| dimanche, mars 25 |
| Moscow Power Engineering Institute...(25/3) |
The first time when I walked to my working space in Moscow, I passed by an attractive institute structure with a Pantheon-like façade and pillar architecture. It was an adorable image with the glazy ice around the area and a warm beam of light of the early morning. The building is the Moscow Power Engineering Institute found in 1930. The era of its establishment fell into the massive industrial development period under the Stalin’s time. The institute appears more special to me when I recognize that the former Prime Minister P. Li graduated in this engineering school. Imagination. A moment of his school life walking on the same road as I do, when he immersed in the sentiment of revolution and society change in the Soviet Union – students’ power and influence to a social reform, or rebellion? The virtue of innocence and idealism. How would one develop the thought and sense of value under such a piece of foreign environment? He was positioned in the middle of February and October, the two glorious months in the Russian history, at a junction to be commented by the history of future.Libellés : architecture, moscow, russia |
posted by zirhc @ 01:53   |
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| samedi, mars 24 |
| Accordion...(24/3) |
 
One of the museums I went today was the Alfred Mirek Russian Accordion Museum. As an accordion-focused museum, it demonstrated numerous historical photos and a presentation of the accordion production in Russia in the last century and other related materials and accessories to the instrument. It was a satisfactory assembly of the traditional and symbolic instrument of the Russian culture, and as expected, those old-style posters of accordion concerts or Russian brands of accordion and their manufacturer description were the two interesting areas for me. The last part of the exhibition showed music notes of accordions in various languages, and I saw the name of Hong Kong. Very funny, at the little space of this signage of ‘Hong Kong’ was displayed with some notes with Japanese characters, while some Chinese notes were misunderstood as the one from Thailand. I recalled seeing a coin of the Ching dynasty misplayed under the Babylonian section in the British museum. On this same day when I walked at Arbat, a person asked me the capital of Hong Kong. I have a flaw impression that in some old geographical books or location maps shown on the screen on certain airlines used the name ‘Victoria’ as the central indicator of the possession of Hong Kong. Was it a CBD capital, or a misrepresentation of the city? Perhaps it was my memory of the pre-1997. I just can’t remember clearly no more.Libellés : acccordion, moscow, musee, voyage |
| posted by zirhc @ 01:57 |
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| Last Tango...(24/3) |
 
I would not say an intrusion of style or expression, but the last tango of Bertolucci in Paris was really very typically new wave. Choice of film music, colouring, lighting and shadow effect, expression of actors, placement of camera, shooting style, storyboard, and even the choice of actor, I cannot stop myself from correlating the query how this last dance would be like if the dancer were Traffaut. The film was poetic and classic, so as the performance of Marlon Brando. It was 1972, the era of French fantasy, and Bertolucci was obviously one of the great followers. Actually Paris has always been being unique. Images of the streets, façade of the buildings, pillars of the bridges, heavy sound of the approach of metro, display window of the shops, and what you would remember was what you could have recalled. Paris was hedonic, and the city of dream never changes. A story of an étranger – the tragedy of love and adore. I like the ritual-less relief, the drunk of freedom, and in front of the overlapping roof top of an old Paris, the sky could be that spacious for the lightness of life. Love is no regret and as the same time love is so private and so exclusively owned by every lover and dreamer. No intrusion.Libellés : bertolucci, marlon brando, moving image, paris, sense |
| posted by zirhc @ 01:51 |
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| jeudi, mars 22 |
| You th...(22/3) |
| I am thinking why I have yet become a well-known writer or an artist. Because I am too lazy, and also because that I am not writing and creating for the audience, or for the market. In simple words, lack of protocol. I write for myself. I talk to myself. Never has the hardworking exercise to write with protocol been flown from my hand. This is no link of my thinking and my work to neither the world of acceptance nor the world of expectation. This is a major dilemma. When I was having the supper tonight, I recognize the seven months to go, and then, it is another milestone or what I regard as a definition of the line of separation. Journeys after journeys and the non-stop displacement turn me old. It is not the duplication of age or numbering but the cycle of repetition acts as the catalyst of growth to speed up the process of obsolete wonders and deteriorating sensitivity to changes and