Veleur, Aug 10, 2008

It’s been a week since I took the photos for this post, but I remember the ride clearly enough. I passed through all the areas of the previous rides, but I saw something new.

I began right in the busy heart of GZ, just between two huge shopping malls. I had seen these fibreglass cartoon figures and been curious about them, so it seemed like a good place to start. It also set the tone for the veleur, which is about ruins.

They are in a small overgrown area, squashed between the busy road and another construction zone wall. I clambered onto the little dias and took some photos, trying out my new flash gear. I am not sure how old the figures are or even why they are there: they are anomalous remnants, left behind like so much else. Perhaps they were there to wave farewell to people leaving a tiny amusement park. Now they face a blank wall, pockmarked faces, faded paint, and holes belying their smiles.

I stopped to get a shot of a tree then went into another pedestrian tunnel, one of the things I love about GZ because on sunny days it allows me to get those overexposed shots I love. The tunnel is cared for, but also left, with its advertising cases blankly staring, and other parts of the tunnels acting as storage areas.

I rode through the construction area and headed for the big bridge over the Pearl. I got a flat just on the other side of the river, just when I was thinking about how I always saw people with flats getting repaired. It was another stifling day in GZ, and I was carrying my new backpack. It was comfortable while riding since I wasn’t really supporting any weight, but it was heavy walking. I rested in the shade of a shack where the garbage collectors dump their loads and store their hand carts.

I got my bearings there, looking for the main road where I could probably find a small repair place. I found one where I thought I might, near a massive overpass and intersection where nomadic bicycle mechanics wait, and where men wait for work, drill presses and tools mounted to their bicycles. I asked a couple of guys and they pointed out a small shop where I had my flat fixed for 2 yuan.

Again, I must comment on how different the sides of the river are. The south is the wrong side of the tracks. Older Guangzhou and not as developed or worldly and where a white-guy on a bike gets more stares. I wanted to ride back to the park by the convention centre and headed down that now familiar road. But along the way I saw one of the small canals which shoots off of the Pearl, and which run through the city like capillaries. A wrecked boat lay stranded just off shore, so off I went.

Once there I saw what I thought was an abandoned fishing village just down from the boat. Dilapidated looking buildings sagged at the water’s edge. Riding up I saw the sign of inhabitation: a clothesline. It was something I was going to see in other unlikely places. I could have wandered into the area but I thought that would be too intrusive, so I just tried to get a shot of the place.

From there I rode along the river on an abandoned sidewalk. I guess that what I had assumed to be new sidewalks and parks when I first started this project are old ones, now left to their own devices and slowly being reclaimed by grass and the river. A thick coating of river sludge coated the lower sidewalk which made riding rough going and a bit dangerous at times. I came to what I thought was a new apartment building but was actually and old one.

At the end of the long courtyard was a basketball net and above that, on a little knoll, was an old shack, overgrown with the vines that snake along the ground. It’s a nice image that sums up a lot of the peculiar feelings I get from areas like this. It’s echoed in the shots from the park at the convention hall, the same one I passed a month ago on my first ride. It’s like wandering through a ghost town, a strange wasteland which people suddenly left. It reminds me of all the post-apocalyptic movies of late. All the zombie landscapes left in haste. Not ruins, but fading memories, like ancient ruins as they were digested by the jungle.

Veleur August 3, 2008

Veleur August 3, 2008

I started out late at about 9am. After the first two veleurs, I had learned something and stopped at a local stall to get some Chinese bread things to keep my energy up. I wasn’t feeling quite up to the day and my eyes didn’t feel sharp. Photos didn’t seem to appear like they sometimes do, but, like working through writer’s block, you have to persist.

I biked along the north side of the Pearl River. There is a wonderful, wide sidewalk but it’s an interrupted experience since walls erupt randomly. Pockets of people collect: fisherman, taxi-drivers playing cards, people napping on the benches, groups of men, and an assortment of loners staring out numbly over the river.
One area I had been before is now being walled off, and I am sure it will be impassable shortly. A group of workers was building a small shed for some reason. They didn’t mind me taking pictures but nothing worked out. The energy you get when taking photos you feel are interesting was elusive. At the other end of the site, it was better, and I dragged out the RB for few shots. Working with it is becoming smoother and I have to worry about it a little less.

