:: see the first photo below for a recent throw-up by Shanghai’s most prolific and probably most talented graffiti writer Mr. Lan. Does anyone recognize the other pieces / tags? If so, please let me know in the comments section. These photos were taken by fifty 5-reader Roach C. in Shanghai near the Anshan Xicun subway station. Thanks for sending them my way Roach C. // AjS
:: see below for a fun stop-motion film titled Webcam (摄像头). The short was made by Neocha.com-user Lvmu, a third year student at the China Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and it tells the story of an adventurous webcam trying to break free from the laptop its tethered to. Forty-five seconds of enjoyment – I promise. // AjS
[full disclosure: fifty 5 is a partner at Neocha.com]
:: taken in Shanghai at the intersection of Tongren Rd. and Yanan Rd., a Faile sticker spotted on a traffic light. For those who aren’t familiar with Faile, they are a contemporary urban art collective of sorts, founded in Brooklyn, New York. You don’t see their stickers in China much, if at all. To read more about their last stop in Shanghai, link here and here. // XD
:: online communities in China can link people together based on common interests. Sometimes, these interests are located online — gaming, net lit, online video, tech — but often times people are involved in offline pursuits that they wish to share with their netizen friends. Some communities / discussion forums are national in nature and connect people from across the country. Others are more locally-focused and serve as online outposts of a groups that meet frequently in the real world. Although each of the following activities takes place offline, practitioners meet online to plan events, share videos, seek help with techniques, or shoot the breeze with other people interested in the same thing.
parkour ::
Parkour and the art of free-running, which started in the 80s actually, has exploded in popularity worldwide over the past few years, and China is no exception. The Parkour and Free Running Training website offers background information on the sport as well as space for traceurs to share their experiences. These include photos of interesting moves and videos of stunts (here’s Guangzhou’s “city spanker” club). Some videos attempt to work parkour into a narrative, like the 20-minute “I’m not a solitary hero” (我不是独行侠), the story of how one parkour team was formed. A Douban group for parkour enthusiasts recommends the Paoku.com.cn website. Individual local teams sometimes have their own websites. City Monkey, a Beijing-based team of traceurs and one of the forces behind Paoku.com.cn, keeps track of its activities on a website and a blog. The group’s updates are infrequent, but it has received a fair amount of local media coverage as parkour has entered the public consciousness over the past year. Other teams are listed on the LeParkour website, which includes groups in Wuhan (C-traceur) and Xi’an (Freefly). For more information (and lots of Parkour videos) see an earlier post I did on fifty 5.
biking ::
Biking has a huge online presence in China. Most online biking communities are BBS-style discussion forums, although a few sites, like Qixingquan, have attempted to build a Web2.0 SNS community out of bikers, to limited success. ChinaBike (车友论坛), whose full name is “China Bicycle Enthusiast Net,” is a typical BBS aimed at bicyclists. The most popular sub-boards are those devoted to road and mountain bikes, which mostly consists of technical issues, and a marketplace for second-hand bikes ( ). The site is quite active, garnering several thousand comments a day, and it has a huge list of links to a wealth of other cycling websites at the bottom of the home page. Many of those sites are local forums, and university clubs are particularly common. PKU has a bike club, the Cycling Association of Peking University, whose online presence accompanies an offline organization founded in 1995. The site exists to organize bike hikes, share information, and connect student bicyclists with each other. More generally, Qiche8 is a BBS aimed at college student bicyclists across the country, and has sub-forums for schools in various regions. Within the scope of bicycling, BMX (小轮车) is the focus of quite a few community forums. China BMX is one major clearinghouse for BMX-related information. showing off their members who have made the covers of BMX-related magazines. Nukebike is a general forum for BMX, street bike, and dirt bike exploits, but similar to parkour, biking is an activity pursued by local clubs across the country, many of whom have their own online presence. A BMX club in Wuhan keeps a blog on Blogbus which hosts some striking action photographs and multiple-exposure images of jumps. Enthusiasts often post videos of their skills to various video hosts. Here, Yang Mingkai (杨明凯), a twenty-something BMXer in Beijing, shows off to the sound of the Beastie Boys on a sidewalk, and in competition.
