Random PICS for now

The Tourist

So We Arrive! We are greeted by Daniel our tour guide at the air port and taken to our hotel. A very wise man he seems to be with a quote, The biggest room in China is the room for improvement. The first thing I noticed here in Beijing is that it is very much alive! Like New York City it is very popualted! If you can imagine New York City times 10! Buildings and Buildings and more Buildings ! High Rises of apartment buildings 3000 dollars per square foot! people on Bicycles are everywhere among the 8 lane traffic streets. They carry everything on these bikes, so far I have seen sofas and bed being lugged to wherever.

Questions for Dr. Londino

Describe the Chinese Television System
The television system China and 120 other countries use is called PAL. PAL stands for Phase Alternating Line which is a "colour encoding system used for Broadcast television systems." CCTV the Chinese Central Television Station which offer english news and program channels.

Describe the Types of Programming
There are NTSC which means Never The Same Color. This system has a manual control for color correction where as Pal removes hue errors, so there is no need to manage the tint control. One other system is SECAM which tries to fix the hues of NTSC,to do that it uses a frequency modilation and U and V vectore that intersperse transmission of colour.


Describe the Means and programming support


Regulation...Who controls it?
SARFT, The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television is what controls media and broadcasting of the State Council of the People's Republic of China.
"Its main task is the administration and supervision of state-owned enterprises engaged in the television, radio, and film
industries. It directly controls state-owned enterprises at the national level such as China Central Television and China National Radio, as well as other movie and television studios and others non-business organizations.
It is also responsible for censoring any materials that might be objective to Chinese government or cultural standards. An 'example of such activity is the summer 2007 controversy over the television talent show First Heartthrob."


"Regulators
The media and communications industry in mainland China is administered by various government agencies and regulators.
State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television - administers and overseer the administration of state-owned enterprises involved in the radio, television and broadcasting industry.
Ministry of Industry and Information Technology - administers the physical communications infrastructure and the Internet service providers.
General Administration of Press and Publication - administers the newspaper, periodical, video and audio media and news industry.
Ministry of Public Security's Cyber Police force - agency for regulating online content and investigation of Internet fraud, scams and porn."


News: Compare Broadcast News in China to the US and Identify major international broadcast news agencies

Xinhua News Agency and China New Service were the broadcasting agencies. Xinhua was the maine place to go for news and photos for other newspapers.


What are the major papers?
China Daily is a maojr paper for China which is geared toward the english speaking. China Daily- Peoples Daily-Beijing Daily -Beijing Morning Post –China Economic times-China Public Security Daily-China Youth Daily-The Economic Observer- Hua Xia Wen Zhai- Beijing Today

What are the most popular magazines?

Global-City Pictorial-China Today-Beijing scene- World View-Xin Min weekly- Overseas Tiding Magazine- China and World

Pre Trip Assignment

Dr. Londino

 

On March 12^th 2009, I leave the country for the first time! I am going to China with Kean University and I can hardly wait! We will be visiting Beijing, Xi’an, HangZhou, and Shang Hai.

 

I am mostly excited to visit Beijing. After being an avid watcher of the Olympicgames, and seeing the images of the Great Wall ,I have grown a need to see them in person.  The great wall was built over 2000 years ago during the Qin Dynasty. The wall was used during the wars and had the first line of defense stationed there to protect against the nomadic Hsiung Nu tribes or also known as the Huns.It goes across the mountains of northern china, going north and norwest. This wall is amazingly 4000 miles long and is made up of rock,masonry and packed earth. I am also very excited to see the Olympic Stadium I saw so much on tv last year.

Xi’an the home of the Terracotta Warriors is also a place that I am very thrilledabout visiting. I have learned about the warriors prior to this trip in two classes of mine,three-dimension sculpture and also in my sculpture fabrication class. I have learned how much work it takes to put into making a sculpture and can truly appreciate the 40 years it took to create a life size army.

  Hang Zhou is probably the one city that I have never heard about before booking this trip. However in my research I have found that Hang Zhou is the capital of the Zheijing Province and is one of China’s great tourist attractions. The West Lake is the most known highlight in Hang Zhou, it is known for it’s natural beauty, a place where even Marco Polo visited in his explorations in the 13^th century. Hang Zhou is also known for the tea house museum, silk museums and great shopping.

