Shanghai, China (中国, 上海) – 2011
The night I arrived in China was one of the most exhilarating nights of my life. I flew from Dallas to Detroit to Shanghai, arriving a little before midnight. It felt as if I’d been shoved in a cardboard box and thrown in a spaceship that had crashed somewhere made of elements halfway in the past and halfway in the future. Tired but unable to let anything escape my gaze due to my immense intrigue–this was my first visit to a non-Western country, a country I had been studying and learning the language of for the past year.
My eyes were bulging for days, taking in Shanghai, a manic, crowded, blisteringly stimulating city. When I hear people sing about Los Angeles or New York, that is how I feel about Shanghai. Simultaneously disgusted and impressed, in love and repulsed by such a monstrously overcrowded and ethically-filthy area…Shanghai was my first Asian mistress…but definitely not my last!!
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- One-way ticket to Shanghai…who knows where we were here. I felt such a sense of freedom and success to have no bridge home.
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- Outside the apartment in Shanghai, I feel manic just looking at this beautiful mess of opportunity.
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- “Hi, I’m the one guy in the world who talk on me phone while no drive two-wheeled car. Nice to meet you, Coca-Cola, NBA, Obama, all the other English words I know…”
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- This entire building was equipped with organic drying machines for clothing and towels. Amazingly, the forward-thinking landlord had outfitted the building with railings and all residents had to do was suspend wet items from the railing…and it would dry organically. Isn’t this something?!
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- Two elders with short hair and cool patterns on their shirts stroll through an alley and revel in the glory of being grandmothers. I observe and wonder what it’s like to have an offspring that has an offspring. I just could not relate to these women on any level.
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- At Haagen-Daas the waitresses were dressed up like stewardesses and this was yummier than the ice cream that may or may not have been poisonous. It’s not even that I have yellow fever or whatever–I think I got that immunization before I left.
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- I like taking pictures of McDonald’s in other countries. I am thankful and full of pride when I document how the US has been able to export pro-health restaurant, family-oriented megachains to countries that didn’t previously know that affordable health food existed or could have such simple yet effective arch-based logos.
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- I think these are awards the apartment complex I wandered into had won. It felt very safe. Shortly after taking this image, a resident started interrogating me in Chinese asking what I was doing there. I didn’t know the word for being lost and confused so I just walked away.
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- Next to a coffee shop, this guy just sits out here all day and fixes tires and other bike issues. Guys are on street corners all over the place that do this since bike is such a common mode of transportation.
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- Shanghai Tower under construction, as viewed from the Shanghai World Financial Center. The Pudong River runs in the background.
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- A restaurant in a hotel in the Shanghai World Financial Center. Out the window you can see lesser skyscrapers below us. We weren’t even on the highest floor.
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- A trip to the Ancient Tourism Center. Since it was monsoon season there were people walking around selling umbrellas everywhere. I laughed until at that…until it started raining.
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- A truck full of some very partially-clothed boys. The only reason anybody stopped at the red light was to admire the white ghost with the camera (yours truly).
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- Hey…I not wanna stop at flloor3…bad luck strike me for 10 dynasties.
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- Shanghai arrow left. Here I try to blend in with the local pillars that prevent cars from smashing traffic signs. Unsurprisingly, my stripes generate at a faster frequency and on a differrent wavelength and I fail to assimilate.
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- Just Eat It…store No 0001…I wonder how many more of these there are. Ancient Chiense proverb–clever English name // ensure success // no matter product taste shit // just eat it.
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- From Shanghai back to Hangzhou on the high-speed train. The little dots near the center of the picture are people working in the field.
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- We only sell mushrooms and we only sell mushrooms that either kill you or make you twice as big as you were before you stomp on them. No artificial dyes.
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- Normally closed…but we open for you.
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- Work hard like you blow me baby…matching shirts exiting the subway.
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- The guy in the cab gazing out at me was just asking how I got such luxurious genes…I just pointed across the street and said he was looking the wrong direction. Keep your eyes ahead buddy…then it’s only a 90 degree turn to the right to indulgence.
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