day 232: Im-propaganda

Please admit it, Im-propaganda is just a fantastic name for an impro troupe in China. That´s the poster of last month, but we just had an performance last night, together with People´s Republic of Comedy.

day 230: 1p1d on stage!

1picture1day.com went on stage. From all the pictures I took on my journey through Asia the super cool improvisation group Channel 21 😉 in Suzhou developed characters and put a story together. That´s what came out of it: Shereen, a big city girl, and Shi Yuan, a cruise ship captain, get hired to take a sail boat back […]

day 229: island breeze

Where the huge Yangtze river (the 3rd largest river in the world) enters the Yellow Sea lies Shanghai. Before it enters the sea, there is an island, Chongming Island. (Quasi die Shanghaier Donauinsel…) Crossing the Yangtze to get to Chongming the river is so broad, it takes about 15 minutes by car. There we went […]

day 225: wallpaper

I walk to Chinese class almost every day. Every morning I see a beautiful wallpaper in a newly opened restaurant. I love the style. The manager described it like cold Nordic style and to make it more Chinese and happy, they put in the colorful wallpapers.

day 224: floating city

Floating City is a web series about the life of expats in Shanghai. Here is episode 3:  If you´ve spent some time here, it´s probably funny… @photo taken from Floating City FB-page.

day 223: room with a view

In Austria spring time is fantastic. So many flowers, the air is still fresh, but the sun is warming, you stretch your stiff legs from the winter and take a deep breath of fresh, clean air. You take a little trip to the country side, lay down in the grass and are happy to be […]

day 222: wall art

In China advertising can be easy. People just write their telephone numbers on walls in the streets and put next to it, what they are selling. I suppose, people do call, otherwise they would´t continue putting up their phone numbers on there. Even inside houses they put their numbers. I took this picture in an […]

day 220: Olafur

I saw an exhibition of the Danish artist Olafur Eliasson maybe 10 years ago in London. Right now he is exhibiting in Shanghai – and once again I loved him. He is one of the few artists who makes art, that is big, playful, fun, sensual and colorful. Just like I like it. In his […]

day 219: improv

I went with Channel 21, improv group from Suzhou, to Beijing Improv Festival. It was great. Very professionally organized, ver diverse shows in Chinese, English and bilingual. Among others there were “3 Dudes” from Hong Kong, “Beijing Improv”, “Zmack” from Shanghai…

day 218: cambio coffee

I went to the Shanghai Supper Club at Cambio Coffee. Cambio Coffee used to be a swimming pool, now they turned it into a coffee shop, art space and meeting place. Dinner was excellent as well. You can learn more about the Supper Club here: shsupperclub.com

day 217: sara

I was lucky to meet Sara. I needed some professional head shots taken of me, and a friend recommended Sara, a photographer, to me. She took me in her 2-storey studio, where she put plants, hung calligraphies and traditional chinese paintings. She made green tea and said: “Let´s drink tea. I want you to be […]

day 216: new friends

Hanging out with new friends in Café Vienna, with real apple strudel, Wiener Schnitzel and Melange. That´s the best cure against homesickness.

day 215: roof cats

Looking out of the window I see the roof cats. I´m in the oldest neighborhood of Shanghai, Xiaonanmen. Those cats hardly ever come down, the people throw the food up on the roof and the cats are happy. The nap in the sun up there, they jump from roof to roof. Sometimes they walk through […]

day 211: village in the city

One of the things I like about Shanghai is that, though it is a 25 million people city, in some areas it has a village feeling. People are sitting out on the street on their chairs, or they hang up their clothes on the street. I enjoy that, it takes away the harshness of any […]

day 2010: back to china

One of the first beauties of China is again chinglish. China and english are just a never ending love story, that always holds surprises. Here: a happy building in Shanghai.

day 66: air and other chemicals

We´ve all heard it before: Air in China´s big cities is awful. A lot of Chinese put protection on their noses and mouths to filter the air. To know when to put on protection and when not, there is an app, that tells you how dangerous the air actually is that you are breathing. Surprisingly […]

day 65: looking for a job?

You like music? You like to put your aggression out there? You enjoy the attention of others? We got the right job for you here in Suzhou: Hammering the whole day on a steel stick while techno music is blasting next to you. Not only will you have fun, but you´ll be part of our […]

day 64: Marry me!

