[Note 11/13: A couple of folks have left comments expressing doubts about whether, in fact, the mask in question was used for welding. It was.] I’ve just returned to Shanghai after 12 days of roaming up and down Guangdong. I’ll have a bit more to say about some of what I saw down there in…
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Photo: Friday Night in the drought-striken Bei Jiang Riverbed
A companion photo to the one in the prior post, taken around 8:30 PM, Friday night. He wasn’t the only person down there. Couples wandered beneath the bridge arches, hid in its corners and shadows; groups of college-aged kids lit campfires and got high; here and there, grandparents wandered in circles, pointing out the few…
Photo: the Bei Jiang River running dry through Qingyuan
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…
What Tijuana and Zhuhai have in common.
[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…
Eclipse Eclipsed.
I spent the last 24 hours out in Sheshan, in southwest Shanghai, where I was covering the eclipse for a dispatch that should be out shortly. Below, an image of a few of the several hundred observers who gathered atop the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (built by the Jesuits in the 1890s, and operated by them until the 1950s). In…
Experience Urumqi as a journalist would.
From a media standpoint, Urumqi riots seem to signal a shift in the manner in which reporters are allowed to cover “sensitive” events in China. Unlike, say, last year’s riots in Tibet, the relevant authorities in and out of Xinjiang very quickly made the decision to allow foreign and domestic media wide leverage in covering…
Japan’s Benedictines
Typically, I don’t post links to articles that I write for my hometown media (back in Minnesota), lest I come off as the provincial rube that – frankly – I am. That, and I think interest is fairly limited for things Minnesotan among my readers – the vast, vast majority of whom have no interest…
I sat next to a fever on my flight into Shanghai.
Chinese authorities have been conducting temperature checks on incoming international flights for almost two months now. So last night, when I boarded a Shanghai-bound flight in Tokyo, I wasn’t in the least bit surprised to be informed that the plane’s arrival would be delayed for a few minutes by a temperature check of all passengers.…
Sapporo Clock Tower
After dinner, the daylong rain stopped and I decided to enjoy what remains of my time here by taking a random stroll through the downtown. Along the way, I came across this: The sign out front of the building includes some interesting history: The “Tokedai” [clock tower] was originally built as a drill hall for…
Pachinko Scrap!
Just when I think I’ve seen everything, somebody takes me to a factory devoted to the recycling of pachinko machines. In the foothills beneath Mount Fuji. For now, I’m going to have to hold off on saying – and showing – much more than that. Merely keep in mind that the most valuable disassembled components…