  Shang Hai  is also known as the “Oriental Pearl City.”  Shang Hai is known for it’s fast development and it’s progress is just continues on the rise. It’s economical success is because of the growth in politics, finance, trade, technology and science It is compared to cities like New York and Paris. The city of Shang Hai will be hosting the World Expo in 2010 .I can’t wait to see the Oriental Pearl TV tower because in pictures it looks like one of the most futuristic buildings I have ever seen!I can’t wait to experience the culture of China. Everything I have read about is so exciting! I will be bringing my camera in hopes to capture all of Ancient China that I can. I have seen films that were set in China and I feel that I have so much to learn about their culture. 

 

 

A email from a friend of a friend

Okay, so she'll be in Beijing and perhaps elsewhere. Note the following:

- It might be cool, temperature wise so def. bring warm clothing.
- Most toilets are squat-toilets so yeah.
- Take TP everywhere you go. Plus Imodium. Just in case.
- Prepare to be stared at. Not a big deal but does get old.
- Prepare to be sold to at every turn. Especially in the Bund/Pudong (Financial) area of Shanghai if she's visiting there.
- If she's not an adventurous epicure, pack lots of snacks and what not. Chinese food in the US is not really Chinese food. That said, I enjoyed it immensely and ate everything I could get my hands on, including silk worms!
- Clubs can be very very expensive - especially in Shanghai. Things might be cheaper with the global economy tanking but still.
- The pollution in Beijing is quite bad so if she has allergies or asthma, she should keep that in mind.
- Exchange money over there at the airport.
- Ride the bullet train at least once.
- Always keep a hotel card on her so she can show a taxi driver where she needs to go to get home.

That's all I can think of at the moment. She'll have a blast.

Xinmin Wanbao, Shanghai Newspaper clipping

I have no idea what this says but it looks as though a satellite will be crashing on the moon.

accoring to reuter.com......

BEIJING (Reuters) - China aims to put an unmanned buggy on the moon by 2012, local media reported on Friday, laying the ground for its greater ambitions of putting a man on the moon.

In October 2003, China became the third country to put a man in space with its own rocket, after the former Soviet Union and the United States. It sent two more astronauts on a five-day flight on its Shenzhou VI craft in October 2005.

China launched its third manned space mission in September, with live-to-air footage of its first space-walk captivating the nation.

Its first lunar probe, the Chang'e-1 satellite, named after a lonely goddess who lives with a rabbit on the moon and pines for her husband, finished its mission last month after orbiting the moon thousands of times.

"China will send a moon-lander and moon-buggy around 2012," the Beijing News said, citing state television.

Before the moon-lander, China will send Chang'e-2 satellite to fulfil another circumlunar mission, CCTV added.

China said its lunar mission would include three steps of "orbiting, landing and returning", but has not disclosed schedule of any manned moon mission so far.

The Oriental Pearl Tower

The Oriental Pearl Tower stands by the bank of Huangpu River. It is in the centre of Lujiazui, opposite to the Bund which is famous for its grand buildings of various architectural styles. The tower is 468 metres high. It is the highest TV Tower in Asia and is the third highest one in the world. The designers magically set the eleven beautiful spheres of various sizes up from the green grassland to the blue sky with two giant spheres shining like two rubies. The whole design is rich in poetic and pictorial splendor, which gives the tourists the impression that pearls of Various sizes are dropping onto the emerald plate. http://www.shme.com/attracti/tower/tower.htm