judgment. This is a horrible change of life form to me. I immerse to the intensified repetition of similar experience in physical consciousness. Sentimentally, I was forced to get used to the function mode and erase the pure innocent sense of discovery. A decade, it appears like a century. This is the result of the depreciation. In the year of double, I have given up the pencil form of expression, and the flicks of the clicks picked up my mixed feeling of puzzling. Form is only a fake mask of expression. Walking pass through a wall of obstruction, or be it a protection or a differentiation, or simply the isolation. I am staging away from the path of dream. Losing the momentum and the power to move, and the time is heavy particles in the air now. Whatever is left, it is only the dust of tomorrow. When I am conscious, I can only hide from the sorrow and pathetic past and present. They accumulate. Louder is the calling of light outside a darkened world of unknown and forgotten. The sound is low. Failing to be me, I feel sleepy always. I connect the sleeping mode to the success of a continuation of identity. Sight keeps on blurring the unseen miracle that no longer exists. Give a pass, and there is still a day after now. I recall the script of a foggy imagination. The sad thing for imagination is its unchanged lust and its static constant of virtual nothingness. Youth, the forgettable. Libellés : self, sense |
| posted by zirhc @ 02:56 |
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| mardi, mars 20 |
| Note from the enclosure...(20/3) |
Image to write in an enclosed house of darkness. A separation, partitioning, without knowing the next step, and it is an act to recall a smile of god. Contemplation. Self determination. It is still a long way of loneliness. Dynamism, if there is a thought of sublimation. An empathy of leaving oneself, or a disappearance of the individual limit. Intoxication, true. Be a flâneur to exile any expectation in an untouchable distance. Life is over when time passes emotionlessly. Whenever there is a sign of an end, it chokes. Rootless alien, who should you talk to? A narrative, speechless truth, and after the release, it is disappointedly another cycle of roughness. Mindless. The double.Libellés : self, sense |
| posted by zirhc @ 09:02 |
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| 67 of Kundera...(10/3) |
They are the gorgeous 67 concepts of Kundera's art of novel. Magnificent but pathetic...
L’Octavio, trahir, le pseudonyme, le métaphore, la frontière, non-être, l’interview, la méditation, les répétitions, le macho (et misogyme), la définition, l’ironie, le rewriting, l’aphorisme, l’infantocratie, chez-soi, la valeur, tchécoslovaquie, le rythme, l’élitisme, la viellesse, le litanie, couler, la chapeau, la beauté (et connaissance), kitsch, misogyme, misomuse, la destin, europe, la légèreté, la jeunesse, l’inexpérience, la vie, le livre, lyrique, lyrisme (et révolution), la réflexion, l’idées, soviétique, idylle, la transparence, la bleuté, comique, l’obscénité, les temps modernes, moderne (être moderne), moderne (arte moderne, monde moderne), l’imagination, la roman, la roman (européen), la roman (et poésie), le romancier (et sa vie), le romancier (et écrivain), rire (européen), le graphomanie, l’excitation, l’oubli, la testament, collabo, l’uniforme (uni-forme), europe centrale, europe centrale (et europe), la mystification, la caractères, l’œuvre, l’opus.Libellés : czech, kundera, script, sense |
| posted by zirhc @ 01:56 |
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| lundi, mars 5 |
| The borrowed...(5/3) |
Today I have a strange feeling. I think about this borrowed time in a borrowed space. My posting was supposed to end in late January and with the pre-defined timeframe, my life in Paris ended extraordinarily smooth psychologically. The predictable limit of time allowed me to undergo automatically a self-initiated transition of the mental state from the unique Parisian life back to a post-repatriated life in the city of home. There was no misfit of the re-settlement. The impression of the city was not as adversely as people describe, and the effort I need to get back to the pace of the city is minimal. As I strongly recognize, a significant change of my perspective to sense everything beside me naturally occurs. It is a very pleasant finding. My eyes and my vision can figure the lifestyle in any place that I need to stay. True, things stay in their originally orbit, only my view alters. Life can still be manageable, at least at this point of time.
I read two books namely ‘終於悲哀的外國語’ by Haruki Murakami and ‘en aôut, la tranquilité (八月寧靜)’ by Chan Ning recently, and both authors talked about the self recognition of their psychological journey being a ‘visitor’ (or better say a passby-er) in a foreign state they resided. I agree that it is a journey to discover oneself, and to me, the metamorphosis through this journey to Europe just happened so naturally and evidently that my sense of value has differed from what I used to have two years before. This kind of growth needs not be catalyzed only physically or geographically, but one needs at least a true heart to sense.
