Curse of 1,000 Weeping Dragons - Part I

December 2007

Raindrops keep falling on my lens
Everywhere I go is just the same wet nonsense
I’m ticked off and drenched
Those raindrops are falling on my lens, they keep falling

Gray skies, fog, and drizzle were my constant companions in mainland China. I’d never caught so much continuous rain on any trip, which leads me to believe that the Chinese gods have cursed me for being a Chinese mongrel who can’t use chopsticks and refuses to eat meat. Annoyed but undaunted, I decided to turn gray into B&W photos and by the end of the trip I’d learned a new skill: I can now photograph while holding an umbrella!

We landed in Shanghai, to me the city that best reflects the two contrasting worlds that exist in China today. The Huangpu river divides Shanghai between east and west: to the east there’s Pudong, where up until 10 years ago, basically only one building - the Oriental Pearl Tower - existed. Today, the area is filled with huge malls and modern skyscrapers, many more are coming up and you get the feeling that Pudong aspires to be a major business center in China, if not the world. Pudong is the child of China’s economic boom, growing by leaps and bounds, perhaps uncontrollably. To the west of the river, it’s Puxi, with neighborhoods dating from the 19th and early 20th century, including Old Shanghai, an area with narrow lanes, crammed houses and antique street markets selling Mao statues, a world increasingly encroached by the growing number of shopping malls and office buildings. The main attraction in Puxi is The Bund, the waterfront promenade dotted with neoclassical buildings and extremely popular with tourists and countless trinket vendors. The Bund is more photogenic in the evening, when all buildings are lit up, but just be aware that lights go off at 10:30 pm.

The next stop was Xian, winner of the title “Grayest City I’ve Ever Seen”, beating London with a fog so thick it weighs you down. Portions of Xian’s old walls have survived, and they form a perfect rectangle within which the main part of the city lies. Imposing though as those walls are, the main draw lies outside the city: the Army of Terracotta Warriors, 45 minutes away. The 2,000-year-old warriors were discovered by chance in 1974 when peasants were digging a well. Overall, there are over 7,000 life-sized soldiers, each with distinctive facial features. The warriors are distributed among 3 pits, and the way to see them is in descending order, starting in Pit 3, the smallest. Thus, you save Pit 1, the best, for last. Pit 1 is huge, measuring 210m by 60m, and it’s jaw-dropping to see hundreds of warriors and dozens of horses staring straight at you, in perfect formation as if ready for a battle. It’s such an impressive sight that we spent hours there even though temperatures were below freezing and there was no heating.