Hi,
Well I managed 3 trips back to China this year and the last, I shall be 60 in May so retirement looms at the end of this year.
I went back and visited a now operating facility I worked on 3 years ago, an 1100 metre long L shaped structure, do you ever visit an old project, and then the memories come back, what and how you did things, the events that took place, the people you worked with, good and bad bosses. I looked around and gave myself a quiet mental pat on the back for a job well done, when you think that things were placed where they are because you did the control and layout,the structure and intense machine layout inside, and that nobody really cares now except yourself, but they do show an interest if something did go wrong, he he.
I also visited Tiananmen square in depth this time, I was there 26 years ago, 4 days after the protests finished, they were patching up the tank track marks and bullet holes in the stone, as if nothing had happened.
I had lifted my bike over a small perimeter fence because I couldnt find the gate, I wondered why no other bikes, except for vendors, were in the square, later I was told it was not allowed, but nobody said anything to me.
I had attracted a small curious crowd, one person I recall spoke English, suddenly after 5 minutes they all scattered hurriedly, a man told me the secret police had arrived.
There were not many cars then, no ring roads, mostly bikes and old traditional hutong buildings, which are nearly all gone.
Just my thoughts
David
wild guess, but by the look of the magnitude of cantilever on that building, i have to ask:
were any columns opposite the cantilever in tension? and the transfer beams must have been impressive as well. i need some details
Killer mullet dude.
Question, do you recall any sort of palpable aura or sense in the air of government type oppression? What I mean is that some of those photos look as if they could have been taken in just about any other city, did things "feel" different when you were there? I am not really sure exactly what I am asking or how to properly word my question.
At any rate, thanks for sharing.
1/ If I rememeber right, all columns are mostly under compression due to gravity and the lateral transfer of forces taking place at the junction on the top cross section floors that tie in the two opposing towers.
2/ China in 1989 was different and strict, it was still wary of the west and westerners, but slowly opening, but they did have a maccas i think, or maybe that was russia, i did the trans-siberian train trip, they had a maccas at one end of the line.
Now Beijing is just like the upper west side of manhatten in lots of areas, with the bmw cars and so forth.
My area of residence was a 5 star hotel but I could cross the road and be in a little residential community with 3 floor brownstone buildings not unlike the village or battery park area of nyc. its all capitalism now, tolerated to high degrees, the chinese are absorbing lots of the west, buying lots of western companies and the tech info that comes with those purchases and will not need the west one day. The local people dont care whats happening, as long as they have food and a home, outside the cities is still a struggle, but the government can crack down at anytime, appear out of thin air, but in day to day life i hardly saw police or police cars, unlike other parts of the world, its all very discrete and functional.
The surveyors have a good deal of support with Trimble doing all the gps and mapping stuff, but Leica machines are the units of choice for the big stuff. I sold my leica t.s. to a local company before i left there.
Cheers
David
Cool man, exactly what I was after. Thanks again.