Just one week before I departed from Paris, I was informed about the borrowed time in a borrowed space, and without much preparation, I was arranged to stay in Moscow for the past few weeks. It was not an easy task and it appeared like a feathery current that drives me through a short way to an exit from the beautiful land. In the borrowed time, things turned out to be twisted and out of recognizable appearance. It was the physically tiredness that re-shapes my moment into a partially unconscious state. Time is distorted and my sensation is accidentally paralyzed. No mood, senseless, I get a cold from the coolness of the surrounding.Moscow shall be leaving me when this dark night ends. After the week-long busy schedule of meetings and discussions, the coolness seems to surrender to a new spring calling. It is time to wake up and call for a new mission. It is the source of the morning fountain, but at this single glance, the air is filled up with a mixture of haze and mist. A typical set up of the dreamland.Libellés : haruki murakami, self, sense, tourist, voyage |
| posted by zirhc @ 01:48 |
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| dimanche, mars 4 |
| Lada...(4/3) |
 
After a number of rides, I fall in love with Lada, the very ‘stylish’ Russian car brand that can easily be identified on the roads in Moscow. The old model like ‘sputnik’ is very retro in some sense we see it again now. Basic but practical, the appearance of the car is very fundamental, and so as its facilities and systems inside. The design of the dashboard, the handbrake or the ventilation switches is so unique. The elements of the model are like those parts we see in the toy cars, but they are so real. Without all those modern digital or electronic fancies and appearance for these visible inner parts of the car, the auto simply reveals again the very pragmatic and solid wisdom of our human kind we demonstrated in the industrialised era of art and design in the 60’s and 70’s. The linkage of plastic and metal has been perfectly achieved. It is so adorable.Libellés : lada, moscow, voiture |
| posted by zirhc @ 02:38 |
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| Space Moscow...(4/3) |
 
The two hotels I stayed in Moscow are both the kind of old-style hotel constructed during the communist period. The names of both hotels are memorable and related to the universe – Sputnik and Cosmos. During the cold war era, Russia spent great effort in astronomical development as one of the propaganda ways to compete with the US. Sputnik is indeed the name of the first series of articifial satellite sent by the Russian to the universe. Seeing as a glorious achievement for the Russian I trust, the name has been used in quite some occasions in other product brands. For instance, one of the models of the Lada car is named Sputnik too. Cosmos Hotel, on the other hand, is a very stunning construction project I encountered in my first trip to Moscow. It is one of the largest hotels in Europe having 1700 rooms and a casino plus other peripheral facilities and shops. The curving façade with numerous window openings viewed from outside produces quite some resonance to the typical set up in those sci-fi fictions and films. The hotel was built in the early 80s for the Olympic Games taken place in Moscow. It is to a certain extent thrilling to me about how people create the form of dwelling for the massive population. Human exists in this way on world now. The same feeling came up to my mind when I was stuck in the middle of the commuter flow on the way to the escalator inside the metro station after getting off from the train. The Moscow metro network provides mobile means to millions of residents every day. Incredible. There must be a little glass room for the escalator controller in the metro station. From the eyes of these controllers, the endless motion of the passengers demonstrates a Chinese term we called the “ant citizen”. Human nature.Libellés : hotel, moscow, russia, space |
| posted by zirhc @ 01:38 |
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| samedi, mars 3 |
| Enchante Paris Moscow...(3/3) |
Russia and France are both composed of blue, white and red. This is perhaps the first clue of the relationship between the two countries. The tri-colour country flag of Russia does give me much sensation to how the Russian may have fancied about the French belle époque centuries before. Historical reasons…the Russian respects a lot the French culture. It is ‘à la mode’ to them. Since Peter the Great and Catherine the Queen, the Russian has been nurturing from the French in aspects of lifestyle including cuisine, architecture and design, painting and literature. Examples can easily be quoted from the art nouvel architecture in Moscow, the assimilation of French language in the Russian language, or the fashion trend and other French influence in the forms of artworks produced in Russia.
With the controlled capitalist development in the Moscow market, some French companies follow the trait to develop their business in Moscow and bring in new influence to the country. Just now, I visited the Novotel Hotel in Moscow centre. The interior design of the hotel brought me back to France. It’s symbolic not only to me but I guess also for the French people. The hotel is run by the local management team headed by the French people, and the design and layout of the hotel come from the same origin of those Novotels in France. This is in fact the philosophy of many hotel chains in their worldwide development – the philosophy of the same hamburger everywhere. In this Moscow centre hotel, Novotel keeps the French name of the hotel restaurant or the fusioned menu in the restaurant, TV5, hotel facilities…well, no surprise. The only ‘breakthrough’ I discovered is the signage they put at the hotel lobby to remind their guests the wet floor, and to a surprise, the notice was written in Spanish…strange.
From another visit to the Holiday Inn in Moscow centre, I found a French publication named ‘Le Courrier de Russie’. This bimonthly business publication is a nice pick for the French community in Moscow (check lecourrierderussie.ru).
