Anchang ancient town

 

cofWe reached Anchang in less than one hour and a half by a high-speed train bound for Ningbo from Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station.  Although it was on a Sunday, and what is more during the long Labour Day long break, we spent the most pleasant relaxing  afternoon there, far from the madding crowd of such water-towns as you find recommended in most guidebooks. Anchang is no tourist trap, infact it is first a place for residents. The locals are extremely friendly and the ambience is cosy and relaxed. We hired a boat and were rowed by a boatman along the canal – the local boatmen steer with a hand and row with their feet while apparently sitting in a nonchalant relaxed attitude. Open the ANCHANG ANCIENT TOWN photo album and view the lazy cruise of the canal below.

4th May Movement

Today China celebrates Youth Day, which marks the start of the so-called 4th May Movement (五四运动; Wǔsì Yùndòng), this year also the centennial of the movement. The May 4th Movement takes its name from the massive popular protest growing out of a students’ demonstration in Beijing. The movement swept over China in May 1919, following the announcement of the terms of the Versailles Treaty concluding WWI. According to the treaty, Germany’s territorial rights in China were not returned to the Chinese, but were instead turned over to the Japanese.  Not surprisingly, in Europe we hardly know about the movement, which conversely is regarded here as a sort of incubator for ideas which were to shape China’s culture and politics in the 20th century. As such, the term “May Fourth Movement” in a broader sense often refers to the period during 1915–1921 , aka  “New Culture Movement”.

To learn more click here for an interactive animated infographic from CGTN: some propaganda in it, but the historical part is very clear and effective.

 

 

 

Moxi Huitang

Yesterday I visited the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, a tribute to how Shanghai saved thousands of Jews who were being actively persecuted in our civilised Europe. No wonder the small theatre upstairs shows a video in which Israelis thank the people of Shanghai for their help.

The first thing I noticed on entering it was the total lack of  safety measures -in Europe a place like this should be guarded all day long…how shameful! I was lucky enough to have a nice guide all for myself – nobody else turned up for the 2 o’clock guided tour – and she was very informative and helpful. I got to learn great and small stories, all equally interesting. Great stories such as Dr Jacob Rosenfeld’s, who served the Chinese People’s Liberation Army during the outbreak of Second Sino-Japanese war and Chinese civil war and Dr Ho Feng Shan’s, who saved many lives by issuing visas to Jews fleeing from Europe while working as a diplomat in Vienna Chinese Consulat. Among many, I was struck by Lin Daozhi’s story: the headmaster of a school in the sector for stateless refugees, he was entrusted a number of books in English, German and Hebrew by his neighbour Carl, a former headmaster himself. When Carl left for Germany, Lin promised he would keep good care of the books until Carl came back for them. Carl would never go back to Shanghai, but after Lin’s death in 1981, his family took over his job of keeping the books, which are now in Hongkou library (a small part is kept in the museum). To see something from the museum click SHANGHAI JEWISH REFUGEES MUSEUM.

After leaving the museum I met an old Chinese gentleman who showed me around the neighbourhood – old fascinating alleys. As a local in Hongkou he knew a lot about the area and its history. I feel I detected a sort of sadness when he told me that after WWII all Shanghai Jews left to migrate elsewhere. To see something from the neighbourhood click HONGKOU SMART MUSEUM.

Yuyuan

Yu Yuan is a must-see for all tourists coming to Shanghai, so it can get incredibly crowded, especially at weekends. It was full of groups and families when I visited it yesterday – it was Wednesday! and yet I was able to carve out some peaceful time for myself just sitting on a bench admiring the rockery, the plants, the huge fish and turtles in the ponds.

