[Leica] Hong Kong & Shanghai

[imra at iol.ie (Douglas Barry)]

Your email contains a salutary lesson for some people here in Ireland who 
think nothing but opportunities beckon in China. No doubt they do, but 
there's seems to be a bit of a downside: Doug Herr might have trouble 
finding subjects....

Anyway, it has to be Eye Contact for me.

Douglas

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jayanand Govindaraj" <jayanand at gmail.com>
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug at leica-users.org>; "PSM" 
<psm-1857 at googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2014 5:46 PM
Subject: [Leica] Hong Kong & Shanghai


> Neela & I have just returned from our maiden trip to China, which kicked
> off in Hong Kong and ended in Beijing, following the tourist trail about
> which a friend of mine, who travels often on business across the length 
> and
> breadth of China, calls "Showcase China". In many ways I found China
> fascinating, and full of contradictions. The infrastructure is amazing, 
> but
> quite a bit seems wasteful - Chongqing, for example seems to have a modern
> suspension bridge across the Yangtze every kilometre or two, and all the
> cities I visited had many unoccupied completed residential skyscrapers, 
> and
> plenty of half finished ones where no work was apparently going on. The
> cities are spotlessly clean, but the air pollution has to be seen to be
> believed - we did not see the moon and stars during the whole trip save 
> for
> the first night in Shanghai. Amazingly, there are no birds or even insects
> visible in the cities at all -  dead from the air pollution, I suppose. In
> fact, I just saw two wild birds on the whole trip - which included four
> nights on a boat on the Yangtze! Again, the way the historical sites are
> preserved and protected, and the same time designed to be tourist 
> friendly,
> in places like Xi'an and Beijing, is just very well done. Local guides
> spoke surprisingly frankly to us about the pros and cons of life there, 
> and
> gave valuable glimpses of personal history to emphasize the points made,
> and were not scared of criticizing Mao, the wasteful infrastructure
> spending or laws like the "One Child Policy" either. Most were college
> graduates who had majored in "Tourism English"!
>
> Anyway, here are some pictures from Hong Kong and Shanghai. All 
> photographs
> with the Fuji X100S or Fuji XE-1 with either the 35mmf1.4 or the 56mm f1.2
> lens mounted:
>
> *Hong Kong*
>
> Occupy Central - the few days we were there, the students seem to have 
> gone
> home - the protests restarted the day after we left:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141008-034.jpg.html
>
> Bird Garden:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141008-079.jpg.html
>
> Conversation:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141008-572.jpg.html
>
> Shopkeeper:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141009-626.jpg.html
>
> *Shanghai*
>
> Pudong (Grain deliberate) a three vertical frame panorama:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141010-190.jpg.html
>
> The Bund at Night:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141010-165.jpg.html
>
> The Bund in Sunlight:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141011-716.jpg.html
>
> Cigarette Break:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141011-718.jpg.html
>
> Smartphones:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141011-721.jpg.html
>
> Selfies:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141011-743.jpg.html
>
> Eye Contact:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141011-875.jpg.html
>
> Pei Pei:
> http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/jayanand/China/China-20141011-797.jpg.html
>
> Please see LARGE
>
> Comments and criticism, as ever, welcome
>
> Cheers
> Jayanand
>
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