About this Blog
This blog is one of the requirements for Cal Poly Pomona's College of Environmental Design - 2011 China Summer Abroad Program. This annual summer program is in partnership with North China University of Technology (NCUT) in Beijing and was held this year from June 28 to August 1. The program is an intensive interdisciplinary studio of students of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning of both Cal Poly Pomona and NCUT.
By using photos and sketches as my visual communication media, accompanied with written components, this blog is meant to challenge my convention way of representation and recording. Rather than recreate the typical post card images that we always see about China (though sometimes it's unavoidable), each photograph shown here focuses on a detail that often missed by many visitors of China. This blog became my personal sojourn through the Chinese urban landscape.
Shopping Streets
Chinese, by nature, are very entrepreneurial; and nowhere else this quality can be seen but at the shopping streets of China. The most interesting items – and by that, I mean souvenir items – are located at these streets. Some cities separate them by districts. In Beijing, Luilichang market sell antique items; Wangfujing and Dazhalan sell a little bit of everything; while Nanjing Road in Shanghai is the busiest and largest shopping street in China. Nanjing Road is very comparable to Champs Elysees of Paris, France – both streets are places where high end designer items can be found. Some of these streets are centuries old but have gone several restorations and/or renovations; and had developed from being previously open for traffic but are now only open for pedestrians. Also, some of the stores within these shopping streets are family-owned like the ones you will find in Liulichang. (Photos A and D - Liulichang Market, Beijing; B - Cheng Miao, Shanghai; C -
Wangfujing, Beijing; E - Suzhou Canal at night)
But in street shopping, there is nothing more enjoyable than the art of bargaining. There is a saying that “everything in China is negotiable”. But just like any other skills, bargaining is one that needed practice - in fact, a lot of it. Sometimes bargaining can be very friendly and funny; other times they are confrontational and stressful. For an instance, in Beijing, in Luilichang market area, a store owner got mad at me and yelled at me with “I don’t want to see you here anymore!” after I made my friend realized that he was being overcharged for an item he was about to pay at that store. In Shanghai’s Cheng Miao Market, as I was trying to walk out of the store, a sales lady was pulling my backpack in and would not want me to leave without buying anything. I was like in a middle of a tug-of-war game. Once I perfected my skills of bargaining, I came to realize that a 100 yuan item can be bargained all the way to 15 to 20 yuan. Also, once you play the game, you have to stick with it - meaning don't back out after several negotiations and the store owner agrees at your own negotiated price.
Shopping streets have always been part of Chinese urban landscape. But the difference now is that lately the traditional markets are now been replaced by more contemporary and branded stores. There are still those stores that continue to sell hand-painted fans and figurines, only now their number is shrinking due to urban developments.
OVERALL EXPERIENCE
Overall, my trip to China was one of the greatest ones. With a culture that is so complex, China’s urban landscape provides the most interesting stories that only Chinese can offer.
The city of Beijing is a mixture of everything China can offer: the overwhelming crowd; the air that some say it’s the summer gloom while others think it’s the pollution; the subways where passengers turn into sardines; the street carts where scorpions and other bugs are served; the street shopping where the skills of bargaining can either bring you new friends or create more enemies (with the store owners); the forbidden place that is not so forbidden; the bird’s nest where mythical Chinese dragons can lay their eggs; the giant cube that cannot make up its mind on what color to use; the enormous square in the center where a red canvass (with prints of 4 little yellow stars and one big yellow star) is waving continuously; and the wall that looks like the spine of a dragon on a hazy day.
South of Beijing, with its many gardens, Suzhou is where serenity hides: its canals make the city the Venice of the East; and traffic is almost nonexistence. Shanghai, on the other hand, is a play of western and eastern architecture styles. Their buildings are seemingly non-stop reaching for heaven and the long corridor of Nanjing Road provides a good pedestrian shopping experience. Additionally, Xi’an’s Terracotta Soldiers Museum was impressive and the hike to Mount Hua Shan was an experience of a lifetime in which the saying “the journey is more important than the destination” is manifested.
After five weeks in China, I firmly believe that the Great Wall is not the greatest thing the country has, but its their culture.
For more information on Cal Poly Pomona's China Summer Abroad Program visit http://www.calpolypomonachina.blogspot.com/
Chinese, by nature, are very entrepreneurial; and nowhere else this quality can be seen but at the shopping streets of China. The most interesting items – and by that, I mean souvenir items – are located at these streets. Some cities separate them by districts. In Beijing, Luilichang market sell antique items; Wangfujing and Dazhalan sell a little bit of everything; while Nanjing Road in Shanghai is the busiest and largest shopping street in China. Nanjing Road is very comparable to Champs Elysees of Paris, France – both streets are places where high end designer items can be found. Some of these streets are centuries old but have gone several restorations and/or renovations; and had developed from being previously open for traffic but are now only open for pedestrians. Also, some of the stores within these shopping streets are family-owned like the ones you will find in Liulichang. (Photos A and D - Liulichang Market, Beijing; B - Cheng Miao, Shanghai; C - 
But in street shopping, there is nothing more enjoyable than the art of bargaining. There is a saying that “everything in China is negotiable”. But just like any other skills, bargaining is one that needed practice - in fact, a lot of it. Sometimes bargaining can be very friendly and funny; other times they are confrontational and stressful. For an instance, in Beijing, in Luilichang market area, a store owner got mad at me and yelled at me with “I don’t want to see you here anymore!” after I made my friend realized that he was being overcharged for an item he was about to pay at that store. In Shanghai’s Cheng Miao Market, as I was trying to walk out of the store, a sales lady was pulling my backpack in and would not want me to leave without buying anything. I was like in a middle of a tug-of-war game. Once I perfected my skills of bargaining, I came to realize that a 100 yuan item can be bargained all the way to 15 to 20 yuan. Also, once you play the game, you have to stick with it - meaning don't back out after several negotiations and the store owner agrees at your own negotiated price.