I finally got a deviantART: http://owendennis.deviantart.com/
Honestly I’ve never become a part of that website because for years I held the misconception that it’s mostly filled with anime, Goku, wolves, half wolves/foxes/coyotes/lions/panthers/horses/zebras half humans (furries and variations thereof), tracings of Avatar promo images, Jack Sparrows, and Heath Ledger Jokers. Okay so maybe it wasn’t exactly a misconception, the misconception came more with that there was nothing else of value on the website. Turns out there is. I’ve found a number of artworks I enjoy, helpful photoshop brushes, and tutorials. So anyway, I know I’m late to the party in joining (so late that the building is closed and all the streamers are cleaned up) but there I am.
Also I noticed when I posted some of my work to Deviant Art that apparently, since coming to China, I’ve made more fanart than I’ve like… ever made ever. I made Star Wars and Donkey Kong Country stuff in 4th and 5th grade, but after that not much of anything. In fact I’ve been actively against doing it for years.
Maybe since coming to China I’ve been trying to keep some sort of level of comfort level up. I always think of things that keep me calm and real and Owen and I keep drawing those things I guess. That’s just what I’m thinking about. Like I made Zelda fanart, Doctor Who fanart (I’m a real Doctor Who fan btw, been watching since I was 5; not like these new fair-weather Who fans… pff…), a number of Mario related things, etc etc. 90% of the stuff on the deviant site is “inspired by” something else. Strange. Maybe I’ll get over it soon and get back to making stuff up? Hope so. I’m so bored of my “style”. Wanna try something new. Luckily DA is pretty good for finding new artists to look at.
So anyway, if you’re on Deviant Art add me to your watch list or buy a sweet poster from me or favorite which pieces you like. I’m still in the process of adding things from my website to it, but it will be updated faster than my website because it’s a quicker process. It’ll probably include things that I don’t consider portfolio quality so you can experience more by going there as well.
Plus you can leave feedback on the work there instead of it being a one way street with me showing and you just having to look. It can be a dialogue! Yay!
Moving on.
In Chinese class my teacher made me draw the human body so we could name body parts together. I only remember “head”, “hand”, “foot”, and “teeth”. There’s really no rhyme or reason as to why some words are easier for me to remember than others:
[Edit: Oh yeah and “penis” “boobs” and “butt”; I guess there is some string of logic there]
In the bank I saw this sign on the wall. Beware of clowns:
Walking up to my apartment one day I looked out across the cafeteria’s roof and I saw one of the local cats sleeping inside of the razor wire barrier. Is it comfortable in there? I guess if you’re constantly stressed about predators or something then sleeping inside of razor wire might make you feel more safe:
Still have these leftover in one of the classrooms. Merry X-max to you:
I like this photo because for some reason every time I look at it my eye skips over obvious oddity and I do a double take. PS: I don’t know what’s going on, this was happening while I was sitting at my desk and I just… I don’t know…
So one day our bus was stuck in traffic on one of the elevated highways. I never realized until we were stopped that all the clear plastic noise reduction panels had a texture from the manufacturing process on them. They’re pretty cool looking. It was really hard to get good pictures:
Someone down in Yantian Gang selling bamboo:
I guess a bunch of parents and school administrators were showing up so they put up this poster of the English speaking competition I had to judge. This is the real reason we’re at this school. They want to show us off. We are here solely to provide face and honor. It’s like pokemon; they kind of just want to collect us to show off to people.
Regardless, see that girl on the left in the middle? She won. What was that? Who’s student is she? Oh I don’t rememb- oh wait she’s mine. B-)
The bugs have been coming out now that it’s warmer. Here’s a pretty big moth and a cicada (soooo many cicadas… shut up cicadas!):
So there was this big built up calcium deposit on the stairway in my building. Even calcium cannot escape the twihards:
Nothing like working construction on a highway overpass with semi’s whizzing by underneath you at 80mph without a helmet amirite?
Okay now seriously, the reason that I kept posting all those boring pictures was because I wanted to put off showing this one. Love it. This is what I wanna be when I’m 90 years old:
I’ve been in China for 10 months and I’ve never been able to get a picture of these guys. In many (most?) apartments in China there is no central gas, so people have to order from vendors. This means you basically have these explosive electric bicycles whizzing through traffic mere inches from being killed or killing someone else at any given moment:
I don’t know why I like these buildings so much but they’re pretty cool. Down on their second floor the have cement bridges snaking back and forth through a park; also impossible to photograph:
Some workers coming from somewhere… Where do they come from? There’s nowhere to work nearby. :-/
Why don’t we have this store in the US?
