CHINA Photoindex
page KOREA Bansong-dong
Photo Essay ( Busan)
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What are
these photographs about ? Some people have been
puzzled by the ordinariness of things I have chosen to photograph on these
pages. It may be as well to make my purpose clear. The three main uses of
photographs have traditionally been a) an album of family, friends or
acquaintances; b) a checklist of places visited (usually favouring
'scenic' spots, as per designated by tourist bureaux; c) a medium of
artistic expression. Note that the
photographs on this website are directed at none of those criteria. Rather, I have always had in my mind's eye
this question : "If I were living in a country, say Australia or USA,
knew nothing about other places, but was suddenly offered a chance
to work in, say, some part of Asia, what kind of images would I like
to see by way of a crash course?" It seems to me that the answer is that I would want
to see the good, the bad and the ugly -- the ordinary face of everyday
life in the place that I might be going to. I would be only marginally
interested in the kind of touched up postcards of temples and lovely
panoramas that are the staple of tourist offices the world over. In fact,
when I am thinking of visiting a country myself, it is exactly the
ordinary vistas, the stuff of daily life which locals never notice because
it is the soup they live in, that I can never find in books or on the
Internet. Some sets of photographs here,
especially the Korean ones, include rural scenes. These are generally easy
on the eye, even picturesque. However, the bulk of the stuff is urban.
Cities the world over, and Asian cities in particular, are mostly ugly
places. The public spaces in most Asian cities are downright awful,
although there are signs of improvement here and there. (Australian cities
have improved hugely with urban planning in my own lifetime). This ugliness is partly the
result of explosive growth, partly lack of resources, and partly the
traditional focus of many Asian cultures which give little respect to
public spaces and unknown people. Add to this an uncontrolled contagion of
vehicles and roads, and you quickly have an environment of violent,
smoke-filled concrete canyons, quite hostile to humans. I think (I hope!)
that these nightmares of urban wasteland are a passing phase which
people will eventually revolt against and reclaim. In the meantime though,
I record what I see. My only regret is that as an outsider, I rarely have
access to the private sanctuaries where the peoples of my host cultures
express the best face of their cultures. Finally, the captions I have added to various images may put a few
people off. The captions are sometimes quizzical, or wry, or even
critical. They are, of course, a purely personal reaction and may be
ignored. My sense of humour tends to be piqued easily by paradox. These
photo captions have occasionally been interpreted as a sneer. That is
never my intention. I'm as imperfect as anybody else, and smile at my own
stupidities as well as the crazy world. Cultures are often promoted like
competing football teams, which you are either for or against. It is a
poor metaphor. Any "culture" is a description of an average design for
living by a certain group of people. Such living designs ALL have good
points and disasters. (Also, the most interesting members of any culture
are invariable at the margin, not average, not quite accepted, but the
real agents of change). So the pictures you see here, and the comments you read, are
merely one outsider's vision of what you might expect to see and feel when
you are suddenly parachuted onto the steets of a Busan or Wuhan, or
wherever. Have
fun.
page 2 thumnails
(Wuhan)
page 3
thumbnails (Wuchang district, Wuhan)
page 4 thumnails
(Hankou & Hanyang, Wuhan)
page 5 thumbnails
(Central China Normal University, Wuhan)
page 6 thumbnails
(Qingdao, Dalian, Beijing, Xiamen)
page 7 thumbnails
(Yunnan Province)
Scenes on
the road to Unmoon Valley (north-east of Busan)
Photos
from Kyongsangnam (west of Busan)
Photos
from Kyongsangbuk (north-east of Busan)
Haeundae in
Winter (Busan)
Views of
Busan City
Special ! The
Virtual World Cup (Busan)
Visit to Daegu
Thor
Busan,
South Korea