Leaning Towers of Beijing

Keel over the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Move aside, the Twin Towers of Kuala Lumpur.

Here come the Twin Leaning Towers of Beijing. The new CCTV (China Central TV) building is one of the growing number of icons designed by international architects in the city of Beijing.

I passed by this building almost every day while I was filming my documentary about the Beijing Olympics. I always felt bemused by the seemingly impossible structure of the towers.

The building is clearly part of the city’s efforts to lay claim to its status as an international metropolis by building futuristic and foreign-looking landmarks.

Call it odd or a show-off piece, it is definitely identifiable. In fact I used it as backdrop to one of the scenes in my film.

This week, the news is that the twin towers finally join, with a walkway connecting the two parts.

As usual, a plethora of ironic observations have surfaced in the international media:

China’s impossible leaning towers join : December 2007 : Richard Spencer : Foreign : Telegraph Blogs

Orwellian architecture in China | The Ministry of Truth | Economist.com

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Ming Pao Monthly and Chinese Intellectual Tradition

I have been amazed by how much my reading habits have changed over the past two years.

I no longer read hard copies of daily newspapers and magazines on a regular basis.

Instead I subscribe to news feeds using the Google Reader. I scan through hundreds of articles electronically on a daily basis to imbibe the latest trends of our Web 2.0 era.

But I was recently reminded of the pleasures of reading a hard copy of a magazine when I bought a copy of Ming Pao Monthly in Hong Kong.

Yes, I could read some of the articles online for free at the Ming Pao Monthly website but there is something about reading a literary and scholarly magazine slowly, on the train, in the hotel room, while waiting for a friend at a cafe…

The key word is “slowly.” Because pondering on the dilemmas of our times takes time and attention, both rare commodities these days.

Only then, will the pleasures of the essay on the encounter between ailing Chinese scholar Ji Xianlin (季羡林） and famous actress Lin Ching Hsia（林青霞） come to life on paper. So will the weight of the burden of China’s environmental crisis be truly felt.

Perusing the pages of Ming Pao Monthly, I am reminded anew of the responsibilities of the Chinese intellectual. They have to bear the burdens and sorrows of our times before everyone else. 先天下之忧而忧，后天下之乐而乐。

And that certainly takes time,attention and heart.

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