adventures of a tired coder

Film watching slowing down. Volunteer hours going up. I worked a really easy shift in Kirkland on Friday night (gotta love being able to drive home in 5 minutes) and a busier shift at the Uptown Saturday morning. The shift started at 10:15, which I thought was early enough to avoid most of the traffic. WRONG. I left around 9:35 and was still late. I-90 started slowing down around Seattle and I-5 was hellish, probably due to the 520 bridge closure. Then there was surprisingly difficult traffic around Seattle Center for so early in the morning. I worked another full screening of Beasts of the Southern Wild (one of these days I’ll have to actually see it). It was a secured screening and special security people were in the theater with special binoculars to catch people recording or using their cell phones. There was only one person coming in for the next volunteer shift and the house coordinator was desperate for people who could stay longer so I stayed an extra hour or so to help seat the next film. Then I got stuck in rage-inducing traffic on I-90 (F U 520) and 405 due to an accident. But nothing would keep me from my cat movie in Kirkland. Film count: 16. Volunteer vouchers: 17.

Rent-a-Cat
(also: Rentaneko)
Japan, 2012
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Watched: SIFF 2012, Kirkland Performance Center
Rating: **** (out of 5)

There’s been a lot of talk about there being many cats in SIFF 2012. I approve of this motif. This movie definitely adds to the cat count. I squeed a little bit when I saw this one on the program. Didn’t have extremely high expectations, but I knew I was going to see it no matter what. Fortunately, it’s actually pretty good. A bit too long, but it’s charming, quirky, and funny, and there are indeed a lot of cats. I think most people who watch this movie will like it because the people who wouldn’t would already be turned away by the premise. Highlights are the cats (duh. Apparently they are individually listed in the credits, too!), a funny commercial, and the insulting neighbor. I believe all the screenings were pretty full, so people love cats! I’m sorry, there was no way I could write an unbiased review of this movie.

The Art of Love
(also: L’Art D’Aimer)
France, 2011
Genre: Romantic Comedy, Drama
Watched: SIFF 2012, Kirkland Performance Center
Rating: **** (out of 5)

Argh, SIFF. Two movies this year from directors of films I enjoyed at previous festivals. #1 had the unwatchable subtitle timing problem. #2 was this one, directed by Emmanuel Mouret, the French Woody Allen, and they were unable to get the keys from the distributor for the digital projection for the Kirkland venue. Instead, they played a DVD backup with a watermark in the center and a timer at the top. Yeah, that sucked. It would have been nice to know that this was a possibility earlier because Alexis and I would have gone for one of the Uptown screenings instead. Still, we made it through the movie and so did pretty much all of the audience. This lived up to my expectations as a quirky rom-com, and I liked all the different stories. Frédérique Bel was particularly amusing.

Klown
(also: Klovn)
Denmark, 2010
Genre: Comedy
Watched: SIFF 2012, Egyptian
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

A midnight movie after 4 hours of volunteering, two trips to Seattle, and two other films. Great idea! I was SO exhausted even before this film began. This is a film that’s being distributed in the US by Alamo Drafthouse, and the founder (Tim League) introduced the film by playing a voicemail from someone who was kicked out of their theater (I’d heard it before) and playing a Seattle vs. “foreigners” game of chugging Underberg, a highly featured drink in the movie. The film was definitely funny but there was a lot of crudeness that was unnecessarily shocking. However, watching the trailer should filter out most of the people who would be bothered by this. It’s like a more vulgar Danish Hangover with a kid involved. Trailer is NSFW.

Valley of Saints
India, 2012
Genre: Drama, Social Issues
Watched: SIFF 2012, Kirkland Performance Center
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

Beautiful film set on Dal Lake in Kashmir. It’s about a a nice guy named Gulzar who wants to leave the area with his not-so-nice friend Afzal because they’re tired of rowing tourists around the lake for little money. The Kashmiri conflicts, in violent contrast with the peacefulness of the lake, prevent them from leaving. Instead, Gulzar ends up taking care of and befriending Asifa, a visiting scientist who is staying in his uncle’s houseboat and is doing research on the environmental impact that residents are having on the lake. I really enjoyed watching this film, and even though I was tired, it did not make me fall asleep (which is a big deal when it’s a quiet movie like this). However, looking back at it, it felt pretty but not particularly meaningful. There are issues of poverty, social class, terrorism, pollution, etc. that the camera touches on but never really explores. The film leaves me only with beautiful images of Dal Lake to ponder, nothing more.

