The locals may not like his work, but the Architect who designed this Structure is one Lucky Fellow (很幸运的人):

Most people will instantly recognize the structure in the bottom top photo. It is Beijing's other iconic modern building, the new CCTV tower, which is located in the capital's Central Business District. The tower is nestled among 300 skyscrapers (大楼; 摩天大厦), hardly any of which stood prior to 1997. The old CCTV tower, which on the opposite side of town, just west of lovely Yuyuantan Park, is in the other photo shown above.

Whatever one might think about this structure, “boring” or “uninteresting” (没有意思) are the last adjectives that could be used to describe it. The tower is shaped like a double Z, while its large and dramatic cantilevered overhang and legs have a diamond-like facade. This novel design necessitated the use of never before tried building techniques during the tower's actual construction. And it comes as no surprise that the project's price tag amounted to hefty $600 million.

The new TV tower (电视大楼) is one of the world's largest buildings, even bigger than Chicago's Sears Tower. It is 750 feet high and its total area would cover forty soccer fields. Some 10,000 CCTV staff will work here, while 2000 visitors are expected to drop by the tower every day. And its elevator (电梯) sysem is said to be bigger than that of any other building in the world.

I actually rather like the TV tower and was relieved to hear that fire, which completely gutted the adjacent hotel, didn't seriously damage the structure. People familiar with this story know that the blaze was caused by some high-powered fireworks set off at the end of this year's Spring Festival holiday. Even though the police told the CCTV officials not to set them off, they went ahead and did so anyway. These folks are now in a lot of trouble!

But I seem to be one of the few people in Beijing who thinks that the new CCTV tower is a really cool building. Even most of the laowai living here don't seem care much for it. And all of my Chinese friends and acquaintances believe that the tower is a very strange building. In particular, they think that since the various towers lean forward toward each other, the structure must be inherently unstable (东倒西歪). They thus compare it to Italy's famous leaning tower of Pisa. And one friend informs me that the locals often refer to the building as the “big underpants” (大裤衩).

The designer of the Tower, the German architect Ole Sheeren, who works in Dutch superstar architect Rem Koolhaas's Office for Modern Architecture, has defended his design, comparing it to a “Giant Hutong in the Sky.” Of course, having this hutong in the sky doesn't even begin to make up for the mass destruction of the capital's historic siheyuan architecture and neighborhoods that has occurred over the past decade. In any case, very few Chinese people appear to be convinced by this argument.

However, one person who surely buys it is Sheeren's new girlfriend, the movie star (电影明星) Zhang Manyu (张曼玉), better known in the west as Maggie Cheung (their photos are below). Since Zhang is one of the loveliest women on the planet—she is beautiful in a quintessentially Chinese way—I suspect that Sheeren isn't much bothered by what other folks in the Middle Kingdom think about his design concept.

Zhang is a Hong Kong native (香港人) and has been starring in films for over two decades—she is currently 43 years old. Sheerer is actually her junior—he is 37 years old—and the Chinese call this kind of relationship “older sister (姐) younger brother (弟) affection (恋)”.

Zhang got her start playing not very serious eye candy roles in the Hong Kong action (枪战电影; 功夫电影) movies of the 1980s. I happen to really love this film genre (一种电影; 一类电影). And in fact, one of my all-time favorite Hong Kong action films starred Zhang, Michelle Yeoh (杨紫琼), and the late Mei Yanfang (梅艳芳), who died of cervical cancer and went by the English name of Anita Mui (Mui was also a pop music superstar). All Hong Kong action films were completely over the top, but this particular one was especially so. The plot (结构), if you could call it that, featured these three nubile and scantily clad superwomen kicking butt. Great fun to watch!

Zhang subsequently became something of a muse for the iconoclastic Hong Kong film director Wang Jiawei (王家卫), who is better known in the west as Wang Kar Wai. She was the main supporting actress in Wang’s first breakthrough film, “Days of Being Wild” (阿飞正传), where she plays the ex-girlfriend of the film's male lead, the noted Hong Kong actor, Zhang Guorong (张国荣), or Leslie Cheung.

I haven't seen this particular film, but have heard that it's very good. According to the plot summary I read on the internet, Cheung's character in the film—he goes by the English names of “York” or “Yuddy”—is a handsome playboy (花花公子) who has a very cavalier attitude toward his women. The film begins with him casting aside Zhang. She subsequently suffers an emotional breakdown, but receives solace from and has a near romance with a cop named Tide, who is played by Liu Dehua (刘德华), or Andy Lau.

Yuddy's next target (目标) is a vivacious cabaret dancer played by the Suzhou born actress, Liu Jialing (刘嘉玲), better known in the west as Carina Lau. However, Yuddy quickly becomes bored with this relationship and dumps her soon enough. He then enters a downward, self-destructive spiral. As the film draws to an end, the viewers learn that Yuddy's instinct for romantic cruelty and inability to commit stem from his conflicted feelings regarding his adoptive mother, who is a former prostitute (妓女), and his biological mother, who is a Filipino aristocrat.

