Good morning
Weifang. Outside sporadic noise but it
isn’t the sound of fireworks. Rather the
interment intrusion of sounds from the FuHua Amusement Park. The toot of a train with rubber wheels that
whisks around the grounds. A whoosh of
some sort, an uninspiring roar, and then, the blunt tear of bad music blaring from a
tired sound system. There are no
visitors at the park this time of year, but it is open, for business today
nonetheless. The museum, unfortunately,
is closed.
We come to Weifang to visit old friends at New Years. I don’t know why we end up staying here at
what they refer to in the English collateral as “The Farrington.” Weifang is,
among other things, the kite capital of the nation and every year there is a
kite festival, which they’ve marketed up into something of a global event for
the kite enthusiasts of this world. Then
the FuHua Hotel is likely packed. Now it
is quite empty.
I remember visiting here when it was brand new, perhaps
fifteen years ago. I took my stepson who
was nine at the time and he loved the place. The game room, back before the
days of Xbox and Fruit Ninja, was his favorite.
And I stood there with him while he destroyed aliens, raced cars and won
stuffed animals, beginning our life long relationship. In those days the local government had some
dispensation to allow for gambling, somehow, at this hotel. This amazed me, as it was no small
dispensation. And it was, of course, rather popular. The gambling is gone
now. And the freshness of the Farington
and the park have all fled as well to some other newer, ‘just opened’ part of
town. So many constructions in China all seem disposable. The park
doesn’t have much attraction for my nine or twelve year old daughters.
Scratch that. My nine year-old is up and she wants to check
it out. Everyone is up suddenly and the windows
are open and the park is now fully exposed. There is a roller coaster that
isn’t working. A single balloon like
thing that lifts individuals up and drops them, slowly. To the right is tower that is perhaps ten
stories high and a platform rises up and lowers down more vigorously. A few
people are walking around inside. The
Ferris wheel spins slowly but I don’t see anyone on it. And there is the mock
Disney-esque Snow White castle, with purple capped towers, which is itself
another facsimile of something in Bavaria.
http://www.fuwahpark.com/ It has been a while since the FuHua inspired精神抖擞[1].
I’m digging some
Myra Melford this morning. The song “Equal Grace” from her 2006 album “The
Image of Your Body.” There seems quite a
bit of space to enjoy in these compositions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myra_Melford
I’ll have to keep my eyes out for her next time she’s in the Bay or in the
Apple. The wiki page says she lives in
NYC but teaches over at UCal Berkeley.
There’s a link to her own web page.
What a cool looking person. http://www.myramelford.com/content/page/display/slug/biography
She used to play
with the great Jazz musicians Henry Threadgill and Don Pullan, both of whom I
saw in the 1980s but haven’t heard in a while.
I will now follow this thread back to them. How different it is dealing with a contemporary
jazz musician who is alive and seemingly well.
She has a tasteful web site and lots of insights into who she is why she
thinks the way she does. The giants from
a generation prior never had such chance to profile themselves, as they
wanted. Instead record companies told
them what to title the album, often some pun that was probably as nerdy and
square then as they seem now, and then they’d slap a picture on the cover, over
which the artist had no say, with some liner notes on the back that may or may not be
insightful.
We’ll listen to more
of her later. Now we’re on the road to
Qingdao and the brine. The air is a bit
clearer today. More flat broad planes of
farmland. Someone is plowing off in the
distance. The sun is shining and the
particulate matter seems less pronounced.
Rows of thin trees, poplars I’d guess, by the roadside. I look forward to staring out at the sea and
hopefully it being cool and clear and salty by the Pacific. The
FuHua Amusement visit will have to wait till next year.
[1] jīngshéndǒusǒu: spirit trembling with
excitement (idiom); in high spirits / lively and full of enthusiasm / full of
energy / con brio
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