Film watching slowed down for the week – no double headers, even on Memorial Day. Worked one shift, a will call shift at the Egyptian. It was pretty tame. The busy shift would have been the one right before mine, seating 500+ people for a sold out Beasts of the Southern Wild. We got word during the film that a woman had climbed over the balcony and fallen down, and I was picturing a body splattered all over a row of people, but fortunately that rumor was exaggerated. Film count: 12. Volunteer vouchers: 10.

Future Lasts Forever
(also: Gelecek Uzun Surer)
Turkey, 2011
Genre: Drama, Social Issues
Watched: SIFF 2012, Uptown
Rating: *** (out of 5)

“…and so does this film,” says the review from The Stranger. I chose this one to watch over Simon and the Oaks, even though I suspected Simon was likely to be the better film. But the trailer for this film was so beautiful that I couldn’t resist. If the pacing of the film had been on par with the trailer, this would have been much better. I can take pretty slow movies, but the endless shots of the main character sitting around or sleeping or whatever was pretty excessive. In the opening credits, there was a logo for “Free Rasoulof and Panahi,” and the whole idea of the girl traveling around to collect elegies had definite resemblance to the man collecting tears in Rasoulof’s The White Meadows. There weren’t enough elegies, though. The beginning of the film is gripping, the end of the film is beautiful as the characters journey through Hakkari, but it drags on way too long in between. Context on the Kurds and Armenians in Turkey would have been useful before, but the film did get me to read more about this afterwards.

Eden
USA, 2012
Genre: Drama, Social Issues
Watched: SIFF 2012, Everett Performing Arts Center
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)

I thought I was going to miss this film altogether because the two Seattle screenings were during my half marathon weekend. But after waffling for awhile, I decided that it was worth it to drive up to Everett to catch the last screening. This was one of the more talked about movies of SIFF 2012. It’s directed by Megan Griffiths, who also directed The Off Hours, which I had considered seeing at SIFF last year. It was shot pretty much entirely in Washington, and I happily recognized some of the Eastern Washington locations posing very convincingly for the Southwest. Being a local film, a lot of the people involved were in attendance, which was fun to see.

What wasn’t fun to see was this movie. It’s a challenging one, based on a true story about human trafficking. Jamie Chung gave a fantastic portrayal of a girl who transforms from a naïve teenager making a wrong decision at a wrong time to a hardened, determined young woman who manipulates her way up the chain in order to escape it. The film is particularly strong in its portrayal of the victims of these sex rings and why it is so difficult for them to escape their fates. What I wished had been explored more were the mindsets of their captors and jailers. So many of the people involved must have been aware that these girls were underage and unwilling, and they somehow felt like it was okay to treat them in this way. A Romanian film, Loverboy, played at the same day and time in Seattle and supposedly focused more on that side. It would have been interesting to see those two in parallel.

Sunny
South Korea, 2011
Genre: Chick Flick, Comedy
Watched: SIFF 2012, Egyptian
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)

Maybe rated a little high because it provided the comic relief I needed after a series of pretty heavy films. This was a really fun one to see with a female friend. She pointed out how awesome it was to see a female about Asian women that focused on empowerment instead of endless suffering. SO true! It’s about a group of gal pals from childhood that reunited later on in life. It’s fun to see the characters taking a nostalgic look back to their childhood versions and being reinspired by their own dreams. The childhood rivalry between the “Sunny” gang and their rivals is over-the-top and hilarious. Basically, to summarize: I am the protagonist of my own life, bitches!

Finally worked my first real usher shift, a fun weekend one at the Egyptian. The Invisible War was the film that let out at the beginning of my shift, a pretty harsh documentary about sexual assault in the military. The other films on my shift were Wonder Women! and The Eye of the Storm. I opted out of watching Wonder Women! because I didn’t want to get filmed out. It was fun seeing costumes and lots of little girls in attendance. Eye of the Storm was not on my film radar at all, but it was extremely well-attended (as were the other two). So far this SIFF, I have attended only one screening that sold out, proving once again that I have no idea what other people like. Film Count: 9. Volunteer vouchers: 8.