Why don’t they have this store in Britain?
There must be some pretty insulting things we have like that in the US to Chinese people. Probably this shirt or this one. I love those images. Genius. Unwittingly enough “mao” actually means cat in Mandarin. Tried to explain the party one to someone here, they didn’t think it was funny.
Clearly when making jokes you should…
Hangzhou? I Don’t Even Know Zhou!
I stole that headline from Kazimer Iskander. I’m sorry. Normally I would be original about it but I just liked it too much. I’m not going to pay him for it because that’s the kind of person I am; a deadbeat.
Anyway in the airport I saw something soooooooo cool. I didn’t understand what I was looking at at first. It was a TV playing some really bad animation that makes me die a little every time I watch it (thus of course I can’t stop watching it). So I’m looking at it while I’m standing in the security line at the airport. While I keep blinking and having to look at it again and refocus my eyes on it because it felt like something was wrong.
Turns out it was a glasses-less 3D television. Pretty sweet. I was just watching it from the wrong angle. When I walked forward and changed my viewing angle by a couple degrees I understood what was happening and it worked.
Pretty awesome. Too bad about the viewing angle thing. I wish they were showing something less awful on it. Here’s a picture of the TV but I mean it’s not like you’re gonna see anything:
So after the plane ride I got into a taxi and drove to my hostel. On the way I saw a little bit of my local area. I don’t know what this character means, but I’ve noticed that when Chinese people write pinyin (the spelling of Chinese characters with letters so that you can sound it out) they always forget to put the tones. Frankly, “shi” is possibly one of the most used words (with its various tones) in Chinese. As far as I’m concerned this sign could be saying “yes yes yes yes yes” or “accident accident accident” or even “reality reality reality.”
What a confusing language:
Hanghzhou is supposed to be the most beautiful place in china. I think the phrase is something like “Above is heaven and below is Hangzhou.” So it’s pretty much like a haven for lovey dovey couples (who are really really into PDA in china), women posing for photographs (for themselves and I think for online profiles), and couples posing for pre-wedding photos. Lots of posing.
It’s much better and more real than what Quentin saw. He saw a service where people would pose in wedding photos in front of a blue screen, then they would get an album of them in front of like the Eiffel Tower and the pyramids and stuff (Quentin: “Look at what we would have looked like if we spent our money on a vacation instead of photos!”)
Here’s the hostel I was staying at, the whole reason I went to Hangzhou was so I could go to a job interview (which I ended up being a good candidate for, but I didn’t want to live there and the students were not advanced enough for me). I highly recommend this hostel. Very nice staff. They said I was “The best guest they ever had” and I was like “What? Why?” and they said it was because I would just sit and talk with them. They’re really friendly but no one ever talks to them, they just walk into the hostel and walk out. Go talk to the staff, they’re nice:
I was right next to West Lake so I walked around a little bit at night:
So the morning of my first day in Hangzhou I was awoken to the sound of me wanting to smash something. I found out, when I woke up, that my room was the back wall of a playground for a preschool. Not a big deal if I felt like waking up at 6:30 in the morning to happy Chinese children’s music blaring as LOUDLY AS POSSIBLE.
My camera has become so much a part of me that I’ve grown the ability to take pictures and video as a second nature.
The video I took as soon as I woke up.
The video I took half an hour later.
Every morning. This was every morning. Is this what having children is like? Why are kids so horrible? Why can’t they walk quietly to the playground and sit on the slide and read a book? Maybe they could go learn to knit; that’s a nice quiet activity that doesn’t wake me up before 7am.
Here’s some pictures of them playing in front of a creepy nationalistic mural instead of cartoon characters. But then, they grow up to be nationalist and we grow up to be consumers… interesting:
Just so you understand how close exactly they were to my sleeping quarters, here’s a couple pictures. My window wall was their “resting place” where there were chairs to sit on. They were good enough to bounce their toys off the wall occasionally:
All this did was convince me more and more that I cannot be a primary school teacher. Though I must say, some of the teachers were kinda cute. Clearly we can see how I weigh my job opportunities:
I decided to stay in Hangzhou for a few more days after my school said “oh by the way, there’s no more school for the rest of the week.”
