people of china

C09 - P O R C A R ORAMA VIII

The moment for the traditional Porcarorama Christmas Compilation has come again! This year enjoy the end of the decade with the Porcarorama Sound. Let's dance under a Christmas tree in the snow or in the beach depending on your latitude!

To enjoy the present click here

[1. Think for Yourself (the Beatles); 2. Rough Steez (Fuck Buttons) vs. Everything in its Right Place (Radiohead); 3. What Would I Want? Sky (Animal Collective; 4. Beast in Peace (Bear in Heaven); 5. Run Run Run (Beck/Velvet Underground); 6. From the Colonies (Penguin Cafe Orchestra); 7. Everyone is Guilty (Akron Family); 8. Vcr (The xx); 9. Norway (Beach House); 10. A new Chance (The Tough Alliance); 11. Take it in (Hot Chip); 12. Just can't get enough (Depeche Mode); 13. Big Bad Mean Mother Fucker (Girls); 14. Alright (Supergrass); 15. IRM (Charlotte Gainsbourg); Watching the Planets (Flaming Lips); In Violet (Health)]

Addis Abeba Bete

The father of my grandmother was called Marino Quercia (Nonno Marino), he lived in Addis Abeba between 1937 and 1941.

I know very little about nonno Marino, my grandmother told me he managed a bakery baking bread for the Army and that he had quite some local workers for him. After the liberation of Addis Abeba and the end of italian occupation he was then war prisoner for some time. The other thing she told me is that he had a villa and that most probably as well quite some fun with local women (he was quite promiscuous for the times).

70 years later, I am in Addis Abeba, my first trip in Africa.Looking around I try to see familiar faces: cousins, uncles? After all, aren't we all coming from this highlands some millions years ago?

The information about Marino Quercia is too little.
But it is too intriguing not to try to imagine him walking around the busy streets of Mercato (the indigenous market established by the fascist occupants in 1938) or on the side of the Piazza (italian denomination of the Arada district) possibly passing by the Headquarter of the Fascist Party... where I am sitting now, 70 years later, eating excellent ravioli and tagliatelle in the best italian restaurant in town, "Castelli".

After his daily business finished, Nonno Marino surely used to relax in his villa which most probably was located in the area known today as Kazantchis, distortion of the italian name “Casa INCIS”.

This was the housing project of the Italian National Institute for Housing of State Employees where he might had the assigned villa with garden and separate service quarters for servants and auxiliary functions.

And the Bakery? the research goes on...

African Union (Addis Abeba_Brussels)

M.me Agoussou receives us in her office at the African Union Commission. In three years of Africa-Europe cooperation in the youth field this is the first time the European Youth Forum and the North-South Centre of the Council of Europe manage to meet with her. In itself this is an event that reward the whole trip politically speaking.

The fact that Dr. Agoussou did not met us before or came to any of the meetings she has been invited is not bad will, rather overload, understaffing of an institution that after only 5 years of existence is now struggling to match implementation capacity with political achievement.

Walking around the African Union Headquarters you get the impression of this work in progress, in front of the old buildings there is a massive space with a big white compound with chinese characters.

The Government of the People's Republic of China is building for free a brand new, huge Headquarters for the African Union Commission.

Is this city going to be become the Brussels of Africa? And is China going to build it?


(more info on China in Addis: http://www.davidkilgour.ca/2007/Nov_26_2007_04.htm)

Pocari Sweat Advertisement (Beijing 22/07/09)

Porcarorama enters the advertisment business with the chinese brand "Pocari Sweat".

Beijing, July 2009

After a visit to the Political School of the Communist Youth League of China (closer to an American Campus than a soviet establishment), I bump my head into the door of the bus and it is hurting a lot.

What I get from our Chinese hosts to relief the pain is an iced bottle of Pocari Sweat. A chinese ionic energy drink.

People start laughing at the name of the bottle and it is the opportunity to organise a photo set for its advertisement. Thanks to Abel Polese for taking the pictures. The photoshopping in mine.

If you are interested in engaging with Porcarorama for your brand advertising don't hesitate!