 
After farewelling with Charles des Gaules at the CDG airport in Paris, I met the general face-to-face in Moscow. It is indeed a statue of the General building up in front of the main entrance of the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow. I was surprised to see his statue instead of one of Lenin or Peter the Great at the location. Later, I found out that actually the memorial structure for the General was set up here since two decades before because the hotel was actually built by a French company. To me, the General looks, however, a bit étrangé and lonely under this snowy winter.Libellés : cdg, france, moscow, russia |
| posted by zirhc @ 01:36 |
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| vendredi, mars 2 |
| Bits'n'pieces - Moscow...(2/3) |
Some observations in Moscow that have aroused my interest and attention…
Ladies are elegant in Moscow. They appear to be stylish and nice looking outdoors. Benjamin found the flanêurs on the street of Paris or in the shopping arcades. Here in Moscow, the commuter flow is the flanêur. Ladies have a soft gaze at the life beside them. Their faces are always calm and emotionless. This is their way to exchange with the post-communist world.
Something that amazes me is how these ladies walk so quickly with their high heel shoes on the snowy roads. Actually walking on the street in winter time needs extra energy and patience. The ground is slippery after continuous filling of snow and cystalisation of icy surface. You need always to pay attention to the rugged path and the hidden holes and traps. I have no impression that my walking pace is slow in all the cities that I have visited, except in Moscow. Well, people are generally taller than me and physically this may explain part of the cause why they would have greater steps at walk, and they actually walk fast too, comparatively. No matter how fast I try to walk on the street, I am lagged behind after a while. I observe their gesture of walk and their frequency of steps. Not much hint. I examine the features and design of their shoes. No, they are just wearing the ordinary types of shoes. My pair of climbing shoes should actually be an advantage to me in this jogging game. But I still surrender. Having the same rationale as fish can swim in the water. They know the way to perform and survive in their home habitat.
When I say the ladies in Moscow gaze at an emotionless stare, they look at others. These eyes of different favours would simply flash to other stations of eyeball that belong to the people surrounding themselves. The ironic feature of the threatening sights does warm up the atmosphere of the metro where people fill it up with their dumpling-like bodies. People have different ways to look at others, an art of observation and self-assessment probably. When you take a metro in Moscow centre, you stay in an invisible net of speechless conversation.
I have thought about the scenario again in the metro after I wrote the above. I obviously miss one thing. Who am I? Am I actually the only stranger to them according to my unique appearance from their point of view? Moscow, demonstrating how a core of developing centre ignites after the Soviet era, comprises people and races of diversity. Most CIS regions contribute their manpower and habitants to roll Moscow up to the successful path of a centralised commercial centre. Accordingly, the kind of doubt and suspiciousness found from the light-scattering sight become more convincing and reasonable.
Because of work, I have an opportunity to meet some kinds of business people in this ‘newly’ commercialised city. Some of the people I met do match the images described in those books that write about the present Russia. While the new rich people are sometimes labeled in these books as the ‘new Russian’, they are recognized as the young and trendy group, rich and fancy in the western trends and fashion. For instance, I met one young entrepreneur who is exactly this type of businessman and when we talked about the navigation in Moscow city, he showed on his big computer screen the topography of the city in the 3D Google map. Nothing offensive but my impression simply associates me about the scenario to the stereotype described in the books.
Another day, I visited a local advertising company in Moscow. Apart from the confidence-assuring testimonials and awards framed on the surrounding walls of the conference room, the company prepared a little stand with the flags of both China and Russia and placed it in the middle of the meeting table. But then I found that accidentally, the flag of Russia was put upside down. Apparently all the Russian in the meeting did not really notice this, or perhaps it became embarrassing to rectify the error. Ironic.
Driving in Moscow should be challenging. The taxi drivers I met have unique capability to slide and find the fast track to get rid of the traffic jam. People do not really wear seat belt. Free for a ride.
Some good business opportunities, as least there is strong demand…shoe polishing service, heater-related business, air time on radio, if people are stuck in traffic congestion, radio broadcasting becomes a good means to brainwash, hard-sell etc.
One common formula I found in the Moscow TV soap opera productions: the very basic storyboard would be related to a man having an affair with someone. The value of the story would definitely not be the cup of tea for those feminine authorities.
Spend USD. The Rouble currency is still on its strong appreciation trend, and in one week’s time when I revisited Moscow again, the exchange rate of roubles to USD has been significantly increased. Russian people prefer to have roubles as their salary currency instead of the USD. Some speculation on the Russian economy, and it is not too difficult to make an anticipation.Libellés : moscow, russia, sense |
| posted by zirhc @ 01:34 |
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