lunedì, novembre 16, 2009

Orientalism rising

Besides making it to the concert last weekend we went to one of the attractions at the Europalia festival, which this year has as its theme China. Synchronously this is the first week I'm editing the Asian magazine solo, and I'm realizing in a whole new and much more concrete way that I don't know shit about Asia. And from the magazine's perspective, while China isn't Asia, it's 80% of Asia. At the moment that's far more interesting and exciting than intimidating; working in a town like Brussels while I edit features on China is a very gentle introduction to something I don't know shit about.

Anyways. As mentioned, that is happening at the same time as the Europalia festival, which is about China, as stated, and this past weekend we went to see a photo and architecture exhibition. A few weeks back we'd already seen the Son of Heaven exhibition, which was neat, I guess, especially the jade burial suit, but where I learned that I've stopped giving a shit about ruling class lifestyles and objets d'art in an internationalist context, not just a European one.

I enjoyed the photo and architecture exhibits a great deal more, because sometimes it seemed like I was looking at things that came from somewhere else entirely somehow. And the F-word and I found a place we will have to visit, as photographed by Ruan Xiarong - Gulangyu Island, where in the ultimate in urban decay there are trees growing out of old Victorian embassies, and which apparently has the highest number of pianos per capita in the world.

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