DigitaLens – next generation photography

As we arrived into this final stop of our tour, I wanted to reflect on my observations about our trip and the China of today. While I am in no way an expert on the subject, I have seen profound changes in the China of 10 years ago from a visitors’ point of view. Some of the places we have visited, I have been to before, and others are brand new to my eyes. But one constant that seems to hold true, that masses of Chinese have now been enpowered to visit places they have never had before. The economic advances by the common people have allowed them to go to places of historical significance, that only was dreamt of just a few years ago. They are now enabled! While a significant economic driver for these towns that is fortunate to have this stature, it also creates a dilemma for them to keep tourism alive for travelers from outside of China. The masses of people that engorge the area during the day is like attending Disneyland during a busy 4th of July, add to that the cultural differences with the Westerner, and you run into a difficult dilemma of how to travel in China.

I’ve concluded that the best approach is to travel as flexible as possible. Take your time and appreciate what is in front of you. Don’t try to change it. Going in the other direction sometimes worked very well. When Ning suggested a 5:30am, “rise and shine” photo shoot, I reluctantly jumped at it like a visit to the dentist. As it turned out, it was the best idea and the best approach to visit this well trampled town. We started in the morning with a visit to a street stall noodle shop, just down the block from our hotel. Fantastic noodles and dumplings! Next we jumped into a cab for a short 5 min drive to the “old town”. We spent the next two hours shooting as we watched the town “wake up” to the morning sun. No tourist, just everyday people getting ready for work or doing their laundry by the riverside. Fantastic time!

(Fenghuang is situated on the western boundary of Hunan Province. This town represents an example of what villages were like prior to the onset of modernization. Most of the structures date to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, 1644-1911.)

Wangcun is a small town along the way to our destination of Fenghuang. This town survives on the numerous buses, that make a stop , to offer a potty break as well satisfy the shopping urge of tourist. Nothing really picturesque but I got to practice my “street shooting”.

We left early morning by bus for our next and final stop of Fenghuang, about 6 hour bus ride. The long drive was broken up with a couple visits along the way. Our first stop was the Xiu Hua Shan Guan (a Tujia minority family museum). This museum was founded by Chen Chuhua and is the first private Tujia Traditional Culture Museum.

During our visit, we got to experience the Chinese wedding ritual of arranged marriages. Nicholas, our single male in the group, was volunteered  to be the prospective groom who had to convince the bride to marry him by unveiling herself.

After some coaxing by the “arranger” and Nicolas himself, he now has a new bride!

We left the beautiful city of Shanghai for Zhangjiajie in the late afternoon. While on the way to Pudong International Airport, we passed the Expo park and saw the bus parking lot. This is what it takes to bring 1/2 million visitors to the park:

Expo 2010 bus parking lot

Zhangjiajie - click on image for more

We left Hangzhou for Shanghai by bus and arrived in the late afternoon after making a stop at Wuzhen. Wuzhen is an old village that has been preserved to show the old Chinese way of life. Unlike other “old” towns that we have visited in the past, Wuzhen was filled with many Chinese visitors from other parts of China. The growth in the Chinese economy have now enabled the masses to take vacations and many flock to these type of places.

Having been to Shanghai before, Jan and I took a leisurely approach to our time here. I debated about attending the Expo as there were reports of very long lines and crowded conditions. The day before, it was announced the half a million people had attended the Expo. In the end, I decided to go late in the afternoon and stay till the early evening. My goal was to photograph some of the pavilions with the evening light. At first, Jan was not going to go with me but later decided to. I took my monopod and had no problems entering the park as I later discovered many photographers with tripods and lots of equipment. The Expo is so large that it would take a good three days just to get to all the exhibits and that doesn’t count waiting in line to go into the exhibit.  We spent most of our time in the European pavilions and walked into only two of them that didn’t have any lines. Most of the popular pavilions had waiting queues of 2+ hours or more.

The city of Shanghai have done so much to their subway system, that it was virtually a cake walk to get around the town. Typical fares are 6-8 yuan (about $1) to get anywhere in the city. Combined with the cab system, it is so easy to get around the city.

