“For more than ten years, Bastille Day on 60th Street has been the largest public celebration of the historic friendship between France and the United States commemorating France’s own Independence Day on July 14, 1789.” http://bastilledaynyc.com Vive la France! The French Institute:Alliance Francais (FI:AF) on E. 60th St. holds a Sunday street fair every year around July 14th—Bastille Day. This year’s fete was held on July 10, 2011. It is an event with personal connections for me. In 2009 following surgery on both eyes and being fitted with an interim pair of eyeglasses I sallied forth on my first solo street event. Didn’t see all that much—but what I saw I liked—and I try to get back every year.
The East Side: narrow streets, oversize baby buggies with Great White Offspring onboard, and undersize yappy-snappy toy dogs. My strategy is not to bump into people on the street but go along the sidewalks until I see something interesting then dip into the throng. Maybe they’ll shift the venue to an avenue with more space, just like the Brazilian Day street fair outgrew W. 46 St. (“Little Brazil”). But with the economy still down and out, the lines of booths along the three blocks between Fifth and Lexington Avenues weren’t crammed together. And the narrow street has shady spots in the afternoon.
Fine food and wine of course. Lots of sweet, sticky, and creamy stuff, which I distrust on hot summer days, and fewer North and West African food stalls this year. I do OK with my sausages and fries. pick-up my raffle tickets, browse the book stalls, and check-out the stage to see who’s performing—and always hope for can-can dancers!
Sunday June 26, 2011. The Beauty of Kunqu: Four Classics. Miller Theater, Columbia University
Friday, July 8, 2011. Gary Lucas and Qian Yi: 1930’s Chinese Pop Songs. Rubin Museum of Art
Miller Theater: Four Kunqu Classics
The spectacularly staged Peony Pavilion performances at Lincoln Center in 1999 showcased Kunqu opera. This form of traditional Chinese theater predates Beijing opera and has steadily grown in familiarity and popularity with Asian and Western audiences. The Kunqu Society of New York City, founded in 1988, joined with the Wintergreen Kunqu Society of Washington, D.C. to host the Shanghai Kunqu Troupe “to celebrate the 10th anniversary of kunqu’s designation as a masterpiece of ‘the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 2001.” Four scenes from four plays allowed performers to display their verbal, choreographic, and acrobatic talents, and the unique operatic vocal technique and musical accompaniment.
Said to be an acquired taste for aficionados, for me it’s like the difference between “Chinese food” at the local take-out and authentic Chinese cuisine. Once you get the real thing—you’re hooked. This afternoon I learned a lot about what one can do with those two long pheasant feathers on a headdress.
Rubin Museum of Art
Program of Chinese pop songs of American “swing, Broadway, and Tin Pan Alley with Chinese influences:” Qian Yi vocals; Gary Lucas, acoustic guitar.
Qian Yi
Legs! I’ve seen her perform in the Peony Pavilion and at the Miller Theater, but until she took the RMA stage—I never saw her legs or hair. Both were covered under her Chinese opera costume and headdress. Nor her face without heavily stylized make-up. Nor her lithe dancer’s body wrapped in a basic black cheongsam—and high heels. Now I’m in love! Or heard her sing other than in falsetto. She has a flexible voice that ranges from soft, sentimental romantic stylings to dance hall and cabaret bawdy. Operatic body and hand movements add extra spice, and yes, she sang a Kunqu opera aria. Gary Lucas
He wore an “Indiana Jones” hat which immediately reminded me of the Shanghai nightclub scene in the film (by George Lucas) Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He mentioned an affair which turned into a marriage and searching together for Chinese popular music in Chinatown—which leads me to believe his spouse may have been Chinese—but he didn’t say and I didn’t ask afterward. He fine-tuned his guitar to each song’s style and provided excellent commentary.