Paul Williams Still Alive
USA, 2011
Genre: Documentary
Watched: SIFF 2012, Uptown
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)

I blatantly ignored every SIFF film about a cultural icon that I didn’t recognize (in other words, all of them). But Alexis mentioned that she was really excited about this one. I watched the trailer, and I was sold. While I think people who grew up listening to Paul Williams’s music and remember him on television would get even more out of this documentary, it still has universal appeal. It works to have the director, Stephen Kessler, in the film to demonstrate the relationship between the filmmaker and his childhood idol, the delightfully cranky Paul Williams. But between all the comedy, there’s a genuine story about the transformation of a pop icon into a good husband and father with a happier life. Paul himself was supposed to attend both screenings, but unfortunately, his flight ended up leaving too early for him to attend mine. However, Stephen Kessler was there, and he gave a very entertaining Q&A.

Any Day Now
USA, 2012
Genre: Drama, Social Issues
Watched: SIFF 2012, Harvard Exit Upstairs
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)

This one proves once again that I have no idea what people like. I thought it would sell out one of the bigger screens. It’s an American film with recognizable actors, extremely well reviewed, touching story, good show times. But it was quite the opposite – the film ended up being switched to the small Harvard Exit upstairs theater, and there were even free tickets offered to the screening. It was a great movie, though, and I’m glad I watched it. It tells the story of a gay couple trying to adopt an abandoned child with Down Syndrome in the 1970s. While people in the audience were definitely interested in the prejudice against homosexuals and the portrayal of Down Syndrome, the director, Travis Fine, said in the Q&A that how he connected to the story wasn’t through these things. He saw the theme to be something universal, the pain of being forcefully separated from someone you love through circumstances beyond your control. Lots of great actors. Alan Cumming really steals the show, and apparently he’s quite a character in real life as well. The director said he was currently in a production of Macbeth playing all of the roles in the play. He originally wanted to play Lady Macbeth, but then he decided he might as well just be everyone.

King Curling
(also: Kong Curling)
Norway, 2011
Genre: Comedy
Watched: SIFF 2012, Egyptian
Rating: *** (out of 5)

One of the most hyped films of the festival that it had to be pretty freaking funny not to be a letdown. I mean, it’s pretty hard to live up to being branded the Norwegian Big Lebowski (but with curling). It’s was super quirky and the funny parts were funny, but there was too much of it where no one was laughing. Still worth watching, though, and I know there were others who found it funnier than I did. I did find it extremely amusing that they played the Klown trailer (video is NSFW, link is okay) as a preview before the movie.

Bol
Pakistan, 2011
Genre: Drama, Social Issues
Watched: SIFF 2012, Uptown
Rating: **** (out of 5)

This movie interested me because it was a strong film coming out of Pakistan, something that isn’t that common right now. It was long – almost 3 hours – but I didn’t get bored. Beautifully shot with really nice music that didn’t distract me in the way that some of the Bollywood music does. I thought the title song was beautiful and haunting, and it set the mood appropriately for the beginning. (The subtitle translation for “Bol” is “speak up”) It’s pretty clear from the description that the women are in for some rough treatment in this film, and that’s true. It’s nice to see the main character, Zainab, have a voice against her oppressive father instead of just being a silent victim. I did find it odd that at the end of the movie, the moral of the story seemed to be “don’t have more kids than you can afford” when to me, the honor killings and oppression of women were bigger issues.

Tatsumi
Singapore, 2011
Genre: Documentary, Animation
Watched: SIFF 2012, Uptown
Rating: *** (out of 5)

An untraditional, animated documentary combining information from the life of Tatsumi Yoshihiro, the inventor of gekiga, a mature, adult type of Japanese animation, with stories from his works. It was well done and it certainly grabbed my attention, but it just wasn’t really my thing. I probably could have seen it coming. Japanese stuff can get really weird, and it’s weird in a disturbing way, not a quirky way. The stories are supposed to depict the darker side of human nature, I guess, but it isn’t something I can or want to personally identify with.

First week of SIFF is over. In a way, it feels like my SIFF experience hasn’t fully begun because of how little I have seen and volunteered, but that should fix itself up quickly over Memorial Day weekend. Film count: 4. Volunteer vouchers: 6.

