Poster shops in Beijing?

[Harry Caul]

This is probably a long shot I know... but are there any poster shops in Beijing?  I'll be traveling there next week and would love to stop by.  Unfortunately I missed the Movie Art China show back in Oct.  However, I emailed them anyway to see if they are still setup up somewhere.  Or if they know of any galleries or shops I could visit. 

Any other ideas?

[supraman079]

They have Stouts Big Trouble in Little China as one of their posters on their front page, which I though was interesting. Hopefully you can find some cool poster shops. I'd just be cautious of fakes over in that part of the world.

[Posteroid]

I lived in China for two years. First in Beijing (1999/2001) and then in Guangzhou (2001). Don't expect any poster shops there, I didn't even see any posters at all for movies back then. Although it's been ten years, I don't think that even these days anybody there has any commercial interest in local posters other than to reprint them and sell them to tourists (usually described as reprints, not originals). And those would be political posters, not movie posters. Also, considering that up until a few years, you could only watch either local propaganda movies or propaganda movies from fellow communist countries in the few theatres they had, I would doubt you'd find anything interesting. The current quota for Hollywood movies that get a theatrical release in China is I believe twelve per year. I guess that is why all the posters in the shop you sent the link to are from outside of China.

Armin

[brude]

No movies, but live performance artists....

                                         

[Harry Caul]

I lived in China for two years. First in Beijing (1999/2001) and then in Guangzhou (2001). Don't expect any poster shops there, I didn't even see any posters at all for movies back then. Although it's been ten years, I don't think that even these days anybody there has any commercial interest in local posters other than to reprint them and sell them to tourists (usually described as reprints, not originals). And those would be political posters, not movie posters. Also, considering that up until a few years, you could only watch either local propaganda movies or propaganda movies from fellow communist countries in the few theatres they had, I would doubt you'd find anything interesting. The current quota for Hollywood movies that get a theatrical release in China is I believe twelve per year. I guess that is why all the posters in the shop you sent the link to are from outside of China.

Armin

Thanks Armin. That is more or less what I was expecting. It's too bad I couldn't get over to HK as I imagine my chances would improve 100 fold. Oh well, I'll be on the look out anyway.

[Tob]

No advice on poster shops I'm afraid, but make sure you go to a restaurant called Da Dong and eat the Roast Duck...tasty!

[Harry Caul]

Well, I didn't make it to Da Dong, but we did go out for a Peking duck feast in lieu of turkey on Thanksgiving.  Thanks for the recommendation though...

[Harry Caul]

All in all it was a great trip and I'm really glad I went.  However, I must say that the HORRIBLE, NASTY POLLUTION made a bigger impression on me than things like The Great Wall, Terra Cotta Soldiers, Forbidden City, etc... which is a shame as they were quite incredible.  When I arrived in Xi'An, the pollution was awful and it was equally bad when going to Beijing 2 days later.  Not surprisingly everyone's eyes and throats were burning as soon as we got off the plane.  We arrived in the incredibly expansive new Terminal 3 built for the Olympics, but the space was so big inside that the pollution was actually causing visibility problems inside the terminal!  Outside was no different, you could barely see 2-300 yards most of the time.  My wife commented that we have had better visibility while scuba diving!  On my second night I got quite worried after hacking up some bloody spit.  That is when I started researching... the gov't has extremely lax standards, so the official reports of air quality were usually MODERATE.  The US embassy in Beijing reports hourly air quality via Twitter using the same standard in the US.  The scale goes:

GOOD
MODERATE
UNHEALTHY FOR SENSITIVE GROUPS
UNHEALTHY
VERY UNHEALTHY
HAZARDOUS

Of course, the gov't blocks access to Twitter (and other foreign reports of air quality or even sites that even discuss it).  I was able to access unfiltered internet via my VPH for work... it turns out the air quality was as bad as it gets, HAZARDOUS, during the whole first part of my stay.  Luckily the wind picked up after a few days and knocked it down to MODERATE before gradually returning to VERY UNHEALTHY before I left.  Due to gov't blocking, the Chinese seemed to think the pollution was a weather problem.  It is quite common to hear about how "foggy" the weather is.  I more or less left the country in shock with regards to how bad it was... I can't even imagine living there.

Anyway, I haven't gone through the photos from my good camera yet, but here is a taste from my iPhone hipstamatic app.  It is quite fun and I regularly use it along side my more competent shooter... enjoy.


EDIT: I'm not sure what the problem is, but hit reload a few times if all the pics don't load the first time...

[brude]

Wow, beautiful pics, Dr.Caul!
Too bad about the pollution.  It is sad to hear that such a great country is affected in such a negative way.
Look forward to seeing more images from your trip.

[CJ138]

Harry, excellent photos. I would really like to travel east. The architecture in Japan fascintates me.