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Elderly people rarely order delivery because they are unhealthy. Of course, one of the main reasons for “unhealthy” is that many delivery foods are more heavy-tasting and contain a lot of seasonings. Although it makes people feel good, these heavy oil and sugary foods always discourage the elderly. And another reason to say they are “junk” is that you really can’t tell if they are made out of rubbish, or if they are made next to rubbish.

The food delivery industry didn’t do so much at the beginning, and there were mainly fast-food brands. For example, American fast foods such as KFC and Pizza Hut had their food delivery staff before the rise of the whole market. People order food through the telephone or the Internet, this is the initial “delivery” service. But now, “delivery” has become a common industry, and it is no longer an employee of a restaurant, but an employee of a food delivery app. In many cases, the delivery staff does not care which restaurant produces the food in his hand, let alone whether it is healthy and hygienic.

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“Cheap is not good.” The low price of delivery food (although it is only past) once made many people question that the take-out food uses cheap ingredients, and its production process is not aseptic. Although people do not go to the back kitchen to inspect when eating in a restaurant, a physical restaurant always gives them peace of mind.

If a person can open a restaurant on the side of the road, it means that he 1. Must have some registered capital, and it will not disappear suddenly; 2. Have a formal catering license and food sales permission. But in the food delivery field, everything becomes blurred. You can’t see the shop, you can’t see the chef, and you can’t see the ingredients. All you can see is the steaming meal delivered. If it’s a shop with a physical store, it’s okay. You can see some photos taken on platforms such as Elema(better than nothing), but now, a new way of taking out is beginning to spread in every city—— delivery from residential buildings.

Residential delivery factory

Residential building delivery refers to online shops that do not have physical stores, process food in residential buildings (residential houses), and sell only on delivery platforms. Compared to a restaurant, perhaps we should call it a food factory-because it does not accept any in-person customers, but only accepts the delivery staff.

This kind of delivery from residential buildings is not uncommon-at least in Shenzhen, where is no requirement that only commercial land can be used for certificates, so many people cook food in residential buildings and then sell them on delivery platforms. Although some areas have stricter policies, there are always people who can take advantage of the law, and the address written on the certificate may not match the actual address.

This is sometimes noticed by keen consumers – why is the store on the east but the food delivered by the delivery from the west?

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In Fabio’s Food, he mentioned that as food begins to be shipped globally, the transparency of food is getting lower and lower. In the beginning, people ate the food in their fields. Later, simple barter allowed them to appreciate the poultry of the neighbors next door. Now, you can’t determine the source of the food. Maybe you can vaguely know that this is Brazilian coffee beans or Japanese rice, but is this the case? Even so, how can their growth environment and transportation environment be guaranteed?

Although there are institutional supervisory powers, humans do not fully believe it. However, young people always have a higher degree of trust in these delivery foods. They are more concerned about whether the food tastes good or not, and not about health issues. It must be pointed out that they are more accustomed to the Internet, and their trust in the Internet is also very high-we can not simply say that this trust is naive, but this kind of shrewd and simple phenomenon is always existing in young Chineses. Rather than “seeing is believing”, they may be more practicing “food not clean, a disease not exist”.

In many cases, we have given up something for the sake of technology and convenience, and transparency in food is one of them.

In The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention, James Corner argues that maps are both analogous and abstract. Their surfaces namely “reflect the actual ground conditions”, while its abstractness refers to “a process of selection, omission, isolation, distance and codification” under the surfaces. When looking at a contemporary world map, I seldom consider mapping as a creative activity, yet when reviewing the history of the plotting of world map, we can learn about the political, cultural landscape and technology development at certain times. In the Qiankun Universal Geographic Map from Ming Dynasty, China was placed on the center, with other known countries designed as small surrounding islands without considering their acutal location and size. It is regarded as a typical traditional Chinese world map which mirrors the Sinocentrism of the ancient people. Such spatial hierarchies and narrow-minded world view may mainly result from a lack of transnational communication and active diplomacy.

Qiankun Universal Geographic Map

This phenomenon is not singular, but for diverse reasons. Earlier, 7^th-century scholar Isidore of Seville created a T-O map where lands are divided into three continents——Europe, Asia, and Africa by T-sized seas with Jerusalem located in the middle, and this entity is encircled by O-sized ocean. The three continents refer to three sons of Noah: Europe for Japheth, Asia for Shem, and Africa for Ham, whose offspring dwell on the corresponding continent. Rather than an actual world map, T-O map served more as a religious symbol that was largely consistent with the description of the world in the Bible and the Christian doctrines. It significantly projects how the church educated the mass to see the world, with an implication that the religious institutions monopolized the transmission of knowledge and made the world map a mean of ruling. Instead of a scientific object, these maps are seen, as Corner claims, “fictional” where artists possess power for construing and constructing worlds.