Goodbye
(also: Bé Omid E Didar)
Iran, 2011
Genre: Drama
Watched: SIFF 2012, Pacific Place
Rating: N/A (walked out)

Mohammad Rasoulof directed the beautiful movie The White Meadows that screened at SIFF 2011 (my review) that I was so enthralled by that I was excited to see his newest film, Goodbye, which reflected some of his own experiences through the story of a lonely by determined woman named Noora. Visuals were depressing but beautiful, at least the part I saw. That’s right, this officially marks my first walkout from a SIFF movie. Not because the movie was bad, but because the viewing circumstances made it impossible to watch the movie. In this case, there was a technical issue that caused the subtitles to be displayed 10-40 seconds before the actual speech occurred. They didn’t do a whole lot of talking at the beginning of the film so it was just annoying, but once conversations started happening more quickly, it was just too difficult to remember so many lines and figure out who was saying what. The artistic director did respond to my e-mail about this, apologizing and explaining about the nature of the film format that caused this to happen and that it would have required an hour to reload. I definitely understand that it can be challenging to deal with so many different formats moving between theaters and projectors, but I also remember my first film last year at SIFF, also at Pacific Place, and also with technical issues. Le sigh. They gave us vouchers for compensation, but the other screening time of this film isn’t going to work for me, so hopefully it comes back in some form some other time.

Cloudburst
Canada, 2011
Genre: Comedy, Romance, Drama, Road Trip
Watched: SIFF 2012, Egyptian
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

Tuesday was a good SIFF day. I was excited about my two romantic-drama-comedy films, each from a very different culture and stage of life. I’ve noticed, with a bit of sadness, that this year at SIFF, many of the most popular movies have been from the US and Canada, most looking like they had a decent budget and well-known actors and/or directors. This film definitely fits into that category. Brenda Fricker plays an aptly named Dot, a blind woman whose granddaughter has decided to take her out of her house and put her into a nursing home. Olivia Dukakis is her foul-mouthed protector/lover who protests this plan by kidnapping Dot and driving her up to Canada to get married. It’s a bit formulaic, some of the supporting actors weren’t great, but overall, the mix of sentimentalism and comedy worked for me. The cinematography was also surprisingly beautiful.

Starry, Starry Night
Taiwan, 2011
Genre: Coming of Age, Romance, Fantasy
Watched: SIFF 2012, Pacific Place
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)

Reviews were a little mixed on this film, but I knew I was going to see it as soon as I saw the trailer and read the description. It was another subtitled one at Pacific Place, but at least with this one, I’d be able to understand the dialogue if the subtitles were messed up. But they weren’t. This isn’t a film for everyone – the pacing is pretty slow, and if I was to describe the plot, it would sound like nothing interesting happened. But for people who like this sort of thing, it is a five star movie. It’s breathtakingly gorgeous. My friend who watched this with me wanted to know where in Taiwan it was filmed so I looked it up. No luck. The director said it was filmed in locations that were “less popular for filmmaking” and that “we wanted to show a unique side and were careful and strict about every frame and lighting. We wanted perfection.” This effort comes through very clearly. I’ll be very interested to see other things that Tom Lin directs. The one thing I didn’t like about this movie was the epilogue. I thought it was unnecessary, dragged the film out too long, and didn’t work well in general. The story was based on an illustrated novel by the same name, and they showed some of the illustrations in the credits sequence, and those were beautiful as well. Also, what’s up with Taiwanese people and France? The main character’s mom speaks French and has a thing for the country and culture, and that gave me a flashback to Au Revoir Taipei (SIFF 2010).

Lost Years
Canada, 2011
Genre: Documentary
Watched: SIFF 2012, Harvard Exit Upstairs
Rating: ***1/2 (out of 5)

While everyone else in the world was crowding into the Uptown to see Safety Not Guaranteed, I fought ridiculous downtown traffic to make it to the small upstairs theater at the Harvard Exit for Lost Years, an award-winning documentary originally broadcast on Canadian television. It tells the story of the challenges faced by Chinese immigrants to Canada and other countries around the world. This is a subject that I feel passionate about spreading information about because of several reasons: 1) it is my heritage, 2) it is not well known, 3) it is inspiring how an impoverished, ill-treated group has now become what people think of as a model minority, and 4) hopefully the knowledge will prevent this treatment of other groups in the future. There were a lot of things I didn’t know that were presented in this documentary, like the head tax in Canada and other countries, the fact that the US pressured Canada and Mexico to adopt the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the Anti-Chinese Riots in Seattle and Tacoma where mobs rounded up Chinese people and forced them to leave by ship.

