07/31 My Visit in China, Art, Culture and exporation in Singapore, Hawaii & Thailand

[purb36]

sesame paste rice balls.
also comes in peanut paste and 1 other which i can't remember.

it's a chinese dessert, not japanese.

that "1 other thing", isnt it sweet red bean (anko)? i think that might be it.
and its guuuuUUUUUUUUDDDDDDD!

[Mr Man]

Im actually really glad the dates have been pushed back for the workshop. As college is nearly over Ive got about 2 or so months to rack up some money, though It would help if I did have a job first
I absolutley love the chinese culture and I think this will be a fresh and exciting place to visit, im looking forward to this!!

I know its abit hard to judge but do you have a rough estimate of how much itll cost to live there for say a week?

Great work folks!

Rich

[sve]

I miss your updates. Are you very busy, not time to show more of what you see?
It was good to read and see the story about night grilled meat worshipers... Such a strange story really... they gather at night to eat and feed others, smile and feel peace and disappear at day light... Upside down subculture of a very busy city .

I wonder if they marinate the meat and seafood before grilling... In Russia it was often marinated for 12-24hours in wine, pomegranate juice or even kefir (a sour yogurt)... with a lot of spices and sliced onion when it was marinated in wine.

My favorite photo is the two laughing owners of the grill.. they look sweet and a bit shy and happy and agitated in the good way.
Yumiko. if you want new textures for your work I can give you many photos of rocks and mountains and fields and grasses my husband and I did. I will be glad if they will be useful.

[Jason Manley]

awesome...party at James Kei's house!!!. All the crawlies you can eat!

Man, you guys are lucky. I loooove chinese BBQ!

[Jason Manley]

So, we have continued to look for spaces for the workshop. I am learning to deal with the "lets charge the american guy extra" mentality that comes with doing business here. The latest space we found was gorgeous, and had quite a bit of nice spaces. It is a bit small though...max would be 200 people. So, we are going to keep looking. If we decide to do a smaller event..ala the european workshops...then either of the spaces we have found so far will suffice.

The next stop was macaroni and cheese, hamburgers, and good ole almost american diner food. It even had a huge menu to match the huge portions. I can only eat chinese food so many days in a row and opted to take a 45 minute cab ride to find American food. I have no clue how they manage to do it here, eating the same stuff all the time. I guess I am spoiled from living in San Fran where there is such a wonderful variety of great food from a variety of cultures. So far so good though. We have found some great spots. Though it was ok, this diner was not one of them.

I think my favorite time here is at night. There is such a rich moody textural quality to everything. Our favorite spot is still down with the bbq folks. They are getting to know us better, which means jess and I do a lot more charades as we learn to communicate here. haha. Right when we think we know a few words, we cross paths with someone with a different dialect and it's start from square one. So far, everyone is still being very very friendly. We are still enjoying it here.



J

[sve]

Hello. thanks for update... although I hoped it will be three times bigger in photos and stories... I wish you talked a bit more about mentality different from American that you mentioned ... that's a very interesting bit of information...
Is it true that China imports a lot nowdays. Did you see a lot of foreign products? I mean food products...
I saw yesterday 'Empire of the Sun', Spielberg's movie about Shanghai in WWII...although not everything was shot in Shanghai, they did show some... Eclectic looking city... From the side of the ocean it looked very grand, majestic, dome-like buildings...with little boats, sort of gondolas on the water... It should be a lot of Western looking buildings where British aristocrats lived before WWII in Shanghai.
Movie was very strange.. for many reasons...Japanese concentration camps were very strange for me to see.
Hope you will post more soon...
The two pictures of old half broken roofs with new buildings on the BG are great... And in general Shanghai feels like very extreme city from your stories and photos, tempo of life is very fast, many things don't' have a big value with this style of living... I mean fashion,,, I don't see it at all...They look preoccupied with something else... not aware of their own look...
I'm starting to think they don't have any homeless animals. I don't see any in your pictures... but I thought they should be there somewhere...
Do they have street music? I kind of doubt they have...
It was fun to read about your attempts to communicate with BBq people. funny . Who are they at day time?

