Oriental Portal by Glenn Casaer: communism

Showing posts with label communism. Show all posts

Friday, August 3, 2012

Tibetan train and antelope photoshop

Above posted picture used to be an Chinese award-winning photograph in 2006, celebrating the symbiosis between the modernization of China and its focus on environmental protection. The setting is the vast Tibetan landscape where the Qinghai-Tibet train is cruising through the picture. In the front of the picture a herd of Tibetan chiru deer are seemingly captured by camera.

Of course this is old news, but I stumbled on this extraordinary news by doing some research on preservation and environmental protection in China. I thought it was such a bold and typical Chinese way of making the Chinese population proud of the enormous economical advances while keeping a tight grip of troublesome areas like Tibet.

The chiru deer is an endangered species because it is and was hunted for its wool. In recent years the population has grown and China loves to use the chiru, which is actually a kind of antelope, for promoting the nation's preservation efforts. The Tibetan antelope was also used as a mascot, called Yingying during the Olympic Games of Beijing.

While the Qinghai-Tibet railway is a one of the many super works the Chinese government realized in recent years. The whole project measures 1956 kilometers of railway tracks, from which 550 km over permafrost. With an elevation of 5072 above sea level it is the highest train in the world. It was long considered an impossible mission, especially constructing a track though the Himalayan mountains. But the Chinese engineers persisted and needed 675 tunnels to conquer this problem. Probably one of the most daring engineering feats of human history.

But it was also a very controversial project for two reasons. Firstly because it tightened China's grip over Tibet. Starting from 2006 an influx of Chinese invaded Tibet and the Han Chinese population is nowadays greater than the Tibetan one. Hence the yearly problems of Tibetans burning themselves in protests, as everything is controlled by Chinese and all the jobs are give to Chinese instead of Tibetans.

Secondly there were many points of criticism advocating the destruction of nature and habitat for several species. One of those species was of course the Tibetan chiru.

The railway was specially designed with "corridors" to let the wildlife untouched by the railway. These corridors are the spaces between the pylons supporting the railway. Environmentalists claim the Tibetan chiru is too shy and would never come near the man-made railway, especially not when trains would be cruising through.

And this is why photographer Liu Weiqing came to Tibet to prove that there can be perfect harmony between the mega project and the nature surrounding it. Mr Liu is working for Xinhua, the biggest state-owned news agency and he tells a story of waiting for 8 days in a pit near the railway to take this perfect shot. The picture was acclaimed by CCTV, the Chinese state media and was elected to one of the "10 pictures of the year". The picture was used as perfect propaganda and was even used to plaster the walls of the Beijing subway.

Unbelievers opened up internet micro-blogs to contest the incredibility oh this picture. Biologist commented that it was strange that in the picture pregnant antelope were accompanying the herd, while there were no youngsters. The first train departed in July, just after the antelopes would have been given birth, so youngsters should be seen and pregnant antelopes would only be expected one year later.

Photograph experts questioned the possibility to capture a fast moving train in the background with a slower galloping herd in the front.

So finally it was detected that the picture was a fraud. Two pictures photoshopped together. Mr Liu had to publicly apologize and some media published an apology for circulating the photo.

A piece of perfect propaganda was blown to smithers!

Saturday, June 30, 2012

Government architecture in China

Upon reading an Chinese contemporary art article, I got fascinated by one Chinese photographer.

Bai Xiaoci has chosen the imposing architecture of government buidling as his subject.

These buidling are vast, majestic and with enormous plazas in front of them.

Bai Xiaoci has made trips all over China to photograph these wonders of China's urbanization. With his project he wants to show the Chinese growth, that even penetrates in the remote countryside. His works has also a lot of symbolism, like the power of the impersonal Communist Pary versus the small common people.

Party members often want to show of their status and start to organise huge building projects in the hope to be commemorated after their reign. The big market of real estate also wants a cut in the deal. Wherever the Party is building, new housing projects with mushroom out of the ground and pricees will soar up.

So if you want to enjoy more pictures of Chinese urbanization, check out Bai Xiaoci's website.