A congratulatory message to author Peter Hessler, who now covers news in Cairo for the New Yorker Magazine.
Read MoreSome Random Notes on Filmmaking, Art, Music, and Identity
I just watched a great film on that very subject, the Banksy documentary "Exit Through the Gift Shop" about the underground filmmaker Thierry Guetta (if you can call him that--film collector is more accurate) who turned his obsession for filming street artists into a career as a "street artist." I wonder if people who film documentaries about artists aren't themselves aspiring to be the artist in the film. Of course we can all agree that Jia Zhangke is already an accomplished "artist," in that the films he makes have an artistic quality to them.
Read MoreExcavating China's Collective Unconscious: Some Good Contemporary Chinese Art Shows at Shanghai's Moganshan Art District
JJ's show opened on Sept 6 and I was there to witness his performance piece called "water". This involved the projection of several historical photos of famous Chinese political figures, including of course Chairman Mao, on a blank wall while JJ used water and a large brush to paint images on the wall. These images faded along with the projections and were then written over or juxtaposed with each other to form a watery impression of recent Chinese history. He used water as a motif throughout the performance, painting waves and also projecting images of waves on the wall along with the historic figures.
Read MoreOld Shanghai Revisited: Touring the Bund and the Shanghai History Museum with my NYU Shanghai History Class
Last Friday I took my Modern Chinese History students on their first field trip in Shanghai. Originally I meant to start at the Astor House Hotel just north of the Garden Bridge. Yet when we reached the Bund, I made a sudden change in plans and took them to the new Waldorf Astoria instead. We ended up going on an unplanned tour of the Waldorf Astoria, Shanghai's newest elite hotel. Guided by a young 20-year old Chinese hotel clerk, we toured the hotel, taking in the ballroom, library, several fancy restaurants, and the famous Long Bar. Sometimes the best part of these field trips is what happens outside your plans.
Read MoreJazzing Chinese Folk: The Solitary Bird CD Release Party @ TwoCities Gallery
On Friday night I attended the release party of the Solitary Bird CD, recorded earlier this year by three musicians in Shanghai, Steve Sweeting, Jeremy Moyer, and Coco Zhao. I've known Coco since the late 1990s when he emerged as one of Shanghai's first Chinese jazz singers. In fact, Coco and his band played at my wedding here in 1999. Since then he has dedicated himself to jazz singing and lyrical composition and has greatly expanded both his repertoire and his skill set as a singer. Jeremy Moyer plays several percussion instruments as well as bowed instruments such as the erhu, and he plays them all very well. In this concert he was playing a coconut fiddle from Taiwan. Steve Sweeting is an American jazz pianist who has been living here in Shanghai for the past five years or so along with his family.
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