My first overseas trip of 2015 will probably be to a research meeting in Shanghai. I have been to China only once before, attending a similar meeting in Beijing. During that trip, I had an opportunity to explore a little bit of the city on my own, in addition to going on an organized tour of the Great Wall. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to take street portraits in China. Everywhere, people of various walks of life were incredibly friendly and easygoing, always willing, if not eager, to pose for a photo. I have probably the largest number of shots with strangers making eye contact with the camera from that trip than from any other country.
This time, I am looking forward to going to China gain, partly being inspired by my current bedtime read, “Reamde
” by Neal Stephenson, where some of the action takes place in China. If time permits, I will try to find some part of the city a little bit off the beaten tourist path. In Beijing, some of my most vivid experiences were from a district containing a maze of narrow streets and run-down houses, which I sought out on purpose. Actually, it turned out to be not nearly as photogenic as I hoped, but I tasted the most delicious (and cheap) Chinese dumplings in my life. It was in a tiny hole-in-a-wall restaurant, where an old woman literally made them after I made a selection from an entirely Chinese-language menu (my rudimentary knowledge of kanji from Japanese lessons helped enormously, to my own surprise), inkjet-printed on a piece of paper, laminated into thick plastic.
Speaking about books, I would like to start looking through the Beijing and Shanghai travel guide that I bought before my last trip. Usually, I leave myself too little time for planning of the touristy part of the business trip. This is really too bad, because I find the anticipation and initial processing the information about the new destination nearly as enjoyable as the travel itself.
Related
