http://hopefulenterprise.org/ en sam@sampottsinc.com Copyright 2010 2010-05-17T08:10:11+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/lhasa/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/lhasa/ Text 2010-05-17T08:10:11+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/dispatches_from_chengdu/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/dispatches_from_chengdu/ This is a big day on the Enterprise: updates from Sichuan province. I’ve been living in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, since the end of January. The semester in Nanshan finished up in early January and then I went to Shanghai for two weeks to see what the big deal was (not that big a deal, as it turned out). Having no great plan other than to get out west, and wanting to go before the New Year’s travel season started in February, I flew to Chengdu on January 28 and have been here ever since. By sheer luck, my first day here was about the nicest day of weather we’ve had — actual blue skies and a breeze and shadows on the ground. I walked down a long street populated entirely by laminated signmakers to the People’s Park. After a glass of tea by the boat pond (but no ear picking) and a stroll through the little amusement park, I knew how I felt about Chengdu. Cities can strike you just like people do and when you’re lucky you find some tenor in a place that resonates, maybe in the colors or the people or just the geometry of the streets. It’s a great place, even though the sky is white all the time. In the coming days I’ll add captions to the photos, but for now here is an overview of today’s posts. Chengdu Chengdu Chengdu: Notes from sitting on the street corner in the QingYang district, watching people go by. Chengdu People, part I Chengdu People, part II Chengdu Places Chengdu Things Pandas: I didn’t think pandas were that big a deal, almost too cute for their own good, but they are awesome. Photos might not win you over; you’ll have to visit. My Apartment The Past Is Always with Us: A strange moment in the Chengdu Library. Text 2010-05-03T13:40:25+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/the_past_is_always_with_us/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/the_past_is_always_with_us/ Back in February when everything was closed and there wasnt much to do, I went to the central Chengdu public library to see if I could get wi-fi and just to take a look around. On the fifth floor there is a room of foreign books, which is not a bad collection (Churchill’s six-volume memoir of World War II, lots of British novels). There is a whole aisle of English textbooks. On the second floor up from the floor, at the very end of a shelf, is a copy of Writing Nature. Writing Nature was published in 1995 by St. Martin’s Press College Division. My name is on the copyright page. I was the associate editor. My first job after college was as an editorial assistant and after a year or so I was given this book to edit. And I truly edited it — long letters to the author, red penciling, long lists of potential subtitles (a textbook requirement), all the old-fashioned care. I even approved the cover design, which was how I first learned of Andy Goldsworthy, though I knew nothing about typography then. Not too long after the book came out, I was laid off and that took me out of editorial work and eventually into graphic design. And now I am in China, and not really even a graphic designer these days, and then here is this book. This book that I was so proud of, am still somewhat proud of, although it’s crazy they let me even touch it. I was 23. In a month I’ll be 40. We printed probably 5,000 copies, maybe a little more. This has to be the only copy anywhere in China. The temptation is of course to make this book’s sudden and so totally unlikely appearance in a Chinese library mean something. But what? We’re both, it and I, in a place where we don’t quite belong but have ended up. Text 2010-05-03T13:37:38+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/li_jing_hua_yuan/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/li_jing_hua_yuan/ It’s kind of crappy and there’s no fridge and certainly no washing machine, but it’s my house! In China! The rent is about $150/month plus $10 or so for water and electricity and only sometimes can I steal wi-fi from the neighbors, but it’s on the 11th floor facing south and the birds in the courtyard are so loud in the morning they wake me up when I leave the door open. Image 2010-05-03T12:23:31+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_research_base_of_giant_panda_breeding/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_research_base_of_giant_panda_breeding/ 14 large images. Image 2010-05-03T12:18:44+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_things/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_things/ Various items and such from daily Chengdu. 20 large images. Image 2010-05-03T12:14:03+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_places/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_places/ Here and there in Chengdu. 20 large images. Image 2010-05-03T12:12:25+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_people_ii/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_people_ii/ More from Chengdu. 20 large images. Image 2010-05-03T12:06:27+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_people_i/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_people_i/ Taken here and there between January 28 and May 1. 