• We enjoyed Chinese New Year in Lingang in Nanhui Pudong
• Jenny found out that our baby is a boy and we’re going to name him Jake. Jenny is now 6 months pregnant. May is fast approaching.
• Our school bought a web server based in Shanghai, which means we can build online learning communities such as Moodle and wordpress blogs. This has been keeping me busy.
• We spent a fantastic Valentine’s day at a new Italian restaurant called Bacaro in Taikang Lu. Its pan fried salmon is really fresh and it melts in your mouth.
• We spent Jenny’s birthday with her friends at the ‘Special Dollar’ hotpot restaurant on Xujiahui Lu.
• I discovered Boduf Songs’ albums. I have not been moved so much by depressing folk music since I heard Caroline Martin at the Bristol’s Cube in May 2003. Enjoy this MP3.
• We watched Red Cliff 1, Red Cliff 2, Eden Lake, and lots of Planet of the Apes.
• Jenny is going part time, but she still makes clothes for musicians including Jiang Fan of canto poppers YFM. Here is a video of Jiang Fan singing wearing one of Jenny’s designs.

We could have opted for the expatriate option where you pay upto 100 000 RMB to jump a few queues and listen to an English speaking doctor at places like Shanghai East Medical Centre. The reality is that expatriate medical facilities are attached to Chinese hospitals. If there are complications then the western clinic will call on specialists in the Chinese hospital to which they are attached. If you don’t need English language service you may as well stick to the cheaper Chinese option, because the health care is ultimately identical. On this basis Jenny was very happy to choose a Chinese hospital near our house. We expect to pay 10 000 RMB to the hospital, which will cover the costs of checkups, delivery, pre natal classes and accommodation.

You would have thought that you make an appointment and turn up to have a few tests in a quiet hospital before leaving for late morning coffee. Going to the hospital for a pre natal checkup is a major expedition. It was a real eye opener. Here are the steps that we went through:

Turn up at 9:30 am to queue up, check in and update paperwork
Chinese mothers have to complete an extensive portfolio of medical and personal information. I cannot read the documents, but they look as extensive as security clearance forms to work in the CIA.

Wait in a line at 10:30 to pay for two visits
Total cost is about 1200 RMB. You need to bring all the correct documents and keep every fapiao. What happens if you lose your paperwork? I imagine the baby will have to wait in the womb until the documents have been regenerated and processed.

Wait until 11:30 as Jenny visited all the testing stations
You have to collect a ticket and wait until it is your turn to be tested. The waiting rooms look like very similar to passport visa offices, only busier.

Wait until 2pm to get test results
We cheated by having lunch while Jenny waited for the final results.

Give a blood sample at 2:30 pm

Collect medication from pharmacy at 3pm

I am not very keen on waiting around for hours at a time, but I was happy to give Jenny moral support and it feels like a rite of passage. I’m happy to report that Jenny and the baby are both doing well at the moment. Jenny is four months pregnant. I am racking my brains for an English name, but they do not tell you the gender in China so this makes the process a little more challenging.

It is worth noting that Shanghai’s reputation for fine dressed women is put to the test during the maternity phase. I have noticed the prevalence of frumpy “Resist-Electromagnetic-Wave-Maternity-Clothes”. I’m not sure how effective they are or need to be, because the jury is still out about whether radiation from electrical devices is at all harmful to an unborn child. Let us suppose there is a grain of truth in the belief that excessive exposure to computers and mobile phones is bad for the baby then why on earth do the manufacturers make such ghastly garments? They reduce the pregnant woman to looking like a sack of potatoes. Surely there is a gap in the market for maternity clothes that preserve the dignity of the woman who wears them. Jenny made the point that Chinese families spend a lot of their household income on raising their child so this reflects a priority shift. That idea rings true in the UK, but that doesn’t mean that pregnant women have to be frumpy by wearing life jackets.

At least I’m married to a woman who can design her own maternity wear!

I’m looking forward to Baron Munchausen, because I haven’t seen it yet and Terry Gilliam is a great visual director.

Dr Strangelove shows Peter Sellers at his best playing multiple characters in Kubrick’s bizarre and zany cold war satire.

Wild Zero mixes the Japanese punk rock of Guitar Wolf and zombie horror to good effect, although I’ve always found Guitar Wolf are more stylistic than substantial.

Blade Runner is perfect iconic science fiction and The Big Lebowski is one of the funniest films I have ever seen.

The newest film we’re going to show is ‘Flashbacks of a Fool’, which shows Daniel Craig playing a washed up middle aged actor reflecting on his youth in a sleepy seaside before everything went wrong.

Jenny chose these films. Is there a theme that ties these films together? None of the protagonists in these films are classically heroic, alpha males. Even the Harrison Ford character in Blade Runner has doubts about his humanity, whereas Guitar Wolf is just silly. All posts about Projection 216 come with the disclaimer that I’m married to the boss and that people wishing to go to a film should call before to reserve a place. Tickets are 15 RMB to cover refreshments.

