The Misadventures of Jason - A Travel Blog: March 2009

Yoon in Beijing

Usually I go in chronological order with the pictures but since Yoon (my old roomate from Yonsei Korea and for 3 months in NY) came to visit me in Beijing I might as well go in reverse just so if you thought that maybe there might be a chance that he didnt fall asleep this time you will be spared the suspense.

a very long night of Karaoke, i'm talking 6 hrs worth and going home at 7am. a bunch of people fell asleep. but too yoon's defense i feel asleep at karaoke in Korea last time i went (so did he but you have to come to expect that by now, hahahaha). Happy trails Yoon. hopefully i'll see you in korea this summer.

so as with most of me and yoon's meetings it is filled with partying and drinking and karaoke and eating and all that good stuff.

went to see our friendn Nick's band play at What! bar and there was this cool monkey king drawing on the wall. makes me want to do a monkey king illustration now.

late night roasted fish on ghost street

a fat western guy who was speaking in that broken english that some people use to talk to chinese people. He also had that attitude that everything was for sale and even wanted to buy one of their shopping bags. he was pretty rediculous. he also got his weirdo asian girlfriend to wear one of those cowboy hats. all the people working there were laughing at him. I was too dumbstruck to laugh.

the two guys you love to hate.

the drum tower in the distance.

these are now on the wall next to my front door downstairs. what are they phone numbers for?

i finally bought a new steed. $45 for the bike, circle lock, and basket. it only has one gear like most bikes. me and yoon rode bikes around for 2 days basically. riding bikes around beijing is the best thing you can do.

New Work in March

I have been out of commision because i have been working like a dog (a little dirty frizzy wall-eyed chinese gremlin dog because big dogs are not allowed in the city limits) amongst other things that have been going on. here is some of what i've been doing in the past 2 weeks.

This is for Yahoo! its part of this Yahoo! PurpleScape project with other artists. this will be shown in exhibitions in southeast asian countries. They said I could do anything i wanted so i thought now is my chance to do all the Japanese themed stuff i have been wanting to do. Japanese design is crazy and detailed so this of course meant major work for me. this beast took me a whole 7 days working on it at least 8 hrs a day. Like cultural African stuff Japanese stuff is kind of like cheating because everything looks so crazy already that you don't really need to do that much work in designing anything or making it look interesting. I prepped for this by watching Princess Mononoke and Totoro and Spirited Away, my fav Miyazaki movies. he is definitely influential and has an amazing imagination and makes the rest of us look like garbage. Here we have some mini sumos, samurais, tanukis, ninjas, giant rabbits, deer, koi no buri, those things they tie around huge trees, a pagoda like thing, paper umbrellas, bamboo poles, camphor trees, and bubbles instead of poison darts. I had to go and make it complicated did'nt i? Here is my rational:
This piece is Japanese inspired. The concept makes a spin on the processions that Daimyo warlords had to make every year to the capital of Edo. I tried to make this a little more fun and less serious that the shows of power and wealth that they really were. Instead of flying the Daimyo's flag they are flying Koi fish windsocks, which are used for Children's day in Japan. Instead of Ninjas blowing poison darts for assasinations they are blowing bubbles. Fun bubbles! Instead of a Daimyo Warlord being carried they are carrying a Tanuki, which is a mischevious mythical Racoon-like creature. I thought it would be fun to reverse the scale of things like the mini sumo wrestlers and the giant rabbits and giant trees.

too bad you can't see this in person. he has a gold chain with a "T", T for Tanuki

samurais take super long to draw. if you tried to be true to all the detail it would take you a month to draw one.

this is for Tiger Beer again. for their Tiger Translate artist project. this time they pair each illustrator up with a photographer and you have to "remix" the photo and illustrate ontop of it. The photographer was Sin Kok Wai from Singapore. clothes are hanging from poles outside the apartment complexes. straight and uniform buildings didnt give me a lot to work. Here is my rationale:
The scale of the laundry and everything in the photo is so small so I created this huge gentle giant to contrast the tiny clothes hanging out to dry. The photo is of a modern apartment complex made of concrete and steel so I tried to show something living and organic. I wanted it to look like he meant well and was helping out with the laundry, but the whole story of this beast is up the viewer. This piece is also pretty big, probably 2.5'x1.5'. I like this guy. he kind of just showed up on my napkin when i put my pen down on it when i was at dinner one night. it's awesome when things like that happen. (i mean i just drew the sketch of him without thinking, i would sheit myself if he really pulled up in a burger taxi, paid his fare in pickles, and plopped down on my napkin to havea chat with me).

Boston's weekly Dig used my kim jong il image for their cover.