Of course, not less than two days later I got this phone call:
“Owen hi.”
“Hi.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in Hangzhou”
“School is tomorrow.”
“… what?”
“You have to be here tomorrow because school will be started.”
“Nope.”
Here’s the inside of the hostel in the morning. Nice place. Also a picture of the bunk room I obtained after I thought I had a few extra days to kill. There was a really nice girl in there with me that spoke great English and she was able to tell me about shanghai and stuff.
Out the window of my new room:
At the end of the hallway there was a sort of metal balcony that you could hang your clothes on I guess. I spilled something on my shirt so I cleaned it and hung it out to dry. I could see the alley way and what appeared to be some sort of junior high school next door.
I guess this hostel was once somehow attached to the area with the kids?
Here is one of my walks around Hangzhou/West Lake during the day.
They have these bikes you can rent. Pretty cool system. Grab a bike, check it out, ride it to one of the bike stations around the city, drop it off and you’re now wherever it is you want to be. Nice. This sort of thing can only work in a warm climate where you can do this year round (or almost year round).
Just in case you can’t read it it says: “S.W.A.T. Even cops call 911”. What does this mean exactly? I mean it sounds like maybe it’s supposed to be badass or something? 911 isn’t the phone number you call in China. In fact I don’t know what the phone number you call in China is because from my limited interactions and from what people have told me there’s really no point in calling the police. I keep hearing stories from Chinese people that makes them sound rather useless.
For instance my friend had a stalker. She called them up and they were like “Who is it?” and she’s like “I don’t know, I don’t know his name but I have his phone number” and they go: “Well when you figure out who it is tell us.” So she had to do all the reverse phone number lookups herself, figured out where he lived, all those sorts of things about him just from using the internet. Wtf is that? Not quite as helpful as all the happy signs around the city make them look. I would think it would breed vigilantism.
Here’s something cool: around West Lake (I keep mentioning West Lake, it’s the lake right outside my hostel, it’s like the biggest attraction in Hangzhou and a frequent tourist stop among vistors to China) they would build the buildings so as not to hurt the trees. Here’s one of the better ones. Most of the time the tree only took a few inches out of the top of some building but this was one of the trees that went through it:
I think this is the leftover of an animation festival? I think in fact that Diana Chao went to it?
Does this mean that exploding briefcases are allowed in other parts of the city?
I think I was in some sort of art area. In fact I have the feeling like I was right around the art school that Diana went to. I’ve read that it’s like the best or second best art school in China. There were lots of galleries and supply shops around. Also this neat building was up on a hill:
If you are drinking while riding a sweet chopper with a blitzed out of her mind and inexplicably blonde/redheaded hooker that you found in China…
… and should you cast off your beer cans and play chicken with a car…
It will result in a massive canary appearing out of the sky causing massive destruction via musket ball.
Don’t drink and drive.
Speaking of driving this was on the outside of a BMW lot I walked past:
More trees and stuff:
I told you about all the couples that come to Hangzhou to have their photos taken right? I took photos too cause I’m a major creeper:
In Hangzhou there was even a Muslim praying area. It was really nice. They take care of it and clean up. They even have a lock on it so no one comes in and does things like vandalize it or, in my opinion, make it less important by posing in front of it for pictures. I didn’t want to take this picture because I thought it was disrespectful, but I did at the same time because I felt it was something important in China that you don’t get to see displayed in public very often. Religion is very hush-hush here. I took the photo using the “I’m not taking a photo, I’m just crossing my arms” method. They didn’t see me watching until later so I think I’m in the clear.
I felt bad because I was quietly watching them, yet when other people walked past they were curious to see what I was looking at. When they did they were really loud and talking about the worshipers and it felt very rude. Once again I have come across the cultural attitude of “other people must respect my culture but I in turn will not respect theirs.” This happens a lot unfortunately. Kind of like when Americans say other countries must be more like America (use the same system of government etc) but more on a personal the-person-you’re-talking-about-is-standing-right-next-to-you kind of way.
When I saw this boat on the right it was really weighed down heavily on one side. For some reason all I could think about as I saw it was squeeling car tires as it turned. Made me laugh.
Sigh.
I’m so boring:
You know that sort of temple kind of thing I kept seeing up on the a hill near the lake? This is it at night. Pretty neat looking.
While walking around in the park they light up the trees. There was a small amount of mist making the lights look all laser-like.