HAPPY TIMES! & Not One Less

This was a beautiful story of a man named Zhao, who has been searching for love. When he finally found a women he wanted to marry, he lied to her to make it as though he had more money then he did. He told her he was the Mnanger of Happy Times Hotel which didn't really exist. Unfortunately he got more then he thought he was in for. When he finally met her family, he met her son and a blind girl who was left by her father from a previous relationship. The women and her son treated this girl as if she wasn't a part of their family. They sat down for dinner and the son would steal food right off the girls plate. Eventually the women passed this girl off to Zhao saying since he had a hotel he could take her and give her a job, she said he didn't even have to pay her, which shows how much this women cared for her. Zhao desparate for the hand of ths women and the feeling the need to get married was persuaded into taking her. Zhao made a bus into a love shack in a park out of a bus, when he took the girl there it was being lifted by a crane by the town to better the parks. He then took Wu Ying to his home and let her stay there still leading her to believe there was only construction going on. He tried to bring her back to his wife to be but she had already cleaned out her room and gave it to her son. She then told Zhao that she was a trained Massues and to give her a job in the salon of his hotel. He immediatly found a way to make a make shift massage room. Him and a few of his friends went to massage places to see what they looked like and made a room out of steel and fabricated the walls to feel like a real place. They did this in a corner of an old factory. They really liked this Wu Ying and felt like they needed to take care of her, so they continued to lie to her to make her want to stay. Meanwhile Zhao had been trying to get a hold of his new fiancee and she kept blowing him off. When he finally went to her home with flowers he saw her with another man. She told him she new he was lying about everything and ending the conversation with bring me my girl back. Upset from what had happened he got drunk, wound up insulting a man on the street and getting hit. He was sobering up at what looked like a fast food place, he had a cup of coffee in front of him and wrote a letter to Wu Ying posing as her father. He wrote the letter as if he was her father and basically was telling her to stay strong and that things would work out. On his way back to give it to her an Unfortunate turn of event happens, Zhao is hit by a truck, he was in the hospital in a coma. His friends went to the hospital and the doctor was asking about his daughter because of the note in his pocket. When his friends went back to his apartment to get her She was gone. She left a recorder saying that she knew they were lying about everything, but she was not mad at them. She explained that the times she had with them were the Happiest times of her life. They end the movie with Zhao in the hospital an Wu Ying walking the streets of China. In one review I read said it perfectly "Zhao was looking for a wife but gained a daughter."

Not  One Less

 

Is about a 13-year old girl,  Wei (Wei Minzhi) who set out to ne a substitute teacher in a small chinese farming village.  The class she was substituting for was filled with kids who were just a few years younger than her. Therefore she didn’t have the best authority and respect of the children.  She went because she needed to make money however the only way she was getting paid was if she did not loose any of her students, by time she was not needed.  She would only be paid 57 Yuan which is not much at all for this great responsibility.

She didn’t know anything about teaching and was given a lengthy

List of things that she must do. They also only gave her 26 piece of chalk for the 26 days she would be teaching, One piece a day.

The first days at the school were Chaotic, Wei would write the lesson on the board and then leaving to sit outside. The children began to act up so she went back inside and tried to get them to behave.

Zhang HUike was the boy who gave her the most trouble. He was like a class clown and was the most unruly student.  This movie is based on their relationship because Huike decided he was going to go to the city to work instead of going to school. When she finds out that he did so, she went to go find him with almost no money. Money that she and her students made by moving bricks just so she can go and find him. Not only is she worried that she will not be paid if all her students are there but she is truly worried about Huike because he is a young boy in a big city. 

When Wei gets to this city she searches the railroad station and the city streets hoping to find him. Meanwhile he was begging for food on the streets.

She finally goes to a tv station and wiats there until she can get on the air to beg the people of china to help her find him. He actually saw the program she was on and saw her crying on the tv. They eventually found eachother and were followed back to the village by the tv station to report on what has happened to Wei and Huike.

This movie was a beautiful story with a happy ending. It makes me wonder about all the homeless children in China. Here in New York it is very rare to see children on the streets begging for food, young adults and older,  maybe but not children.

 This movie won the golden lion for best picture and also 

I WOULD LIKE TO VIST...

Panjiayuan Market
Panjiayuan Market is a huge flea market. It is made up of over three thousand individual stalls covering 48,500 square metres. There really is something for everyone here. Even Hilary Clinton has shopped at Panjiayuan. Antique lovers who know their stuff will be very happy shopping here. Most of the real antiques vendors are in the rear area of the market and are usually peasants from the countryside who sell items collected in their villages. Come very early on weekends, Sunday is the best day for the antiques.
Add: Southwest of Panjiayuan Bridge, No.18 Hua Weili, Chaoyang District
Tel: 6779 0418
Bus lines: Take bus 28、34、36、300、368、713、802、730、957、974、976、107、8 (double-decker) get off at Panjiayuan Station or Huawei Xil Station.
Website: www.panjiayuan.com.cn