Zhang got the lead female role (女主角) in the film Wang did as a followup to “Days of Being Wild,” “In the Mood for Love” (花样年华). I saw this movie when it was first released in 2000 while living in Los Angeles. Like “Days of Being Wild,” it's about the inability of people to find romantic love and establish lasting relationships.

“In the Mood for Love” is set in 1962 Hong Kong. The male lead (男主角) character (角色), played by the dashing Liang Chao Wei (梁朝伟), is a journalist (记者). He and Zhang are both married and also happen to be next door neighbors. We hardly see Zhang and Liang's spouses in the film. Their absence from the film—we get a fleeting glimpse every now and then—and other subtle hints tell us that they are both having affairs (婚外情).

Zhang and Liang react to this infedility and the loneliness that goes with by quickly entering into a romantic relationship, which is initally completely platonic (柏拉图式). In particular, Zhang tries to help Liang with the novel (小说) that he is struggling to write, even though she's just an ordinary housewife and knows nothing about literature.

However, toward the end of the film, they do make love (做爱). It is tribute to Wang's subtletly as a director that they're never shown actually having intercourse—before they bed down together, Zhang wears a beautiful red qipao (旗袍) silk dress and they listen to romantic Spanish music (see the poster below). But shortly after this happens, before the relationship can develop into something that is strong and permanent, Liang is sent by his newspaper to cover (报道) the Vietnam War (越南战争).

When the film ends, Liang has returned to Hong Kong. Both he and Zhang have ended their earlier marriages. Zhang now has a child and we know that Liang is its father. The the movie concludes with Liang futilely looking for Zhang in her old apartment. He can't find her because he look for Zhang in her old apartment. However, she is in his old apartment, holding the small boy who is the product of their earlier one-night stand. Thus the film is ambiguous right up to the end: we never really know if Zhang and Liang are able to connect with each other.

I've watched this film a number of times after seeing it in the theater on videocassette and DVD and it gets better and better with each viewing. I love how Wang uses the strength of Zhang and Liang's terrific acting to narrate the story, particularly the way he weaves their mundane and ordinary day-to-day activities into the mix. The latter includes Liang hunting and pecking away on his big, old-fashioned Chinese typewriter both at work and as he tries, without much success, to write his novel, as well as Zhang's nightly visits to the nearby noodle shop.

Zhang starred in several other Wang films, including the final installment of the triology that began with “Days of Being Wild,” the 2004 film, “2046”. I must confess to having missed that movie as well, although it's certainly on my large and ever growing backlog of must see movies. However, I did catch the film Zhang did in France, “Irma Vep,” while being married to its director, Olivier Assayas (they got divorced after two years, but breakup was amicable).

“Irma Vep”is based on a French comic book (漫画书) action heroine (女主人公). The above poster doesn’t exaggerate: Zhang really does spend most of her time in the film dressed in the tight, black-leather body suit. The outfit reminded me a lot of the ones Diana Rigg donned when she played amateur sleuth, Mrs. Emma Peel, in that great 1960s British spy show, “The Avengers”.

In addition to being gorgeous and a talented actress, I suspect that Zhang is a pretty smart gal to boot. She's at least smart enough to be very multilingual. Cantonese (广东话) is her native language and she is fluent in both Mandarin and Shanghaihua (all of these Chinese dialects are really foreign languages in relation to each, much like French is to Spanish). Zhang also speaks good English and excellent French.

So I wouldn't be at all surprised if Zhang masters German (德语) in the not too distant future (it's a safe bet that she will master it sooner than Sheerer does either Mandarin or Cantonese!). I'm sure she already knows how to say “Ich liebe dich” (我爱你; I love you) to her new beau.

The Chinese characters used in this post, along with their Romanized spelling (Pinyin) and tones are listed below. A number 1 indicates that the character has a flat tone, a number 2, a rising tone, a number 3, a falling rising tone, a number 4, a falling tone, and a number 5, a neutral tone.

很幸运的人 (hen3xing4yun4de5ren2). “幸运” is the word for “lucky”, while “人” means “person” or “fellow”. “很” is the word for “very” and “的” is the Mandarin possessive, serving the same function as the apostrophe in English writing.
大楼 (da4lou2). This best translated as “high rise”, or more literally, “big (大) rise (楼)”.
摩天大厦 (mo2tian1da4sha4). This is the nearest equivalent to “skyscraper”; “天” can mean both “sky/heaven” and “day”.
没有意思 (mei2you3yi4si5). “没有” means “not have” or “lacking”, while “意思” means “interesting” and “to be of interest”.
电视楼 (dian4shi4lou2). As noted in an earlier post, the “电视” “television” character combination literally means “electric vision”.

电梯 (dian4ti). “电” by itself means “electric power”, while “梯” can mean “ladder” or “stairs”.

