The Heguang Guild Hall

Our internship wraps up this week, and we've been trying to cram in a lot of last-minute sightseeing before our departure. On Thursday we say goodbye to Western China, heading to Hong Kong and then Beijing. I'm going to try to post some short, picture-heavy updates in the next few days so I'll be all caught up before we leave!

We visited the Heguang Guild Hall when Tony and Jenni were in town. This site is pretty impressive in it's scale, and even more so because it's inconspicuously tucked away into high-rises on the southern edge of the Yuzhong peninsula. Built during the Qing dynasty, the complex now houses several different structures along with a museum documenting the history of immigration to the Chongqing region (unfortunately, entirely in Mandarin). Some of the buildings date back to the late 18th century, but have been restored more recently. The buildings on this site serve as a great example of some of the varieties of traditional Chinese architecture.

Here are a some pictures from the Guild Hall:

Tucked into the high rises, nestled below the bridge.

Dragon sculpted railings, adorned with colorful ribbon.

Entrance into the temple on the Guild Hall complex. 

Traditional Chinese lanterns 

Some re-creations of scenes from back in the day.

Different style building; same site.

I want a door-knocker like this!

New/old. 

Gardens on the site. 

All the elements that define Chongqing: bridges, mountains, rooftops. 

Some more dragon sculpture!

China's Development Landscape

As a transportation planner, I am not too well-versed in the world of residential or commercial construction. I focus more on how people get from home to work, than the buildings that contain one's home or work.

However, since coming to China, it's almost impossible to ignore the construction bonanza that's going on here. The cranes are everywhere. Some projects seem reasonable, while others seem completely over the top. Furthermore, the break-neck pace at which all the development is happening raises some significant concerns about environmental impact, safety, and economic repercussions.

The cranes are everywhere!

Environmentally, China does have a green building standard, overseen by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development. Here's a great (sort of wonky) blog post comparing the China standards to the US Green Building Council's LEED standards. The standards are not mandatory (neither are the LEED standards) so the impact is necessarily limited, and dictated largely by demand. I don't have enough access or exposure to the process of construction to make sweeping claims about environmental impact, but from a pollution standpoint, I can't imagine it's helping the recent sky-high rates of particulate matter.

Ciqikou and Visitors from Shanghai

This past weekend, my friends from Shanghai came to visit. I stayed with Tony and Jenni earlier in the summer for a week after landing in China, and in return I tried to show them a good time around Chongqing, now that I have my bearings.

After catching up a bit, we headed to Ciqikou, the old redeveloped part of Chongqing that's known to be touristy, or as my colleague here put it, "crowded, dirty, and not good." We didn't find it to be nearly that unpleasant, and actually had a pretty good time wandering around two of the main sites: the Zhong Residence and Baolun Temple.

We sort of accidentally visited the Zhong Residence, thinking at first that it was the Baolun Temple. Only realizing after we paid the 5 yuan apiece that it was not, we stayed to look around and it was pretty worthwhile. The Zhong Residence was built about 120 years ago, at the end of the Qing Dynasty. The residence used to have 46 rooms but only about 20 have been maintained, the ones that surround the central courtyard. Here are some photos.

The Courtyard of the Zhong Residence

Some antique furniture

Jenni photographing the ornate bed

More furniture

Can I have one of these awesome bed/rooms?

We ultimately did make it to the Baolun Temple, which is considerably older than the Zhong Residence - built over 1000 years ago. Probably the oldest thing we have seen so far in China, even older than the Dazu Caves! This temple manages to stay quietly separated from the snack shops, noodle shops, knick-knack shops, and hoards of people in Ciqikou.

A Weekend in Chengdu

As you may remember, a few weeks back, our friend Carlos came to visit from Chengdu. This past weekend, Lucia and I repaid the favor, heading west after work on Friday.

While we weren't there for very long, we managed to see a lot of the city and get a taste for the differences between Chongqing and Chengdu. For one, Chengdu has a significantly larger population of foreigners, which results in more bars and fewer stares. It also caters to tourists more than Chongqing, perhaps because of the famous Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. Here's a blog post someone else wrote that sums up the differences in character pretty well: Chongqing is chaos, Chengdu is chill. (In a google search for "Chongqing versus Chengdu" I turned up this article as well, in case you're interested in starting a company and basing it in either Chengdu or Chongqing.)