This is for Employee Benefits advisor. its about finding your "moral compass". i guess benefit advisors face moral delimas because they are supposed to report the health of the employees to the insurance companies or something like that and they could make more money selling high priced plans to their clients by lying about the health of the employees or something like that. it's stories like there when i'm glad the art director just gives me a brief synopsis and tells me what they want.

March Un-Madness

Some people have been wondering where i have been and why there have been no new blog entries. well I have been working and tending to other life tasks which is good for my bank account but bad for people who want to see cool stuff on this blog. for the last 2 weeks i've basically spend most of my waking hours making artwork which is the enjoyable side of the business so at least it was 2 weeks well spent.

went with ryan, erica, and her friend to some golf range. it was'nt very good. erica's friend broke a club head and they kicked us out. it's ok we were done anyway.

there is a huge underground market and surrounding shopping area i've never been to in the west of beijing by the zoo. me and angel went there with her two friends from work so they could show us the ropes. after 1 hr we were destroyed and could shop no more. i came out of there with a pair of shorts and angel with a bag full of stuff but the other girls had lots more and stayed for who knows how long.

it was a pleasant surprise to come outside of the madenss to find this. tons of people flying kites. angel says that thing in the back is like something that russia and china built together. anyway there were almost too many kites, tons with their string broken blowing around, people getting hit in the head, and a lot of really fake looking doremon kites.

on to the zoo. they have like 14 pandas at the beijing zoo! and there is no waiting in line for an hr like in DC

i kind of like this. Chinese Burger's Home. like it's the den of a cuddly furry little chinese burger all warm and snug inside. actually that sounds gross which is why i didn't go there! also because it looks like the signs were printed 7 yrs ago and i know better now not to eat at places like this. you will probably end up getting a mayonnaise burger, like what i got at the place behind my subway station when i didn't know better a day earlier.

all i got was blurry shots of pandas because my camera sucks. you guys didnt want to see amazingly cute pictures of stuff like 4 pandas all laying on top of each other on a lazy sunday afternoon anyway did you?

too bad she let go of the leash right as i took the pic.

the new 100s have this thing that does this under a black light

look who it is! it's Jenny Shin from SUNY Albany! she called me randomly friday and said she was in beijing on business. She also said her minor was math and that she used to see bob around the math dept all the time. Say hi bob!

when i moved in to my apt in november they were starting construction on these things. i hear them working at all hrs of the night and day because its right next to my house

they opened a dumpling and xiao long bao place next to my house and i love those guys so i am happy about it. 60 cents for 10.

golf range again. this one was a lot better. nothing got broken and my drives are getting better. that is better for a caveman who hits it as hard as possible and the arrary of angles that it goes in is pretty rad. Anyway i am ready for screen golf next time i go back to korea.

who is this guy? looks like some good illustration material for me.

Randoms and Pecha Kucha Night

I finally read "Guns, Germs, and Steel". Lily run's 2 book clubs and the one in Shunyi with the expat wives needed a book and I suggested Gun's Germs and Steel because Bob and others highly recommened it and I haven't read a book since Old Man and the Sea in 11th grade (I know im just kidding didn't we have to read that in like 6th grade or something? how cruel). But seriously i haven't read a book in tons of years. Anyway it was a excellent book and I found that i don't know what a lot of the agricultural crops look like in the field, let alone what they look like in the store. Anyway the author talks about foods that were indigenous to regions of the world. I saw this at the store the other day and was wondering maybe these are some of what he was talking about, and I will never know because i can't read the chinese. fox tail millet? sorgum? who knows?

my old astoria roomie Sueng Eun sent me the box of stuff i forgot in Korea including this tissue pack with a quote from one of your favorite songs written on it.

I met a Beijing Illustrator for dinner at this "Texas Roadhouse" and remembered why I stay away from them in the US. I don't know where they came from but there was a nice assortment of folks you would find in an american establishment like this, the majority being weirdos and hillbillie types.

liver is good, my momma used to make it and it was good. i think this is pig liver. it's $1.35

lamb meat on a stick sticks. made from bamboo. 2 for 75 cents. so for 2 dollars you can get pretty full

getting bruce lee shirts made! if you want to buy one let me know.

we hung out at the Taiwanese guys restaurant and I drew his son. He is like a little man child.

they have a new dog. he was humping this blanket for a while. I see dogs humping legs all over beijing. I don't see ton's of strays running around so I wonder how they keep the population in check what with all these dogs still having their balls and humping everything in sight.

I presented at this event that started in Japan that has grown into this event that is held in 176 cities worldwide now. It's for creatives like designers, architects, artists, etc... It's called Pecha Kucha night which means chit chat in Japanese. each presenter has 20 slides of their work and 20 seconds to talk about each one so 6 min 40 sec total.