Excellent Beijing Photos
I am just starting to get into Flickr. I’m a little slow to jump on that bandwagon, yes, I know. I’ve discovered that I’m too lazy to bother designing photo albums anymore, and somehow even something like Gallery doesn’t seem that appealing. I’m still exploring Flickr, but I may end up using it in the feature.
Right now, though, you can enjoy a great set of Beijing photos by Frank Yu. I’m not sure how to articulate the feelings his photos express, but I really don’t need to. Just go look.
Frank Yu is responsible, in part, for what this site has become. It was because of Frank Yu that I first discovered in 2002 that there were other people blogging about China too (gasp!). Shortly thereafter I started the China Blog List (which seems to be blocked now; working on it!).
Anyway, I’m glad to see that Frank is alive and well in Beijing and snapping away…
Related:
– China Blogs (Sept. 2002)
– John X (July 2004)
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one thing my bf likes to say to annoy me is: you know, you Chinese do not understand sarcasm 🙂
I defend by saying: we have different kind.
In the movie Kill Bill, I remember the same remark.
John, is this a stereotype you have for some chinese too? that is funny. We think we are pretty funny:)
But I have to agree that I don’t get a lot of Garfield comic on yahoo page every day.
The photos are TERRIFIC–though Frank Yu seriously needs to get a different photo of himself. With his wraparound sunglasses and face mask, he looks more like an Arab suicide bomber than a Chinese photographer.
Edel,
Well, I wouldn’t say Chinese can’t understand sarcasm. Rather, sarcasm is often subtle, and subtlety is not a Chinese trait. Chinese movies are a good example: everyone cries too hard, the heroic acts too heroic, the characters all too perfectly good or bad, etc. HERO is a good example: Leung Chiu Wai proves he loves Cheung Man Yu by letting Cheung kill him (!). And if you don’t get how much she loves him, she kills herself too–but not before screaming at the sky to show her pain. Haha. Compare HERO with the end of MILLION DOLLAR BABY, a movie I didn’t particularly like but one that superbly shows subtlety. In the hospital, Clint Eastwood injects the poison, and Hillary Swank dies, and then Clint Eastwood gets his bag and leaves. No crying, no overblown music, no screaming–and the man was practically killing his own daughter. I can’t imagine ANY Chinese director filming this scene like Eastwood did.
FrankYu for the link to Frank Yu’s pictures. What are those white cylinders w/ wicks in the 1st pic? Artificial candles?
If he had been a little further back in the 4th pic it would have looked like the girl was squatting atop the mail box.
frankyu to John for the props. For those of us living in China, a day does not pass that we do not see some weird, wacky kodak moment of total surreality and just sheer strangeness. I am just lucky enough to have a camera at those times…and a zoom lens to catch people picking their nose or something.
Actually, for foreigners like us, we get stared at, pointed at, and sometimes laughed at numerous times like circus freaks. Whipping out my camera and pointing it back is just my way of sharing the love.
On a more serious rationale, China is changing fast. What the cultural revolution didn’t destroy, mass modernization and domestic tourism surely will. Like Beijing’s disappearing Hutongs, pictures are just a record of the passing times.
regards,
Frank
Hahaha. most bloggers burn out after a few years like me…John is the Iron Blogger. Keep on truckin.
I could never get into Flickr. I like the tag system and the whole social aspect of it, but the interface is way too clunky for me. And while there are some good photographers on there, most of the photography is boring. Blurry 400px pics taken by digital point-and-shoots of ads plastered on telephone poles don’t really interest me.
hey, aren’t those pictures from Cambodia, not Beijing? good stuff, regardless. While you’re at Flickr, I’d also like to recommend you check out the works of Poagao.
He has pictures from Beijing, Shanghai, Tibet, Cambodia; Frank is quite a traveller!
I highly recommend using Flickr for your photos. It’s easy to upload and organize them and you don’t have to be involved in any of the communities.
[Sean remarked that I seem to be doing an awful lot of blogging lately, at a time when I’m supposed to be studying like crazy for my exams.]
Sean,
Because I need to study, I haven’t been going out much at all lately. I have been studying, but all that mental exertion requires periodic breaks. I’ve been doing a lot of blogging during those breaks.