My (first) photojournalism adventure

Today, I went out with Keen, one of the reporters who spent the spring semester in Chapel Hill, to the Capital Museum to see a press conference for the start of Chinese Cultural Heritage Day. The event was instituted a few years ago as an effort to preserve what they are calling intangible culture--things like music, dance, customs, arts and crafts, theatre and religion. I found out about this when I edited a preview story yesterday, so I asked to go. Based on the story I worked on, I expected there to be exhibits, shops and shows at the museum, where individuals or groups would come to personally share their culture with others.

Instead, the focus seems to be more on the preservation; the exhibit was in just one of the temporary exhibit rooms. And everything has been digitized, so it can't be easily lost when the culture dies. There was a film that was about animal sacrifice, several audio stations where you could hear opera and other songs, TV screens with other videos and statistics, lots of photos with audio explanations, and computers that had interactive edcational programs for sharing the cultural information.

There was one performance at the press conference. Women were dancing in traditional costume before the speaches began. I'm waiting on the translation, so I don't know what the dance is called or where it's from, but it's pictured below. There was also a woman who played a traditional string instrument called a Gu Zheng (check out this video if you're interested in hearing it: http://vimeo.com/7563501, or the Wikipedia site for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guzheng).

So I haven't done much work today, but I attended the ceremony as a photographer, and there's a chance my photos might be published on the site. I'm posting some of the best ones below.



The architecture of the Capital Museum was pretty cool. I didn't get to look at everything, but the green cylindar sticking out is a tower of exhibit halls.

These are the the traditional dancers. Compared to the dancing I'm used to, their dance was much more about hand and arm movements than leg movements.

There was a ribbon cutting ceremony for the exhibition. Because I haven't gotten a translation yet, I'm not sure who these men are, but they seemed to be in charge of the event.

The traditional Chinese opera masks represent many things, Keen told me. Most of them, he said, are gods, and the most scary faces are often the most powerful gods because they are frightening enough to scare the bad ghosts away.

This is a portion of wall of photos of cultural traditions and artifacts. The small brown circle in the bottom right corner of each photo is a sensor. There are pens with speakers below the photos, and if you touch the head of the pen to a sensor it will play the audio track associated with that photo.

This isn't part of the cultural exhibit, but is a regular exhibit at the museum. The paper lantern is commonly associated with China, and there are many different styles.

The figurine depiction is something I can't remember ever seeing in a U.S. museum. These people are at a celebration, I think. There were several other models similar to this one.

And finally, here's proof that I was there!

After the museum, Keen instructed our cab driver to circle through the center of town so I could see Tiananmen Square and other major landmarks in the daylight. I tried to take pictures, but they were terrible because I was in a car surrounded by other cars. We will be travelling there soon enough, though, so I'll share those photos when we do.

Then Keen took me to a restaurant across the street from the office that I'd never noticed. It's a restaurant that serves food made in Sichuan style. It was pretty spicy, but not unbearable. We had fish, chicken, corn and rice. The fish was fantastic! They basically cut the fish in half, put it in this baking pan with the really yummy sauce, peppers, onion, some beans and other veggies. The waitress put the pan on our table on a little stand with hot embers under it to keep it hot. Gosh it was delicious; probably the best thing I've had so far. I wish I'd remembered to take a photo of it, but there's no doubt I'll go back again.

The chicken wasn't as good, but it wasn't bad. It was cooked with carrots and celery, which was all fine, but the sauce on it was strange. It was a little sticky, and it had a flavor I can't describe.

The corn was also pretty delicious. Each kernel was covered in something that was sweet, salty and crunchy all at the same time. Keen said it was egg, but it seemed more like it had been given a flour-based coating and then fried. But it sure was good, especially with the rice and fish. I can't wait to go back to that restaurant!

Yesterday afternoon, Annie and I joined the gym, and after a workout we went to get her some real sneakers. The shoe store we went to had some flat cloth Chinese shoes, which I want. They were 25-70 Yuan, which is roughly $5-$10. I'm not sure if I will be able to buy shoes here, though. My tennis shoes say they are an EU 42, and they are a little big. But the largest size I saw in the cloth shoes was 39, so I might be out of luck. I'll keep trying, though.

Oh, and I had another fried dough (Chinese doughnut?) thing this morning. It's about the size of my forearm. Here's a photo of it, after I'd taken a few bites (it tastes better than it looks, I promise):

Well, that's my day. Hopefully soon I'll get a translation and can start writing the story about the exhibit. One more day of work this week and I get a three-day break. Because Wednesday is a festival (the Dragon Boat Festival), we had to work all weekend, but then we get Monday through Wednesday off.