Blog

Robert Neuwirth’s Ted presentation on “The hidden world of shadow cities” reminds me of an interesting documentary film made by CAMP – Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar (Your Neighbour before the House). It is a series of video probes into the landscape of East Jerusalem. The video for this documentary was filmed by eight Palestinian families living in various neighborhoods in the city of Jerusalem, a place where the usual sense of “neighborhood” is broken by occupation and conflict. It was filmed over a month in September 2009, with a PTZ CCTV camera that the residents installed on or close to their own homes. The voice-over is that of people speaking over the video live as they watched and controlled the camera from inside their homes. Sometimes the voice looks for an image, at other times image provokes voice, or they separate into distant landscapes and innermost thoughts. The footage, previously seen as a video installation, was edited into a feature-length documentary in 2011.

These images show that before and after instrumental surveillance, there is inquisitiveness, jest, memory, desire and doubt that pervades the project of watching, surveillance, and the neighborhood of “informality”. When the Israeli government demolished the Moroccan Quarter in 1967, it was the fifth and smallest of old Jerusalem’s neighborhoods. Private property was converted into public space: the former Moroccan Quarter is now a large open plaza leading up to the Western Wall, in use as an open-air synagogue. In these specific times and places, camera movements and live commentary become ways in which Palestinian residents evaluate what can be seen, and speak about the nature of their distance from others. Through the camera they observe nearby archeological digs, their homes, and the wall.

At first glance, the idea of a neighborhood appears as the most obvious contradiction to the series of displacements, deferrals, and distortions existing on the surface of this highly volatile, contested and segmented city. The neighborhood is that part of the otherwise anonymous cityscape, where one is recognized, or where the subject is hailed. Neighbors can encounter each other without technical mediation; they meet and greet face to face, everything is within walking distance. Such a more or less homogenous local environment is ruled by specific circumstances that are characterized precisely by the fact that they are not globally valid, that are not exchangeable or even communicable. It is grounded in the production of a self that claims the right to the given territory: to be exactly and exclusively here, often as a result of ownership or property.

However, what we can see in the video project is a neighborhood in a state of permanent crisis. Spatial proximity does not produce any sense of community, but does the opposite. The neighborhood is scattered and inaccessible. What was private space becomes public; what was private life becomes political. Al Jaar Qabla Al Daar sets out to reverse engineer the neighborhood as a machine for self-monitoring and surveillance.  Here the neighborhood can only be encountered through a technological device that produces closeness and remoteness, which would otherwise remain entirely abstract. The constant zooming in and zooming out of the camera constitutes a rather peculiar artificiality of the picture. This is a regime of visibility that promises to provide access to what would otherwise, and in the true sense of the word, be inaccessible, since one would not be allowed to go there, or know how to understand what is going on. The results are profane and deconsecrated icons that map lost properties as robbed and removed social relationships. It is noteworthy to think about the politics of informality and the ideology of space regarding this film.

To watch the documentary: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kg64jiH2QkE

When it comes to street food, I am sure that its cheap and unhygienic characteristics are concerned by many people. I used to believe that the best way to improve the quality of street food is the government’s intervention and regulation. Being under control seems to solve all these potential problems, isn’t it?

However, I didn’t realize how complicated this problem can be until I came to a new type of street food and did some research by myself. The government’s intervention does not save these vendors as it claims, it almost kills them.

Last week I went to one of the night markets in Shanghai, which seemed prosperous with the encouragement of the Shanghai Government from the website of government affairs and some social media. It was the third time to visit the market for the sake of my mapping project. During the first experience, I talked to the head manager of this newly built night market. He rent it from the owner of the shopping mall nearby with the support of the district government. The government not only helps him to negotiate with the owner of this shopping mall but also gives some financial support to him to run this market. While he recruited all these vendors, consisting of the night market. He claimed that they( both him and the government) did not aim at gaining profit. All they wanted is to build a cultural environment for our citizens to have their night recreational activities. “ Culture is the most important element.” He emphasized, “based on traditional culture, we want people to consume.” He did not run any risks when running the market with government foundation and fixed rent handed in by stall owners. What he mainly needs to do is examining and verifying the qualification of food stalls.

The running mode of the newly built night markets is almost the same with shops inside the shopping mall. Vendors are fixed in one place, waiting for consumers passing through and buy or ignore what they are doing with high rent per day, although lower cost. When I was talking to many of the vendors in the night market, most of them claimed that they just managed to maintain a balance between income and expenditure. Government regulations increased their cost thus lowered their income.

As to the problem I concern most, whether food hygiene can be guaranteed, the answer is no. Although the manager kept emphasizing how much attention they paid to food, the vendors told me that they could sell food to customers which were completely different from what they claimed in the materials when applying for a position in the market as long as the managers didn’t care about it, which was exactly the current situation.

The result was totally out of my expectation. People pay no interest in the night market, while vendors are losing their advantages in the limited space. It seems that nobody benefits from the “encouragement “ except for the manager.

I am so confused, why are all this happening? Why do our governors spend so much money doing nothing?

I still remember the first time when I went to New York, I was really amazed at the enormous and various street vendors which cover almost every corner of the city. There are hot dog vendors and ice-cream vendors near the public parks, Mexican-styled street food is sold from the fancy food trucks outside NYU library, fresh fruit and vegetable vendors cover a long street in China town, street artists pop up in subway stations with different musical instruments… In fact, the survey data shows that there are as many as 20,000 street vendors in New York City, they are all small businesspeople struggling to make ends meet.