After several other starts and stops the trail ended at a small pier, ships lying waiting. I could the clickety-clack of mahjong tiles from inside the boat. Outside, a small table held a bucket with a fish and dinner essentials. It smelled heavily of paint and I wondered how people could eat with such a smell.

A small viaduct flowed by, with a holding pond on one side in which a fisherman had strung a net. He pulled it in as his son helped and a group of boys watched. Then the boys stripped down and dove in.

I had seen people swimming in the Pearl before, down near Shamian Dao, and it’s alarming. I grew up with my parents warning me of catching typhoid fever from simply touching the river that wound through my hometown, so to see people frolicking in brown water that has flowed through umpteen towns spilling waste into it causes me to flinch. The boys had fun though, climbing up and jumping in, heedless of me and my camera despite their lack of bathing suits or, in one case, clothing altogether.

I turned away and rode on at that point, feeling voyeuristic and that I was invading some kind of private space they had created in this most public of spots.
As I mentioned in a previous post, I am interested in the way people interact with their space. I like to place people as small objects at the edges of the frame. The space isn’t theirs, but there is a statement of claim, as if it their presence which transforms it. It’s something that has interested me since my move here to Guangzhou. I haven’t quite worked it out, but people here make their privacy and, I guess, give it to others.

Riding on, another pier at a large factory, but as I rode past a rusty, gapped, gate, I saw a familiar lock. While taking pictures the guard from across the street came over. When I told him I was simply shooting the lock he sort of shook his head and walked off, content I was harmless. It was good to see this and perhaps begin another series of shots and these tie in with some ideas I have about China: the idea that is a tightly policed and controlled society when, in fact, it’s quite chaotic and open. Something else I haven’t quite worked out.

Past the locks the whole road ended abruptly, back at the bridge which I crossed in my first ride. Crossing it I stopped at the view of the new apartment compound built at the edge of the old pier site with its green slough. I wasn’t happy with the previous shots and it wasn’t working this time so I decided to try a collage, something which I hadn’t done in a while. Time will tell if that works out since I have to piece it all together. That’s the thing about making a photograph rather than taking it: trying to get something that says what you want. This is where the interpretation of the scene comes to the fore.
Across the bridge I was determined to move close to that goal of the jungle and the amusement park, so I turned left. A bumpy dirt road led through to an older hutong type place. And there, only a few hundred metres in, was a place where I would stop for the day: some kind of rocky waterfront where people were playing in the water.

Again, no bathing suits and more than the occasional naked child, but it was all fine. A poor German Shepherd sat in a tiny cage, panting in the heat but thankfully shaded from what little sun there was.

A group of children saw me and swam over to perform. Eventually a few ended up running along a stone wall and jumping into the water. Had I been in my riding shorts I think I would have joined them, it looked like so much fun and something I had never done in my youth.

The deadline which I had set came and I left, stopping on the way back when I passed a toilet incongruously sitting in a crumbled room.

We get August 8 off—a nice bonus from the company—so I plan to avoid the glaring heat of the sun and try a night veleur on Thursday.

Veleur July 20, 2008

The main tenet of the veleur is to let it be and see where you go. Let the things you see guide you. The point is to find your city, for it is what you make it. Along the way you discover the city and the things that draw you. I am interested in the way the people relate to the spaces around them: how they navigate the concrete cliffs and canyons. I set out early again on Sunday, intending to begin roughly where I ended last week, but riding along the north side of the Pearl River. This would give me the chance to ride through Zhu Jiang Xin Che, or New Pearl City, the immense construction zone. I wanted to photograph some of the stuff going on to give people an idea of the scale of the project. Zaha Hadid’s opera house is coming along, and I thought that would be a good place to start. I almost made it there first but a bright yellow tank and blue fence beckoned. I took some pictures, then I saw the open access cover and bamboo stick, like a sundial. I worked on that for a bit with the Canon and decided to bring out the RB. Just as I did, an old worker came out with a wheelbarrow. He put the barrow down by the hole and grabbed the bamboo, which turned out to be a kind of scoop. He loaded up the wheelbarrow with mud that was down the hole. Closed the cover and went back. No time for the RB. Oh well. Made it to the opera centre. It’s going to be awesome. Swooping and delicate, the picture belies the rigid structure and huge girders there now. One of the frustrating things of riding around New Pearl is that roads just dead end. Lights are up, power is running, but the lights watch over a road under construction. Roads wind and twist to end in another site entrance. But it’s easy to get around as the roads are vast and vehicles few.