[Mr Man]

Hehe I hope your belly doesnt start disagreeing with your food jason.
The top area on the building looks awsome. If you do choose this space im wondering if a few traditional painters could paint on the rooftops depending on the weather? I can really imagine a Jon foster mech slowly rising out of those shacks

Thanks for the update!

Rich

[2100]

By the way, how's the heat?

[Jason Manley]

its about 75 degrees and cloudy most days....ie 20 degrees celsius.

[Jason Manley]

We have been so busy with work (it's deadlines and more deadlines around here at MB lately) that it seems life outside work has been revolving only around food. Not a bad thing in such an exotic place...but it has caused us to brainstorm some cool things we should do soon. This past weekend has been a big crunch for some of us (yeah we work the weekend from time to time), and so our adventure was once again to find our daily grub.

We went with the team to a Sichuan restaurant that was rumored to be quite good. We were told to expect it spicy. Being a guy who likes it hot, that was no problemo. On the way we stopped to haggle with a local vendor selling coconuts and then hit the restaurant. My eyes were rather bugged at some of the selections. Take a look at the black chicken (i think it is a chicken anyway). I am sure it tastes great but holy fucking shit there is no way I will eat that. haha. Anyway, I thought I had seen it all until they brought out what I thought was some sort of bbq and it turned out to be BBQ DUCK BILLS. The next pic is of MB Shanghai studio director Dan Staton enjoying it's tongue. After that, it was vegetables only for me. Later on we snuck over to another street vendor who made me awesome vegetarian stir fry at about 11PM at night. Wonderful.

Once Sunday came, it was time for them to get a little taste of western culture. It was time to find all the ingredients to make an american favorite...NACHOS!!! I had to find everything I needed to make baja style guacamole, homemade hot sauce, and the appropriate chips and queso. The trek started at about noon and took me until six o clock to find it all and Yumiko and I had to ride in taxi's all over town. Fortunately there was an american/euro market on the posh side of Shanghai. I paid about four bucks apiece for avacados (after eating chinese every day, nearly, one will pay just about anything for mexican) and found all I needed. Fresh garlic, beautiful tomatoes at the chinese market, cilantro, red peppers, white onion, limes (apparently there is only one or two stores in shanghai that has them), mexican cheeses, and real tortilla chips. I could not forget the corona's.

If any of you have ever been to Taco Loco in Laguna Beach, you will know what I made for the team.

Now in china, it is tough to know if people are being polite by eating what they are cooked. I can say that everyone who saw me cutting veggies and mixing stuff up were skeptical of what I was up to. There were giggles and comments about me making a mess...and then it was done. Within half hour it was all gone. It was everyones first time having mexican food. I hope they really liked it. For me, it was pure heaven as I eat that stuff in the states at least twice a week and havent had any going on three weeks. The only ingredient they had not seen before were the avacados. Everything else in baja mexican is fairly typical ingredients in Chinese food. Not a bad way to end el noche...beers...nachos...and smiles with new friends. Unfortunately I did not get pics of it all, as I was too busy enjoying the food...but that is what we were up to between working on the new conceptart.org upgrades and the work due for mb. busy busy...as always.

-j

[Icon]

that black chicken looks really frightening ... i'd eat it whole!

Sounds like a great time! Even if there is a lot of work, something so rewarding like a good meal, and new friends can be all you need to let go of the daily insanity. I'm glad you guys are enjoying yourself!!

I can't wait for the new space to be chosen, so we can all experience for ourselves your daily writings!

jess: I adore that black coat! I want one!

[Bowlin]

These adventures with pics are pretty fun to read, been looking forward to the updates. It seems so odd to see so much older parts of the city and no graffiti. Plus, after reading all of this, looks like your homesickness has really started to sit in .

Thanks for the updates.