Check out this awesome centipede I saw on the ground. As long as my hand. Also I want to direct people to go onto youtube and check out “Centipede Eviscerates mouse.” In fact, here’s a link. It’s a high quality video my friend Nick Bachman and I made of our pet centipede Father Christmas. You’ll see footage of it featured in the Val Kilmer epic movie: “The Thaw”.
This is Xiaohu. It means “Little Tiger”. He was the hostel’s dog. Pretty fun dog. It had an underbite that made its tongue stick out when it closed its mouth.
It was late spring when I went to Hangzhou so there were still some flowers blooming.
I found this picture in the public bathroom of the hostel. This is a chamber pot. How exactly does this chamber pot work? I mean I can clearly see the glory hole style way of urinating, but what about the rest? What about a woman? They never cover how chamber pots works in historical epics:
Random picture. I take pictures like these when I suddenly have a small surge of “oh yeah I’m in China.”
The Leifeng Pagoda
Remember that giant tower that was lit up on the edge of the lake? I decided to go officially check it out. I was all excited to go see it. I was thinking “oh man I’m going to see some old tower and it’s gonna be cool!”
Here we go! Walking toward the tower!
Here we- wait… wait what? What is that?
Oh… Well… I guess this is what we’re doing… outside… up a mountain… toward an ancient Chinese tower…
Now I walk inside to find all kinds of ancient scriptures and artwo-… what?
So what happened was this tower was destroyed about 90 years ago. It was partially destroyed before that by the Japanese in the Ming Dynasty (burned all the wood so only rock was left). They rebuilt it in 2002. I read all the stuff they had in English about it. They said it was “to bring back scenic beauty” to the area and to “focus on our own culture”. Reads to me a little differently. Hu Jintao even came to the unveiling iirc.
Why build it again? They didn’t even build it to look the same, they built it like three times bigger and out of different materials with a completely different design except for the fact that it’s octagonal. Unless the wooden elements that the Japanese burned made it look more like this new version?
There doesn’t seem to be any real purpose to this 1998 Godzilla version except that maybe they wanted to show off something in that spot? Seems like it might have been to bring in tourist money and more country pride. It’s making a lot of tourist money too. Totally worked. I mean I think about the ruins that I’ve gone to with my parents in different places and it’s like… well… there’s another hole in the ground. I don’t think many people would come to see that (and from my experience, they don’t). This has a giant sparkling light on the top of it though, acts like a bug zapper for tourists.
Hell, people were throwing money at the ruins.
Here’s a kid throwing money. I’m guessing there’s some luck thing here I don’t know about. I’ve never heard of so many different “lucky” actions that are centered around money and somehow receiving it by you doing something or hanging something on your wall or touching something.
Maybe if you throw money at ruins your ancestors will receive it and then it changes the timeline and gives you more money now?
Or they were throwing money because it was the cool thing to do, like I did.
The ruins were being supported by bamboo. Looked cool to me. All those sparkles you see on the ground are 1RMB coins:
Ewwww… who is this guy? I was told there’s a thing in China where the more facial hair you grow the wiser you are. Makes sense in a way. Still… ewwww (In case you don’t get it at first glance, he’s not crying):
So in China most of the time if you want to take your picture in front of something you have to do it at the same time that someone else is taking their picture in front of it. It’s really awkward.
BUM BUM BUM!!
Here’s the elevator to go up. The photo was taken after I got down but you never would have known if I hadn’t told you. How often do you think I mess with continuity in these posts? Hmmmm…
Whenever I walk around at tourist destinations I notice that I’m the only person taking pictures of the people.
So they have the flow of this whole pagoda down really well. You take the escalator up to the building, then inside there’s some elevators that you take to the top of the building. Then you work your way down. So here we are at top.
Here’s the View from the Top starring Gwyneth Paltrow:
One of the handicapped elevators to the second floor. I never see handicapped anything in China so it’s always worth noting. It’s like how I’m at a high school that has more students than my high school and yet I’ve never seen a handicapped kid here. Actually, now that I’m thinking of it, in the 10 months that I’ve been here I’ve never seen a handicapped child anywhere in China. Hmm.