东倒西歪 (dong1dao4xi1wai1). “倒” on its own is the verb “to topple” or “fall over”. According to my good Chinese friend, Zeng Lin (曾琳), the Chinese have another more slangy term for badly built/unsound structures, namely “豆腐渣工程” (dou4fu5zha1gong1cheng) or literally “tofu (豆腐) engineered (渣工程)”. For example you could say, “四川 (si4chuan1; Sichuan) 建筑 (jian4zhu; buildings) 没有 (mei2you3; not have) 钢铁 (gang1tie3; steel) 构 (gou4; frame), 所以 (suo3yi3; so) 地震发生的时候 (di4zhen4; earthquake; fa1sheng1; occurred/struck; de5shi2hou2 when), 它们 (ta1men1; they) 都 (dou1; all) 倒了 (dao3le5; toppled down).”
大裤衩 (da4ku4cha3). “裤衩” means “underpants”.
电影明星 (dian4ying3ming2xing1). “电影” is the word for “film”, while “明星” is the word for “star”.
香港人 (xiang1gang3ren2). The “香” in the Chinese name for Hong Kong means “fragrent”, while “港” is the word for harbor. Mandarin is sooooo much easier than English when it comes to naming people from other countries. Whereas English has a bewildering variety of ways to do this—Spaniard vs. German, for example—in Chinese you just put the character for “person”, “人”, after the country’s name. So Spaniards are “西班牙人” (xi1ban1ya2ren2) and Germans are “德国人” (de2guo2ren2).
枪战电影 (qiang1zhan4dian4ying3). This literally means “shooting (枪) battle (战) movie (电影)”. And of course the over top gun play and shootouts were staple features of most Hong Kong films from the 1980s. In fact, I remember the trailer for one such film, “Time and Tide” boasting, “No crouching tiger, no hidden dragon. But one helluva of a lot of bullets! Sometimes you can't tell who's shooting who!!” For readers wondering about the Chinese name of John Woo, who directed famous 枪战电影 starring Jackie Chan (成龙; cheng2long2) like “Supercop” and “Hardboiled”, it's 吴宇森 (wu2yu2sen1).

功夫电影 (gong1fu5dian4ying3). “功夫” means “kung fu”. Most of the Hong Kong films that weren’t 枪战电影 were kung fu movies. I use these two terms for Hong Kong action movies as all of the action was shooting or kung fu fighting. The Chinese call other action films, such as Western action films, 动作片子 (dong4zuo4pian1zi1). This is a word-for-word translation of “action (动作) movie (片子)”.
姐弟恋 (jie3di4lian4).
一种电影 (yi1zhong3dian4ying3). “种” also means “species”.
一类电影 (yi1lei4dian4ying3). “类” is word for “type”, as in “type of”.
杨紫琼 (yang2zi3qiong2). “杨” is a very common Chinese family name.
结构 (jie2gou4).
阿飞正传 (a1fei1zheng4zhuan4). This title literally means “The true story of Ah Fei”.
花花公子 (hua1hau1gong1zi5). This literally means “flower flower Prince”.
目标 (mu4biao1).
妓女 (ji4nü3). The Chinese call a woman with very bad morals, i.e. someone who English speakers would call “slut”, a “破鞋” (po4xie2), which literally means “broken shoe”.
女主角 (nü3zhu4jue2). “女” is the word for “woman”, “主” means “main” here, and “角” is a shortened version of the word for “part”, “role”, or “character” (角色; jue2se4).
花样年华 (hua1yang4nian2hua2). This title is quite different from “In the Mood for Love”; it can be translated as “Beauty/Splendor (花样) of Time/Age (年华)”.
男主角 (nan2zhu4jue2). “男” is the word for “man”. It consists of two characters, “田” (“field”) at the top and “力” (“power”) running down from it. My first and only Chinese teacher once told me this character symbolizes that men are the “power in the field”.
记者 (ji4zhe3). “记” on its own means “to remember”, while “者” is another suffix, like “师” (shi1), indicating a profession. So journalist in Chinese literally means “memory profession”. Not too far off the mark as a job description.

婚外情 (hun1wai4qing2). Literally means “marriage (婚) outside (外) affection (情)”.
柏拉图式 (bo2la1tu2shi4). “柏拉图” is the word for Platonic; “式” on its own means “style”.
小说 (xiao3shuo1). These two characters literally mean “small (小)” + the verb “to speak (说)”.

做爱 (zuo4ai4). The Chinese say it exactly as we do: “做” means “do/make”, while “爱” means “love” (both a noun and verb).
报道 (bao4dao4). “报” is part of the “报纸” (bao4 [report]zhi3 [paper]) character combination for newspaper and means “report”, while “道” on its own normally means “corridor” or “path”. However, here is means “verbal communication”.
越南战争 (yue4nan3zhan4zheng1). “越南” is the word for Vietnam, while “战争” means “war”.
漫画书 (man4hua4shu1). “漫画” means “caricature”, while “书” is the word for book.
女主人公 (nü3zhu4ren2gong1).
广东话 (guang3dong1hua4). 广东 Province, which is literally “wide (广) east (东)” is where Cantonese is spoken. “话” is the word for “speech”. So Shanghaihua means “Shanghai speech/talk”. Since Mandarin is the language spoken by all Chinese—in theory at least—it literally means “common (普通; pu3tong1) speech/language (话)”.
德语 (de2yu3). “德” stands for “German” here and “语” for “language”.
我爱你 (wo3ai4ni3). “我” is “I” (said like “Wah”), “爱” is “love” (said like “eye”), and “你” is “you” (said like “knee”).