I made it down one road that leads to the new Hyatt. Wonder howbusiness is given that it’s smack dab in the middle of holes and skeletons. It’s beautiful and I hope it has the same high tea that the Cha Lounge in the Hyatt in Taipei has. I’ll have to find out someday. Trucks and their drivers waited around on the street. Some workers were busy digging in the road. I took some shots around the trucks.

The drivers were entertained by the Mamiya, which I finally got out and working.  There was one moment when I turned and saw a driver sitting in his cab, one leg dangling down, just staring at me. Against the red exterior of the truck, and the black interior it was an excellent pose and one for the memory of photos seen and not taken. I moved on a little.

I found a hole in a fence around a field of nothing, and a lock that had a nice “made in China” on it. Workers were walking through the field and out of the door. It’s these small things that I like to notice and give me some sort of thrill, like finding the quarter in a cake with money when I was a kid.

I packed up and rode away, managing to make it another 50 metres. I had about 2km to ride until I reached my planned starting spot. I would never make it. Another hole. This one in a cement wall, one of the pieces at the bottom making a handy stair. Behind it was a man-made hill, covered in thick grass. I had seen this hill from the office and had been curious.  Again, people were coming down a path which ran along the hill.

I snapped some shots with the RB, packed up, and headed in. The path simply led to the road on the other side, but it provided a fantastic view. A group of workers in the site below called out and waved. From where I was to the river, hundreds of metres away, there were only holes, foundations, cranes and machines.

I worked around there for a while then climbed to the top. It was surprising. Fat, it was carpeted in lovely grass and afforded me an amazing view as I walked around. An old tree pointed up out of the ground, echoing the bamboo from earlier, and the buildings around it.

It was amazingly quiet and peaceful, as if all the noise just lay beneath me, though I was but 50 or 60 metres up. But up here I could find the perspective I wanted—people tiny in the vastness, making their ways, conforming the spaces to their needs.

I then shot a nice but banal image of a flower before the stick. If you look along the grass to the left of the flower, you might see the RB in the blurry background. I knew that it was a trite image when I was making it, but oh well.

But that was that. It was after twelve and I needed to get going. I had spent close to 3.5 hours going but a few blocks.

I wasn’t frustrated but excited, but I wanted to head down to the camera area and get some more 120 film, oh, and see if I could find a nice Mamiya 6 rangefinder. I like the square format and read that the 6 is a fantastic camera. I decided to find a new way there. There’s an annoying military area along the river, meaning I couldn’t pass directly through, so I rode around the outside. I ended up finding this old area with fantastic post-colonial houses. Narrow, tree-canopied streets lined with brick and plaster buildings, taking me back a century from where I was, where some shiny future is being erected.

The hole in the plaster fence and its beckoning trail made me think of Alice in Wonderland. I felt like her, passing through into some strange realm, suspended between things. It was a place seemingly out of time. A place to watch time marching past, measured out in levels and layers of green fabric, measured out in the constant turning of the cranes. Then the trip into the past on the other side of the rabbit hole, where the pace is slow, but where some lies fenced up, waiting its chance to move forward in time.

Here’s a Google map of today’s veleur.

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Veleur July 13, 2008

I started off early on Saturday.

Weeks earlier I had spotted a derelict amusement park in the middle of a jungle in the middle of Guangzhou. It was a perfect destination for my first veleur. I brought my RB67 along with the Canon. The Mamiya, in a little backpack, fit nicely on the rack, while the Canon nestled into the basket, along with the tripod, and a big bottle of water.

I decided to bike East then south, crossing the river on a big bridge next to a small port. The ride was fine as it usually is in GZ, with bike lanes or wide sidewalks making things easier. I made it all the way to the bridge before I found something.

I knew that before crossing I would pass yet another derelict, half-constructed building, of which there are many here. Abandoned dreams or sink-hole con jobs, I have no idea what they are, but they are gnomons of sunnier plans. As I rode up I saw a nice white staircase and ramp which kept its shininess but had the patina of neglect and mislaid plans that can be attractive.

Then I saw the row of tired brick building below. I went down the stair, took a quick look around at the children playing amidst rubble and rows of garage doors, then went back up for my bike and the RB. I switched to my wide angle lens for the Canon and took a few shots, trying to get the family into the left of the frame (I feel sneaky at these times, but I know that pointing my camera directly at the people would be a problem). I didn’t really get anything great so I turned.

