water on ice

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'water on ice' • qingdao, china

some days i do wonder why i tend to cross the world latitudinally - it's been as frigid as a montréal january in qingdao lately. however, it's apparently still not arctic enough to disrupt this insane method of water delivery. these dudes, on their 125cc monkey-shit 'jianlings' (or other japanese brand knockoff), are most definitely on my shortlist of modern-day unsung heroes in china (a notch below rope-dangling skyscraper window-washers i'm guessing).
one water jug weighs in round 20 kilos and they can carry up to 5 of them onboard at any given time (i actually counted 6 once). schlepping them up countless flights of stairs after risking life and limbs on the rallye drive to your home, is just a couple of other perks on their job description list.
our friend in the photo skidded and ended up under the trunk of a taxi 20 seconds after i snapped this (unfortunately with my camera securely packed away). his recovery was reflexively swift and safe - i'm guessing he had had an unfortunate amount of 'practise' that afternoon.

liu hao

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this is liu hao, writer and director of 'chen mao and mei ting', a love story between a flower vendor and a massage parlor girl, the children of persecuted intellectuals during the Cultural Revolution. typically, for independent creators on the mainland, liu hao financed most of the project with his own cash. the film was never released in china but it is occasionally available from your local neighbourhood dvd dealer - the one with a concealed room the size of a closet at the back of the shop.
nice little film, lousy distribution.
(UPDATE: i had incorrectly tagged this fellow as li yang, writer and director of 'blind shaft', a disturbing feature about the true dark side of the chinese coal mining biz. definitely a must see. i did photograph yang as well during that week, however we only grabbed a a quick snap after the screening - not a keeper. thanks steven!)

greene covered

finally got round to reading graham greene's 'the quiet american' earlier this year (yeah i know, another that slipped under the radar). i picked up this weathered 1972 edition in a used bookshop in saigon (really). the striking cover illustration by paul hogarth sucked me into snatching it up even before realising what the title was.


UPDATE: found a treasury of hogarth penguin covers on flickr. who would have known?