[Dished]

OMG OMGOMGOGMOOMGOGMOGOOMG I LOVE YOU GUYS FOR DOING WORKSHOPS IN ASIA!!!

Any idea on how much the price range for tuition is?

Imna start selling my things and tutoring kids hehehe

[Jessica Hook]

The two pictures of old half broken roofs with new buildings on the BG are great... And in general Shanghai feels like very extreme city from your stories and photos, tempo of life is very fast, many things don't' have a big value with this style of living... I mean fashion,,, I don't see it at all...They look preoccupied with something else... not aware of their own look...
I'm starting to think they don't have any homeless animals. I don't see any in your pictures... but I thought they should be there somewhere...
Do they have street music? I kind of doubt they have...
It was fun to read about your attempts to communicate with BBq people. funny . Who are they at day time?

One thing you see a lot of in Shanghai is extreme juxtaposition off old and new. You can stand on the roof of an ultra modern building, and look down on the collection of broken roofs that look like they haven't been fixed in generations. Shanghai is growing extremely fast, there is construction going on 24/7 everywhere, you can hear a jackhammer echoing off the buildings at 1am in the morning. We've come across a few stray dogs wondering in the street, but with the way people drive around here, I'm surprised they last very long. We saw stray dogs on 2 separate occasions, each was strolling in the street and each almost got run over in the few minutes we saw them. :/
As for street music, I haven't seen any street performers of any kind so far. I've seen a few people with music blasting from their moped though, kind silly.

that black chicken looks really frightening ... i'd eat it whole!

Sounds like a great time! Even if there is a lot of work, something so rewarding like a good meal, and new friends can be all you need to let go of the daily insanity. I'm glad you guys are enjoying yourself!!

I can't wait for the new space to be chosen, so we can all experience for ourselves your daily writings!

jess: I adore that black coat! I want one!

The jacket is my favorite too! I regret that I never bought a second one for when this one wears out, haha. Oh well, by the time it wears out I should have my sewing skills honed enough to make a new one. The black chicken scares the pants off me, you're a brave woman! And yes, coming to China and making friends with the co-workers has been really great & refreshing. Even though Shanghai is a relatively fast pace growing city with lots of husle & busle it still has a very slow "country" feel amoung the people. There seems to be a clear divide between the street vendors & the blue collar office workers. When we use our digicam around the street vendors they think the lcd screen where you can see the pics is the coolest thing in the world. They ask us to take pictures of them, so that they can look at themselves on the screen. They giggle or smile and stand over our shoulder to see what we're taking pics of. So simple. It makes me appreciate all that we have, and the opprotunities that we're able to take advantage of. Before we leave, me & Jason are gunna print the photos of them out, and give it to them. I'll think they'll get a kick out of it.

Jens- I think if you're ok with boiled vegetables, there seems to be no shortage. Every place we go has plenty of vegetable dishes. But if you're vegan and sensitive to your food being cooked with the same cookware as meats, then I don't know :/ oh, and it helps to have a Chinese speaker who can tell you what the captions under the name say. The picture might look like string cheese but it turns out to be squid legs or something, haha.

[strych9ine]

Sounds like a hell of a trip you guys, got me jealous as hell over here. Great pictures...

[Jason Manley]

Jens: It is possible to eat here as a vegetarian. Though you might find that your veggies were cooked on the same grill as the chicken.

There are grocery stores all over the place here though and the produce at the local markets (if you wanted to cook yourself or make salads and stuff) is far superior to anything we get in the US usually. The fresh veggies here are awesome...and the fruit...we cant stop eating it. Just bring a little camping hotplate and you would be able to get by anywhere....or hit the more fine dining places. there are very western areas here, so you would be able to find some food at various spots. There are a lot of bakeries too...so you could get fresh bread and cheese and veggies easily enough.

You can get breakfast without meat here too...mostly fried breads and other interesting things.

I eat almost entirely veggies here....though I dont care if its cooked on the same grill as the meat...but I have mostly stayed away from most the meats.