On our first morning, we left to Yu Gardens, I had to get my Shanghai dumplings. I stood in line at the take out for 40 mins and received 16 dumplings for 12 yuan ($1.75). Yum! At the same time I was in line, Janice was exploring the restaurant upstairs and found that they were owned by the same family. So I took my take out dumplings and went upstairs to join her. We ordered a variety of other dumplings to enjoy a sit down lunch in the air conditioned restaurant.

After lunch we left for Nanjing Road to do some shopping. Nanjing road is a closed off street converted to a shopping mall. I helped a fellow tour member buy a digital point and shoot camera. The prices are comparable to those in the US and but no bargains are to be found here. On the following day, I spent the morning exploring a 6 story photography shopping building and concluded that prices in the US is much more competitive. The first two floors had vendors selling only new equipment. The third floor had accessories.  The fourth floor lighting equipment and photography classes. The fifth and sixth had used equipment and film supplies. There were a couple dealers selling Leica equipment and was surprised to find M9’s sitting on the shelf. I didn’t bother to ask the price as most of the stuff is listed above what we would pay at home. On another photography note, almost everywhere I looked, someone was carrying a Nikon or Canon DSLR with a nice (red “L” in the case of a Canon) lens. Pretty gratifying as I barely saw a digital point and shoot just a few years ago. (Click on image for more.)

(Click on image for more)

We left Huangshan after descending back down to the town of Tunxi and arrived in Hangzhou by bus in the early evening. Our hotel is the beautiful Shangri-La Hotel in the middle of Hangzhou park. Ning and I decided to try and catch the early morning light, so we were out the door by 6 am the next day. I later returned to the park in the afternoon for more shooting. This has got to be the most beautiful traditional Chinese gardens in China. Every corner you turn, there is another breath taking view. Hangzhou has been the inspiration for many painters throughout Chinese history.

After a two hour flight from Beijing, we arrived in the city of Tunxi, just south of Shanghai. Tunxi is at the base of the Huangshan mountains and we will stay the night before packing a light bag to go up Huangshan. Legend has it that the Yellow Emperor attained immortality in these mountains and thus it was named Huangshan (Yellow). At it’s highest point, it is 6,000 ft above sea level. Huangshan was placed on the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage list in 1990. This is my third time (fourth for Janice) here. There are lots of stairway climbing and having some Stair Master conditioning before the trip helps. We took a tram up for 20 minutes to the top and from there, walked to our hotel. The walk (hike) to the hotel takes approximately 1 hour. The distance is about 1.5 miles, but with all the up and down on the stairways, it takes some effort to get there. We packed a light bag for two nights and used a Porter service from the tram station, where they carried the bags to the hotel for about 40 yuan ($6). Believe me, it was worth it. These guys are incredible, they carry 6-8 bags (probably 150 lbs), 3-4 on each end of the bamboo poles balanced at the middle on their shoulders. Almost everything is hand carried from the bottom of the mountain by porters. That means, all the food, laundry and even building materials come up by human sweat. They don’t use the tram to transport materials up this mountain because the cost of human power is less than using the tram!

Our arrival day was hazy and not very clear. The next day was cloudy in the morning and rainy during the afternoon. Our last morning was met with misting and we got the cloud formation we were looking for. Many of the Chinese paintings you see of misty mountains are inspired by the cloud formations here.

This morning was our last in Chengde. We’re headed back to Beijing to catch a flight to Tunxi to visit Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) south of Shanghai. Before breakfast, Janice, Stuart and I decided to follow Ling Chi to see the morning activity of the town just a couple blocks from the hotel.

Breakfast was being served by street vendors. Some of the best food we ate came from them. This a pocket bread being filled with pork simmered in soy with cilantro and peppers added.

Fresh fried bread.

Kids on the way to school. The green uniforms are high school and the blue, middle school.

Our flight to Tunxi was not till the early evening so we did some art visits of Beijing. Our first stop was the art district of 768. We only had time to visit a few galleries.


This area was once a manufacturing area which was later moved outside of the city. Instead of demolishing the buildings, they were converted to art galleries.

We next visited the China Central Art Institute, where we witness the graduating students works being displayed as well as demonstrations by the students.


As this was an cultural exchange visit, Dr. Yeh did one of his famous horses for them.

Continuation of our visit to Chengde. Today, we will visit the Imperial Summer Resort – Puning Temple and the Putuozhoengcheng Temple (a smaller replica of the Potala Palace.