Wednesday, February 07, 2007

" In an act to clamp down on pushing and jumping down to the front of the line, the Beijing government has designated the 11th day of every month as "Queuing Awareness Day." "

posted by trish @ 6:59 PM 0 comments

trish is alive!
(please excuse the disgusting underline, i dont know how to get rid of it!) since the last post, in "ahem" september, i have left the tropical southern region of guangxi province and have relocated north-east to Shanghai! i also got a little bit of travelling done prior, trekking through Yunnan Province (beautiful!) and Hong Kong (???...ah, expensive) so i'm currently on a break from work, and started taking a mandarin course, in the hopes that I will acquire enough to somewhat converse with people when I get started on my "BigChinaResearchProject" along the Three Gorges...

"just as there is Paradise in heaven, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou on Earth..."
 and so goes the famous cheesy saying. This is an image of the famous Broken Bridge on West Lake, whereby the "Legend of White Snake" takes place. (For those of you who "care", it is the story of a snake spirit who was transformed into a beautiful woman who falls in love with a man at West Lake. Their love affair was plagued by by a monk who wanted to banish the snake spirit incarnation and finally suceeded in locking her in the Leifeng Pagoda.If you care to know even more, google it)

I took a bike out around Hangzhou, which was quite refreshing, less traffic than here in Shanghai. You also get a better grasp on the scale of the city, as opposed to taking buses around all the time...
All in all beautiful, relaxing, and cold!
(I just love nature in the winter)
This is my favourite picture---love in the infamous city of romance! China's Paris? Check out the woman in the background taking a peek!

posted by trish @ 4:58 AM 0 comments

Thursday, September 07, 2006



Yangmei Village-'rural China experience no.1'

...so I TOTALLY forgot that roads in China might not be exactly smooth and so I forgot to take my dad’s advice to take some Gravol with me when I take the bus…For some reason I thought it only applied to long term trips---but come to think of it I guess 1,5 hrs IS quite a long trip---

I saw my first Chinese cows, sugar cane, banana fields, lotus on the way there, not to mention when we stopped in a village to drop someone off, I turned to look out the window and saw a pigs ass! Not only was it the pig’s ass, but it was pissing too! Ewwwww.

The village is very old and beautiful. It has a lot of original houses from the Qing and Ming dynasties. It’s crazy how un-preserved they are. And un-protected. I could’ve stolen a brick if I REALLY wanted to! Ahahhahaha---but no more "souvenir" bricks for me...(my arch people know what i'm talking about---) But I think that homeless people inhabit these houses. There’s a bunch of random evidence of this lying around, small pots, plates, blankets and drying clothing inside the houses, its sooooo sad. God! Does NO one learn from Stonehenge?

('SOMEONE' told me that i looked like a humanitarian worker in the original...so i decided to have a little fun with it!)

Oh, and I finally ran into one of those toilets that are basically just one long rectagular hole with water constantly running underneath, 1 m high partitions and no doors.


posted by trish @ 7:38 AM 0 comments

Monday, August 28, 2006






















rAndoM weekend in Yizhou.

On Friday morning my roommate told me that we were going on a trip for the weekend! To Guilin. I was so excited, thinking “ Finally I’m gonna see Guilin!”
Then she said...oh, it’s a town NEAR Guilin, and I was like “Oh.” But whateves! I was glad to get out of Nanning.

So my roommate (Ming Xia), and three guys from work Huang Yi, Zhou Yi and Xiao Li and I headed off to Yizhou, which is also Xiao Li’s hometown. His family has this new big-ass supermarket there which we “raided”. Haha! We even took some containers of those soap bubbles that you can blow into the air (which we totally forgot about until we opened the pocket in the backseat as we were leaving, blowing bubbles into some confused cyclists faces…)

We got into the city at around 11, alternating between Bob Marley’s “Legend” and “The Essential Leonard Cohen” on the road. Woohoo! I was sooo hungry, having only had a pack of Mentos since lunch. Much to my dismay, we ended up on one of those 'street food' streets which I have been told to avoid---even better though, the guys immediately went to get some rat! Those rats were HUGE! And they don’t cut it up into pieces until served! They kept saying “Mei-mei…the mouse is delicious! Try some…”



















Let’s just say that I wasn’t about to be THAT adventurous---so Ming Xia and I just got some rice noodles for which the Guilin region is famous.
The next morning we headed out to the Gulong River. We were going to go bamboo drifting down the river for a 10 km stretch. I really had no idea what that was, and when I saw the “drifting device” I was a bit skeptical...















...well it looks sketchy, no?

We had to wait for our tour guide for about an hour and a half. We got pretty bored.



















I was just thinking of how wet I was gonna get. But just our luck, it started POURING as we got onto it, and so we saved the trip for the next morning.

We went out for dinner. They asked me if I wanted to have dog. I was like, uhh---
Well I didn’t want to be rude!
So I tried rabbit for the first time instead, “Mei-mei, don’t worry, it tastes like chicken!” But they ensured me that they are wild.

