Dear Readers,

With this issue, our newsletter is graduating to an HTML format, allowing us to include images and other groovy things in the monthly publications we send to your Inbox.

Our friends who are unable or unwilling to receive anything but plain text messages by e-mail will see a message directing them to the online version of our publication, so with any luck we'll be able to keep everyone satisfied and well read. As always, your comments and feedback are welcomed.

In the past several weeks, SARS (which last month canceled my family's trip back to China) has continued to be a thorn in our collective flesh, now spreading rapidly in Beijing, and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has begun to demand accountability. Last week, the health minister and mayor of Beijing were stripped of power for failing to respond effectively to the crisis. What's more, May Day observances have been canceled throughout the PRC to curb travel and check the spread of the disease, and some 8,000 people in Beijing are now in quarantine. Check out some related news, if you dare.

Before canceling our trip, I had made plans to meet in Hong Kong with Duncan Wong, a photographer who has created one of my favorite online artistic offerings, the site EyesCoffee.com. My thanks go to Duncan for instead allowing me to "interview" him by e-mail and share our conversation with the rest of you in this month's newsletter. (Be sure to check out the Beijing E-Card Photos that Duncan has provided us with, too.)

- Mark Baker

-=Westerners in China: Dan Washburn's The Shanghai Diaries=-

"Dan Washburn is an award-winning American journalist who quit his job being an award-winning American journalist to teach English courses at Shanghai University in China. To do so, he took a huge cut in pay — which is almost impossible for a young American journalist to do."

- From the "About" page on www.danwashburn.com

When I first arrived in China to teach at Fuzhou University a decade ago, 99.99% of the world, myself included, still had not heard of "The Internet" or the "World Wide Web". Communication with the outside world took place through handwritten letters - at least two weeks out and two weeks back for a reply - or through humble self-published "newsletters" that I would photocopy in a local shop after typing them on a rickety 20-year old typewriter that, because the 'Q' and 'W' keys were broken, the Foreign Language Department let me borrow for my personal use.

O' the times they are a' changin'. Foreigners teaching in China now in many cases are as "wired" and online as they would be in their home countries, and a fairly broad collection of web sites posted by these teachers can be found across the web. Some consist mostly of "tourist" pictures; others start well with pictures and narrative but halt abruptly, as if their owners were deported one day in mid-sentence.

One of the best and most regularly updated is a site called "The Shanghai Diaries", a project created by Dan Washburn, the aforementioned award-winning American journalist. With its smart visual design and a generous peppering of diary entries, essays and other observations filtered through Dan's sometimes-acerbic-but-always-refreshing wit, "The Shanghai Diaries" makes for a keen documentary of what life is like for this "American in Shanghai".

Case in point, this diary entry, titled "don't sneeze at others":

Dan's Photo Galleries offer some truly excellent picture tours of several locations around China, in and around the Campus of Shanghai University (including his classrooms and students), and of a young, hip all-girl rock band called "gito gito hustler" - what they sound like we can only imagine, but those matching pink plaid outfits they're wearing do make us wonder.

Some of the best fun on Dan's site is found on the "Stuff" page, including Dan's classroom lesson plans, items on menus in a couple Chinese restaurants ("Sheep Lung Chips" or "Spoiled Little Yellow Croaker", anyone?), and "filmschool", a set of short videos Dan has provided for our viewing pleasure, including one called "strip-tease" that he describes this way:

"Well, the strippers don't really strip at the Disco Bar in Lin'an, but the dance floor lights up and bounces up and down. The police crashed the party on this night looking for some shady out-of-towners. I was allowed to leave ... I didn't fit the profile."

You can also sign up to receive an automatic notification each time Dan adds a new diary entry. We did. Great site. Thanks, Dan.

Visit Dan Washburn's "The Shanghai Diaries" online at http://www.danwashburn.com/.

-=New Chinese Art: Duncan Wong and EyesCoffee.com=-

Duncan Wong is an independent photographer and publisher of the online black and white photography magazine, EyesCoffee.com. The first time I saw Duncan's travel photography, I felt I was looking at a traditional Chinese painting style ... though of course I was looking at modern subjects rendered via a camera and lens, rather than with ink and paper, and though Duncan himself isn't so sure about this interpretation.... We struck up an e-mail conversation and made plans to meet with our wives for lunch or tea in Hong Kong earlier this month. With my trip being canceled due to SARS, however, Duncan and I had to conduct our interview by e-mail. Here is the transcription:

The Chinese Outpost: Have you lived in Hong Kong all your life?

Duncan Wong: Born and grow up in Hong Kong, always stationed in Hong Kong although I will travel on business trip or holiday.

TCO: How did you become interested in photography?

DW: Not sure. After graduating from University, just buying my first camera Nikon F801, which is an electronic SLR (Single Lens Reflection) with AF (Auto Focus). The purpose is simple, only for taking graduation photos with my family, friends, etc. Then my interest in photography built up gradually. And then shifting from colour to black/white photography.

TCO: What kind of photographic training or study have you taken?

DW: Not formal. Only 1 short course (8 lessons), 'Alternative Photography' in Hong Kong Art Center around 1993, by Wing Shya (http://www.wingshya.com/), who is a Hong Kong based designer / photographer, involving in a lot of Wong Kar Wai's films. The course is impacting me a lot until now, and I started to think and treat photography in a very different way.

TCO: Do you work in any other visual mediums (painting, sculpture, etc.)?