[Monster in AZ]

WE HAVE YOUR DOG. IF YOU DO NOT POST RANSOM WITHIN 24 HOURS HE WILL END UP LIKE ALL THE OTHERS. WE WILL CONTACT YOU WITH FURTHER DETAILS. DO NOT IGNORE THIS NOTICE. YOUR DOG'S WELFARE DEPENDS ON HOW YOU ACT NEXT.

[sweetoblivion314]

one question... do they serve Guiness?

other then that sounds like you guys are havign a good time and i hope the good times keep up. Hopefully i will join you guys again for this workshop

[James Kei]

WE HAVE YOUR DOG. IF YOU DO NOT POST RANSOM WITHIN 24 HOURS HE WILL END UP LIKE ALL THE OTHERS. WE WILL CONTACT YOU WITH FURTHER DETAILS. DO NOT IGNORE THIS NOTICE. YOUR DOG'S WELFARE DEPENDS ON HOW YOU ACT NEXT.

He probably won't taste very good. Though you could make a pretty cool jacket out of his shag.

[Magic Man]

Some cool ass photos right there.

[Jason Manley]

WE HAVE YOUR DOG. IF YOU DO NOT POST RANSOM WITHIN 24 HOURS HE WILL END UP LIKE ALL THE OTHERS. WE WILL CONTACT YOU WITH FURTHER DETAILS. DO NOT IGNORE THIS NOTICE. YOUR DOG'S WELFARE DEPENDS ON HOW YOU ACT NEXT.

Monster is a good boy. He is loved by his family. He is only there on a humani.....dogitarian mission. He is there to provide physical pleasure for the other hostages and to promote freedom to his people in the desert. Please post pictures of all hostages together with the missionary Monster so we know they are ok. There will be no negotiation until we see all the hostages. We trust in God that he will be well fed and respected as negotiations continue. Any physical or sexual abuse will result in further sanctions.

[zhuzhu]

yeah~ this is Shanghai~ my city who was born here. welcome to Shanghai~!this is a great city and best city in China.

[Craig D]

All funds raised go to the free Monster Fund

[Simon.Rain]

All funds raised go to the free Monster Fund

HAHAHAHAHA

[Justin.]

$1,000,000,000


Is that what he meant by posting a ransom?

[sve]

I have a feeling of premonition.. new photos and stories are coming...isn't Internet precious? once you posted your impressions...in few minutes they are read in Europe, America, Africa, Asia...And I'm looking at faces of people and buildings from the other reality I will never see otherwise. So... Thank you so much for that gift... that's a very kind gesture from you two, I hope you are not only giving but it is something for you too... feeling partly in California near your cat and dog and guys and girls with whom you work together every day. Hope you feel like you less traveling more at home.

I really enjoy your thread... so please continue and don't hesitate to post and write anything you want... all this is information and communication.
I wish it was photos of Mexican food preparation...I just can imagine the colors and textures on this one , expectation on faces and involvement with process on the face of the cook. And hands. Sigh... yeah... that's a pity.

The best photos for me in this update:

Yumiko's close up photo in one of the funniest and sweetest hat I ever saw... you look so sweet, like a little pretty birdie looking up from the nest... and please don't feel bad abut this impression... I like it very much, very charming, a lot of personality, very refreshing... really pretty. And I forget to mention the photo in the update before with chain on your neck... caught my attention... looks neat.

Chinese children and their little playground with crumbed asphalt, trash in the corners, bicycle, and wet clothes hanging on the rope... lovely, especially those half destroyed steps and warm feeling.

Buddhist's colors of the Sichuan restaurant and their food. Life celebrating colors.
Black chicken... A lot of personality .

The building in the center of the city with wet cloth hanging out of the window... Lovely as well.

Bicycles. they soften image a lot.