Is your son or daughter over 30 and still not married – and not showing any signs to do so soon? Don´t worry: Just write name, age, salary and heights of your son/daughter on a paper, stick it to an umbrella and go to Shanghai´s people´s park. Put the umbrella on the ground and sit […]

day 63: Shanghai improv

I was warmly welcomed in Shanghai. Not only could I stay with my fabulous friend Sarah, but I was part in an improv jam in the Shanghai Comedy Club. Yes, finally my international improv career is kicking off… 😉 Watch out for the Shanghai Improv Festival in November! Here you can find some of the […]

day 61: garden day

Suzhou, a small town of about 6 million people, close to Shanghai, is famous for its beautiful gardens. I spent a day in one of them watching people. The garden had a wonderfully slow feeling to it, people sitting down and looking around. Only afterwards when I was looking at my pictures I realized who […]

day 60: open air pants

Finally I got a picture of it: In China hardly any babies wear diapers. They just have open-air-pants. So whenever the babies feel the need, the parents don´t even have to take the babies´s pants off. Very cute.

day 58: china´s got talent

This guy was sitting in his wheel chair in front of a huge shopping mall – the biggest building in the world by the way. Nobody was really listening except a cleaning woman that sat down to listen to the boy and me. I like his voice. And I thought that he would be perfect […]

day 57: sexy boy

This is a commercial – and it makes me realize I´m European. This boy just doesn´t seem attractive to me at all. But many Chinese women like their men soft, skinny and – in my eyes – very feminine. Different countries, different tastes.

day 55: big building

I know, it doesn´t look as impressive as it sounds: This is the biggest free standing building in the world. It´s in Chengdu, Sichuan province. It´s a huge shopping mall. Inside you can also find a hotel and a water park with beaches.

day 53: night stroll

I´m stuck in Chengdu right now for a week. I stroll around in the city, which is the 4th biggest of China. 14 million people live here, that´s almost the double size of Austria. But surprisingly, the streets are very quiet for being such a big city. All the scooters here are e-scooters and a […]

day 52: dancing girl

On a rainy afternoon in Chengdu I was the only customer in a little restaurant. I was bored and so was the owner of the restaurant, who was sitting there with her two daughters. While I was waiting for my food the daughter of the owner pulled off a little show.

day 51: Sichuan cooking

This is what a plate looks like, when you have finished your meal in Sichuan. In case you don´t recognize what it is: It´s a plate full of chili. So you can imagine how hot food gets here!

day 50: chinglish

Chinglish is the way english is being spoken and written in China. It can take strange and funny paths. This one is one of my favorites: “Grass smiles shyly.” I didn´t totally understand it, but I stayed away from the grass. This is just so poetic.

day 49: lonely days

ENGLISH VERSION BELOW. Es gibt Tage an denen ich einsam bin. Heute ist so ein Tag. Ich sitze in einem kleinen Restaurant in Zoige, irgendwo in den Bergen von Sichuan, ca. 12 Stunden entfernt von Chengdu, der Hauptstadt der Privinz Sichuan. Es regnet, es ist kalt und grau. Meine Nase läuft, ich bin verkühlt und […]

day 46: selfie time

I am tired of public transportation. I have to find out the time, get a ticket – if I´m lucky for the day that I want. I have to wait and to squeeze in and squeeze out. When I´m in the mood to just take off, I wish I had a car or a bicycle. […]

day 45: basketball

Who wouldn´t enjoy playing some basketball here? The court is next to a Tibetan village at the Gansu/Sichuan border, China.

day 43: movie set

I wanted to go to a national park, but somehow they must´ve understood me wrong. I ended up on a chinese movie set, where tourists can go…

day 42: another train story

So train stories are always the nicest in China. I was going from Dunhuang to Lanzhou, both in Gansu province. It was another night train and there was no sleeper left so again I had to sit more than ten hours and try to sleep. When I was waking up from dozing for a while, […]

day 36: western imperialism

I was riding the train from the most western city in China, Kashgar, to the hottest point – temperature wise – in China: Turpan. It´s a 17-hour train ride. I bought the train ticket very late so I could only get a ticket for the cheapest category, which means 17 hours of sitting in a […]

day 35: core socialist values

Some propaganda material on the streets of Turpan/ Tulufan. The core socialist values are like the usual shallow political values in any country: freedom, harmony, nationalism, culture, work ethic, equality, justice,…