I have to admit that my street food experience in New York even broke up my stereotypes of street vendors: I used to think that the more developed and cosmopolitan a city is, the fewer street vendors it will have. This “rule” was in fact summarized from Shanghai’s street vendor history. I remember that the sweetest taste of my childhood memory came from the baked sweet potato and the cotton candy, two kinds of traditional street food that used could be seen everywhere in Shanghai. Baked sweet potato usually came out in winter, when you finish a whole-day study, walking in the cold wind with a hungry stomach, you could not resist the temptation of having a warm and sweet baked potato. Cotton candy is not limited by seasons, it appears throughout the year. It is a typical “street food” with an easy production process and could be served on a stick for made-to-order service. It even has several flavors for you to choose from: strawberry, lemon, grape… I always choose the strawberry one, and wait to watch the whole “performance”. I love to see the part when the cotton-like product surrounding the spinning head of the machine after the vendor poured sugar into the machine. The cotton becomes pink when he pours pink sugar, and it gradually grows into a big, round, cloud-like candy. At that time, I would joyously take over the stick from the vendor, and enjoy my little snack. I always imagine myself biting a piece of soft, pinky cloud, until one day I suddenly being told that the pink color comes from the low-cost chemical pigment instead of real strawberries. But this didn’t influence my love for cotton candy. It always symbols the taste of my childhood.

Street food – the cotton candy

Street food – the baked sweet potato

Nostalgia also comes from the disappearance of street food in Shanghai. I rarely see any cotton candy vendors or baked potatoes vendors these days, they are all restricted by the food safety laws. Sharit K. Bhowmik stated that the governments in Asian countries have more or less refused to recognize street vending as a legal activity and view these vendors as irritants to the city’s development. The streets with food vendors are regarded as “disordered”, “undeveloped”, and required to be “regulated”. As a result, street vendors in most Asian countries “live a precarious existence as they face the constant threat of eviction and destruction of their property”. The governmental action in fact destroys “the liveliness of the city”. Liveliness is an idea proposed by Jane Jacobs, it is generated in the shared use of a public space by different groups of people. Jacobs insisted that “only when cities are created for everybody can they provide something for everybody”. But unfortunately, governments sacrifice “somebody” to achieve the tidy and regulated appearance for “everybody”. The dynamic street food vendors disappear, but the neat and consistent food streets have been building up, as long as the illusory of the liveliness of the city.

In SOAS Address: Rethinking Street Vending, Krishnendu Ray comments street vending is, in fact, the issue related liveliness of global cites and livelihood of local people. Street food vendors not only need to maintain their daily life via street vending but also help cities to solve the “last mile” problem in food distribution. Such contributions to cities represent how street vending enriches the urban life. Many urban planners seek to fabricating a “world-class” city by cleaning street vending. The removal of street venders exposes crush on the checkboard layout with neat, stright and empty streets and indoor shops.

The issuse that bothers planners is that street food often relate itself with mess and dust. Street food “are all portable, visually attractive, rare foods of the poor that stand out visually. They are often crispy, crunchy, spicy, sour, sweet, and typically eaten in small bites.” (11) The strong visual appearance and taste make it more “dangerous” to clean and neat streets. However, such neat and empty streets often become a waste of public space. Jane Jacobs makes a point that it is not layout that urban planning should pay attention to, but the functions of different elements. Streets are space for pedestrians to walk by as well as space for people to communicate. Among cities in China, such as Chengdu and Beijing, citizens always gather together on the streets especially after they retire. It is because the early urbanization of China put much emphasize on efficiency where a place to rest and talk might be viewed as a waste. Under such circumstance, streets grow to be a place to communicate in his/her own community. With popularity of working couples, children would stay with retired grandparents. As a result, there are a few street vendors around squares and streets. Such natural arrangements enrich greatly the abundance in urban lives.

Another example is breakfast street vendors. Breakfast street vending is the most splendid urban view when talking about liveliness of cities. It solves well the last mile issue in food distribution when people have access to breakfast granted great mobility by street vendors. The grab-and-go breakfast makes sure urban citizens could choose among kinds of breakfast, from egg pies to noodles. As far as I am concerned, it also contains flexibility to make your own set of breakfast, which is not completely fulfilled by the food delivery system as it often requires a minimum order price. Street vending, for me, is the perfect solution to the last mile in food distribution. For instance, almost every university form naturally such a food distribution system. Students hardly order breakfast online but pick up when they walk from dormitories to classrooms.

The image of street food eventually fades away while I grew up. It is more and more difficult for me to see a vendor or food pushcart right now. The older I am, more difficult for me to see a vendor. It is difficult for me to recall when it was for the last time, I saw a vendor, and when it is for the last time I bought something from a vendor.

Last time I wanted to find a vendor was a few years ago. Few of my best friends wanted to experience culinary culture in my hometown, Shantou. Then I searched online and found out that, there was a street named Changping Road near my home, and there would be night market there around the road. So I took my friends there and found nothing. And it is after that I realized that, the vendors had been expelled because of the policy “construction of civilized city”.

The most frequent interaction between me and vendors should be traced back to primary school time. After school, in front of the school’s gate, there were a lot of vendors. We could buy BBQ, or some little toys with pretty low prices.

When it came to middle school, it was the time the word “chengguan” become popular. I kept hearing news of contradiction between chengguan and vendors. My brother told me that he once did not pay what he ate at vendor because chengguan was coming, then vendors rushed to escape.

However, if mentioned about the disappearance of vendor in cities, chengguan is one of the reasons, but, as for me, it is not the main cause. It is the modernity, the digitalization and the algorithm. The modernity of city requires efficiency. However, it is difficult to have regulation for vendors, which actually would increase the cost of vendor owners, however, but contrary to the requirement of low-cost investment.

Cities themselves supply a lot of chances and job opportunities toward public, however, those vendor owners do not have chance to receive better education or handle certain skills to enable them to have the jobs in the city. They are not the people who benefit from the city’s development.