Yumiko's jacket and overall silhouette. Very sporty, streaming up away from the earth light figure..
Your dog's beard and huge wet nose... very impressive...
Sly humorous eyes of the MB Shanghai studio director when he nibbles on fried duck's bill.
Him again with all guards down after the finished orgies.

Jason's side-whiskers.

Colors of Shanghai... many tones of gray and blue with splashes of red and orange.

---------
Yumiko, thank you so much for your stories.. that's very interesting information ,,, no music on streets.. that's remarkable and very telling.. no idle people on streets I guess as well. Very busy life.
Maybe you can catch the people's reaction when you will present them with photos. that's really nice of you btw.
Thanks again.

[Android]

wow what an adventure, i really like living vicariously through YOU. thanks Jason, you continue to make all of us proud.

[Jason Manley]

Thanks Andrew, coming from one of the worlds most vicarious, that means a lot.

So, on to more adventures....

This past few weeks has been absolutely slammed busy at MB and I have been up to my neck with the new updates that I am working on for conceptart.org, as well as the workshop planning. Crazy. All this means is sometimes we must...and I mean must...get the fukk out of the office and into the world.

First thing is first, and that means food, as usual. On the way is where we find all sorts of interesting things. Everything from beautiful sculptures to kittens laying in a basket of childrens books...or a shaved dog with blue eyebrows. (or public bathrooms with no doors which face the street...YOWZA...which is fortunately very rare) Every corner turned in this city brings something that I have never seen before. There is a way of life in Shanghai that means staying alert and not falling into the zoned out drone that is typical in the west. It is impossible to do that as there is such a rich quantity of people, interesting things, noise, traffic, smells, folks bumping into you, and god knows what else...

Along the way, it is the artsy things that we stumble upon that makes me happiest. Dirty Iron and Zan Zan were kind enough to take us down to the art store district to find supplies for the MB figure drawing sessions we are starting up here. Yumiko and I managed to pick up about a thousand dollars worth of art supplies and art books for 150 dollars.

The book store was a complete and total surprise, and very very refreshing. We were walking by and Abe said "art books". We stopped and walked in. Surprisingly it was a very large book store filled with nothing but art books from the east. Now this might jump the subject a bit, but if one goes to art renewal center and reads up on classical realism there is this bitter hatred toward modern art because it destroyed the teachings of realism. In this book store I came to realize how ignorant those people in the classical realism community are to the art world outside of new york or paris. The book store was filled with hundreds of artists books...students and masters from Russia and China that illustrated to me how much traditional art has thrived and survived the 20th century. There were many (and I mean MANY) artists that I had never seen before, never heard of, and were of world class skill. The childrens books were filled with brush and pen thumbnail storyboards which were pushing composition theory which the west assumes died with Degas...amazing stuff...and It really opened my eyes to how blind the west is to the thriving culture in the east.

We also found some very western malls, and also some eastern flavored shopping areas. And managed to find a very good indian restaurant too!! Thank god, because I have no idea how the Chinese can eat Chinese food every day. I tell them that in San Fran, we like to eat different cultures foods each day of the week. I could not imagine eating american food every day...let along Chinese. We did, however, make the mistake of trying the mexican food here. Holy hell!!!!

Anyway...it has been a great experience being here. We ended the week with a banquet (the team from MB Shanghai were so kind to treat us to all sorts of interesting foods). While I did not, nor could, try everything, it was crazy to see the plates of jellyfish, pig elbows, and interesting desserts. I ate a lot of salad that day and had some stir fry too. Yum. Everyone enjoyed themselves, if for just a couple hours at lunch...

I will update again soon...hope everyone is doing great.


Jason

[emily g]

Jason, you are absolutely right about Russian and Chinese artists. They kept the traditional of classical realism alive as they were not allowed to paint modern (i.e. "western") art under communism.
We have a very nice collection of Russian art here in Utah, which I assume was bought for a good price when the style went out of favor after the fall of the Soviet Union.

[Shinryu]

Great pics and read Jason and Yumiko! The stuff in the books look awesome.

Cheers for sharing