The documentary itself was okay. It was a little slow, and I felt like there could have been more content or more informative interviews. I was looking forward to the Q&A with the director Kenda Gee at the end, but I found it very strange that he turned his answers to all of the questions into a way to brag about the film’s accomplishments. For example, one woman told him that her mother was very touched by some of the scenes in the film, but she didn’t really understand English. She wanted to know if there was a Chinese version of the film for people like her mother to watch. He said that they had broadcast at film festivals in China and won awards, and they also had screenings in Vancouver, and they were so full that they were turning people away, and then they ended up doing another screening in Richmond, and again they were full… blah blah… did not answer the question. Really odd. Maybe he felt like a not-quite-full upstairs at the Harvard Exit was a little too humble for his film?

5 Broken Cameras
Palestine, 2011
Genre: Documentary
Watched: SIFF 2012, Uptown
Rating: **** (out of 5)

I mentioned this film to Mike and asked if he was interested. His response basically was that he had seen enough pro-Palestinian propaganda and wasn’t really interested in seeing more. I didn’t push it, but it felt to me like this was going to be more than that. For one thing, Emad Burnat teamed up with Israeli filmmaker Guy Davidi to make the film. Both of them worried about the criticism they would face for working together, but Davidi said something that fits this film very well: “I hope that the people that come to see the film will do it with open hearts and minimum pre-judgments. I think when watching a film that deals with such a painful controversy, people tend to shut down. Most people divide the world into right and wrong, good and bad, Palestinians and Israelis. They immediately take a side and that corresponds to their identities, life experience, ideology... but whatever reason it is these loyalties are many times at the expense of experiencing the world emotionally and openly, while understanding the true impact of actions. The reality is wonderfully complex and this is beautiful. I am frustrated when people fight so much to narrow it down and put the film into a box and choose to look at it with one or two filters.” I feel like this is incredibly relevant in many two-sided battles today.

The film is not about all of the violence on the Gaza Strip. It is a story about a family – we get to see Burnat’s youngest son, Gibreel, grow from a baby into a boy. It is a story about a peasant village that watches their land disappear as settlements move closer and closer. But instead of big corporations doing this, it is the Israeli military, which responds to non-violent protests with guns and smoke bombs. The Palestinian villagers don’t oppose the settlements themselves. What they protest is the barrier – they want the land to be open. It seems so simple, and it leaves me with the cliched but appropriate thought, “Why can’t everyone just get along?”

It’s SIFF time again! SIFFtacular, as the intro trailers remind us again and again. Once again, I have good intentions of recording my SIFF experience, but in reality I know I’ll probably only get so far and the rest will be lost. Better than nothing!

SIFF starts before SIFF starts
That’s right. Even though opening night was May 17th, things start before then. Generally, the first thing that demands my attention is when they announce the schedules. This year, I started my research a day ahead when I got a hold of a press release with the titles (without schedules) and instantly got excited about The Art of Love, directed by Emmanuel Mouret, the same guy who directed Please, Please Me! from SIFF 2010. When the schedule went live, I obsessively pored over reviews and trailers, putting together a list of my picks to send out to my friends. I think my actual SIFF schedule may end up being pretty different from that original list, though.

Full series passholders and people with press credentials get to start SIFF a few weeks early with press screenings. Of course, I don’t get into those, but that means reviews start coming in, so I’ve been reading and anticipating since that began. One of these days, I’ll have to try the full series experience. It tempts me more and more each year.

Finally, volunteer stuff starts before opening night as well. There are promo shifts to distribute posters and such, training sessions for all the different positions, etc. I skipped usher training this year, but I did opening night training, participated as a fake passholder in a house simulation for the venue managers and house coordinators, and drove a box of programs from the Film Center to Bellevue. With this and opening night usher volunteering, I had six vouchers in hand before even seeing a film!