skateboarding ::
Kickerclub (ignore the unfortunate logo), is a bilingual website devoted to skateboarding exploits in China. According to the about page, Kickerclub was founded in 2001 by a skater from Qingdao who was studying in Xi’an at the time, and is now working in skateboard-related merchandising. The site features skateboard tutorials, products for sale, and videos of skateboarders in China and around the world. There’s an associated Douban group where members post photos of activities and skate-ups in various cities. The latest was a meet-up in Chengdu for World Skateboard Day on June 21. Another Douban group, Skate, provides a helpful bilingual list of skate lingo, which is fairly fluid, as the three renderings of “ollie” illustrates (翱骊, 豚跳, 带板腾空). China Skateboards is a clearinghouse for skateboard-related information and announcements. These include photos of events, such as recent meet-ups in Nanjing and Shijiazhuang. The website has a channel on Youku where it posts videos, mostly of foreign skateboarders, but occasionally of locals. SkateHere, a product-oriented skateboarding website, hosts blogs from some well-known names in the field. Along fashion lines, it has a tons of photos from the launch of Nike’s SB line of skateboard shoes; a promotional video of the shoes has been pretty big this year, and features Tiananmen and other recognizable Beijing locales.
dancing ::
Break dancing, called “street dancing” (街舞) and Pili wu (霹雳舞) in Chinese has a fairly large online presence. Breakdance China is an collaborative blog that aims to provide information to China’s breakdance enthusiasts. Blog posts are frequent – several per day – and include announcements of upcoming events, photos of recent events, videos of dancing, and complaints about “kids these days.” The website is also host to the Quanzhou Middle School Break Dance Hiphop forum, a community for “Ha.5 Club” breakdancers from Fujian. Breakdance China links to 52 Breaking, a BBS forum for breakdancing fans. The most active sub-board is devoted to teaching techniques. Techniques are also the predominant focus of the active Baidu Postbar on breakdancing, which at the time of writing claims 2,780 members and 55,759 topics. One classic post is instructional and uses videos that mix popular music videos and actual break dance (for example). The BBS Hiphop City, whose URL can be interpreted to mean “I want to dance, dance, dance!” is a forum for all kinds of hiphop dancing, divided by city. The website is inclusive of other interests associated with hiphop dancing and urban / street culture: it has sub-forums for graffiti, MCing, and DJing. Current top stories are mostly in memory of Michael Jackson. Latin dancing is another up-and-coming activity, but because it’s organized a little less organically than breakdancing, online communities are more oriented toward formal training: people posting to the Douban group are largely looking for instructors or training centers, and a lot of websites are hosted by studios rather than community or discussion forums hosted by groups of enthusiasts. There are abundant instructional resources on China’s video hosts (example).
rock climbing ::
China Outdoor Information Center (户外资料网), a widely used website for outdoor activities has extensive information on alternative sports, including climbing. The social networking site hosts groups ranging from mountain climbing to rock climbing, and includes photo albums of indoor and outdoor climbing experiences. China Climber, a Beijing-based forum aimed at a national audience (including Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau), has a sub-board where members can share stories of their climbs. Many local climbing groups host their own websites. LS Climbing is a Shaanxi-based forum associated with the Xi’an Rock Climbing Fund, an organization devoted to developing destinations for rock climbers. The Xi’an version is inspired by a similar organization in Shanghai, which is affiliated with the Rock Lizard BBS. A Baidu Postbar on rock climbing has a fair amount of traffic and covers climbing walls as well as outdoor excursions. And of course no sport would be complete without photos of sexy models pretending to take part.
// AjS
[Friday 5 is the product of my work at Edelman Digital (China). Link here for the full Friday 5 archive. If you'd like to be added to the bilingual (English & Chinese) Friday 5 email distribution list, please send me an email at: adam DOT schokora AT edelman DOT com.]