The Yu Yuan Gardens were built by the Pan family, who were influential Ming-dynasty officials, between 1559 and 1577. A typical Chinese garden, devised to be lived in and shared, unlike Japanese-style gardens, made to be contemplated, Yu Yuan was planned according to feng shui principles. The photos focus more on some exquisite details that struck my attention than on the plants and flowers. If you can’t visualise them properly below, click on PARK

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After reading Du Fu: Mare Nostrum

GuestArrives_pic  Du Fu (712-770) is unanimously considered as one of the greatest Chinese poets ever.  While learning about “Cosmopolitan Tang” with the “ChinaX” Harvard University course on EDX, I was requested to compose my own poem following the rules of Tang regulated verse. Taking inspiration from Du Fu’s poem “A Guest Arrives“ I wrote my own “Mare Nostrum, after reading Du Fu“.
The poem is dedicated to Vincenzo Lombardo, former graveyard keeper at Lampedusa, who took loving care of the bodies of dead migrants from Africa – I came to know about him thanks to Davide Enia’s  moving play “L’Abisso”.

Du Fu: “A Guest Arrives”
North of my cottage, south of my cottage, spring water everywhere, and all that I see are the flocks of gulls coming here day after day.

The path through the flowers has never yet been swept for a visitor; the wicket gate today for the first stands open just for you.

The market is far, so for dinner there’ll be no wide range of tastes. Our home is poor, and for wine and we have only an older vintage.

Are you willing to sit here and drink with the old man living next door? I’ll call him over the hedge, and we’ll finish the last of the cup.

Stefania Fusero: “Mare Nostrum, after reading Du Fu”
North and south of the graveyard, fragrant mint everywhere,
and all I see are the wrecks on sea floating here season after season.

The fish from the deep circled and fed on the jetsam;
the seagulls from high screeched and swooped.

The gate to the village has never yet been opened for a guest;
the flowered path today has been swept just for you.

Are you willing to lie here and let the oleander grow over you?
I’ll mourn for you, hope you won’t mind the wooden cross nearby.

 

A Chinese Life

A Chinese Life is a graphic novel in three volumes co-written by Li Kunwu together with P Ôtié. It is the autobiography of Li, an artist born in Yunnan, a rural province in south-west China, in 1955. The work was first published in France as «Une Vie Chinoise» between 2009 and 2011 and later translated into 13 languages.
The three volumes chronicle Li Kunwu’s life set against the backdrop of China’s contemporary history starting from the first encounter of his parents in 1950, his father a party official and his mother a peasant woman, up to 2009.
Li_playThe three books making up this epic memoir –The Time of the Father, The Time of the Party, The Time of the Money– follow those tumultuous years of Chinese history, but A Chinese Life focuses on the shaping of the protagonist rather than aim at giving a detailed account of the times. But as the French publisher and cowriter initially said to Li Kunwu to convince him to write the book: ”Through the life of an individual like yourself, foreign readers could come to understand China.”
And A Chinese Life is up to the expectation, as you feel that you can understand something more about China after reading it.
Personally I was particularly struck by a scene in the 3rd volume (The Time of the Money) where Ôtié urges his friend Kunwu to deal with the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. After admitting his inability to do so, Li demands to abandon his agreed role as a witness to exceptionally express his personal opinion instead. And his opinion, which he rightly feels will come as a shock to Western readers, is that “China needs order and stability first: the rest is secondary”. In other words, Li Kunwu totally embraces Deng Xiaoping’s doctrine “The past is the past. Development is the first priority.”
And here’s how the book ends: “we’re proud of what we’ve made, even if it’s not perfect yet. Especially since it doesn’t come from the profits of armed conquest, however legitimate. Or from the exploiting of rich subsoil or from inherited capital skillfully managed to bear fruit….You will find nothing but sweat here. From our brows’ and our children’s, to whom we bequeath lives that will also be made of hard work and sacrifice for we still have a long way to go down the road that will lead us from poverty, the road to development.”

