Intense & Stimulating, Numb & Spicy

Hot Pot

Who knew a bag of chips could sum up an experience? All true- except the hot part of the statement. Guangzhou, China, which is a tropical climate at essentially the same latitude as Hawaii, was shiver-me-timbers cold. But who cares, you weren't the one getting cold and all it meant for me is that I was rocking a yellow vest in every picture.

Restart.

I was in China for a research trip. Myself, eight other students and two professors joined a team of students and professors in Guangzhou to study a particular aspect of their planning system.

The night meeting

China has a highly complex land use planning process, that is part of their core strategy of industrialization. Lets just say...the acronym GDP was thrown around more then a few times. Needless to explain, in a country with such explosive development, anything that is part of a core strategy of industrialization becomes quickly mechanized with the hope of expediting growth. But for obvious reasons that doesn't really work as a planning strategy.

Gilded

Our area of study was a village within the city of Guangzhou called Jiutan. The whole system of how cities are organized is pretty different then any where else I have been in the world. To keep things simple, you should know that Guangzhou is enormous compared to any American city. Villages, which were once independent areas with residential and agriculture land, are now integrated into the matrix of the city. Basically, the city is a monster, which subsumes the agriculture land leaving the residential area to turn into a neighborhood of sorts. But a village is not a neighborhood. They have their own political systems, social fabric, institutions and cultural mechanisms. Sometimes villages are completely destroyed to make way for factories or high rises. There was a distinct "Little House" thing going on.

While we were studying one village, in depth, we went to several and each has its own feel. Some were nearly buried in the city. Daylight barely trickled to the streets.

Darkness in the Daylight, Shipai Guangzhou, China

City nest, Shipai Guangzhou, China

Others were open set out against fields or lakes.

Stone Road

Each with its own people, culture, needs and resources.

I will continue to post on this subject for a few more weeks. We are currently in the process of putting together our work which includes lots more photos, videos, maps and stories. This is just an amuse bouche of sorts.