A typical T-O Map

Entailing processes of observing, collecting, extracting, and depicting, maps are “never neutral, passive, or without consequence”. Not only could others reveal new realities from these existing pictures, plotters themselves intend to unfold phenomena presently invisible. One remarkable example of scientific mapping happened when an outbreak of cholera killed thousands of people in London in 1831. A doctor called John Snow mapped the locations of the victims’ homes and found out the origin of the disease at a certain public water pump. Though Snow failed to convince other contemporaries, his finding greatly wrecked the mainstream miasma theory and was later proved true.

Yet the success of Snow largely shadowed the contribution of his fellow Henry Wentworth Acland, who mapped the city of Oxford for a similar motivation but drew a wrong conclusion that supported the miasma theory. ( Read here: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/the-topography-of-disease/) Acland’s method is seemingly more rigorous than Snow’s. He not only gathered more samples of victims but also considered multiple potential disease factors including climate, elevation, and point sources of the contamination. However, his research still failed, for all these variations were unable to precisely explain the rise and fall of the number of new cholera cases. This case further suggests that mapping out everything we have observed is never the whole picture. Successful mapping needs both a clear intention and potentials to “drawing out credible and latent relationships that can be seen amongst the various extracts within the site”. It goes beyond simple representation and requires us to pull out different factors in the landscape and figure out those that really determine before we start reorganizing them into a creative picture.

Nowadays when talk about map, the first things that come to  your mind has to be various navigation applications installed in our smartphones. They are easy to use, free of charge and most importantly they provide the most accurate routes that are available. It is perfect, almost. Now imagine being in the time when our parents are in their early 20s.  There was no smartphones, let alone navigation applications powered by artificial satellites flying around the planet earth 24/7. You needed to travel to somewhere we have never been before and all you got were a paper map and a flip phone. You traced the lines of road with your finger (not recommended when driving) while putting your father on speaker mode with flip phone to be your guide. As you finally got to your destination after asking three total strangers for direction, surprisingly none of which turned you down. Pretty amazing, right? Remember the neighborhood you used to live in when you were 10 years old as you went back to the area by accident and were not able to local the old house where you spent your childhood in. Suddenly you smelled a familiar scent of food from distance. You decided to follow the way the scent led you. The scent became stronger as you approached to a restaurant—the hotpot place where you and your parents used to go every week, just right by your old house. You went into the restaurant and looked around the decors, nothing has changed. The owner of the restaurant, an auntie in her 60s saw you and smiled happily as she recognized you, turned out you did not change much either. Recall the time when you were 6 years old, you and your mother went to a new supermarket. You were thrilled because you had never saw so many snacks and toys ever before. As you walked past two shelves, or maybe more, you realized you lost your way in all colorful things and your mother was nowhere to be found. You started to cry when you ran from shelves to shelves and could not find your mother. And then you heard the PA called your name and asked you to reported to the cashier. You wiped off your tears and ran to the cashier. Your mother was anxiously waiting for you. You bursted into tears as your mother hugged you. All of these scenarios involve the concept of mapping and yet they are so different from the traditional means of maps. The visual representations of a location are definitely  important in contemporary story telling however as Cosgrove suggested the visual mapping could sometimes be hegemonic in the sense that visuals can not always demonstrates the spatiality in communication entirely, especially for differently abled people. 

  I think many Chinese people would remember when they were children, there were once a world map and a map of China hanging on the wall of their home or the wall of their primary school classroom. At that time,  science and technology were not as developed and advanced as they are now. Maps on the wall seemed to serve decorative functions but actually they were the first windows for a kid to form a comparatively objective perception about how  the country looks like and how the world looks like, to know where he or she was under the geographical context of the whole country or the whole world, or just to have an idea about where a particular place is . That is to say, at that time, maps were more of a kind of tool to people.

(this is how a map of China on the wall might look like)

  For me, maps were also a kind of medium of  knowing more about the world I have been living in and were also what triggered my interest in exploring more places in the world when I was still a child. I remember when I was little, my dad was studying abroad in the U.S and my mom went there to visit and stay with him for months while I was in China with my grandparents. I asked them where my parents were, they  pointed to the U.S on the map and told me that it is a country very far away from my country. I compared the distance between China and the U.S and  the distances between China and some other countries and finally knew that America is indeed very far away from China. As I grew up and became a student, especially when I was in junior high school and senior high school, my understandings about countries in the world were continually developing  and enriching as I started to learn geography. A map became the thing that I had to memorize to get good grades, but apart from that need to get familiar with a map, a map is still the thing that connects me to a lot of places that I have never been to but still know where it is in this world.