Rubin Museum
On event evenings the K2bar opens at 6 PM serving fusion noshies and drinks. Browse the excellent store or visit the galleries until then. A current exhibit worth a look: Quentin Roosevelt’s China: Ancestral Realms of the Naxi. Quentin, a grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt, went to Lijaing, China, a mountainous region along the Tibetan border, in 1939 to research the ancient culture of the Naxi. It was a highly adventurous trip. One diary comment: “Today I ate my first locust!”
Over the weekend the idyllic riverside condo complex of my blogmate, Hankow Hypatia, was struck by a fatal house fire that claimed the life of a nearby neighbor. A fundamental cosmological element and a keystone of human civilization, fire is both friend—and primal fear. Burning leaves, campfires, and fireplaces ease and warm us when under control, but when out of control they become the stuff of nightmares. We install smoke detectors, we practice fire drills, we prepare—and we pray.
My personal experiences range from fire police auxiliary in high school—when an arsonist torched the junior high, the grocery store where I worked, and several other community landmarks. I fought firing range blazes during Ranger/ROTC training in college and had smoke jumper training. I was a fire marshal in New York City on 9/11. I know the thrill and terror of rushing toward and standing your ground in the face on heat and flame.
My country cousins jump in cars and chase the fire engines; we New Yorkers routinely ignore them—unless the sirens stop right in front of your building. Then its antennae up, eyes and ears open. Being inside a building filling with smoke and flames with water spraying from sprinklers, alarms ringing, emergency lights, if any, is like being on board a sinking ship. People either panic or block the reality of danger, run around checking on neighbors, corral kids and pets and grab “go bags,” or engage in “displacement activities’—instead of executing the 10-point plan: Get out; Get out; Get out…
I hope to expand this note in future. But let me close on this thought. While living in Philadelphia I used to commute to my job with a retired fire captain. As we ranged the city I noticed he’d keep the car windows open a crack. We’d turn onto a block and like an old fire horse, he could not only smell smoke, but tell you what class of fire it was, whether it happened recently or days ago—and if somebody burned up in it.
If you live, not only do you live through a building fire—you live with it for days, and nights, afterward.
“Where from?” my friend asks, pointing to a large, low wooden stool. It sits among a clutter of eclectic objects of indeterminate origin. What caught her eye is its broad, strong, shallow U-shaped, upward-curved seat. A true throne. It would reign regally in her den.
“Africa” the woman vendor replies.
“What part of Africa” my friend wants to know.
“Africa” comes the answer.
“What tribe?” my friend queries, trying a different tack.
“Africa, Africa. I’m Haitian from Queens. The stool is from Africa. You want it?” The booth owner has us. Now it’s simply a matter of price.
While my friend completes negotiations I bend over and try to lift the stool with just my two hands. No go. Surprisingly heavy. I squat down and clutch it against my chest, crossing my arms, grasping my left wrist with my right hand, and “clean and jerk” it up along with me. I stand, wobbling slightly, and consider our options.
It’s a hot and sticky day in May at the 9th Avenue Food Festival on New York City’s West Side. We’re near Port Authority Bus Terminal. My place is a dozen blocks up and over on Broadway. At least it’s an easy hail to get a taxi on 42nd Street. Counter-leaning against the cab’s bobs and weaves, hauling our prize into the elevator and up five floors, I pridefully deposit the African stool on my living room floor. With a grunt and a thud.
As I straighten-up and my eyes re-focus, I look down and am startled to find that the sweaty insides of both my arms and the damp front of my tee shirt are stained dark brown. The “finish” on the wooden stool is shoe polish!
Africa.
.............................
We turn off Mott Street and walk toward a Chinatown variety store on Pell Street where we often stop on our way to our dim sum shop on Doyers Street—the infamous “bloody angle” of the early 20th century “tong wars” between rival Chinese gangs. Alas we find that the shop is holding their going out-of-business sale. When the locals say “sale” they literally mean “sell to the bare walls” sale so we always have a look-see.