Along one wall was a sheet of beautiful blue glass, resting against the weathered brick, a trail of fragments leading to it. I set up the RB. As I had found out the previous day when I took some crowd shots in front of a popular computer mall, the tank-like RB gets people curious. Sure enough, a young guy wandered out of one of the businesses and came over. I just let him look through the frame and smiled a lot. We talked a bit and I snapped off a bunch of photos of the window, excited that it reflected the unfinished building.

The rest of the area had piles of rubble and bric a brac fighting with plants.

I left and made it about ten metres toward the derelict when I noticed the old underpass, a grass infested and garbage covered road leading down to it. I wandered down and found a small enclave of old brick houses. The other side of the underpass was more passable, and cars, trucks, and bikes slowly climbed into and out of this little secret mystery. A few taxis and a truck were on the road, and I could see some guys playing cards around a table in the cool darkness of the tunnel. Another of GZ endless number of sloughs passed between road and houses.

I saw something through the trees between a wall and the dark water. I poked my head in and found scattered torsos, limbs, and hands from old mannequins. They reminded me of the buildings. Models tossed by the wayside. I brought out the RB67, which was loaded with Ilford B&W, for some hand held shots. Crouching in the underbrush wasn’t the easiest thing, but we’ll see how things turned out. I also fired off a few other hand held shots with the beast. It’s getting a little easier to use, but I have a problem with the interlock when I turn the back: it has a habit of not firing. I’ll get used to it and figure something out, but it’s annoying.

I rode on, getting a few shots of the building’s levitating staircase, and making it almost onto the bridge before pulling both cameras out for shots of the bridge and a smokestack. Then a little further, when I saw the pool of green water and what is probably an old loading dock area standing next to modern apartment buildings with a playground and soccer field. I loved the contrast and tried to get some shots. The Canon’s screen, though, is a bitch to use in the light.

The Pearl is an impressive and wide expanse of dusty brown. It took a few minutes to ride over. I never made it further south, though, as the underside of other side of the bridge, captivated me and I stayed. I like bridges, and I like the places beneath them, where unnoticed lives go on. It might be the “Billy Goats Gruff” living on in my memory.

Here they try to make the areas attractive, planting fields of lilies which are lovely when in bloom. I found a balled-up red sign, an advertisement for workers, and it made a nice image. I made some other shots and packed up to move on.

I was moving my bike out when the sunlight shone through the slatted cement area between the lanes overhead and lit up the ground. I couldn’t leave. I unpacked and waited. The RB malfunctioned some more because of the interlock and I had to wait. And wait. The sun arrived finally, I got what I wanted, and I left.

I rode along the river, down the wide path the city built on either side. In most cities, this place would be packed with people: people biking and rollerblading; people jogging and walking their dogs. Here, there was almost no-one. It’s sad because it is beautiful and lonely.

The storm clouds began to collect and move in. Typical for a Sunday afternoon here. I get together with friends for some Ultimate Frisbee at 2, and the last few weeks have been wonderful except starting at about 1pm on Sundays, when the storms decide to return. There was a great shelter in front of the immense trade fair centre (it was huge and with recent construction it’s monstrous). A group of performers in costume for some reason, a family of four children and their mother, and a bike mounted fisherman waited underneath the glass canopy.

It poured for a while. I took more pictures and read a bit of a detective novel set in Shanghai that Richard had lent me. I left when the rain became a drizzle. I passed the fisherman who had left before me, then another who had a line of six poles propped up. I stopped under the next bridge because I spotted a small triangle of red fabric caught and hanging. Some more fisherman were underneath along with one of the ubiquitous uniformed guards who are everywhere.

Like most people though when I am out on my bike, the guard was friendly and eager to talk to me. A foreigner on a bike is a rare site, particularly down in those areas—the highest peaks in Tibet no doubt see more white people than the bridge bellies of Guangzhou. We stumbled through a conversations, joined in by the others underneath. I still don’t have the courage to ask people if I can take their pictures, so I rode away.

I was exhausted at this point. I had been out and riding for nearly six hours and hadn’t eaten. The riding takes energy, but so does the picture taking. It takes an effort to look and to see, and I was losing that awareness. I pedalled about, finding an amazing swamp and jungle in the middle of the city. Vines and plants climbing over old buildings.