		SIFF Opening Night VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Opening night volunteering wasn’t as exciting as it seemed like it would be, but I’m still glad I did it. During the training, Alexis and I wanted to take one of the doors leading to the dress circle for maximum important-guest-viewing potential, but we weren’t quick enough and instead got assigned to the boxes. However, a bunch of people who showed up for training didn’t show up for the event itself, so we ended up getting the dress circle after all. This actually had several implications we hadn’t anticipated:
1. Since we were assigned to one of the only reserved seating sections, we didn’t get busy at all until right before the movie started.
2. There weren’t that many people in our section.
3. We had to constantly turn other people away because general admission wasn’t allowed to go through our door. Not everyone was thrilled about this.

It was definitely fun people watching. I recognized Shanghai Pearl immediately (a local performer, as well as the person featured in this year’s SIFF trailer), and Alexis thought she got a glimpse of Lynn Shelton. A lot of people were pretty well dressed for the event (not common for Seattle), though a few were wearing shorts (common for Seattle). Definitely some, umm, unique outfits. The Stranger noticed all of this and wasn’t so nice about it. Will call downstairs was totally slammed, with a line that went down the side of McCaw and then back, but miraculously things started almost on time. Our main job, other than handing out ballots, was to distribute free tickets to everyone in our section once they made the announcement on stage that everyone in the audience was getting a free gift. Very nice gesture to SIFF in thanks for all of the donations that made the Film Center a reality.

For opening weekend, I didn’t volunteer or see any movies at all! It was sad to miss out on so much good stuff, but instead, I ran the Portland Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon – my first!

A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar: A Novel by Suzanne Joinson

Genre: Historical Fiction
Rating: *** (out of 5)
Recommended for: historical fiction fans, people who want a glimpse at a lesser-known part of China
Received ARC copy through NetGalley.

Book 7 of 52 in the “Around the World” Challenge

Back-cover summary:
It is 1923. Evangeline (Eva) English and her sister Lizzie are missionaries heading for the ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar. Though Lizzie is on fire with her religious calling, Eva’s motives are not quite as noble, but with her green bicycle and a commission from a publisher to write A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar, she is ready for adventure.

In present day London, a young woman, Frieda, returns from a long trip abroad to find a man sleeping outside her front door. She gives him a blanket and a pillow, and in the morning finds the bedding neatly folded and an exquisite drawing of a bird with a long feathery tail, some delicate Arabic writing, and a boat made out of a flock of seagulls on her wall. Tayeb, in flight from his Yemeni homeland, befriends Frieda and, when she learns she has inherited the contents of an apartment belonging to a dead woman she has never heard of, they embark on an unexpected journey together.

My review:
Lovely cover, exotic-sounding story… this sounded like it was going to be a beautiful adventure. In some ways, it was. Kashgar is located in the Uyghur region of China, an area that I wasn’t at all familiar with until I started researching places to visit in China. It was definitely a treat to visit a book that was (half) set there and get a glimpse into a city that mixed Chinese and Muslim influences. The descriptions of the food made my mouth water (“flatbreads, rose yoghurt and tomatoes sprinkles with sugar”) and I happily let the book carry me away to the busy bazaars and sweltering heat of the desert. In the modern narrative, the location was less exotic, but there were still plenty of images for the mind to feast on – Tayeb’s artwork, a bohemian commune, and an owl expecting its owner to engage in a hoot-fest during mating season.

Overall, readers seem to dislike the alternating narrative form of storytelling. I’m not ready to commit myself to that opinion just yet, but I definitely understand the reasons for it. It’s hard enough for an author to come up with one point of view that readers love, and it’s even harder to come up with two. A lot of the time, I’ll strongly prefer one to the other and angrily skim past the less likeable character’s portion to get to what I want to read (like in One Day). With this book, I didn’t favor one character’s sections overall, but at various sections in the book, I definitely favored one narrative to the other. This was often because the two plotlines alternated in when they were more suspenseful, and I would be tempted to skip one narrator’s section to find out what was happening in the other. However, another reason why I didn’t have a strong preference for Eva or Frieda was because the characters weren’t very accessible. I’d describe both of them as independent and modern (for their respective times), but that’s about all I would come up with.

Another thing about having dual narratives is that they have to somehow connect to each other. In some novels, that connection is apparent from the beginning. In this one, it’s not. It isn’t revealed until pretty far into the book, and that revelation wasn’t particularly impactful. I kept reading past that, thinking that a stronger connection would materialize, but it never did. It seemed like the ending of the book could have been fleshed out a lot more.