Worker Poets: the world of the marginalised

Not long ago I came across a booklet of poems by Xu Lizhi, a young Chinese migrant worker and poet whose work became known after his suicide on 30th September 2014. Xu was born in Dongliao County and like many others he left his rural hometown and found a job in Shenzhen with Foxconn, the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer company, which manufactures electronic products for major American, Canadian, Chinese, Finnish and Japanese companies, among which the BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone, iPod.
His poetry went straight into my heart, where Xu has had a place ever since.
If Xu Lizhi’s poems became known only because his friends collected and had them published after his death, nowadays, thanks to an increase in Internet users among diverse social groups, a new migrant worker literature has emerged and other voices from the marginalised can now be heard.

I owe to a course with Dr. Yue Zhuang and Ting Guo (University of Exeter) “Understanding the Complexities of Chinese Culture”, the find of the “Iron Moon”, both a book and a feature documentary film on working class poets in China.
Watch Ironmoonmovie and meet five worker poets: besides Xu Lizhi, there is Dawn, a garment factory worker, Blackbird, a forklift driver, Lucky, a demolitions worker and finally an old coalminer.  I have translated Dawn’s poem Sundress into Italian.

Shanghai e la Shoah

Ad Hongkou, distretto nordorientale di Shanghai, si trova lo Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum, occupato al pianterreno dalla sinagoga Ohel Moshe e ai piani superiori dagli spazi espositivi. Lungo un muro del cortile sono incisi i nomi degli oltre 13000 Ebrei che trovarono rifugio in città all’epoca della seconda guerra mondiale – un capitolo della storia di Shanghai che vale la pena conoscere.
Ovviamente tutto iniziò in Europa, precisamente in Germania, dove il partito nazista al potere perseguiva il progetto di rendere l’intera Europa “judenrein”, in una prima fase facendo in modo che gli Ebrei se ne andassero. La loro partenza era subordinata a rigorosi adempimenti burocratici, quali la registrazione delle loro proprietà che potevano in questo modo essere legalmente confiscate, ma anche all’ottenimento di autorizzazioni di ingresso o passaggio in altri paesi. Solo dal 1941 agli Ebrei non fu più concesso di lasciare il Reich.
Henny Wenkart, un sopravvissuto alla Shoah, lo spiega in modo chiaro: “Quello che molti non capiscono è che all’inizio si poteva uscire. Tutti avrebbero potuto uscire, ma nessuno ci voleva lasciare entrare!”
Infatti frontiere, porti e confini presto incominciarono a chiudersi per gli Ebrei che tentavano di lasciare la Germania, a cui venivano negati i visti di ingresso. Pochi sanno che invece Shanghai, anche se da vibrante metropoli degli Anni Venti era stata ridotta al fantasma di se stessa dalla guerra con i Giapponesi ed era sovrappopolata e in miseria, era l’unico luogo che accogliesse gli Ebrei con o senza documenti. Per molti di loro, fra cui quelli ricordati sul muro dello Jewish Refugees Museum, questo rappresentò la differenza fra la vita e la morte.
Una placca commemorativa al museo in Hongkou lo spiega in modo chiaro:
“Nessun consolato, nessuna ambasciata a Vienna volle concederci il visto per emigrare, finché….mi recai al consolato cinese dove, meraviglia delle meraviglie, mi venne concesso un visto non solo per me ma anche per i miei parenti. Grazie a questi visti riuscimmo ad imbarcarci sul piroscafo italiano Biancamano in partenza agli inizi di dicembre 1938 da Genova a Shanghai – un viaggio di circa 30 giorni. ” Eric Goldstaub, profugo ebreo emigrato a Shanghai.

fonte: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/shanghais-jewish-quarter-hongkou
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/shanghai-jewish-refugees-museum

Sul fiume durante la festa di primavera.