A pair of shoes tightly wrapped up in a plastic bag lay on the vines that covered the ground. Discarded clothes disturb me a bit. These weren’t so threatening. They seemed forgotten.

I found a huge and wonderful park in which noone flew a kite, or walked, or played, or had a picnic. I rode down vast roads that had no cars. I saw red mudflats, watched over by three men and a bulldozer that had a great poster in front of it. I turned down cigarettes offered by these workers who always asked where I was from and where I lived and what I was doing.

I said that Guangzhou is a strange city.

It is. It is the weirdest place I have ever been and certainly ever lived. It is confusing in so many ways. It is a wonder in other ways. It made me really happy. It was a perfect veleur.

Maybe next time I’ll make it to the amusement park. But I have to return to the abandoned buildings in the jungle and swamp next to the Zhuzhiang brewery and the park. I haven’t even begun and I am further behind.

Here’s a map of today’s veleur

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Veleur, June 21, 2008

This first veleur was unplanned, which is appropriate. I had wanted to buy a new bike for some time, it having been months since my last one was stolen. I had a few stores just across the street from a local university’s main gate and went there one Saturday after the gym. I wanted just a simple Chinese bike: single speed, rack, and a basket. I found just that after a few minutes of poking about.

There were a few to choose from, but I liked the matte black one, naturally. The store put the basket on, swapped the seat post for something longer, and I rode away contentedly, glad to be back on two wheels. I decided that since I had my camera with me I would ride towards the new bridge in Zhu Zhiang New City (New Pearl City).

I was glad to be free of the worry over being in the right gear or the desire to be going faster. One speed may not be the best for mountains, but it’s great for a flat city. It relaxes you, and you observe more. The cheap pedals clicked, the chain rattled in its metal sheath, and other things squeaked in complaint, all of which would have driven me mad with my other bikes. But it still worked well and within a few blocks I was outside of the massive squall of traffic, riding down the centre of wide lanes, vaguely aware of heading south.

I led the bike through one of the many tunnels worming under the roads, and stopped because the light was gorgeous.
Then I headed into the middle of the massive construction areas that New Pearl comprises, developing a huge swath of land on the North side of the Pearl River. Blue fences and green clad buildings are everywhere. It was a blinding and scorching day. The shadows of rebar nicely etched, and the vehicles vivid against the gray.

A new development of massive houses lined a trickling stream of rancid water. A worker cut the lawn on one, the lawnmower a lonely sound. I pedalled on and discovered a European styled strip mall, pastel plastered and vacant. Next to it, a worker hauled stuff in his cart while others watched. Labour is cheap and most of the work is done by people.

I rode down this narrow road that twisted through this barren landscape, with old buildings that were spared suddenly sprouting up. At the edge of a massive field, more of a covered landfill, with bricks and boards poking up, a path led down to a yard where blocks of bricks sat in a shallow pool of brackish water. The bricks were bleached out on top and under attack from below from creeping mould. Behind the stacks were some doorless garages. A path of bricks led through the water to the clumps. A pair of orange sandals sat forgotten.

Discarded clothes are mournful and darkly mysterious. There were pants under a steamroller earlier that were amusing, but the shoes were odd. It was as if the person wearing them evaporated.

Behind the stacks of bricks, a worker swept the roof of his dormitory, pushing all the detritus to the ground, to become part of the landscape, take its part in the foundation of what is to come.

I rode on, passing underneath a classical Chinese gate that watched over nothing. The road led to a collection of old buildings, a remnant. Old men sat at the edge of a temple whose roof sprouted grass. Old women sat on the benches which lined the small stream, the same water that a little ways away sat at the foot of the massive houses.

I was a curiosity, and the girl at the counter giggled a bit as I bought a cold beer. I didn’t take my camera out here, even though the people seemed friendly. I was tired and I didn’t want to disturb them in their little oasis. That’s what this was.

I was discovering that unlike many cities, Guangzhou is made of disparate elements in random spots. The order of linear streets hasn’t done away with the organic past when streets and areas grew breathed out to expand.

I walked through the mirage, through a noisy market, and out onto the major thoroughfare that lines the river. There above me was a limb of the unfinished bridge, stretching out, waiting.

Then I rode home.

Here’s a map of today’s veleur.

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