Shangri-La

When we finally arrived in Shangri-La we were shocked. The place was a building site. Everywhere you looked there were half built, shit, modern hotels. We had travelled for days and were here in an area of stunning natural beauty, and what did we find? They were building a........

Shangri-La

In 2002, the town of Zhongdian, Yunnan, China, was renamed Shangri-La, a brilliant marketing move by the central government in Beijing. For centuries leading up to the switch, the Yunnan region was not really even part of China. Indeed, in the 1700s, during the Qing Dynasty, the emperor treated the province much as the British treated Australia: as a wild, far-off land suitable only for army trainees and adventurers, or exiles. Yunnan was not officially brought under the Chinese umbrella until after World War II, in 1949. All along, the northwestern region that contains Zhongdian, called the Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, had been left in limbo, with a mostly Tibetan population living much as it had for a thousand years. It is said that here, more than 1,200 miles away from the police who monitor Lhasa like hawks (and, recently, like Soviet spies), their culture can thrive.

To anyone who has not been to Shangri-La, the name change seems like a stretch. James Hilton never entered China, and surely did not set foot in Yunnan, and until the Banyan Tree hotel group decided to reconstruct twenty-three traditional Tibetan farmhouses on a windswept plot, neither did travelers who required more than just a leakproof roof over their heads. Still, after a couple of days up on the plateau — maybe it's the endless brown horizon or the streaks of falling stars or the cowbells calling out to the prayer flags, which seem to wave right back — it's hard not to buy into the government's claim of utopia.

Some little bits of Proust

A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.
Marcel Proust

Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself.
Marcel Proust

Everything great in the world comes from neurotics. They alone have founded our religions and composed our masterpieces.
Marcel Proust

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.
Marcel Proust

It is not because other people are dead that our affection for them grows faint, it is because we ourselves are dying.
Marcel Proust

Shangri-La

Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan and only very slowly aging in appearance. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient.

Shangri-la is often used in a similar context to which "Garden of Eden" might be used, to represent a perfect paradise that exists hidden from modern man. It can sometimes be used as an analogy for a life-long quest or something elusive that is much sought. For a man who spends his life obsessively looking for a cure to a disease, such a cure could be said to be that man's "Shangri-La". It also might be used to represent perfection that is sought by man in the form of love, happiness, or Utopian ideals.

More secrets of happiness from Flaubert

“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.” - Flaubert

Shangri-La

Some images of Shangri-La, China

What The Leeds Arcades Projects Likes

Of course we all know what is coming in 'Desperate Romantics'; you don't have to know the story to see that Effie Ruskin is going to run off with one of the Desperate Romantics team. It will be Millais of course, who is played as effeminate, and even a little camp in the show. I guess The Leeds Arcades Projects likes the fact that our main two protagonists are such failures with women. You could even call them cuckolds. Both Ruskin and Benjamin failed to satisfy their wives, who ran off with their friends, and their attractions to other women were either grossly inappropriate or farcically misjudged. Think of Ruskin's attraction to the child Rose La Touche, or Benjamin making a fool of himself and pursuing Asja Lacis all the way to Moscow, only to be ignored and mistreated.

Ruskin, contemplating a wank

It was nice to see Ruskin back on our TV screens on Tuesday night in the BBC's new series about the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood; Despirate Romantics. Unfortunately what we saw was Ruskin furtively looking at dirty drawings in the dead of night. The show followed the story that Ruskin took one look at his new wife's pubic hair and was repulsed. We saw Effie wake her husband in the middle of the night and tell him of her womanly "needs". We also saw him wanking over some drawings of naked figures.

They have put the children incharge

Everywhere you go in Taiwan they have put the children incharge. Well, i should say, the teens. But really, the kids are running everything. All of the shops, cafes, restaurants, petrol stations are staffed exclusively by teenagers. And sure enough, the kids are doing a great job. So, you go into an art gallery and there are youngsters doing their best to explain everything to you and make sure you are ok.

Max and Gustave's Adventures in Egypt

Max and Gustave's Adventures in Egypt: The Cost

From 1849-1850, novelist Gustave Flaubert and critic Maxime Du Camp travelled around Egypt and the Arab world. Their adventures have been serialised here and mostly concerned sex with boys, and some women. What was the cost of such escapades? After a year travelling Flaubert had contracted Syphilis (in Beirut), and was so exhausted and run down that his hair was falling out and his teeth had come loose.

Manga Taiwan

In Taiwan, everything is advertised with manga cartoons. When the business magazine, Monocle is commissioned by the Taiwanese tourist board to advertise the country, do they fill the pages with the stunningly beautiful mountains, food or temples? No, they print some cutesy cartoons. To us English this just says; 'Your country must be shit since you dare not show us photo's of it'. Yet, of course, this is not the case.

Shangri-La

An image of Shangri-La as portrayed in the novel.

Shangri-La

Photo's of Shangri-La, China

Manga Culture

In Taiwan, everything is cute, everything is manga: All products and services are advertised with cartoons. Here we are in a gift shop advertising Green Island. The Island is beautiful and should surely advertise itself with photos of it's beautiful views.

The Japanese Arcades Project - Osaka

Manga Culture

In Taiwan, everything is cute, everything is manga: All products and services are advertised with cartoons. Here we are in the dentists:-

Project of Arcade of Lease

The Leeds Arcades Project and Walter Benjamin are just as popular in the Far East as they are in Europe. So it is that on our recent trip to Japan and Taiwan, we discovered that both countries have their own versions. Lets have a quick look at how they introduce themselves:-

Taiwan:-Leeds arcade project. Many World Walters. As a time travel average person's Walter librarian, strolling modern day Leeds shopping arcade; In WWII period, he stretches across Spain; Will see him and his Eastern lover struggles in the reverse side Utopia future.

Japan:-
Project of arcade of lease. Many World Walter. Time travelling average person; Way Walter; The moderate librarian who today walks the shopping arcade of lease of day; In the period of WWII does he extend crossing Spain? Him and you look at the sweetheart of the east; fight with future utopia reverse side

Osaka Arcades

The Shopping Arcades of Japan, from our recent trip to Osaka

The Japanese Arcades Project

Some modern Japanese shopping arcades

Walter

Walter's Japanese Diary

In Japan, at the airport, there are signs telling you that if you attempt to take any fake designer items through customs, you will be arrested. The notice is accompanied by pictures of Louis Vuitton bags and Burberry shirts.