Here’s the outside of the second from the top floor. There’s nobody here. Wth? Not the top so it’s not as important I guess. You get no obvious difference in view… :-/
After going down another floor I saw some real awesome stuff. Gigantic, stylistically done dioramas carved from wood. Each one was telling part of a story, but I think I might have been going backwards? I don’t know. Even though I went over it again and again in different directions I couldn’t figure out what was happening in the story or why what was who what? I’ve found Chinese stories have a different sort of structure than western stories and they all build on other things that are old that I also don’t know about so… it really doesn’t make any sense unless you know the history/social values/rules of magic/various gods and deities/etc etc of the myth. Often they seem to go like “and then and then and then and then” and it doesn’t have a perfect beginning middle and end that builds off of previous things we learned earlier in the story, it just kind of stops… :-/
Cool carvings though:
When I saw this set of sculptures, I accidently stumbled onto something that makes me really happy. When I walked up to it, I found the Chinese version of my college clique. They walked up at the same time, pointed to the character and to their friend and said: “haha ta shi ni!”
That means “haha that’s you!”
A joke that’s still funny even cross culturally. FYI they were pointing at the happy bearded guy in the center:
Pretty epic woodcarving battles:
Check out these sea creatures, I like them a lot. Love Crabman more than Snailman I think but Fishman’s fish hat is pretty sweet.. I also like that Turtleman is connected to his shell by his hair:
Here’s a picture for a better sense of scale (complete with the pointing so you know what to look at):
When I see this sign I think about how in Rollercoaster Tycoon I could stop people from going to certain parts of my theme park by putting up signs that said “do not enter.” There’s no other way down the tower. I’m happy we’re people and not a computer simulation because otherwise the tower would fill up with people on the 4th floor and collapse.
I feel like a dork in this photo. I had to stand around for like 6 or 7 minutes before working up the courage to get someone to take a picture for me. Everyone was so in their own zone and yelling at people for getting into their photos or bumping them or all kinds of stuff that happens when you have overcrowding. Couldn’t get an older person to do it because they seemed the most stressed out. Couldn’t get a man to do it because every time I talk to a man in Chinese I can’t understand a word that he’s saying.
Felt like little lost child trying to get someone to take my picture…:-(
These must have been the stairs to the pagoda before they built a Super Pagoda around it.
Now that you’ve had your picture taken in front of what some might consider to be a large façade, how would you like to have your photo taken anywhere in China??
Way easier than going there and experiencing it yourself imo:
I walked away a little bit and I found a Buddhist area that was pretty sweet. This is something I really wish I could see more of. Spirituality is something that is almost entirely gone from China. It’s unfortunate because it’s such a strong part of their culture but over the course of 60 years it has been abolished or seen as, at most, a cute sort of novelty with only a few true believers left. You can see that there is still some pining for it by watching all their movies. There is a lot of spirituality in them even though most modern Chinese themselves don’t practice or believe in it at all (outside of luck bringing actions). At least they still set up some areas for those few believers to do their religious things. That’s good I guess.
Inside the building are these prayer mats (I don’t know what else to call them, meditation mats? Honor pillows?) to give respects to what is in front of them:
What is it that is in front of them? Inside an ornate box is a real piece of Buddha’s hair. Damn that’s cool. They found it in the mausoleum under the pagoda. That’s the same as having a real piece of Jesus or Mohammed’s hair just sitting in a box. As far as historical importance goes, that’s a pretty damn important piece of hair:
Seriously, I’m getting more and more convinced on this Hangzhou trip that children are horrible little creatures. Check out this lion dad’s face:
There were some people coming to light these painted prayer sticks on fire from this oil lamp. It took them awhile to light them properly. I think the oil got a mixed with the water from the rain earlier in the day. I asked if I could take their pictures so that I wasn’t intruding on them. They said it was okay:
What the did is they got the sticks to start smoking. Then they went and bowed toward the large box kind of sculpture (altar?) and placed the smoking stick into a pot that had other smoking sticks and sand in it. I’m getting more and more interested in the religious aspects of China. I should head to northwestern China sometime.
Leaving Hangzhou I realized I should take a picture of these odd houses. The entire airport around Hangzhou is filled with houses like this for miles and miles. I remember when I flew in I noticed it as we were landing (that’s the only reason I know it goes for miles). There’s tons of them in various shades of mauve and puce and yellow:
The last photo I have is not of Hangzhou, it’s of their in-flight reading material. What does your perfect housewife do in her perfect home? Why she glues her hand to her face out of boredom of course:
The time draws near for my triumphant return to the United States. I have too much to get done before I come back, but hopefully I can get this blog up to date before it happens. We’ll see.