My friend scans the remaining merchandise and spots a low table laden with inexpensive souvenirs. What draws her attention? The plain wooden plank table top is supported by a pedestal made from a tangle of twisting wood—what the Chinese call a “gnarled trunk.” She wants that pedestal. Without missing a beat the little lady shopkeeper lifts off the table top and we soon strike a deal. It should complement the African throne.
Some shop-dust, needs a spit and shine, sort of strung-together at top and bottom by some odd pieces of wood. We salvage worse. It doesn’t look too large or heavy, but I’ll have to carry it home on the subway—a cab back up to Midtown would be a long, expensive ride. We bump our way west along Canal Street to the “N/R” subway stop, my friend running interference through the throng. I tag along, my arms once again wrapped around yet another prize.
We get seats on the subway for a change. Several ladies sit facing us across the aisle and note our purchase—it’s hard to miss. They beam approving glances at the unusual results of our shopping expedition. I think to myself that it wasn’t so unwieldy, the base would make a good conversation-starter with urban women. There’s easier ways, but whatever works.
After detraining and maneuvering through the Times Square crowd we pull-up at the Silver Bullet Saloon in Port Authority South Terminal. I plunk-down the base on top of the barstool next to me and prepare to slake the thirst occasioned by my exertions. Irish bartender Jimmy gives us a glance and notes wryly that not many customers bother to bring along their own stool!
A fine pedestal demands a proper top and bottom. My friend has a plan. Her family has a summer camp in the Adirondacks. Lots of wood up there.
When I next see that trunk it’s sandwiched between two good-sized chunks of cherry wood—which furniture-maker felt harmonized with the base—rough-cut, with bark rimming the edges.
Fusion.
................................
Then there’s the child-size wooden doll we spotted at the flea market on Columbus Circle in front of the abandoned Coliseum.
African American or Caribbean, my friend thinks her granddaughter in St Thomas will love it. At her age she probably has playmates that look like the doll, even if they stand less tall.
We know that in the Big Apple when you see what you want—buy it. If you hesitate or change your mind, you may miss your chance.
One problem. We’re heading up Broadway to a concert at Lincoln Center. The doll won’t bend to sit on my lap but I think I can set it down between my knees and still see over the doll’s corn-row coiffed and cowry shell decorated head.
Luckily they didn’t charge us for an extra ticket—even if at a child’s price.
................................
I often think I was a camel in a previous life, weaving my way along the Silk Road, bearing treasures from both East and West. Then again, if you can’t find it and buy it in New York City—it may simply not exist.
Progress or Propaganda? A Critical Roundup of Reactions
to China's Colossal New National Museum. Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/artinfo/progress-or-propaganda-a-_b_846280.html One man’s propaganda… I was a Boy Scout at Winter Encampments in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania every February around Washington’s Birthday (before President’s Day) during the duck-n-cover Cold War. To get out of the cold and damp for a few hours, without breaking the patriotic mood, we’d tour the nearby Freedoms Foundation. The introductory film featured then-FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (before the red dress). Most of the rhetoric rolled right off this duck’s back, but I recall the hefty, serious-voiced narrator—who seemed to be the same guy who did Independence Mall and Washington’s Crossing films too. Years later and far away I heard the same stentorian tones in Yugoslav documentaries on President Tito and the Partisans. Same drill, different country.
When I toured Beijing’s Tiananmen Square several years after the communist government massacred pro-democracy demonstrators there, I visited the two museums mentioned in the article. If all visitors knew of Chinese history was what they saw in these museums, they might as well visit Chairman Mao’s Mausoleum down the street and be done with it.
Curiously enough CCTV (China Central Television), available in Manhattan, has a series of programs featuring complimentary collections of and exchanges between the Palace Museums of both Beijing and Taipei, Taiwan. Red Menace, Yellow Menace…
OUR paths cross in the dusty caravan city of Xi’an, eastern terminus of the Silk Road, in 1992. My tour group visits the underground barracks of an ancient army of Terracotta Warriors, standing silent sentinel in serried ranks—where President Ronald Reagan famously or fabulously is reported to have reviewed the troops, saluted, and ordered “At ease”—in the morning. We eat, shop then repeat—in the afternoon.
