Two Wheels Good
Documenting a city or country from a car is a bit like doing human behavioural research without ever leaving a laboratory - there is worthy stuff you can learn but IMHO you'll pretty soon reach the limitations of what's interesting. Yeah I know, unless of course the focus of your research is car culture itself. But mostly getting out there requires removing the barriers between you and the world around you. What's your excuse when a motorbike and local driver can be yours for as little as 5 Euro for half a day? And even if motorcycle taxi's don't exist in a city of your choice it is possible to engage regular motorbike drivers to engagte in a bit of moonlighting.
Photos from motor cycle field research in Shanghai above, Kampala, Tehran, Hue, Fujian Province and Ho Chi Minh City below.
So you think language an issue? Some of the most effective days spent researching from the back of a motorbike have been with a driver that doesn't speak a word of English/German/Japanese and likewise me struggling to get my tongue around Farsi/Vietnamese/Chinese/Lugandan. What makes for a good research ride? A driver who is sufficiently aware of the passenger but ultimately knows exactly what he can get away with on the road/pavement/cattle path; a comfy passenger seat; plenty of cc's; and ultimately someone who is not phased by requests to stop in wierd places; and ends up anticipating places and peoples of interest.
Pillion highlights from this past year?
Interviewing boda-boda (motorbike taxi) driver's in Uganda for a study of shared mobile phone use, and on one occasion speeding through Kampala sitting Tour de France cameraman style i.e. the wrong way round on the passenger seat trying to get a good shot of a colleague Indri conducting an eventually very successful interview. Trust in your driver is a wonderful thing, especially when near misses are only witnessed after the miss and the only practical alternative is blind panic.
Being baled out of a sticky street situation by a motorbike driver in Tehran who knew just when to come and rescue me from over inquisitive officials. Watching Ho Chi Minh City wake and commute to work - Vietnam is after all still a 2-wheeled culture. The morning included a stop for a double condensed milk coffee and spending the next 30 minutes gripping and tripping.
And finally a day in the mountains of Fujian Province listening to tunes and staring contentedly at the back of a plant pot helmetted rider, who later introduced me to his favourite barber. The size of rock falls that were common in that part of the world would have wiped us out no matter how much wickerware protection he was wearing.
Bargain hard, tip well, don't expect a helmet.
Writing from Tokyo | November 10, 2006 | Comments (0) | Permalink
Sleep Patterns
Panda and bamboo patterned window screen, from a guesthouse in China's Fujian Province. Lying in the darkened room listening to the quiet chatter from the courtyard, the glow of the pattern was the last thing you saw at night before falling asleep.
Writing from Tokyo | September 6, 2006 | Permalink
Pay-As-You-Go
Interesting to see mainstream PC software adopt the pay-as-you-go model.
What people are able and willing to pay for. Why does it not cost money every time you access your phone's address book? Or switch the phone on? Or for that matter to switch your phone off?
Writing from Fujian Province, Lost in | May 22, 2006 | Permalink
Setting Out Again
Today's shave comes courtesy of a back alley barber in a nearby village. I would never have found this place were it not for my driver (above, below), who accurately interprets my need-a-shave body language. He spends the whole time sitting in a barber's chair chain smoking like a nervous parent. We've already agreed a price for the day and he's sitting here on my time, so if anyone should be nervous it should be me.
The barber's shop doubles as a photo studio in he back and includes a print club (puri kura) kiosk up front. I retreat into the studio for a post-shave photo - not of me, but to borrow the set to shoot the driver, the shop owner and members of his family. There are a variety of backdrops to choose from ranging from fantastic sceneries to, um, fantastic sceneries - elements of beauty and escapism and very different from club land New Orleans. A high quality print costs 20 Yuan (2 Euro) and given that I've taken over his space I order a few. The photographer uses a three year old entry level Sony camera the technical specification of which will soon be surpassed by most new camera phones. How long before we start seeing camera phones at use in photo studios such as this? For all our snobbery about taking 'proper' photos with 'proper' cameras for most of the world's population it doesn't need to be perfect, simply good enough. Today's high end camera phones are there already.
The PC-less printing process is enough to make a Canon rep smile. While we were waiting for the prints to emerge two teenage girls drop in and flick through booklets of print club designs. The process of choosing print club backgrounds is identical to Ho Chi Minh City - write down then number of the desired designs, pull the curtain shut and create their own version of reality. Second life, with y'know, added life.
There are a few synergies between barber services and the photo studio - after all clients like to look their best before the camera. I couldn't however persuade the driver to remove his helmet.
Writing from Fujian Province, Lost in | | Permalink
Settling Down
Today's office is not supposed to be. It's Sunday and I'm not due back in the Tokyo lab until the middle of the week.
But the current reality of this work is that if there is mental space and the tools to write ideas then it's pretty much an office. Before you think this a complaint, any arguments about work/life balance are moot when experiencing life counts as work. And it's not as if the mountains are ever too far away.
Although the altitude is nothing to write home about, at least today I'm up in the hills of a remote district of Fujian Province. The lodge that has been my home for the last two nights is set in a 100+ year old building, which in turn is situated in a national park. The journey here was uneventful marked only by the transition from the island city to industrial parks to paddy fields and eventually the winding mountain roads which lead here.
I'm currently sitting in wicker chair in a plant filled courtyard. A breakfast of steamed bread and peanuts has just arrived and will sit largely un-disturbed for the next hour or so. Coffee comes in a sachet marked Nescafe, and whilst it stretches my definition of coffee if the common truth were defined by volume alone pre-mixed sachets of caffeine, milk-powder and sugar by any other name would be a lie. With the exception of this 'coffee' the rest of the menu is pretty much orientated to slow food - and includes seasonal mountain vegetables, herbs, locally reared livestock (including duck, a gaggle of which have just wandered in and out) plus whatever wild rabbit they can catch. The national parks around here are a cross between historical theme-park and people's homes, this lodge being more of the latter. One hundred Yuan (8 Euro) buys me a hard bed, mosquito repellent, a door with a lock and an overnight pot to piss in. There is a row of perfectly reasonable squat toilets but they lie outside the thick walls and separted by a large gate that is bolted overnight.
The courtyard very much supports interaction between members of this community. People pass through to visit one of the seven families that live in this building, and stop long enough for conversations and sometimes tea. Local traders drift in and out - one offers what looks like whole-wheat muffins but which turns out to be yet another form of steamed bun. An elderly gentleman in plastic sandals and a Mao shirt shuffles by with what looks like a blunt. Tobacco is grown nearby so it could well be homegrown, its certainly hand rolled. The daughter of the owner splits her time between running errands, keeping me stocked with fresh fruit, and spends the rest of her time practicing Chinese karaoke tunes. She's wearing a rolling stones t-shirt and walks with a limp, an iodine stained leg wounds peek through from bottom of her trousers - the result of a motorcycle accident. That she's been in an accident doesn't surprise me - whilst the traffic is relatively polite the roads in this region are marked by rock falls and the muddy land slides are a challenge to negotiate during the rain.
And when later the rains come, everything moves to the edges of the courtyard. In a world where an office is a space to think the space serves me well.
Writing from Fujian Province, Lost in | May 21, 2006 | Permalink
Coke, Heat, Standardisation
Fuel brickets made from a mix of compressed coke slag, wood chip and water. Used to be a common sight in the Hutong but likely to be phased out in time for the Beijing Olympics. Identical design to those found in Vietnam.
Writing from Fujian Province, Lost in | | Permalink
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