:: Neocha.com-user HKER is up to his old tricks again, only this time he’s not pulling them in Shanghai. I caught up with him yesterday and he was kind enough to share a few photos of work he’s done over the past couple of years in Wenzhou, Zhejiang – see below. He also told me he’ll be writing more frequently in the coning months – watch this space for photos. Related, last year I featured HKER in a short documentary I did about the graffiti scene in Shanghai, link here to check it out. // AjS
[full disclosure: fifty 5 is a partner at Neocha.com]
:: my friend Brad and his wife recently found this subversive RMB 10 note in Shanghai. If you don’t know what’s printed on it, please consult your Chinese dictionary. I’ve heard about this before, but this is the first time I’ve actually seen it. Clever, and probably quite effective at spreading a message. Has anyone else come across such notes? // AjS
:: Dominic Johnson-Hill, the founder of Beijing-based designer / hipster clothing-maker Plastered T-shirts, is now creating stained glass portraits of famous Chinese revolutionary figures. Five Chinese artists have been commissioned to create the pieces, and versions of Mao Zedong, Lei Feng, and Deng Xiaoping are already done – see below. Dominic says there will be more pieces, so watch this space or check out Plastered T-shirts’ blog. /// AjS
:: check out this superb 3D animation by Neocha.com-user ZP686 titled Fatman & Moto. It was nominated for awards at the University Animation Festival and by the Beijing Film Academy’s Animation Institute. In his infinite modesty, ZP6986 told me that he’s actually in the process of redoing Fatman & Moto because he doesn’t think it’s very good. At any rate, enjoy – I’m sure you’ll agree with me when I say it’s excellent. To view the video on VIMEO, link here. Below the video I’ve also shared a slideshow of “making of” photos – it’s very interesting to see the process of the character coming alive.
ZP686 is originally from Baotou, Inner Mongolia. He graduated from the Beijing Fashion Institute’s new media and animation school in 2008. Although trained as an illustrator and animator, he is currently employed in Beijing by the American special effects company Base FX as a concept art designer. // AjS
[full disclosure: fifty 5 is a partner at Neocha.com]
:: I’m an animation and 3D / CG junkie. I recently watched Coraline. It’s excellent. I highly recommend taking the time to check it out. Bravo, well done. // AjS
[UPDATE: Thanks to Xiao Du for pointing out that Coraline is available in full-length format on Youku, link here or watch below. However, it's of course much better on a big screen or in HD.]
:: taken in the small town of Chuzhou in Anhui province, China. I found these to be ingenious advertising efforts. The first photo says, “There is a noodle shop across the way.” The second photo says, “The old Ao De fried chicken shop is across the street.” Sure enough, in both cases, these shops were directly across the alley – less that 10 meters away. I was curious about the necessity and effectiveness of such advertisements, so I took the time to observe pedestrian reactions to them.
Not that these figures represent statistically sound research, but, in 30 minutes (the time it took me to finish my bubble tea), 47 people walked by these two signs (they were right next to each other). Only a few people didn’t notice them, but every person that noticed them looked across the street to confirm what they had just read. 22 of those people people crossed the street and went to one of the two restaurants. Fascinating. // AjS
:: I snapped these photos on a recent trip to Beijing. To my regret though, the top two are only half as fun as they should be. They were taken earlier in the morning because I didn’t have a proper camera with me when I first spotted them the previous evening. Unfortunately, both pieces were harmonized overnight. At any rate, they’re still worth sharing. The top piece was a distressed bunny stuck behind the bricks asking in despair, “唯, 有人吗?” meaning, “Hello, is anyone there?” I ask the question: what looks better, a playful piece of street art or this random blob of pinkness? Sigh. The second photo was a flying sofa – I’m not sure where the sofa went, but it left its wings behind. Can anyone help identify the tags in the other pictures? // AjS
:: taken in Shanghai, just outside the main entrance to my apartment building. Is someone trying to send me a message? // AjS
:: Chinese retro design has always fascinated me. Over the years I’ve bought more than a few 70’s and 80’s era Chinese books just for the cover designs. I recently saw some threads on MOP with interesting primary school language study book covers, so I thought I’d scour the Web for more examples from the 60s through to the 80s and share here, see below. It’s not only the images that get people nostalgic, there are a few dedicated souls transcribing the stories in these books. // XD
[Xiao Du is a guest contributor on fifty 5]