DW: Quite a lot in the past. Only photography, Chinese Ink painting, installation and video last longer, comparatively. Photography is the longest one.

TCO: Is photography part of your "day job"?

DW: No. Full time job working in IT department of an international bank

TCO: On your "About" page, you note that "Human perception is interesting."What comment or observation about human perception do you feel your artattempts to make?

DW: Sometimes chaotic like dreams, no matter how organized we are. Image / Media will work out in some ways we do not expect in the beginning.

TCO: The photos you present on your web site have been taken in many places around the world. Are you a photographer who travels, or a traveler who photographs?

DW: Recently, I also think of the same kind of question. I think, I like to travel no matter I take photo or not. I also like to take photo no matter I am traveling or not. So ?

TCO: What place in the world would you most like to visit and photograph next?

DW: Most like to visit, it may be Nepal and Israel. Hope that my next destination would be Angkor Wat in Cambodia.

TCO: Which photograph on your site is your favorite? Why?

DW: The one with deepest impression is Dream@Water (http://www.eyescoffee.com/water/). It is about a repeated dream of our childhood, where the scene is my home.

TCO: Who or what has been the greatest influence on your artistic style?

TCO: Do the works of any other photographers or artists especially inspire you? If so, who are they?

DW: Both are difficult questions. If I mention some master photographers, which may imply I have achieved something, with works being resemble to their works. But I really admit their work, and strive to learn from them :- Joel Peter Witkin- Robert Frank- Wing Shya (teaching the alternative photography course as mentioned above)

TCO: Certain painting styles can be described as "Chinese". Do you feel there is anything uniquely Chinese in your photographic style?

DW: If not to see things from surface level, like Red Lantern is Chinese style, etc, 'Chinese Style' may be rather from the inner level. But, I do not think strong Chinese Style in my photography. Except I have a passion of mountains and clouds that is commonly presented as landscape in Chinese Ink Painting, since I practiced Chinese Painting quote long ago. Such passion may be common in traditional Chinese Artists. See more details - http://www.eyescoffee.com/tibet/tib001.htm. I suspect that my love on black/white photography originated from Chinese Ink Painting, because the latter is in black/white too.

TCO: What is your goal in sharing your photographs on eyescoffee.com? What impression do you want to make on your site's visitors?

DW: In the past, on and off, I think of publishing a photo book of my works, but there is a lot of physical limitations, etc. In using Internet, now I realize that my website EyesCoffee.com (http://www.eyescoffee.com) is like my photo exhibition gallery or photography book, for everyone with internet access. By sharing images, I hope to share with others for my thought, my life, and my religion. I am a Christian.

TCO: What is your philosophy of photography, or of art? Why do we need visual art?

DW: To discover and know more about our world, and through this process, know more about ourselves, both viewer and artist. I mean the inner part of our heart and mind. Black/white photo helps us a lot to discover another world from the ordinary world, which we are not aware.

You can visit Duncan's online photo magazine at http://www.eyescoffee.com/. We recommend starting with the features listed under "Reality" on the site's home page.

Special thanks again to Duncan for this exclusive Chinese Outpost interview, with hopes we'll be able to conduct a follow-up interview in person next time. Duncan has also graciously provided several of his Beijing Series photographs for all of us to use in sending E-Cards via The Chinese Outpost.

-=Chinese History and Culture: Shaolin Gong Fu Institute=-

In the early 1900's, the senior abbot of Shaolin and his senior monks fled war-torn China for a more peaceful environment to cultivate the seeds of Shaolin....

- from the home page of the Shaolin Gung Fu Institute web site

Karate. Kung Fu. Jujitsu. Tae Kwon Do.

All the same, right?

Wrong.

People interested in learning a martial art for self defense, personal discipline or physical fitness have a variety of "schools" and "styles" to choose from, and most are perfectly fine for helping achieve these kinds of objectives.

But for "purists" of Chinese History and Culture, the traditions of Chinese Kung Fu ('Gong Fu' in Hanyu Pinyin) hold a special sway.

In recent decades, numerous individuals and groups have sprung up claiming to be the "true heirs" of the Shaolin Gong Fu Tradition - in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, North America, Europe - all claiming a direct genealogy back to the temples in China, when their monks fled a war-torn country for a more peaceful environment in which to follow their Way.

My favorite source of information on Shaolin history, commentary and insight, however, is the online resource called "Shaolin Gong Fu Institute". Unlike some other heirs of Kung Fu tradition, the voices behinds shaolin.com have no agenda for turning the spotlight on themselves, but instead are devoted to providing as comprehensive a history on Shaolin traditions as possible. They do note, however, that the source of the information they have inherited "comes directly or indirectly from refugee Shaolin priests who fled China and emigrated to America before the temples were destroyed in the 1920's".

On their pages you can find names and descriptions of a number of Kung Fu styles; read a concise history of the Shaolin order from its roots in 540 A.D.; find out why the present occupants of the Shaolin Temples in China are likely not the true heirs of Shaolin tradition; order interactive CDs demonstrating proper King Fu technique and form; and much more.

The Shaolin Gung Fu Institute also strives to make the point that this art is not simply about kicks, punches and fodder for Hong Kong and Hollywood action movies, summing up thoughts on the "Way" of Shaolin like this:

Like The Chinese Outpost, the Shaolin Gung Fu Institute has introduced some peripheral sales elements into its site - even martial art devotees have web site hosting bills to pay - but the site is by no means a commercial enterprise - not with that much free and valuable information, anyway.

Enter the Kwoon at http://www.shaolin.com/.