I’m not an expert by any means, but a few details stood out to me as being inaccurate, which makes me wonder what else might be wrong. There’s a reference to women “looking through the slits of their hijabs,” but typically hijab refers to a head covering. A niqab or something like that would have a slit. There’s also a place where they eat “jiaozi pancakes,” which I’m pretty sure does not exist.

Overall, I’m glad I had the opportunity to read this unique and interesting book. The plot and setting kept me engaged, and I only wish the conclusion could have done justice to the rest.

I meant to start on my series of posts about China immediately after I returned, but it seems like I’m not getting around to it until now. So many photos to sort through!

Back in the 1800s, a number of foreign countries had concessions in China, areas of cities where the foreigners lived and ruled. In Shanghai, one of these was the French Concession, an area that today retails much of its foreign influence and is a lively place for both expats and Chinese people to enjoy. I spent a morning doing a self-guided walking tour around the area and then returned at night a few days later to eat dinner.

 
(left: Shanghai, China; right: Provence, France)

As you can see in the pictures above, the tree-lined streets of the French Concession make it so the neighborhood could easily be mistaken for something in France. In the early morning (thanks, jetlag!), the shops were all closed, but this area would be full of people in the afternoons and evenings.

 
(Fuxing Park)

One of the first places I stopped by on the walking tour, and the place I spent the most time in, was Fuxing Park. It was created by the French over 100 years ago, and now it’s probably the city’s best public park. Walking in, all the lush greenery enfolded me in a peaceful feeling… and then I nearly got hit with a birdie. There were dozens and dozens of people playing badminton in the shadow of a rather serious-looking statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel. Ah, yes… I had stumbled into one of my favorite things to see in Asia: old people exercising in public. In some instances, it’s funny, but the real reason I like it is because it’s a cultural thing that I find very beautiful. It makes me happy to see retired people living full lives. On this Saturday morning, people were singing, dancing, shaking maracas, and more. The park itself was also very beautiful, with landscaped gardens and statues all over. I combined some of my pictures and videos into the video below:

There are many beautiful buildings left behind from the concession days. Two examples are pictured below. The first is part of the Ruijin Hotel, formerly the Morriss Estate. I brazenly walked through the gates and around the property to look at the buildings, and I noticed that an employee started walking behind me and followed me nearly to the exit. Many old mansions have found new incarnations as hotels, banks, and shops. But some of them, like the former St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church, haven’t fared as well. Apparently this beautiful building was used as a warehouse for washing machines at one point after it stopped being a church!

 
(left: Ruijin Hotel, right: former St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church)

Things in China these days change rapidly. Some of the French Concession remains residential, with normal people going around doing normal things like buying vegetables from a sidewalk stand. But things are rapidly going upscale. It’s hard to miss the Sinan Mansions project, a redevelopment of dozens of old mansions into upscale residences, shops, restaurants, and a super expensive hotel where you can have your own personal butler if you’re willing to pay over 5,000 USD a night for a villa. Some of the project, like the hotel, is already done, but other parts (as pictured below) are still in progress. While it’s nice to see new life come into these dilapidated structures, it’s unfortunate that their replacements are things that normal people will be unable to enjoy.

 
(left: vegetable stand, right: Sinan Mansions project)

One very popular area of the French Concession is called Xintiandi, which translates to “New Heaven and Earth.” It is perhaps the redevelopment that spurred the other projects. The old shikumen houses have been converted into expensive shops and restaurants. This area was full of people at night, especially foreigners. Sadly, one of the most photographed angles of Xintiandi prominently features a Starbucks.

(left: Xintiandi, photo credit: Time Out Shanghai,
right: wealth is not subtle in China)

There are many restaurants and bars that are popular with the expat crowd in this area, but I didn’t try any of them. Instead, I went for the Shanghainese favorite, Xinjishi, which I’ll probably mention if/when I get around to making a food post. On the way back to my hostel, I sighed at the giant, garishly-lit Gap store and the line of drunk foreigners waiting for cabs (pictured below).

 
(left: this is China, right: line of people waiting for cabs)

One neighborhood, many faces. It’s not what I expected when I thought of Shanghai before I visited. It’s interesting to see a neighborhood that has had various cultural influences over time and how it has evolved. Hopefully not all of the past will be lost as things move forward. I’ll have to come back in ten years and see!