Last fall, I accompanied my sister's family to take my younger niece to her dorm at MIT. After settling her down, we all went to visit a few notable places in Boston, such as Boston Common, and Beacon Hill's Acorn Street. As time went swiftly by, my initial recollection of Boston was vague at best. However, my second visit enabled me to have an entirely new and in-depth experience.
June 4th to 6th, 2015, Paul and I were invited back to attend the niece's commencement. After nearly 2,700 graduates' names were read at the ceremony, we were longing for a break from Cambridge. Going to Boston by crossing the Charles River was definitely a welcome idea. Like reading any classics, my two nieces prepared for us a tour of visiting nothing but the best in Boston.
We started by revisiting the Common, then famously cobble-stoned Acorn Street with the flag still flying, plus a golden retriever snoozing in the sun on the sidewalk, and finally Newbury Street, a new shopping street (as a result of urban renewal?). To Paul's great disappointment at losing his perfect late afternoon light shooting time, we had to cut short our sauntering on Newbury, so as to meet our dinner reservation at the Gaslight Restaurant on Harrison Street. After dinner, we walked in the neighborhood, and saw again urban renewal efforts. Many red brick buildings and factories are converted into numerous art galleries, restaurants, or beauty and fitness centers. On our way back, we took Berkeley Street, and saw the incredible Berkeley Community Garden with more than 150 plots.
After seeing so many red brick buildings, both residential and commercial, private and public, we could not help but wonder why Boston would prefer red brick ever since 1803, when the General Court passed a law to minimize the danger of fire hazard to buildings. I Googled our query and located a comprehensive study by Mary Nastasi. Apparently, red brick symbolizes at once familiarity and a safety blanket. As one of the oldest cities in America, Boston is longing for its glories past. Red brick, rather than modern concrete and steel, is perfect to convey such a sentiment for historic styles and materials of decades past (Shand-Tucci, Douglass. Built in Boston: City and Suburb, 1800-2000).
What a progressive and traditional city Boston is!
Monday, June 8, 2015
Tuesday, June 2, 2015
Our Encore Reunion with Screen International
On 6 May 2015 on the 3rd floor of Meichentiandi, four of us met, Fan, my former boss, Wang, my former colleague, Paul and I. We got together the first time as editors of Screen international, a film magazine by Chinese Filmmakers' Association.
Mr. Fan treated us to our reunion dinner. We had a great time, reminiscent of our time spent at Dianying xin zuo which hired almost exclusively new graduates from Fudan University, Shanghai Teachers' University and Shanghai University. Unfortunately, starting from the mid-eighties, we became restless and started to plan to study in countries such as America, Australia, and Japan. Four out of 14 editors were left behind and their positions were later merged with other journals or studios.
That evening, we had an unexpected guest joining us. As a former intern at our editorial department, Mr. Ren is now the head of Shanghai Animation Studio, and director of Creation Department of Shanghai Film Studio. Before the dinner ended, Ren extended us an invitation to visit his newly opened Shanghai Film Archive. We all welcomed this encore reunion of sorts.
The following Wednesday, May 13, we visited the archive. Afterwards, Wang acted as our host by driving us across the river to Pudong, walking and having coffee by the water's edge at Riverside Promenade (Bingjiang Da Dao), a counterpart of the Shanghai Bund. At dusk, he took three of us to the Ritz-Carlton and treated us to an exotic dinner there. That was a life-changing experience: we saw not only a 270 degree panoramic view of the Shanghai scene, but also how the topmost class in Shanghai live and experience luxurious leisure.
Mr. Fan treated us to our reunion dinner. We had a great time, reminiscent of our time spent at Dianying xin zuo which hired almost exclusively new graduates from Fudan University, Shanghai Teachers' University and Shanghai University. Unfortunately, starting from the mid-eighties, we became restless and started to plan to study in countries such as America, Australia, and Japan. Four out of 14 editors were left behind and their positions were later merged with other journals or studios.
That evening, we had an unexpected guest joining us. As a former intern at our editorial department, Mr. Ren is now the head of Shanghai Animation Studio, and director of Creation Department of Shanghai Film Studio. Before the dinner ended, Ren extended us an invitation to visit his newly opened Shanghai Film Archive. We all welcomed this encore reunion of sorts.
The following Wednesday, May 13, we visited the archive. Afterwards, Wang acted as our host by driving us across the river to Pudong, walking and having coffee by the water's edge at Riverside Promenade (Bingjiang Da Dao), a counterpart of the Shanghai Bund. At dusk, he took three of us to the Ritz-Carlton and treated us to an exotic dinner there. That was a life-changing experience: we saw not only a 270 degree panoramic view of the Shanghai scene, but also how the topmost class in Shanghai live and experience luxurious leisure.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Our 40-Year Reunion Gathering at Fudan
At 8:50 a.m., May 16, 2015, Paul and I were the first ones to arrive at the gate of Fudan University after taking Metro No. 3 and Bus 133.
It was a quiet morning, except for the constant stream of passenger cars entering the gate, something you did not see 40 years ago. Mao's statue was still standing, but none of my classmates was to be seen. In a flash I was thinking that we must have missed the meeting, until I spotted Leon with his camera walking from the campus.
Compared with the first day of school when 30 new students were gathered to form Class 78-3 on 26 March 1975, that day we saw only 23 people, adding Paul and a former instructor/husband of our classmate. Quite a number of classmates could not make it due to various personal reasons.
Perhaps because we all increased in age and size, the campus seemed small. The well-known Denhui Lou looked dilapidated, needing at least one coat of paint, whereas our Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures was converted into an archive of campus personnel records. New constructions and developments were either across the road or somewhere else in the city. While it was all true, I still could not help wondering why the cash-rich university could at least try to preserve the original campus.
A delicious welcome banquet finally lifted my spirits. Like human life, a university needs to have its stages of life too: once it has developed new branches and extended locations, the old campus tends to be like any parents' houses: familiar but dated.
Thus we started our 40-year reunion, an activity achieved purely by volunteer work, individual contributions and substantial financial donations by two classmates, Mary and Yiming.
It was a quiet morning, except for the constant stream of passenger cars entering the gate, something you did not see 40 years ago. Mao's statue was still standing, but none of my classmates was to be seen. In a flash I was thinking that we must have missed the meeting, until I spotted Leon with his camera walking from the campus.
Compared with the first day of school when 30 new students were gathered to form Class 78-3 on 26 March 1975, that day we saw only 23 people, adding Paul and a former instructor/husband of our classmate. Quite a number of classmates could not make it due to various personal reasons.
Perhaps because we all increased in age and size, the campus seemed small. The well-known Denhui Lou looked dilapidated, needing at least one coat of paint, whereas our Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures was converted into an archive of campus personnel records. New constructions and developments were either across the road or somewhere else in the city. While it was all true, I still could not help wondering why the cash-rich university could at least try to preserve the original campus.
A delicious welcome banquet finally lifted my spirits. Like human life, a university needs to have its stages of life too: once it has developed new branches and extended locations, the old campus tends to be like any parents' houses: familiar but dated.
Our 40-Year Reunion at Le Royal Méridien Shanghai
In general, I agreed with my 21 classmates' conclusion that the experience from the Language Training Class was positive, which has become the source of our tenacity and persistence in our lives and work. From the photo above one can see that the reunion tended to be on the serious side, especially with a couple of people complaining about the wrongs they had endured all those decades. Some classmates spent nearly half the gathering's duration enumerating their personal and professional success.
Despite all of this. Paul and I had a great time, reconnecting with my classmates, and roommates. It is one of my three reunions in Shanghai in May 2015.
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