An American in Beijing

Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall

So on Wednesday we went to the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall, which is an enormous complex filled from top to bottom with exhibits of Beijing's architecture and city planning for all its various districts. The coolest part of the museum was probably the eastern section of the third and fourth floors, which features a huge aerial photograph 10 times as big as the average Beijing apartment. The photograph is printed on nearly a thousand lit glass floor panels and features a middle section with many districts of the city built in tiny scale models complete with flickering lights and color-coded sections. There is a picture of it below -- truly very cool. More information about this exhibit in particular can be found here.

The entire first and second floors of the museum, however, were entirely devoted to exhibits concerning the coming Olympics -- plans for sculpture and architectural planning were everywhere. All this Olympic stuff got me thinking about the adorable mascots China has designed for the 2008 Games. Although not prominently featured in the Exhibition Hall, these little guys (Fuwa) are simply everywhere you go in the city -- people are selling them as keychains, posters are on the sides of buildings and athletic centers, taxi drivers have them as little figurines dangling from the winshield or perched precariously on the dashboard.

So much media exposure (besides having the desired effect of me thinking that the mascots are cool, that Beijing has got its act together for the Olympics, and that it would be sort of cool to come back here in 2008 to watch the Games) go me thinking, for no reason whatsoever, which of the mascots reminds me of which of my family members. Well, okay, it's not no reason whatsoever -- big motivating reason number one is that I miss my family and think about them a lot, and minor auxiliary reason number two is that Yingying really reminds me of my dad, and Nini sort of reminds me of my sister.

Anyway, the link above has more information about these five cute little guys than you would probably ever want to know, so I can spare you all the details, but it's really kind of amazing how well-thought out the whole "Olympic Mascot" thing is for Beijing. They manage to incorporate not only the colors of the five Olympic rings (blue, black, red, yellow, green); five different symbols of Chinese culture/the Olympic games (fish, panda, Olympic torch, antelope, Chinese kite); five different blessings (prosperity, happiness, passion, health, and luck); five different regions' cultural art forms; they also have a message hidden in the cute di-syllabic names typical of Chinese children (Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying, and Nini come together to form the phrase Bei jing huan ying ni, or "Beijing welcomes you"), and, given their familial relationship, also typify the importance of family in Chinese culture.

Have I left things out? Oh, yes, there is even more -- I haven't gone into the characters of their names, which have more to do with their blessings than with their relation to the welcoming message, since the characters of Beibei are not the bei of Beijing (Beibei's name contains two characters developed from the ancient pictograph of a cowrie shell, which used to be used for currency in ancient times and is now found in many Chinese characters having to do with money, whereas the bei of Beijing is drawn quite differently and means "north" or "northern," and so on), nor into their particular characters: who is the oldest and youngest among them, what their personalities are like, and which Olympic sports they do best. It's really nothing short of astounding. But I digress. Widely. As usual. :) But aren't they cute?

posted by Kelly @ 5:23 下午