The Chengdu train at Chongqing station. 

The crowd exiting at Chengdu. 

When we arrived, we met up with Carlos and hit a few popular foreigner nightlife spots with some people from our hostel - The Shamrock, Helen's, and Jellyfish. My camera takes terrible nighttime pictures so I didn't capture much.

Chongqing Sightseeing: Hua Yan Tourist Spot

Last weekend, our friend Frank offered to take us to his favorite temple in Chongqing. This turned out to be a fantastic afternoon, if a little hot. The temple complex, called Hua Yan Tourist Spot, was not listed in the Lonely Planet, so Lucia and I felt pretty lucky to have found out about it from someone in the know.

It was about an hour and a half away from our house, via two metro transfers and a bus transfer (almost feels like living in LA!). We stopped mid-way for some noodle lunch with Frank after meeting up with him at the appointed metro stop.

The most incredible thing about this "tourist spot" is how tucked away it is, yet how firmly it remains in the urban landscape. It doesn't look like much from the street, albeit a beautiful gateway.

Hua Yan Temple on the approach...

Lucia, Frank and I in front of the entrance gate to the Hua Yan Tourist Spot

 Once inside, though, the intricacies of the extensive temple grounds begin to present themselves.

(Academic) News Roundup: Pedestrian Safety, Traffic Collisions and Data

Some of the work I'm doing at the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design revolves around pedestrian safety. I've been involved in the field of pedestrian safety in one way or another for over four years, now, and whenever I travel I am the annoying person stopping to take pictures of crosswalks and traffic signs. Needless to say, China is by far the craziest place I've ever had to think about pedestrian safety.

I'll put together a longer post with lots of photos of my observations in Chongqing, but in the mean time, here are some scary/illuminating articles and posts about the pedestrian safety situation in China. Some are super academic; others are more reader-friendly. If you find the subject of traffic collisions upsetting or boring, feel free to skip this post.

First, the problem of traffic-related deaths as an increasing phenomenon in China: The Lancet recently published an all-China issue with a wide range of global health issues. Here's their article summarizing the findings from the 2010 Global Burden of Disease study (registration required), some of which relates to the relative importance of traffic injuries compared to other causes of death. This blog post nicely reflects on the Lancet article's findings, pointing out how death from traffic injuries has jumped from 10th to 4th and discussing why it isn't just because China is doing a better job of controlling diseases that used to be ranked higher. This article, from the World Health Organization, points out the effect of increasing traffic fatalities on urban mortality rates, in particular.

Second, the more pervasive problem of data collection. How do you know if the changes you're making have any effect on safety if your data is not accurate? The debate over pedestrian crash data in China rages on: the police data, which is used by the government for official reporting, does not match the death registry data, which places the figure at twice the number of deaths from injury related to traffic collisions. Here's a super academic WHO article discussing this problem. The WSJ presents one possible explanation here, that the discrepancy exists because of differences in record-keeping and methodology. This article, also through Lancet, suggests a different explanation part-way through: 

"The inaccuracies may be due, in part, to deliberate under-reporting by traffic officers, who are rewarded with a higher performance ranking if fewer accidents occur within their jurisdictions." 

Finally, some work has been done to analyze the traffic collision data. This article does a good job of identifying some overall trends, while this article is a bit gnarlier, comparing the intricacies of pedestrian crashes in Changsha, China and Hannover, Germany, including a section entitled "Analysis of Injury Severity by Body Regions."

As a personal anecdote, I asked for pedestrian crash data on day 2 of my internship, and have continued to press for it, to no avail. To be fair, in the US, data continues to be a challenge in almost every aspect of urban planning, as well. Recently, movements like Code for America have helped launch the idea of using data for urban planning into the forefront of the profession, and I think it's only going to get better over time. I'm not sure whether China is there, yet.

The Dazu Buddhist Caves - An Epic Day-Trip

Lucia and I had been hearing a lot about these Dazu caves. Lonely Planet writes about them, lots of the China travel blogs I've read mentions them, and they are listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. So, we figured, it was worth a trip, only two hours outside Chongqing.