She’s a scroll doll; her fate is to hang on a wall. I walk in the joint and it’s love—OK lust—at first sight. I want her to hang on my wall in New York City. Her elegant pose: classic coquette. Eyes diffident and coy, body strategically draped, one hand behind her dark tresses, the other hand before her… I find her pleasingly petite. The women in my tour group find her a little plump. The local shop clerks find us all amusing. She’s unlatched, rolled-up, slipped into a flimsy elongated box tied with a bit of ribbon, and delivered into my sweaty palms. A pearl of great price, I have no idea how much this big spender spends. Men fall/downfall with their eyes.
Our mutual “journey to the east” begins. I wrap her in plastic shopping bags and a heavyweight field shirt. She snuggles sideways into my luggage. A short time later I take leave of my tour group comrades in communist Shanghai and strike out for a solo visit to capitalist Hong Kong. Just a few hours later on the hotel escalator I regard a young girl’s sequined bottom at eye-level ahead of me—and reflect upon the differences in world views.
Nobody should bother to check the weather forecasts: if I’m in Hong Kong—it’s raining. I fear for the safety of my scroll doll during further travels. Fortunately Crown Colony courtesy dictates that the foyers of hotels and larger buildings provide the public with long plastic tubes in which to insert wet umbrellas so they don’t drip on the floor. I take a few of these and as the box is too thick, I slip them over the scroll and consign her once again to my suitcase, encasing its entire contents in a large plastic trash bag.
There’s a mini-monsoon at the airport when I board my plane. I look out the window at a row of passenger baggage trucks snaking its way across the semi-flooded tarmac, their side flaps blowing horizontal in the wind gusts, and worry about my scroll doll. I won’t know her wellbeing until I unpack her after our flight toward the rising sun, changing planes at Narita, and connecting to The States. I envy the Japanese sitting around me, their safely dry boxes of electronic gadgets stowed in overhead bins, underneath seats, even on their laps. And wonder about return policies.
At Newark Airport customs I remove the boxed scroll from my suitcase. The agent notes the precautions I’ve taken and orders that I unbox it, remove the umbrella tubes, and unroll it. I do so reluctantly. This is art after all, not pornography; but you can never gauge the reaction of Luddite authorities, male or female, as I’ve discovered in my many world travels. I unscroll her head and shoulders. The agent wants to see more. It’s a strip-tease. I unscroll a little more and he wants to see yet a little more. Another agent saunters over for a second opinion. I aver that we met in a souvenir shop, not an art gallery, so she isn’t an original object but a humble copy. Having gotten their lewd eyefuls the agents clear us to proceed. After all, the lady’s not contraband Chinese sausage I say—to myself.
We’re home in my apartment and at long last she’s all mine. I unscroll her—yes on my bed, and yes she fits—and carefully check on her condition. It is said that when a gentleman regards a lady he does so from the eyes down; but a true rogue takes her in from the ground up. I do so. Only now, after traveling with her for thousands of miles, do I notice an oddity—the lady has no feet—just a blue blur. Were her feet bound in the original artwork—then blotted-out? Imperial Chinese society practiced foot-binding; Communist Chinese doctrine is dead-set against it.
My wallpaper companion is a very interesting woman.
This is the blog entry I have to write. I’m watching the History channel documentary series on the American Volunteer Group (AVG)—the “Flying Tigers”—mercenary pilots fighting for Nationalist China against Imperial Japanese forces before and during World War II. It’s a good story well told by a quality network. But I feel compelled to cover a more tragic event of the Second Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945: the Rape of Nanking (now called Nanjing*)..