20 large images. Image 2010-05-03T11:59:50+00:00 http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_chengdu_chengdu/ http://hopefulenterprise.org/index.php/chengdu_chengdu_chengdu/ Man stands with left hand holding cellphone to right ear, with right hand on right hip, two angles of arms; his shirt is black, gray, white, and yellow horizontal stripes. Cheap cellphone’s ringtone isn’t tinny — it’s plasticky. Men with black leather bags, the flat kind with a flap and one thin strap. Pink plastic jacket with zipper. Woman eating mian tao takes one bite then right away another without chewing. Woman in a shiny jacket hunches forward on bicycle, past a cop car with the lights on but no siren. DHL boxes being broken down by a clean, healthy-looking man. Unoiled bicycle chain. Short older woman in a gray-green jacket tips a single wooden crutch along, not leaning on it. A man smirks the whole time it takes to walk past. Six cars parked at the curb, each with a driver waiting. Boy and girl: both: black hair, white t-shirts, black jeans. Little boy holds a cellophane bag to his mouth with both hands, eating something white. Girl in a skirt with thick blue and yellow stripes has a green charm on her cellphone. Woman walks with her elbow on a boy’s shoulder. Four girls in primary school uniform: three pink backpacks and one red one. Tick-tick of a boy walking his bicycle, girl with her arm around his neck. Pale woman with short black hair in a black blazer, gray pants, and black heels on a pink bike. Short man in a big blue jacket carries wicker baskets on a pole across his shoulders, one basket empty and the other with a pile of yellow fruit.  Man frowning on a bicycle through foot traffic with a boy on the back and a blue/silver backpack in the front basket. Taxi engine sounds like deep inside a large ship. Old man in a loose ochre-colored CCP-style suit and cap crosses the street slowly with a woman with wiry hair. Woman in plaid pants, red flats, and yellow jacket plants her feet, rotates her shoulders to look behind her, in the middle of the street. White car cuts in front of woman in black uniform. Middle-school boy: gray sweatpants with red stripe, white shirt, red/black plaid vest(?). Two guys in white jackets walking together, one with cream pants, the other light gray. Suddenly sexy women everywhere, all sexy in different ways: jeans, stockings, short hair, necklace, dyed hair, blue uniform, swinging skirt, turquoise jeans that fade from mid-shin down into black. Perfume of a woman going by — rare. A couple strolls, stops, points back the way they came, deciding where to go, then continues on. Billboards for Max Factor, Mango, LaNeige, Longines, and Versace. Little girl and father on a moped, her standing in front, eating. Brief laughter from a small store out of sight away across the street. A pedicab bicycle with red velvet cushions folded down. Taxi hits the gas just as it passes. Something preppy is going on: many kids in school uniforms have v-necked sweaters. Every bike squeaks differently. Keys jangling as a man walks east, fast. Woman’s silver sunglasses are pushed up on her head like a tiara. A man moving forward on his bike looks backwards and smiles at something. People walking west are now squinting. An electric pedicab sounds like something on a track, smoothly guided. That guy’s face looks like a fish. Bicycle sounds like shears. Couple holding hands — she swings a blue plastic bag and he wears a backpack on his chest. Woman comes up the steps with the kind of blank weariness of a sumo wrestler. Girl in red/white school tracksuit rides by drinking from a bottle of Sprite in one hand. Most of the mopeds parked across the street in the lot are red. Woman’s high heels are foot-colored, only the heel is black. Another boy in the vest uniform. Guy drinking Red Bull from a gold can. Man from a jam-packed store hocks his throat and spits on his own stoop, goes in , comes back out, goes in. Girl on an electric bike and boy on a mini-wheeled folding bike holding her seat, being pulled. Toenails of a dog click-skipping on three legs, holding up a hind leg, ribs sowing through. There’s something airline-sounding about electric bikes, a sound of empty air. SUV honks four times, turns right. Two guys in white shirts: one with a grid pattern of 1-inch squares and the other with 8-inch squares, the grid zoomed in. Young woman whistling, unusual. Small moped sounds like a large motorcycle. Throat-clearing man. Man with a phone to his ear and an unlit cigarette in the middle of his mouth, lips pursed. Instrument panel of a pedicab bike glows red on the driver’s forehead. Pant-legs weep-weep as a woman walks quickly. Three girls, the middle one is the glamorous one in red boots. Mufflered moped has the sound of sleepy power. Two taxis with different-pitched motors make a miniature Doppler going by. Teenager with earphones looks askance, sucks on a large pink plastic straw in an empty cup. Woman in gray t-shirt, black skirt, black kneesocks, and low pointy white shoes stands around; her tiny knees are bare. Rrr-r-rrr of a large flatbed changing low gears. Wheels and engine of a moped make two sounds at once. Guy rides a girl on back of his bike; she sits sidesaddle, rests her head against his back. Sound of metal stretching as a man pedals his three-wheeled bike with a food cart on back. Girl stands in the light of a hair salon, then the light goes out silently. Text 2010-05-03T11:37:09+00:00