images of the above referenced swimsuit technique video. (more…)

There seems to be quite a bit of photography out there showing the interiors of Chinese churches, but – so far as I’ve been able to tell – very little photography showing the interiors of Chinese mosques. So, in pursuit of some balance, I offer the image, below, of the prayer hall at the Great Mosque in Guangzhou. It was taken in the late afternoon, the other day, just as people were beginning to arrive for the Maghrib prayer [click to enlarge].

Some sources claim that the Great Mosque dates back to the first Muslim mission to China, in 630. However, according to this site – the best of the very few that I’ve been able to find – it was likely built during the Tang Dynasty (618-907) or Song Dynasty (960 – 1279). That’s a wide date range, so I’ll stick to the absolutely certain: the Great Mosque is likely the oldest mosque in China. Of course, it doesn’t take an expert in Islamic architecture to judge – on the basis of the above photo – that the prayer hall is a bit more recent. In fact, parts of it have been rebuilt several times, and the current prayer hall dates to 1935 (a 1990 photo of the prayer hall shows it in a more haggard state).

To be fair, on an architectural basis, at least, what’s most interesting and historically significant at the Mosque is the Light Tower/Minaret – rebuilt in 1350, with much earlier origins. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in China. A few photos after the jump. (more…)

[UPDATED: With apologies to everyone who emailed to point out that I'd mis-spelled Tijuana in the title! It was a long day ... I'd spent hours at the border.]

Below, a photo of the Macau side of the border crossing into Zhuhai, China (for those not familiar with the region: despite the fact that China has sovereignty over Macau, the border is still treated as international). I took it late this afternoon, when – it seemed – the entire population of Zhuhai was trying to get home in time for dinner. Quite honestly, the photo doesn’t do justice to the size of the crowd. The image would need to be expanded to the right, by a third, for a complete, er, picture.

From what I could tell, most of the people in the line were Zhuhai locals (that is, locals who live on the other side of the border with Macau). And most of them were carrying shopping bags from shops that – presumably – one can’t find in Zhuhai. I suspect that many were also carrying luxury goods that – due to China’s high taxes on such items – are much cheaper to buy in Macau and Hong Kong.

What was most striking to me about this massive late Sunday afternoon migration was how much it reminded me of border crossings along the US-Mexican border. On Sunday afternoons, those crossings are often jammed with Mexican citizens returning from shopping trips in the more developed US, their packed trunks weighing down the rear ends of their cars. There, as in China, citizens of the less developed country spend weekends shopping in the more developed one (and running businesses largely based upon their ability to make such trips). I realize, of course, that there are differences, as well.