Projection 216
Room 216, Building 3, Lane 210
Taikang Road, Shanghai, PRC
泰康 路210弄 3
号楼216 室
021-54656616

We enjoyed hearing our friend Cho Cho tell us about a European customer who bought some of her clothes from her shop. Cho Cho runs the Neither Nor label and she has a few shops in and near Changle Lu. Most customers buy for themselves, but this customer bought the clothes as samples to copy and export to Europe. She hired another designer to make and export the clothes, but the customer didn’t know that she had subcontracted one of Cho Cho’s friend. Most fashion designers would be miffed to find out about people copying their ideas to make expensive clothes for overseas markets, but Cho Cho thought this was quite funny. I sensed she was even flattered to the extent that she offered to help her friend work on the order by supplying design patterns and fabric.

Usually you hear stories about Chinese companies lifting ideas, trademarks and IP from European, Japanese and American designers. I think of Meizu’s HiPhone, which bears a strong resemblence to a certain famous Apple handset (See this story). It’s refreshing to see the situation reversed. I look forward to seeing Chinese designs and innovations making inroads overseas. It’s bound to happen in the next few decades. Cho Cho’s anecdote shows that European designers are already starting to take note of Chinese fashion.

Jola took some pictures of the occasion, which she assembled on a collage. You can come to Projection 216 to see Jola’s exhibition for the next few weeks. Look out later this week for pictures and video of Jenny’s latest collection.

Projection 216 Room 216, Building 3, Lane 210
Taikang Road, Shanghai, PRC
泰康 路210弄 3 号楼216 室 Tel: 021-54656616

The shoes I bought remind me of the Dunlop Greenflash that I used to wear for PE lessons when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s. He had others with toes cut out like Roman sandles. I’m not sure that I could get away with wearing those radical designs without looking like a fay eunuch.

Why on earth would you want to buy fake knockoffs at a tourist market when you can get DK’s shoes that are designed and made in Shanghai? We liked them so much that Jenny started selling them at her studio (Projection 216). If you like them you should go to DK’s studio called The Gloss on the second floor of the Loft in Jiashan Lu. The shoes I bought cost 500 RMB. We’ll be modelling some of them at the opening party for Jola Kudela next Sunday (June 15th).

The Gloss 上海市兴业路123弄6号1楼05单元
tel：86 21 6384 1066

Jola Kudela is a photographic artist based in Paris. This is her first exhibition in Shanghai. This is her bio:

“if loneliness has its God, Jola Kudela must be one of His high priests”

Jola Kudela, an international artist born in Poland, has been living and working in Paris, which became the main focal point for her works and international projects coming from India, Luxembourg, Canada or Tunisia. The precursor of neo-photography, active graphic and motion-designer, animated film director, book-illustrator, special visual effects creator for the needs of film and television. She joins the techniques not a long time ago considered as classical with the latest achievements of technology and digital image processing.

The areas to which one can categorize her know no boundaries, what she offers to the contemporary public falls outside any explicit categorization or trends. Her works never stop astonishing the public and with her artistic ideas being an inherent part of ultra-modern image of art she can truly amaze.

Loneliness in a behemoth city as well as confusion characteristic of the relationship between man and woman, the everlasting desire to experience closeness, becoming a unity, which seems to be impossible as we are limited by anxiety seem to be the main subject themes of her works. The present oscillates between constant pain and temporary refuge sought in amusement. This is the world her heroes live in – exposed to us, scared, helpless and yet, invariably heroic. Jola Kudela reminds us of a contemporary shaman leading both the characters she creates and us – the public – sneaking up into some “paper” world, the magic moments where between the sunrise and the sunset of art, every day, at some point, we may perceive both painful beauty and the everlasting truth about human existence. Petrifying and tempting , she can never be indifferent to us.

Her commitment to various dimensions and genres (from the well-known high-budget commercial productions (Tim Burton – NINE), and global projects creating new photography trends (NEO-PHOTO, IDN – Hong Kong), individual graphic art exhibitions (METROPOLIS, Paris), awarded digital cycles , panoramic photo collages (THIS IS MY HOME NOW), to street art dealing with the icons of modern pop culture ( ART MAKES YOU FREE).

Jenny will also be showcasing her new collection and designs from Eva, DK and Emma. We’re looking forward to another great party at Projection 216. Get in touch with Jenny if you want to get an invitation. Jenny has printed some great invitations, which you can see at the top of the post.

Venue: Projection 216, Room 216, Building 3, Lane 210, Taikang Road, Shanghai, PRC
泰康 路210弄 3, 号楼216 室
Tel: 021-54656616

Date and time: Sunday 15th June, 7 pm