 

china_museum1-2jxs4wyDell’Expo 2010, nell’area di Pudong, rimane il padiglione della Cina progettato da He Jingtang, trasformato nel gigantesco China Art Museum, che ospita opere di arte contemporanea. Personalmente tornerei a visitarlo solo per la versione elettronica del famoso rotolo dipinto da Zhang Zeduan (1085–1145), artista della dinastia settentrionale Song, l’originale del quale, che misura 24,8 x 528 cm, e’ custodito nel Palace Museum a Beijing. Il dipinto e’ uno dei piu’ famosi dell’arte cinese, tanto da venire paragonato alla Gioconda di Leonardo. Il titolo Qingming Shanghe Tu puo’ essere tradotto “lungo il fiume durante la festa Qinming”, quando all’inizio della primavera i vivi commemorano i defunti pulendone le tombe, ma festeggiano contemporaneamente le gioie della stagione. Il dipinto e’ di eccezionale valore storico perche’ descrive vividamente una citta’ Song e anche perche’ le numerosissime repliche (almeno cento) fatte in epoche successive sono fonti inestimabili di studio e di confronto per gli storici.
Entrare nella grande sala del China Art Museum a Shanghai e immergersi nelle scene del dipinto equivale a salire su una macchina del tempo e ritrovarsi nella Cina del 12^ secolo, davvero emozionante.

Muoversi a Shanghai

Sulle ampie strade di Shanghai corre un numero imprecisato di veicoli di ogni tipo, dalle Ferrari e Lamborghini dei molto ricchi a scooter, biciclette, triciclette, monopattini, autobus e quant’altro. A me piace camminare e volentieri vado a piedi nei negozi dove mi sono abituata a fare la spesa, anche in quelli non vicinissimi, ma cerco di farlo durante il giorno. Non temo l’eventualita’ alquanto remota qui di venire aggredita da malintenzionati, ma percorrere i marciapiedi o attraversare la strada mi da’ un senso di insicurezza. I marciapiedi sono talvolta dissestati per i continui lavori, spesso occupati da automobili, e si rischia di posare i piedi su ricordini canini -sono molti gli affezionati proprietari di cani ma pochissimi ne raccolgono le feci – oppure sui numerosi sputi -le persone non giovani, uomini o donne, sputano spesso e ovunque, purtroppo. Quando attraverso sui passaggi pedonali devo fare molta attenzione soprattutto agli scooter che arrivano da tutte le direzioni: essendo elettrici non si sentono arrivare, inoltre non rispettano i semafori e di solito non accendono le luci. Aggiungete a tutto cio’ una perversa abitudine cinese a inserire scalini nei posti piu’ impensati, il risultato e’ che bisogna tenere gli occhi sempre aperti.
Ho imparato ad utilizzare un paio di linee di autobus per arrivare alla stazione della metropolitana e ad un centro commerciale non troppo lontano da qui. Gli autobus sono economici (una corsa costa 2 yuan) e affidabili e hanno un display luminoso in inglese oltre che in cinese con i nomi delle fermate, ma purtroppo questo non sempre funziona e spesso i nomi delle vie sembrano molto simili a noi occidentali, Continue reading “Muoversi a Shanghai” →

I Cinesi lo fanno meglio?

Non penso che sia carino confrontare il cibo britannico con quello cinese – sarebbe come organizzare un incontro di lotta in cui uno dei due antagonisti e’ costretto a combattere legato e bendato – ma la soluzione di un piccolo mistero cinese mi ha fatto pensare al prorridge della colazione inglese. Mi capita di vedere nei supermercati qualche signora o signorina alle prese con una specie di grosso imbuto in cui spinge il contenuto di varie buste in successione, aziona il meccanismo che e’ una sorta di macinino , quindi infila il macinato in un barattolo di vetro che mette in una bella busta di cartoncino decorato con reciproca soddisfazione sua e del cliente. ozedfDi che si tratta? Non e’ altro che un misto di semi, frutti, cereali, forse legumi che si diluiscono in acqua e si cuociono al mattino ottenendo una specie di budino piuttosto gradevole al palato alquanto lontano dall’insipido porridge britannico. Mentre noi abbiamo scelto un po’ a casaccio, i Cinesi selezionano con grande cura le miscele – immagino seguano i dettami della medicina tradizionale, l’impressione e’ comunque quella di aver fatto una colazione molto nutriente e leggera.

 

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