The Dazu Caves actually refer to all the caves within Dazu County, about 75 locations comprising over 50,000 statues. So specifically, we were headed to the Baodingshan cave carvings. According to the tourist information at the site, the cave carvings were built under the supervision of Zhao Zhifeng, between 1174 and 1252, AD. (I'm quite certain this is the oldest thing we've seen in China so far.)

The caves were absolutely incredible, and definitely worth the journey. But before I go further about the caves, I'm going to give a quick sidebar about the trip required to get to the caves.

Lunchtime Adventures

Anyone who knows me as American Chelsea knows that I'm a vegetarian, have been for nearly two decades, and generally steer clear of food that has shared frying pans, utensils, cooking broth, etc. with meaty things. An exclamation I heard often in my household growing up was "I didn't use the same spoon for yours, don't worry!" I think I've gotten better / less neurotic about it over the years, but this is truly a test of my limits.

Our organization generously provides stored-value cards for a restaurant near our office so we don't have to pay for lunch. This restaurant is a fast-paced, loud, noodle-slinging cafeteria-style joint. The menu is entirely in Chinese, no English or even pinyin. We've had a colleague translate the menu for us but even this is only marginally helpful (though he has made an effort to identify vegetarian-friendly food!).

News Roundup

I've been reading a lot of thought-provoking articles about Chongqing and China. I thought I'd post some of them here, for your reading enjoyment and also to have the links handy if I ever need to find the articles again. (Some of these are NY Times and Foreign Policy links - registration/logging in with social media may be required.)

This one is about a bombing in the Beijing Airport this past weekend. It was a very small incident, and no one was killed. But the history behind the incident is tragic, particularly in light of this article about very recent police brutality against illegal vendors.

On to tragedies of a different sort, here is some coverage of the earthquake that hit northwest China this morning. And earlier this month, there was tons of coverage about all the flooding in Chengdu, very close to Chongqing. Here's an article and some photos from Huffington Post.

For something less tragic, check out this incredible New York Times spot on the "New Silk Road" - documents the opening of the railroad west through China to the EU. This is one of a number of articles about the "rise of the West" and how important this region is becoming for manufacturing.

Finally, here are a couple older articles about the local and infamous ex-politician, Bo Xilai. This one is about how he directed the growth of Chongqing to become a critical city in China. This one is about how much he loved gingko trees and the long-term damage that it might cause. (For more information about the rise and fall of Bo Xilai, check out the wiki article, and don't feel bad - I had no idea who he was 4 weeks ago.)

ChaoTianMen, an Evening Boat Ride, and Chongqing's Cable Car

This weekend, our friend and classmate, Carlos, visited Lucia and I here in Chongqing. He's living in Chengdu for the summer, working at the Chengdu Institute of Urban Planning and Design. Chongqing and Chengdu are very close cities, and Lucia and I plan to return the visit in a couple of weeks. Having a guest gave us a chance to show off Chongqing, to see some of the tourist attractions we haven't been to yet, and to trade stories about living in central China as a foreigner.

On Saturday, we visited the Chongqing Urban Planning Exhibition Hall. They had some pretty neat scale models of the city and the region, but I won't bore you with more photos of tiny buildings. If you really want to see them, feel free to email me and I'll send them your way.

The Exhibition Hall is right under the plaza at ChaoTianMen, which is the tip of the peninsula that makes up the Yuzhong District (downtown) of Chongqing.

China's Love Affair with Scale Models

One thing I have noticed in the few weeks since I've been here: China loves scale models.

I'm a complete sucker for these intricate displays, a reaction that probably could have been predicted by my obsession with miniatures as a child (and as a young adult...and in my 20s...Have you ever been to the Art Institute of Chicago's Thorne Miniature Rooms? They're incredible! But I digress.).

Anyway, I posted some pictures already from the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall, and we will be visiting the Chongqing Urban Planning Exhibition Hall this weekend, but in the mean time (in case anyone else has hidden obsessions with miniatures), I'll post a few photos of two of the private scale models we've seen. These seem to be a favorite tool for real estate developers, to demonstrate what their project will look like and sell space.