On Sunday May 22, 2011 Hankow Hypatia, a friend of ours, and I attended a lecture at the Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA) in New York City’s Chinatown given by Iris Chang’s mother. The late Iris Chang wrote a book published in 1997 on the 60th anniversary of the 1937 massacre of Chinese civilians by Japanese troops in Nanking. Iris’ mother had just published her book following her daughter’s suicide in 2004. Several audience members shed tears over such human tragedies.
After a light supper at a nearby Chinese (and authentic) buffet and drinks at The Whiskey Tavern http://whiskeytavernnyc.com, we went to the Film Forum to see the movie, City of Life and Death (2009-released in the U.S. 2011), directed by Lu Chuan. If I had to write a review quote: “Depressing bloody shambles.” Also an anomalous Japanese Shinto funeral scene with taiko drumming that does nothing for the plot. It is equally as sad as a film on the Holocaust in Europe. Although the script follows Irish Chang’s account, it is fictionalized. Nonetheless, it is based on historical events and includes historical persons. Our day’s agenda was edifying and agonizing. Please refer to my blogmate, Hankow Hypatia, for personal recollections from her childhood when she heard about the Rape of Nanking from her family and friends.
I was born during the Korean War when the Red Chinese came over the Yalu River. I knew very little about the Rape of Nanking before reading Iris Chang’s book while working for an abstracting and indexing service. I sought out other books on the topic as well as related books then being published on Korean “Comfort Women” forced into prostitution by the occupying Japanese. Voices once silent on all sides of the conflict, perpetrators and victims alike, are now heard. But my company is out of business; I am no longer able to comment and contribute except by blog. My closing thoughts, citations, and hyperlinks follow.
No war is free of atrocity—war is atrocity. Genocide can be deliberate policy or inadvertent—both are equally deadly. Casualties of war and cascading of conflicts are generational—and the dead and their descendants cry out not to be forgotten. Iris Chang is no longer with us but is remembered also.
* Capital cities in 20th Century China had a “k” in the name. When not the capital anymore, the “k” was replaced by a “j”.
Links:
Iris Chang
http://www.irischang.netNew York City
Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA)
www.mocanyc.org
Film Forum
http://filmforum.com
Nanjing, China
NanjingMuseum
Official
http://www.nj1937.org/english/default.aspMirror sites
http://humanum.arts.cuhk.edu.hk/NanjingMassacre/NM.html ht tp://www.cnd.org/mirror/nanjingNote:
Wikipedia entries on this subject are excellent and include citations and hyperlinks
Citations:
Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. (1997). Basic Books
Chang, Ying-Ying. The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Change Before and Beyond The Rape of Nanking. (2011). Pegasus Books
Young, Shi and James Yin. The Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs. (2nd ed., 1997). Innovative Publishing Group (text in English and Chinese)
Secrets of the Silk Road, PennMuseum, Philadelphia, PA
After touring other US cities this much-anticipated exhibit closed shortly after opening at its only east coast destination in February 2011. I managed to check it out, get the story, and shop: www.penn.museum“They want Curly back don’t they?” I said over my cellphone to an exhibit curator. Pause at the other end—then giggles. The Chinese government reclaimed the mummies and textiles from the Tarim Basin—and returned them to China “for restoration and conservation” effectively closing the exhibit. The mostly empty display cases remain, with accompanying maps, texts, and audio players—but no mummies. Still informative and swamped with school kids during my visit. And good deals on exhibit-related books, DVDs, and paraphernalia will likely be had for some time yet. The exhibit guide is in reprint. I bought the book by Victor H. Mair, Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, University of Pennsylvania, The Tarim Mummies, written with J.P. Mallory instead.