Tongli (28/07/09)

Morning,

Traditional Chinese Music on the background.

The sound is amazingly similar to an american Banjo. If I close my eyes I could imagine to be on the delta of the Mississippi circa 1909.

The 2 land-ladies of the guest-house are discussing on the terrace downstairs.

(for touristic info on Tongli http://www.micktravels.com/china/tongli.html)

Suzhou-Shanghai (29/07/09)

On a train to Shanghai.

All around Chinese people.
Overcrowded.

People eating all sort of food and looking at me, taking pictures of me, like I would be an alien.
Me standing in the corridor with a green t-shirt and red headphones. Cheesy music in the background. Poppish, Chinese, Bubblegumish.

There is a specific group of passengers who seems to be my core fans led by a woman who is taking photos together with a colored hair guy and another fat woman carrying a little baby who also laughs at me.

At the end the group of fans allows me to sit with them in exchange of pictures and another old smiling and nice lady ask me in Chinese where I am from. Obviously I don't understand but the shy guy in front of me translates and then everybody smiles and laugh (including me).

Outside endless work in Progress for the new high speed train between Shanghai and Beijing (1200 Km in 4 hours when ready).

Roads, Rails, Houses, Cities... all being built at an overwhelming speed!

The Tropical Sound of the Shandong Expressway (Porcarorama VII)

4.22am, 23 July 2009.


In a bus direct from Beijing to Jinan, the Capital of the Shandong.

Work in progress, people sleeping, trucks and chinese expressways.

The tropical sound of the summer.


Enjoy!


(click here to download the compilation)

the yoUNg

The YoUNg from Giuseppe Porcaro on Vimeo.

The first documentary produced by Porcarorama (and written, edited, directed, bla bla, by me)

Berna

Bern, a European Capital that I was missing on my travel list. It remained an exotic destination among the capitals of Europe since i was a kid.

Mainly for two reasons.
1. The first one is obvious to most of the Italians that were kids in the 80s and in the early 90s: *Latte Berna!*

of course... a brand of milk called like the Swiss capital, with a nice Cow that was smiling at you from a tetra pack. If i remember correctly the Berna Milk was famous not just for the advertisement but as well because it was fresh milk in tetrapack. In the late 80s it was a hit!

2. Second reason why Bern had always a specific corner of my geographical imagination was a *book on European Capitals* that was collected through an italian magazine called “Oggi”.

“Oggi” (I don't even know if it still existing. Was a kind of people weekly not really yellow press but fair enough close to it. But at some point they decided to give as present a book on European Capitals. It was 1988. And it had all the capitals of Europe from the west and from the east.

My parents were not usually buying “Oggi” it was my grandma stuff, but for the occasion of the book on European Capital they were buying it...

...week after week I was diving in my first Pan-European Trip.
I was amazed by the colorful churches of the red square of Moscow, for me they were the closest building to a fairytale I ever saw in a photography – then “Russians” of Sting was being often played on the radio and now i still connect the song with those images (and the one of Laika, the first dog on space, Russian as well of course)
...and of course I had my preferences. For example I was going back to some of the cities, while others I was neglecting. I remember I was neglecting – for example Sofia for some unexplainable reason – and others that i just found boring, this was the case of Bonn, the Capital of West Germany. I loved East Berlin and the picture of the television tower on Alexanderplatz with the DDR flags.

Among those big capitals, with long explanations, maps that were not entering in three pages (like london... that was just simply too big in size for a 9 years old boy) Bern (or rather “Berna”) was squeezed, just close to Budapest and Chausescu's Bucharest. Only one picture. The Tower with the clock. An amazing clock, with moving statues, moons, stars and other planets. I always wanted a clock like that at my place. And I never though I would have seen this clock only in 2009.... more than 20 years later.

I came to Switzerland several times, but never in Bern. And it was a nice surprise to discover that there was more than the clock in this small little cute town.

Now I am in the middle of the clouds again, in the train, small station, Vauderens, already in the french canton.

Beautiful green under the storm.
But too rural for this urban blog.