George McKibbens
I spend the summer working as a tour director in New York and the rest of the year teaching in Guangzhou. Holidays I love to travel.GeorgeTM
Travel Blog Posts
May 16th 2012
Had a story done on me last week by Guangzhou TV. Click here to watch the video It started when Guangzhou News Express did a story about my work at the Folk Arts Museum and my teaching and blogging. I was happy to do a segment for them, but once sitting down for an interview I wasn't much help. The reporter found out that I wasn't at all very foreign. As in, I don't do foreign things. Most foreigners on Chinese TV are goofy, jovial, and live a seemingly carefree life. I didn't exactly fit the profile. I teach history and culture at South China Normal University, and volunteer at The Folk Arts Museum other than that I am finishing a Masters in Historic Preservation. Not the life of the party by a long shot. The ... read more
May 10th 2012
One irony about Guangzhou’s old villages like shipaichiao and tangchuen is not their tradition but their modernity. Or quiet modernity as it might be known. In tiny corners of the city where elderly people drink tea and do morning exercise, there is always a sex shop around. These sex shops cater more to women than to men. Usually family business operated by elderly women looking after the grand kids. If you walk through an alley and grandma watches a soap opera while five year old plays a computer game leaning against a glass case of Viagra. The first generation to grow up in the local sex shop will have a completely different view on life, and have a different reality for their parents. When they pass the college entrance exam they'll remember all the vibrators Mom ... read more
Guangzhou Tooth Paste Commercial 1938 (Blackface in China WW2-Present)
Published: April 12th 2012Asia » China » Guangdong » Guangzhou
April 12th 2012
While doing some research I found a photograph of the Japanese occupation of Guangzhou in 1938. The photo is of course not mine but part of a public archive. The soldiers tell one story, and the billboard tells another. The image should look familiar if you visit any supermarket in China, Malaysia, or Thailand. It's the same used for Darlie tooth paste. This is a commercial for"Darkie" tooth paste, a Shanghai company which mimicked American stereotypes of black people. The "Darkie" title was still used across Asia until 1985. This is the idotic notion that dark skin equals clean teeth. A similar image was used to sell a German tooth paste known as url=http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Chlorodont-Toothpaste-Posters... read more
April 8th 2012
A teenager in Hunan Province sold a kidney for an i-phone this week. Trafficking organs for luxury goods reveals the priorities of young people born in the current century. Reuters quoted Xinhua news as the original source. It reminds me of the days when American kids would shoot each other over expensive sneakers over 20 years ago. In 2010 the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen was in hot water after several employees comitted suicide. A small cluster Hong Hong labor activists started boycotting Apple products as a result. Electronics are a major drive for retail tourism which has kept Hong Kong's economy a... read more
Replacement History: New Developments by Guangzhou's Liede Bridge
Published: March 18th 2012Asia » China » Guangdong » Guangzhou
Inconvenient History, why Ishihara and Nagoya should visit Harbin
Published: March 1st 2012Asia » China » Heilongjiang » Harbin » My house
March 1st 2012
A common denominator of Japan and China is leadership that denies shameful moments in history. Japanese leaders Ishihara and Nagoya remind me of two museums I visited on my trip to Harbin in 2009. The Germ Warfare Museum and the Harbin Jewish Museum offer two separate accounts of the Second World War within the same city. Harbin, China's Ice Festival town bordering Siberia once had a thriving Jewish Community. In 1937 the Japanese Army set up a prison camp for experimental torture similar to Joseph Mengele's work in Auschwitz. All the while it appears that Harbin's Jewish hybrid looked the other way. Was there any mutual support? What are the lessons learned? Last week Tokyo's Governor url=http:/... read more
February 20th 2012
Almost three years ago I lived in Zhuhai's Mei Li Wan Apartments, and saw several new high rises sprout up across the street. In two years I never saw a body or piece of furnature inside the buildings. Noone comming or going. I came back for a visit the other day and decided to ask how much an apartment was and who lived there? The answer was 20,600 RMB per square meter, which makes a person wonder: who lives here? The answer is noone. Allegedly retired people from northern cities have invested, but no renters. Though last year China saw a 40% drop in housing sales. The three year old complex has map of the url=http://www.arup.com/Projects/Hong_Kong_Zhuhai_Macau_Bridge.aspx#%21lb:/Projects/Hong_Kong_Zhuhai_Macau_Bridge/Hong_Kong_Zhuhai_Macau_Bridge_Gallery_2.aspxHong Kong Zhuha... read more
February 13th 2012
Ever meet someone who can't have a conversation in person? Not socially akward, but literally can't make eye contact and form a sentence without aid from some form of digital technolgoy. There is a name for this, IAD: Internet Addiction Distorder. In 2008 China became the first country in the world to declare IAD as a public health crisis. It exists in all cultures, though China is unique. Here people don't associate technology with communication, but with escape. China's fist internet cafe opened in Beijing in the mid-1990's. This was a brand new challenge for censors. Today internet cafe's require ID for it's guests. In late 80's supporters of the pro-democracy movement communicated with url=http://www.sinomania.com/CH... read more
January 29th 2012
When visiting my future inlaws in the city of Zhangjiang I learned about a brief occupation of the French in 1898. The former French Consolate building has been renovated into a museum. One commonality of cities in the East is that their European landmarks are often times the oldest and best kept structures in the city, while Chinese architecture crumbles and owners wait for Chai Chen. Money after demoliton. Most Chinese cities maintain physical structures that reflect either Imperial History or Colonial history, while recent history remains most in danger. Examples of Eurocentric preservation in China: Macau's Seranado Square, The Waterfront of Victoria Harbor in Hong Kong, Guangzhou's Shamien Island, The protection of German Buildings in Qingdao, St. Sophia Church and Stalin Park in Harbin. Even structures built during the Japanese occupation hold priority for China's ... read more
Demolition of Lingnan Architecture in Foshan
Published: October 5th 2011Asia » China » Guangdong » Foshan
October 4th 2011
Lingnan architecture is a style of building that derived out of the last two decades of the Qing Dynasty. The characteristics are brick, plaster, wood shutters, and arched roofs with clay tiles. At the moment I'm completing my masters degree in historic preservation which leads me on building scavenger hunts. Yesterday I visited Foshan's Eastern Square (Dongfeng Guanchan) I found that many of the city's Lingnan buildings were half way demolished, and some were undergoing a restoration. The symbol for demolish is 拆, Chai. They are distinguished with red spray paint. The selection process between "history" and rubble seems completely random. As though a bored teenager had walked down the street with a can of spray red spray pain playing: 'duck duck duck 拆!' Most of the workers this week were on holiday which gave me ... read more
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