“Curly” refers to a stone bas relief of a dismounted rider extracting an arrow from his mount’s chest on display in the Chinese Rotunda. The steed’s name is “Curly” (the museum holds two of six depictions of Tang Dynasty Emperor Tang Taizong’s horses from his tomb near the Silk Road terminus city of Xi’an):
http://penn.museum/blog/museum/the-penn-museums-own-piece-of-the-silk-roadFor years a rubbing of “Curly” could be found on the basement level of the China Institute in New York City: www.chinainstitute.org When Hankow Hypatia and I toured Xi’an in the early 1990s the local guide graciously requested that the Penn Museum return these two bas reliefs. The Chinese government may have stepped its cultural diplomacy up a notch!
Then again Hankow Hypatia and I were denied the pleasure of the Ming Dynasty Kunqu opera Peony Pavilion for a season because some of the material (contemporary with Shakespeare and equally bawdy) offended the tender sensibilities of a petty Chinese bureaucrat! It finally played Lincoln Center on the July 1999 weekend when John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed his plane at sea. The same traffic accident that delayed Hankow Hypatia’s commute from New Jersey into NYC also held up JFK Jr.’s trip out from NYC to his airport and family in New Jersey. See New York Kunqu Society: http://kunqusociety.orgCurrent Penn Museum exhibit: Battleground: War Rugs from Afghanistan
The rug weavers of Afghanistan, long renowned for their artistry, depict on their rugs the world that they see. Like television news, their rugs “report” current events. Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and throughout more than three decades of international and civil war, Afghan weavers have borne witness to disaster by weaving unprecedented images of battle and weaponry into their rugs. Flowers have turned into bullets, landmines, and hand grenades.
I was helping catalog the museum’s arms and armor collection when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Central Asian collection became suddenly popular. Recently MSNBC talk show host Rachel Maddow bought her mom an Afghan rug with a depiction of an AK-47 rifle on it when she went shopping at a bazaar in Kabul with NBC correspondent Richard Engle.
Check the museum website for driving directions. The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP)—note the Medivac helicopters (bad night in old Saigon) flying overhead—are adjacent so ample parking is available. The museum is near AMTRAK’s 30th Street Station, a short walk or cab ride across Drexel University and University of Pennsylvania campuses, and accessible by subway or bus.
A variety of food and beverage establishments are at or near the station, my favorites being Bridgewater’s Pub: http://thepubin30thstreetstation.com tucked away in the southwest corner or Slainte: www.slaintephilly.com across Market Street. When the latter first opened I found myself, coming home on Easter Eve, sipping on the then-new Michael Collins Irish whiskey: http://michaelcollinswhiskey.com “named for the legendary Irish hero, synonymous with independence.” The bar sits right next to the main US Post Office. Come dawn, we rise—in rebellion, if not in religion.
New York City-Philadelphia public transit. Greyhound and other bus lines run between Port Authority New York (PABT) and Greyhound Bus Terminal at 10th and Filbert Streets in Philadelphia. From there enter The Gallery at Market East shopping mall, go down past the SEPTA train station, and follow the signs to the subway station at 13th and Market, then ride out to 34th Street station. If you arrive around lunchtime or leave around dinnertime check out the eats and drinks at Reading Terminal Market: http://www.readingterminalmarket.org at 12th and Arch Streets. The convention center and Chinatown are also nearby, but Chinatown buses are suspect following a series of accidents. AMTRAK trains are relatively expensive and often require reservations. A cheaper, if slower, way is to take New Jersey Transit (NJT) trains from Penn Station New York to Trenton, New Jersey. Change at Trenton to a local SEPTA R7 train to 30th Street Station Philadelphia. There’s ticketing machines all over and a fee if you pay on board. Note when returning to New York: the R7 line goes to Trenton with connections to NJT; the R3 line goes along a separate rail line to West Trenton with no connections to New York.
After introducing some of my friends to this route I treated them upon arrival at Penn Station New York at Tracks Raw Bar and Grill: http://www.tracksbargrill.com hard by the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) ticket office on the lower level. It’s crowded with commuters during rush hour—but they turnover/fallover quickly.
|
RSS Feed