So in the morning we returned to the river, MINUS the tour guide. I was prepared to get a little wet, but not THIS wet. See Zhou Yi jumped into the river to swim. I was just thinking this kid is crazy! He’s one of those people that just does EVERYTHING---
Then he pulls the other two guys in with him. Oh yeah, I forgot to say that these trips are famous for their water fights! You splash people on your boat AND random people that you don’t know on other boats! Anyways, then they tried to convince my roommate and I to go in. She eventually did, seeing as she had a bathing suit on. Unfortunately I didn’t and was thinking “Hells no! I’m soooo not going in there...”















So they were wading in the water…and I was thinking that it looked like so much fun. Looking up at the mountains, I was thinking when I was ever going to get a chance like this again. Then suddenly Zhou Yi screams “MEI-MEI !!! Xia eh!!!” And it’s echoing in the air. And I see four fluorescent orange figures bobbing up and down in front of me. And I’m convinced. So I jump in, fully clothed. And it felt sooo good to be in the water. I floated on my back and looked up at the mountains.
It's all about POS-I-TIVE peer pressure.


posted by trish @ 8:20 AM 0 comments

Saturday, August 05, 2006


my haircut---ahhhhh! it was much "fob-ier" earlier this week!
WAL-MART craze in Nanning



...sitting here studying chinese, i really have to wonder what exactly it was that i did all those saturday mornings for ten years...well, for one i probably got better at doodling on the margins of my blank sheets of paper!
i still can't believe that all those hours did not amount to very much! save for some character recognition...and at least the ability to write/copy them without looking like a complete retard---
however, i must note that the highlight of my chinese school career was the first one that i went to, in a church downtown toronto...i remember that i was hogging all the answers and got pushed up a level! ahah...we were doing a colour drill and i think the teacher got pissed---
so now, in addition to my mandarin cds, my roomate is helping me out in the evenings---in exchange for some lessons in francais! its cool because i get to practice that too! they have the most hilarious sentences like "We love China" and "We love the Party"---whatever that means!


posted by trish @ 6:43 AM 0 comments

Thursday, July 27, 2006









chickens waiting to be cooked in the cafeteria at work...how appetizing!

WORK or something like it…

So what exactly is it that I’ve been doing for an, “ahem”, extremely minimal salary which shall remain unnamed?! (to give you a ballpark figure, lets just say that if I saved everything I made each month, didn’t pay rent and didn’t eat (although they do give us a sum of allowance for food of 200 RMB!), then I could just almost maybe buy a pair of miss sixty jeans!) haha.

My first few days here were rather uneventful, and I began to wonder if I had been hired to sift through architectural magazines all day. And to develop a severe case of idle brain. But finally, after day 3 I finally got in on some ACTION at the office…

I was to design a water purification factory.

Don’t let that throw you off---it did turn out to be interesting!---

(Being a governemnt operated company, they are anything but short of commissions.)

It seems like I’ll be doing a lot of design work, which I am really happy about, having initially feared the dreaded “fresh graduate” position as a cad-monkey! I think that you can get a lot of great experience in China, regardless of your previous design experience.

At first, I wasn’t really sure how to go about the project…you know how some firms basically expect you to adopt their building language. I was a little worried about how to design in this “contemporary Chinese style”, which dictates many office and apartment buildings here these days. In the end, I figured I would take a risk and offer a less generic direction---

At the end of the week, we had a surprise crit in the office! (for those not familiar with the term, critiques are basically review sessions where you present your work and ideas, followed by a discussion)

And it actually went really well, despite the language barrier (though I had a "translator" and lots of process diagrams and sketches!). They really liked the ideas and appreciated its “creative” and clear expression and acknowledgement of context.

It seems like they are fairly open to new ideas. The principal from a German firm that they are partnered with was completely shocked to discover an office full of people copying buildings straight out of architecture magazines! “This plan here, that elevation there…” Hmm.

The group that I’m working with are all young, many of which just graduated and had been working there a year already---I think there are about 10 guys and 6 girls---

Everyone has been very nice---they call me “Mei-mei” (double meaning: little sister or...beautiful girl-haha) because “Patricia” is too hard. They also thought that my Chinese given name was a little “old-school”! And I might agree.

So in general, the office environment is pretty “chill-axed” and the project pace appears relatively slow, that is, compared to studio-PRODUCE PRODUCE PRODUCE!

So for the moment, I’m liking the stress-free styles this side of the world.

posted by trish @ 7:45 AM 0 comments

Monday, July 24, 2006

A taste of Nanning's residential cityscape---the buildings in the foreground are for the workers of the company that I work for---they play a "recess" is over bell after the lunchtime siesta! (My apartment is the tall black one at the very back)
Markets!
Clothes washing---thank god my wardrobe is not very extensive!Yet.
and primarily BLACK! haha.
Got a cold my first few days here, from the A.C. of all things---this is the "chinese remedy"---mmmmmm





posted by trish @ 6:44 AM 0 comments



Moving on past vacation mode. Tear tear.