Raise the Red Lantern and SHang Hai Triad

Last night I watched Raise the Red Lantern directed by Yimou Zhang and was based on the novel written by Su Tong. I feel like this movie slightly reminds me of the modern polygamist HBO series Big Love. However it takes place in China during the early 1920's. This story is about a young 19 year old women named Songlian, who recently lost her father. She immediately chose the life of being a fourth wife, or concubine to a man they refer to as Master. When she arrives at the house she is quickly shown to her living quarters and introduced to the wives by the housekeeper. It took some time for Songlian to get acquainted to her new life style. It is filled with deceit from the other wives in order to gain the masters attention. Every evening the women would come out to a common area where it would be announced who the master was going to sleep with that night. The housekeeper would go out by the women and have a Red Lantern placed next to the women and her servant with the one he choose. After that, Red Lanterns would be lit inside and outside of that wife's living quarters. The women of the night also had certain perks if you would call it that, they would have their feet massaged and were able to choose the meal for the next morning.  Songlian wanted this kind of treatment all the time so in order to do so she claimed to be pregnant.  She eventually was caught lying by her servant, who told the second wife about blood she found on Songlians pants. The second wife had a doctor called which led to the truth. Her Red Lanterns were covered up by black shades, that had years of dust collected on them seeming as they weren't used for centuries. She went from favorite to least.   Songlian was so livid with her maid that she ransacked her room and burned old red laterns the maid had collected in her room.  Because the Red Lanterns were strictly for the wives, Songlian made a fool of the maid by taking the lanterns, throwing them out side in a courtyard and burned them.  The first wife told the maid that she had to kneel before the fire and until she apologized to the fourth wife she could not get up, she spent all night in the snow and cold and did not apologize to her, leading to her death.  So distraught over the turn of events, on Songlian's birthday, the day she found out her maid died, she got drunk, revealing secrets of the third wife of an affair she was having with the Doctor to the second wife. This out burst of drunken secret telling resulted in the killing of the third wife because it was custom to kill an adulter of their marriage.  After all of the pain, brought on by herself, the last scene of the movie shows a fifth wife entering into the picture, asking who the women was wandering back and fourth. The last scene is shown of her stir crazy and out of her mind. 

Concubines  were apart of ancient chinese that no longer exist. In the Chinese emperors Qing dynasty they kept about 20,000 concubines. Who were actually only able to be guarded by castrated men so the only way they would get pregnant would be by the emperor. The reason for so many was to ensure an heir to the emperor and also to endulge in the promiscuity. By 1971, Hong Kong abolished concubines.   Today they have a "modern day concubine" which is called a  Er Nai, which is a second wife. Women see this as a career or a lifestyle because they are made to look good. Most of them are in it for the money, they are showered with the apartment, the gifts, and spending money, when in turn they will sleep with there "husband" and go on business trips with him to make him look good. The modern concubine is usually younger and pretty then then first wife. 

I personally feel like the life style of the concubine is highly degrading, and it seems like they are glorified prostitutes.  However people have different customs and I understand that my way of life and upbringing are not comparable. 

Shang Hai Triad

The story begins with a young boy Shui Sheng Tang arrives in town from a village and waits for his uncle to pick him up.  When His uncle finally gets him, he quickly is exposed to a murder and the new lifestyle he will be sunjected too. He is given a job by his Uncle to become a servant for a Singer who is also the boss who is a gangsters, Mistress.  Jinbao the singer, is introduced as a  very heartless and cold  person.  Being the bosses Mistress she is in a seat of power which allows her to be as she is.

After a murder ordered by the boss, the gangsters, jinbao and servant tang are taken to a secluded island for protection.  This is where the viewer sees a different side of Jinbao. After being on the island for awhile she loosens up and takes interest in the her servant Tang. She went from not treating him great to actually conversing with him as a big sister would.

 

One day Tang is going to the bathroom in the field and hears two gentlemen talking about killing  the boss and Jinbao. He immediately goes to tell them. The boss then finds these men and kills them, also killing Jinbao because she was having an affair with the man who plotted to kill the boss.  He thought Jin Bao was apart of the conspiracy.  

Tang tried to save JInbao but failed. The closing scene was of him hanging upside down tied to a ship. High end lifestyle and how they treated there people. The story was also about loyalty and friend ship. Even though Jinbao treated him wrongly at first, she eventually grew to like him and treated him as family. I was upset that in the end she was killed because I feel that she was just beginning to learn how to treat others and actually cared about what others were feeling. I was hoping that there was goin to be a happy ending but of course there wasn’t. I really did not Expect them to Kill her.

This movie was nominated for a Golden globe for best foreign film and for best cinematography in the Oscars