Shanghai adventures, part III: China must have the best electricians in the world.

First day of practical work. The culture-collision is a fact. Not that it went horribly wrong or that it is not working or that the result will be crap. It’s just that after working together with some middle aged Chinese men for a day that pretend to be lighting technicians (I have to give them some credit, they know how to hang, gel and cable conventional fixtures.), it’s just that if they know anything more than that they are not showing.  There is also a slight difference in aesthetic sense when it comes to practical stuff, timekeeping and schedules as well as proper job management and planning. Nothing that crashes the production, but it is tiresome to try and do a lot of things that you ordinarily wouldn’t have to do.

Second, my NO SUBSTITUTIONS PLEASE plan when it comes to lighting equipment seems to have crashed and burned phenomenally. The intention was to make the lighting plan so specific and make it clear that only the specified fixtures would do. Then we went to the venue yesterday, and the fixtures in the grid looked like the right ones. Today, it turns out that even though it looks exactly like it, and it even has mechanical engineering to match it, it was not an ETC S4. (Sorry all you non lighting folks..) They copied it so precisely, it even says ETC on the sticker. However, it does not match the light output and optical accuracy of the real S4. This in turn creates some problems when you get to focusing and gobos. And those of you who know me and my tape measure, it makes focusing annoying. Almost outright frightening.

In the end, we got through it all, sadly, with a less than top result. Which is the essence of today I think; I am not completely happy with how the performance is shaping up. It’s not really bad, but it’s not great either. I guess we will see how tomorrow turns out, we have another 3 hrs. of additional tech, plotting and tweaking, so maybe we can pull it together then. I shall let you know in due time.

On the food side, I have now had my first encounter which is probably the best picture on overall food quality; a public university canteen. Mass produced everything (I needed help to order) in a variety of shapes and sizes. It tastes OK, but it is not great either. Same level as any institution based kitchen anyplace in the world can come up with I guess. Tried deep fried fish – it was whole, with intestines and everything, and just deep fried. Tasted OK. Tasted fish.

Didn’t really get to do anything else today, as work was from 9 til 9. Show tomorrow evening. Wish me luck!

Curious fact of the day: China must have the best electricians in the world. They have to, no one else could possibly make any sense of any electrical setup I have seen so far. Cables everywhere in every direction. No standard whatsoever on plugs; in my hotel room alone there is European 2 pin, American 3 pin flat, Australian 2 pin round, Swiss 3 pin and British 2 pin. And most places it’s 220V, but check, some places still have 110V! In the theater, there is 20amp stage pin for some lights, 16amp shucko for some, and on the back of the dimmers? British 16amp 3pin round!

H out.