Figuring out the last year …

WordPress has just introduced a few new ways of tracking what’s happening with my blog.

The main “dashboard”, as they call it (I really tire of car-based metaphors, like cars are the only way to get anywhere …), shows a summary of recent activity – like my posts and other people’s comments.  I now have made 135 posts, which on average, have each received about 4 comments.It has also detected and deleted over 3000 spam messages, which is most kind.  I did find one real message lurking in my ‘spam’ folder, so hopefully that has been the only one it trashed accidentally.  I also have a lengthy list of draft posts … just waiting for some spare time.

WordPress tells me that my top commentators are luKe, bitbot, adina west, natalie, justin and katharine (at least some of those names are real!).  Thanks to all who have made comments.  I love comments!

The blog also has a page devoted to view-stats.  Over the last couple of years, the blog has had nearly 15,000 views (ie one page being opened), an average of about 20 per day.  Admittedly, for most regular bloggers, this would be considered a relatively low figure, but I guess I haven’t been making much effort to cross-promote via other social media … trying to keep a small shred of anonymity.

As WordPress loves to remind me, the more I blog, the more views I get.  But, I also have a life enough to not worry too much about getting a million hits and becoming an interwebs sensation.

This page also tells me how some people arrive at the blog – via search terms entered into Google and other search engines.  Yesterday, this is how 12 people found the blog. Some of the terms used are pretty amusing … “monkey pulls the turnip”, “people in pyjamas” or “functionalism as an oxymoron” are just a few of the important issues that I appear to have been writing about.

When I view the stats over the last 2 years, I can see which topics draw in the crowds.  Far and away, the most compelling topic is Wee Britain, invented by the TV show Arrested Development and referred to in my post on Thamestown.  Similarly, various searches for “Hollandtown“, “Holland Village“, “fake Holland in Shanghai” have led people to this post, as searches about Chinese ghost towns, especially Ordos City, have taken people to this post about Kangabashi.

25 people have found my blog by searching for “how to please your parents” – most likely disappointed to find that my best advice is to build them a ridiculously large garden. A similar number arrived via searches for “baby split pants” – presumedly to find this post.

WordPress doesn’t link the search term with the actual page viewed, so I am not always sure of how the connection gets made.  Some of the more interesting searches have been “stylish farmer look” (2 people, heading here), “babies neglected and tied to high chairs in China” (3 people, not sure what page they ended up at), “chocolates and a louis vuitton bag for valentines day” (2 people actually put these words into Google!), “crayzy sex” (woah!), “pyjama slap” (this means something to at least 2 people in world) and “seducing your mother” (I did ask for this … see here).

The third biggest group of random visitors must have enjoyed reading my post on the Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Hall … containing what I described as a “huge-ass model” of the city.  Over 100 people have accessed this page via searches for a variety of terms, including “models with huge asses“, “huge ass” and “ass models“.

 

 

A new function is a map showing the geographic spread of blog viewers.  As you can see, over the last two months, I am reaching a pretty global audience.  Although, I admit, most of these are random single-view visitors – I am yet to befriend anyone currently based in Finland, Ethiopia or Honduras.  But, Australians!  Currently second place to the US … I see you can pick up your act a little.

All this stat-crunching inspired me to make a few little diagrams of my own, summarising some of the other things that I have been doing recently.

For example, over the last 12 months, I spend a lot of time on planes – over 150 hours in the air (about a full week … not to mention the time spent in airport, sometimes waiting several hours for a delayed plane).  I went to Lanzhou 5 times, Tianjin (see here and here and here) quite a lot, Sydney 4 times.  The year before was just the same.  It’s mostly for work.  Small carbon footprint, begone!

But, when I can, I will catch the train for work.  The last long-haul was to Rui’an – normally it is a 5.5 hour ride, but as they had had a fatal crash the week before, everything was slowed by several hours.  We now fly there instead.  Last year, they opened the Beijing-Shanghai express line, so we used that to get to the capital for our National Holiday last year (see here and here and here and here and here and here).  It’s an important part of the huge and quite amazing rail network that China is building.  It’s particularly good for accessing the big cities close to Shanghai (like Nanjing, which I’ve been to, like, a million times … see here and here and here)

 

And finally, here is a diagram of the vegetarian restaurants of Shanghai, matched with the frequency of our visits.  The big blobs (Kush, Annamaya and Godly) have the distinction of great food and/or close proximity to our apartment.

Surely eating all of that vegetarian food has got to go some way towards offsetting my carbon-hungry travel habits …

 

What happens on site stays on site …

Just the other day, I went to a client presentation, and on the way back to the office, we dropped by the project site to check on the progress of construction.

It’s a huge project – a waterway several kilometres long, fringed by new parkland and sporting areas, residential precincts, cultural and community buildings, and eventually, a new city centre.  The creek and landscape are being constructed first.

This is one small branch of the waterway, leading to an existing reservoir which will be the main source of water.  Like many construction projects, the site is being built by a variety of methods.  The channel itself is made up of huge concrete sections, created through the processes of heavy engineering and machinery … alongside this worker, who was slowly mixing his little pile of concrete using a shovel (when he wasn’t stopping to gawk at us, that is…)

    

A lot of the machinery is quite endearing.