Nanning, Guangxi. The ‘Green City’. Population 1.3 million.

Palm trees. Hints of a blue sky. Tropical, humid summer climate.

Utter chaos on the road. Jay-walking gets rather---interesting. Traffic light regulated intersections are no less dangerous.

Motorbikes, motorbikes, motorbikes (license for trish?!)

Endless shopping strips. WALMART like you've never seen before!

High-rises like no tomorrow. And even more in construction…especially if I can help it!

First few days here were hectic and exhausting, as I had not yet recovered from ‘Beijing-ing’. As I stepped out the comfortable air-conditioned airport, still in a daze from my three hour nap on the plane, a wave of Nanning summer air hit me and I wondered how I would last the summer…which unfortunately ends in October!!! Nothing could ever prepare you for this heat!

Living:

I had originally arranged to stay at my dad’s friend’s condo.

Pros: Gorgeous brand-new place--4 bedroom, air-conditioned, fully furnished, hardwood floors, with a double height living area and generous balcony. Lush gardens in the central park, equipped with tennis courts. "Dep" under the building: in addition to milk, bread, and beer, the “dep” also sells live chickens!

Cons: Suburbia. 45 minutes by bus from downtown. Reminiscent of one of those remote condo developments outside Toronto. I think I would’ve died from loneliness. Or become a serious internet hermit.

Not exactly what I had intended in coming to China for a year... Though I don’t deny that I would have loved the comfort, I just had to be in the city. I wanted to meet people, and really experience life in Nanning. After living four years downtown Montreal, there's no turning back!

And I had nothing but amazing luck! I went to meet my supervisors at work the day after arriving, and I was offered a place to stay with one of them! My friend Xu Ming has a place about a 15 minute walk to work. She has been really awesome, openly inviting me to her place and her life here. She is sincerely worried about this random girl from Canada!

And thus I have begun the unthinkable---work in the ‘REAL-LIFE’ architectural world! Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

posted by trish @ 6:19 AM 0 comments

Thursday, July 13, 2006


After dodging one too many taxi drivers at Beijing International, cartful of luggage in hand, I quickly push myself onto the thankfully air-conditioned shuttle bus and am on my way into the city!
Beijing.

People, more people… and even more people?! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

White hazy sky. (it’s hard to tell if it is going to rain or not!)

Traffic jams. (bicycle jams?)

Debris in the eye.

Since in China, I have also experienced much new random phenomena:

I have started to SWEAT---I know some of you always thought it somewhat mutant of me! And thus the necessity of a minimum of two showers per day.

Adapting to the toilet in the floor---how ‘un-wordly of me’! but I think the girls at the Peel House certainly perfected the ‘art of squatting’!

Constant thirst---debating whether to drink or not for fear of having to face such situations!

Queues mean nothing---thus the necessity of being pushy and aggressive---while waiting to pick up my bag at the Great Hall of the People, within a second three people had squeezed their way in front of me---I didn’t realize that it WASN’T rude to shove the key in the lady’s face!

Watching out for those spokes!---I actually got poked in the eye on my way into the Forbidden City, by an elderly woman in front of me who seemingly lost control of her umbrella. Thank god for my contact lens.

Checking your blind spot while strolling through the hutongs---I have no doubt that those rickshaws and bicycles will hit you---pedestrians have absolutely no right of way!

Despite all this, I seemed to have survived the week in Beijing- I had 5 full days (thankfully I was not seriously jetlagged---)

AGENDA:
Summer Palace
Forbidden City
Jingshan Park
Fragrant hill
SoHo
The CBD (central business district)
Tian’ anmen
Beijing Planning Museum
Temple of Heaven
Lama Temple
Silk Market
Houhai Lake
The Great Wall (at Badaling)


I think that my feet still hate me.
I should’ve taken my mother’s advice and brought running shoes---the city is HUGE…but it’s not the distance between the sites that kills you, you can always take a bus or taxi---but the sites themselves are HUGE…walking through a massive park for one temple?!

I was also fortunate enough to have some Chinese friends take me around. Alice and Eric hung out with me in the evenings, after my long days---they were quite a relief to some of the hostellers---when I could no longer take backpackers bragging to one another about their ‘awesome adventures’ in the far east---haha

And also my uncle was able to take me around some sites for two days---two days of extensive physical activity as we climbed the Fragrant Hill one day and the Great Wall the next! i think the evidence was quite evident in his drenched shirt!

And a friend Maggie gave me a rather thorough historical tour of both the Lama Temple and the Temple of Heaven---

All in all, I had a GREAT time in Beijing!!!---I advise all of you who haven’t been there yet to GO---haha, easier said than done but seriously…its AWESOME (la).

p.s. if one more person asks me if I need a fork to eat…

posted by trish @ 6:06 AM 0 comments