Photos to follow
I've been to the future, and it's a shopping mall. Tom Friedman says the world has become flat. What he doesn't mention is that the flatness of the new world is all the better for the construction of sprawling mega malls such as the COEX (Corea Exchange) Mall that I am in at this moment. It's a spotless shining labrinth of shops, restaurants, theatres, fitness centers and even an aquarium, all kept sparkling by a fleet of janitors on "ride-em brooms" (think of an old person's motorized chair with a big mop on the front). I don't mind it here, though; it is what it is.I found out this morning that Jean Baudrillard died on March 6th. Appropriately, I was in this mall at the time. (This is appropriate because he theorized mostly about ... uh, the vacancy of images [simulacra] and the ways that they propel capitalism, etc.) He would have called the simulated internationality of the food courts hyperreality, the synthetic reproduction of something that no longer exists or never existed at all, the image of authenticity that has replaced the authentic thing, which was just a concept created to sell the reproduction anyway. It occurs to me that the world has, sadly, become just a little less convoluted with his passing. So, I drank a Starbucks "Rwandan" coffee ironically as a tribute to his memory, or, better, the image I have of what he represented.
I patronized Bandi & Luni's bookstore this morning. I bought Life of Pi. It was on sale for about $15 CDN. Bandi & Luni's, in addition to being rubbery and a little insane, is about twice the size of a Chapters store, and it had a very impressive collection of English books. More titles than, say, Books & Company in Prince George. (What is it with bookstores having &s in their titles? Barnes & Nobles has one too.) To take a seat in the capitalism camp (they're comfier here) for a moment, or just to contradict the apparent leanings of the above paragraph (everyone should contradict themselves at least once a day, my doctor says), I will say that I love giant boxstores. I don't lose sleep when mom and pop stores with half the selection and higher prices go out of business. I cheered for Tom Hanks's store in Sleepless in Seattle. And, yes, I am aware that I related my life to art, but that's an inevitable thing, unless you are the monk (regretably, I cannot specify his specific sect) I saw strolling down the LCD-adorned promenade some hours ago. I wonder what he was thinking? Probably: we're all fools, still.
posted by DJH at 8:40 p.m.
14 Comments:
Hello neighbour,
As you may or may not know, good ol' China is currently doing some censoring
over here, the final result of which is I can't comment on your blog. I just
wanted to say a couple of things that I feel may be of interest:
1. China is most certainly not communist. I think it's socialist in name
now, but it's really quite rampantly capitalistic. I'm not sure what's
socialist about it, but it's not medicine, because apparently expensive IVs
cure everything, and people don't worry about getting out of the way of
ambulances, or police cars. If you're going to have a heart attack, it's
best to call two and a half hours in advance.
2. I forgot my second point. I think it was something about I agree with you
about the malls. In fact, I'm pretty sure Wuhan is nothing BUT malls, with a
few carnival-style parks to break up space.
Good night.
PS. If you want to beef up your comments, feel free to copy and paste this
into an anonymous comment box. Or horde it to yourself. It's really your
call.
PPS. China's way bigger, so don't start anything.
That was Andrew comment that he e-mailed to me since he can't post, by the way.
Yeah, China certainly isn't communist in any strong sense. Although I wonder how the countryside compares to the city.
By proximity to communist countries, in the post b4 this one, I mostly meant North Korea.
Speaking of censorship, I just tried looking up Korea and North Korea on wikipedia, and I was redirected to some Korean non-wikipedia site that I couldn't understand. Pfft.
Dave, Dave, Dave, have i taught you nothing in our time together? Tom Hanks has a big box book store in YOU'VE GOT MAIL! In Sleepless he's an architect and Meg is a journalist. This tells me that, when you get back, we need to have a Nora Ephron-Meg Ryan-Tom Hanks -a-thon. Plus small mom and pop stores have service, know their customers and contribute to a sense of community, not a sense of anonymity. So ha!
aww. jean baudrillard got me an a+ on a theory paper once. i loved him for it, even though i pretty much failed to grasp anything that he was saying. it was basically an exercise in academic name dropping, which has become the key to my sucess in university since then.
rest his soul anyways. maybe they'll burry him under a korean mall and erect a neon cross for all to see. and people will flock to the mall under the impression that it is a church. and they will probably start a new religion based on sign consumption. and we will all shop very reverently in the simulacrum till the second coming.
love the pics. hope you're having a blast. maybe you can laminate a colourful diagram of the four stages of the precession of the simulacra for your classroom. i'm certain the kiddies would love it.
yeah, mom & pop stores should just combust and die...
i can't believe u even really believe that!! i think u were being your sarcastic self. at least that's what i am telling myself so we can still be friends.
i love your pics. i was too lazy 2 sign up to comment on flikr, so...
- the pics of your class make me all grinny. i am shocked into realizing you are a grown-up teacher-person. i want to colour peacocks at that cool roundish table...
- maybe that round building is just a giant billboard stuck to the front of a regular ole rectangular one? i can't tell...u should go back & get another pic.
- and for gosh sakes, listen to roxanne! she's v.v. wise.
I like to think that I am a person who can admit when he is wrong. I am wrong. I retract the statement: "I don't lose sleep when mom and pop stores with half the selection and higher prices go out of business."
What a terrible thing to say. There was supposed to be sarcasm and humour in there somewhere with the intentional contradictoriness of it all, but it never materialized. These things happen sometimes. I would like to appeal to the fact that directly b4 writing that I had my first cup of coffee in 16 days.
Endorphins do not good editors make.
Rock, Sleepless in Seattle and You've Got Mail are the same movie. They were just cut in two, like Kill Bill.
Den,
+25 for humourous self-deprecation, but I'm sure your paper was not really "basically an exercise in academic name dropping." You're not one of those students. Btw, I wouldn't mind reading it someday, if that's koshur (and if it still exists electronically).
capitalism is a myth created by monks
where are the pics of the cute kids??? or are you teaching phantom children ...exiled to coloring hell for all eternity....and what the heck was that you were cooking???
well i appreciate your faith in my studiousness. if i still had an electronic version of the paper i would email it to you, but it got lost in a lightning storm. and that's the truth.
you ssay thingss.
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