One Day in Shanghai: Planting Trees and Windswept Violin Solos

The One Day on Earth archive is up on the net and our dear old Shanghai is part of it. The project invited people around the world to grab a camera and record their point of view or simply a moment on the 10th October 2010 (10/10/10). All of these videos were then brought together into a publicly available and searchable archive that is mapped geographically online.

Shanghai’s Roots and Shoots posted a video montage of their Million Tree Project. The project, established in 2007, aims to plant one million trees by 2014 to help reverse the tides of sand in Inner Mongolia. Desertification can be the result of natural climate changes but it is frequently caused by over grazing and the destruction of forests. It has claimed 3.3 million square kilometers of China’s land. For information on this, see here.

The video can be found on the ODE website but there have been some technical problems. If you cannot find the video, marked by a red tag in Mongolia, go to Vimeo instead. The video can be found here or by searching for ‘shrootsnshoots’. Remember that to watch any of those videos, you will need a VPN. The video shows MTP Forest Manager Litao Sun visiting the 2007-8 crops and checking that the trees are growing properly. Mindy Chen from Shanghai Roots and Shoots explains the content of the video: “In one part of the video, he is measuring the girth of a tree trunk to keep tabs on growth progression (he has a sample of trees that he checks). Also, at this time of year, the trees are preparing for the winter.  In the video, you will see Litao pick up dead leaves from the ground.  I know there isn't audio, but the reason for including this scene is that dead leaves provide a good source of organic matter in the barren area; the leaves will eventually decompose and remediate the ground/soil. That is why Litao looks very happy picking up leaves with both his hands.”

By participating in the ODE project, the Million Tree Project hopes to raise awareness abroad about the loss of the Inner Mongolian grasslands. They have no definite plans yet to participate in the ODE project on 11/11/11 but hope that it might be possible.

Shanghai Roots and Shoots were not the only ones to participate in ODE last year. If you look to Shanghai city on the ODE map, you will find two videos, both filmed by Richard Liston VIII. Liston’s face might be a familiar one to viewers of ICS. He participated in The Amazing Race: China Rush with teammate Joshua Oglivie. The first video is a short depiction of Shanghai streets from a scooter’s point of view but the second is a beautiful recording of a rooftop violinist with the Pudong skyline visible in the background. The violinist is Jie-Song Zhang, a member of Stone Forest Ensemble, which is a New York based group that counts world music, hip-hop, and classical music among their influences. Jie-Song Zhang performed at the Shanghai Expo’s USA pavilion and worked on a project there called the ‘Emerging Face of a Nationless World’.

Liston found out about One Day on Earth when a friend sent him a link to the website, but his filming project did not come about until a chance meeting on Huaihai Lu with two other directors, Arnaud Kamphuis of Daedalum Films and, incidentally, a cameraman for China Rush, and the aforementioned Jie-Song Zhang. They went “for a gratuitously large coffee on a café rooftop in people’s square” and, after hearing about the ‘Nationless World’ project, Liston pitched the One Day on Earth project to them. Both agreed that it was a great opportunity.

So, why the rooftop? Liston says: “It was serendipitous that we happened to be on a rooftop at the time, as that generated the idea for the setting of our video. Arnaud knew of a building on the Yunzao Bang that overlooked the Pudong skyline, and so, on 10/10/10, we filmed Jie-Song Zhang standing precariously atop the banister of an apartment complex, sharing his talent with an anticipating audience, Shanghai.”

Photos from the rooftop video shoot can be found here.

Note: Many thanks to Shanghai Roots and Shoots PR Manager Mindy Chen for her help in providing information about the project and the video. Images and captions are taken from the One Day on Earth site and were submitted by Ms. Chen to that website.

Thanks also to Rick Liston for his reminiscences of the ODE project. Pictures of Jie-Song Zhang are from Liston’s blog.

Links:
Shanghai charities roots shoots organic farm
Shanghai charities kid strong roots shoots

For a laugh, check out this video featuring Rick Liston and Josh Oglivie. It was made at Enjoy Shanghai’s request to promote Valentine’s Day.