    

The clay-topped site is vast.  It’s hard to imagine that in a very short time, it will house a lake, ringed by plazas and park, cafes and day spas.

But for now, it is just housing dozens of workers.  Many of these workers are seasonal labourers – farmers who spend the agricultural off-season working on construction sites for a bit of extra cash.  Being away from home, they are usually accommodated on the site itself, living in make-shift shelters, and sometimes with bathrooms and a food tent.  It would be pretty hard living … labouring all day, sleeping through wintry nights with very little in the way of bedding, being away from family and friends.

Although, if you can keep yourself looking at stylish as this guy … in grey polo, trousers with hem upturned to reveal a bright red lining, casual slippers and even more casual cigarillo hanging from his lips … life isn’t totally bad.

We had just been to present our latest design option for the site’s main entry pavilion, which the client finally approved.  So, we were a little surprised to find that it was already under construction.  It was explained that this part of the site had been fast-tracked after comments from someone important that work on the site appeared to be progressing a little slowly.  Fortunately, this part of the old design matches the new one, and we saved the workers the effort (and perhaps embarrassment) of having to undo their hard work.

    

We had to do a review of some pavers, or rather, a review of the pavers that the contractors were planning to substitute for the ones we had actually specified.  It was a long-winded and highly excited discussion, which I though ended in anger, but was supposedly resolved with everybody happy.  I really must get my Chinese skills up to scratch.

Further along the creek, work is almost completed, and the finishing touches, such as mature trees transplanted into place, are being applied.  This part will be flooded to form a wetland park.

Already, frogs and birds are starting to make their homes across the site.  And, as they arrive, the workers too will migrate, to homes remembered and people missed.

Lanzhou / moving mountains (literally…almost)

China can lay claim to all sorts of world’s-best titles … the biggest population, the fastest train service, the oldest panda (perhaps not a surprise) and the longest human domino (10,267 people in Inner Mongolia last year).  It is also home to what is often deemed to be the world’s most polluted city, Lanzhou.  It’s a place that (luck abounds!) I now have a project, so I have become a regular visitor over the last few months.

   

Located at the geographic centre of China, Lanzhou is an industrial city, housing hundreds of factories and processing facilities and power plants.  Geographic conditions don’t help.  The city has developed along the Yellow River, hemmed in by steep mountain ranges on either side of this major river.  It lacks air flow.  It also lacks rain, meaning that the mountainsides are mostly free of vegetation (resulting in regular dust storms) and that toxic air just tends to hang around.  On many days, the air quality is poor that the mountains just adjacent the city cannot be seen through the haze.

The journey to the city from the airport (oddly enough for a smaller city, located 70 kilometres out of town) is pretty desolate.  A new motorway weaves through the bare mountains, lined with massive power cables and outcrops of colourful advertising billboards.

     

Dotted through the mountainsides are hundreds of holes.  According to our driver, these have been created by the shepherds who need to spend nights outside with their herds.  I didn’t see any sheep or shepherds, but perhaps it was out of season.

     

Closer to the city, the mountains have undergone more significant modification. Their sides have been cut into terraces, creating a series of horizontal platforms on which vegetation has been planted.

But plants need water to grow, so millions of litres of water are being pumped to, and sprayed over, the mountain sides.  It’s a huge, not to mention environmentally frightening, undertaking.

But, I guess it is an improvement on the previous solution being supported by the Lanzhou authorities – to demolish a number of mountains next to the city.  Just like opening some windows to allow the breeze in, they said.  This idea was tested, yet failed.  Now the focus is on reafforestation, as well as programs to reduce air use, use cleaner energy and relocate polluting industries.

Some of the hillsides are getting greener.

Flying out the city, you can clearly see how the river system defines the areas that can support vegetation, and by extension, agriculture.  You can also see the enormity of the re-vegetation program being undertaken … and the probable futility of trying to change something that cannot be changed.

60+2 hours watching The Wire

With wintry weather of late, indoor activities win out.  In the last month, we managed to get though all 5 seasons of The Wire … that’d be 60 hours of staring at the TV.

But I’ve also been spending quite a bit of my spare time staring into the sky.

It’s not that I’ve lost my mind (least I think not) … it’s that the trees have lost their leaves so there’s a lot more sky to be looking at.

The lack of foliage has also revealed the buildings of the city, giving the streets a whole new character.

I am also noticing a lot more in the way of cables.  Yeah, yeah, a different kind of wire …

I spent most of a recent Saturday morning just wandering around framing photos of naked trees and power poles.

It was an hour to two well spent.

The undirected nature of the morning contrasted well with the typically hectic outcome-focused week at work.

… a little like the capricious quality of the plane trees against the taut lines of the wires.

And, along with sleeping and eating, walking is one of my favourite things.  It’s a good break from sitting around looking at a screen (at both work and home).

But best of all, the crisp blue sky reminded me that the house-bound days of winter will soon be ending.