Week 1 in Chongqing

The city I'll call home for the next 8 weeks is quite a bit different from Shanghai.

For one, it's hotter. Topping out in the upper 90s each day, with major humidity, I'm reminded of the hottest weeks in Chicago, except this is never-ending. I got truly spoiled in one short year with the LA weather, and by the time I acclimate to this weather, it may be time head back to the States.

There are some fascinating articles out there about Chongqing, some of which I've already linked in previous posts. Here is another great one in the NY Times, brought to my attention by my roommate/classmate/co-intern/friend Lucia. This article, in particular, captures some of the vibe I've been feeling here as a Westerner in a city with very, very few Westerners.

Part 2: International Association of China Planning Conference

During my stay in Shanghai, I attended the International Association of China Planning Annual Conference. This year the topic was "Building Resilient Cities" -- something I've been doing some research on at UCLA this past year. The conference was equal parts awkward and awesome, as I didn't know any other people there and most of the attendees were not native English speakers. I'm never super comfortable injecting myself into conversations with strangers; at the conference I was even more reticent to do so since the language barrier was potentially so high.

But, I made it through. Some of the sessions were very interesting, discussing the fallout from the big 2008 earthquake in Sichuan and how the country has rapidly rebuilt. It was particularly interesting starting off my summer in a community of academics, both American and Chinese (and a few Europeans), who feel pretty comfortable being critical of the way planning is happening in China. I have only been at my internship in Chongqing a few days (more on that, to come) and already I think the attitude is quite different. This cultural divide between academics and practitioners exists in the US, as well.

Part 1: Shanghai

Tonight is my last night in Shanghai. I've been here five days, hosted by some wonderful friends. It's made for a smooth transition from Western culture to Chinese culture, though I guess that remains to be seen when I make it out to Chongqing tomorrow.

I spent the past few of days exploring some museums and neighborhoods. I first visited the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, at the recommendation of one of my professors. The (Chinese) ticket-taker asked if I was Jewish, and when I said yes, he replied "Shalom!" Strange, strange introduction to the country.

Away we go...

My flight boards in 10 minutes! Eeek!

I have all the essentials packed away into two small checked bags and a carry-on backpack. My next post will be from Shanghai, and hopefully accompanied by photos. 

When I arrive in Shanghai, I get to ride the Maglev from the airport to the city center. Read all about it here! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train I remember learning about this technology when I was in middle school, and now I get to experience it first-hand. We live in the future!

More on the other side of the pond (they call the Pacific "the pond" too, right?) --

CR

T-minus 9 Days

I've finished finals (and my first year of graduate school!) and I'm now home free for the next 9 days, before departing for China until September.

I'm going to be living and working in Chongqing, an large (by American standards) city in the middle of the country - about 6.5 million residents in the city proper, and 28.5 in the municipality. The city features prominently in this New York Times article about the massive urbanization process underway in China right now. 

Here's another article chronicling the growth in Chongqing specifically. The stories of people living through this transition are endlessly fascinating and moving, and I'm very excited to be there to experience the development. 

Of course, learning about people is a challenge when you don't speak the language. I've been trying, slowly, to learn the Mandarin basics. I doubt I'll gain fluency by the summer's end, but hopefully some level of competence, or at least the ability to order a beer off a menu. 

The other exciting thing about Chongqing is the local cuisine. Situated near Sichuan, the food is known for being spicy. The city is known particularly for it's hotpot, and lucky me! An article from today, discussing the dish and recommending the best places in Chongqing to go. I'll have to watch out for "tummy upsets" -- perhaps the most adorable way of describing indigestion I've ever heard. (And also blood pudding. I will have to watch out for blood pudding.)

Until next time, 

CR.

New Travel Looming!

In less than one month, I'll be heading to China.

This blog exists from my summer abroad six years ago (please don't judge my writing), and I'm resuscitating it to stay in touch, document the craziness, and to have a platform for sharing thoughts while I'm away. Perhaps I'll even keep it up this time when I return.

My travel plans this summer are far from set in stone. Plane tickets are purchased, travel guide is on the way, and I've registered for the conference in Shanghai that I've been thinking about going to for the last 6 months.

Other than that, we shall see! Updates to follow.