  But now, I find that the meaning of a map to me has changed to one that is completely different from what it was before. In my daily life, when I think of a map, an outline of the whole world does not appear in my mind anymore. Instead, the word map now means the tool that I use to know how to get to a destination in a city, how to take public transportation, how to choose the fastest route to drive to some places. A map is no longer a piece of paper. It becomes an app on my phone that can solve almost any problems I have about my destinations in a city, but I seem to stop using it as a tool to know the world. This is kind of  weird since as I grow up and as technology develops, my knowledge about the world is supposed to also be growing thanks to the much more advanced science applied in various kinds of maps or mapping projects. It is like my world is becoming smaller and limited to the environment just around me. My connection with the bigger world is paused as paper maps gradually step out of my life and the convenience that those map-featured apps bring gradually gains its importance in my life. And now I start to wonder, is it just about the fact that what the word means to me has changed or I just lost my desire and curiosity to know more about this world?

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Mapping is a measure for communication between people, places or times. As is mentioned in Introduction: Mapping Meaning by Denis Cosgrove, maps collect knowledge and construct a structure to spread it, along with which historical, cultural contexts and power structure play an important role. Mapping often consists of four phrases: scale, framing, selections and coding. The map-making process introduced by Denis Cosgrove is determined by authors. By no means would the users nor mass population participate in the map-making process. Once a map is published, the process ends until another version of the map is released.

Internet, however, grand the opportunity for mapping to be more dynamic. As is mentioned in Introduction: Mapping Meaning, the tradition of mapping shows a significant feature as Eurocentric, where cartography could be traced back to “pre-Socratic Greek astronomy and Alexandrian and Roman imperial administration” (8). It shows a pursuit of logos and metaphysics, that the world has an essential question to be answered, which, I believe, laid the foundation of topology and cultural hegemony in mapping. Nevertheless, Internet topples such logocentrism by blurring the boundary of ownership. Before Internet, the authors of maps could make their sole discretion by selecting elements presented and other phenomena omitted. With Internet, everyone could alter maps as long as they are granted access. online maps could update as much as possible, as fast as possible, and put into use as soon as possible, when physical maps must be printed before using and circling. Time sequence in mapping has been deemphasized. Therefore, users, when granted access, could share the ownership with those who claim to be authors. Almost everyone could have right to report an error if the online maps mistake a place or a road. What is more, for family-run business, online maps give them access to either tag or claim a place, usually the site for their business. This has caught my attention. Maps sometimes construct a new reality different from what is surrounding us. In the surrounding reality, those family-run business owners have absolute ownership in their business sites. And such ownership has been expanding into mapping reality.

Admitted, Internet could alter the dynamic in the mapping’s ownership. However, topology still exert in the online maps. As is mentioned above, the perquisite in sharing the ownership has a technological barrier. Only those who are granted access or have the capability in computer coding could participate in the map-making process. Tagging or claiming a certain place now only open to business owners, which means who would like to claim needs to show a certification that they actually own the sites. Additionally, any changes involving users need to be reviewed by the service providers. It strengthens the power of the tech company. A new way for those service providers to make money is to charge business owners to pay for their sites’ exposure in the online maps.

Click here if you want to know more about how claim a place in online maps, taking Baidu Map as an example. 

Fang Wenjun (wf646)

Mapping in ancient times and modern times

As a critical tool of understanding the local customs and practices, as well as the cultural environment, the map reflects the social conditions honestly. Early to the sixth century B.C., the ancient Babylonians began to use map recording the world they discovered. In 800 B.C., ancient Chinese began to use maps as important references when designing and building new cities. Maps became more accurate and included more details within the social development. Today, the map became much easier to access, while at the same time, became less different. Usually, limited by transportation, measuring tools, and other objective conditions, the map can only contain a particular area. However, modern technology makes everything changed. Google map users in Shanghai can easily zoom in on a specific restaurant in Italy or zoom out to view the world map. It is a great step in human history—after the maritime navigation era, people today are allowed to ‘navigate’ the whole world with the map on the phone.
On the other hand, map designs tend to be the same. Attached below was an ancient version map of the ancient silk road (remastered version), painted by the Han dynasty’s envoy, Zhang Qian. It is easy to understand that even the map user does not know any Chinese characters since Zhang painted different icons to represent the architectures, nations, hills, and pools he met during his trip to the western regions. Zhang’s map gave people in the Han dynasty the chance to understand how the West region looks and helped trade between countries in the western region and Han. His way of painting the map is similar to the idea of ‘drift,’ a modern painting way that James Corner mentioned in his essay. Corner gave the example of Guy Debord’s ‘psycho-geographic guides,’ which was “made after Debord has walked aimlessly around the streets and alleys of the city, turing here and there wherever the fancy took him” (Corner, The Agency of Mapping). It is about the experiences and feeling you have of painting maps in such way.

I also attached another ancient Chinese map within this blog below. We can see there are city walls which represented the cities, as well as hills that surrounded. Besides, paths to different cities are also marked clearly so we can easily find the way to the places we want to be. Compared to modern maps, it is more like paint, a piece of artwork rather than just a map. It represents not only where the city is located but represents the Chinese culture as well. By such a design, we can easily figure out the culture that the map represents. It is essential to keep the differences. The map exists in human history for a long time, and it should not be only a tool anymore.