Thank You, OK

By Megan Alexander

Published by Bad News Books, 2020

Reviewed by Rose Lu for PhotoForum, 08 August 2020

Thank You, OK, is the dizzying photo memoir of Megan Patricia Alexander, chronicling her month-long exchange in Xi’an, Beijing and Shanghai in the northern hemisphere winter of 2015. The book is delightfully presented like a Red Packet; the cover is composed of soft red cardstock embossed with gold, with a lack of any text that would detract from the illusion.

(Megan Alexander, Thank you, Ok )

The collection is a travel memoir, so is suitably bookended by pictures of her transit, shots of the cramped interiors of flying coach. Between these flights are a collection of photographs reminiscent of Tumblr in its heyday. They’re anachronistic and slightly surreal: a 21st birthday cake in the shape of Hello Kitty smoking a blunt, a circular bed beneath a giant red star, a wicker basket full of one-eyed baby dolls. The stills are captured on 35mm film, iPhone or camcorder video and give a faux-vintage quality to the depictions of contemporary Chinese life.

Alexander chooses to focus on the minutiae of daily life, rather than the grand structures — both natural and man-made — that many Chinese nationals would choose to centre in their personal photographs. Despite going to three of the biggest tourist trap cities, there are hardly any pictures that locate the photographer in these places. In the only photo of the Pearl Tower, Alexander has instead chosen to focus on a mother-and-daughter pair strolling on the circular walkway. Behind them is the tower, and groups of tourists admiring it. This, like many of her pictures, center the quotidian: people transiting on scooters, men on smoko break and children in garishly patterned puffer jackets.

(Megan Alexander, Thank you, OK )

There is a homogeneity to the people in her pictures. The photos could have been taken anywhere in China, as at an individual level there is nothing to connect the people with their place of residence. If I imagine the inverse, a collection depicting New Zealanders in everyday movements, I think I could pick out the Wellingtonians by their trademark shapeless linen sacks and the K’Road hipsters by their op-shopped dungarees. However, it also creates an effect of alienation, as it demonstrates that a state of foreignness is not just limited to the big, obvious differences. It’s the details that show that every facet of life is different in other countries. In these photographs, there is not a single chair that looks like a chair that a Pākehā would be familiar with. Rather, they all feature the classic ill-fitting fabric condom, and have backs adorned with giant fabric bows.

There’s a generosity in which Alexander approaches the subjects in her photos. There’s no sense that she’s trying to stealthily take photos of people, they are conscious and happy to have their picture taken. Even in her pictures of crowds, there will often be one person who is looking directly at the camera. The portraits are deliberate, but people still look natural in them. She has a recurring character in a man with a thick black coat and tinted glasses, who looks very pleased to have made her acquaintance. His broad faced smile and enjoyment of cigarettes span multiple scenes.

(Megan Alexander, Thank you, OK)

And then there’s all the bizarre interior decor. I suspect that Alexander stayed mostly in large, established hotels that were accustomed to accepting foreign travellers. These are generally the places that tend to have the imitation busts of David, the textured eighties wallpaper and the gaudy chandeliers with plastic teardrop diamonds and peeling gold paint. They are relics from a time when China was obsessed with replicating Western opulence as a way of appeasing international guests, despite the resulting recreations sitting in this uncanny valley of being temporally displaced and poorly constructed. I wonder what Alexander thought of this decor, and if she knew that they were designed for a caricature of a white person. From trips to China in my youth, I am familiar with this type of decor, but in recent trips I’m more accustomed to seeing the youth hostel-style decor: minimal, cute, reminiscent of New Zealand AirBnBs that are decked out entirely with K’Mart wares.

In the few photos of food that she included, it looked like she was eating mostly homestyle dishes, or common Cantonese dishes that would be readily available in most countries with a Chinese diaspora. One photo shows a group of Chinese people eating from individual plates with an empty lazy susan in the middle of the table. I couldn’t understand what was happening in this photo, except perhaps they were at a buffet.

What stuck out the most for me about this collection was how rustic Alexander’s experience seemed. My experience travelling in China, especially in the metropolises of Beijing and Shanghai, was of being overwhelmed by how digitally advanced and modern everything was. I was constantly getting trapped in luxury malls and suddenly coming across indoor ice rinks while trying to find an exit.

This didn’t seem to be a problem for Alexander though, who seemed to be in the countryside the entire time. Construction is a perennial sight in China, but I usually saw the building of skyscrapers and overpasses, rather than the old man leisurely carting a wheelbarrow of dirt, as captured in a series of Alexander’s photographs. Her images of residential dwellings all show countryside buildings that are single-storeyed. Apart from one photograph on a subway train, everyone wearing facemasks and looking down at their phones, there was nothing that even hinted that she had visited two of the most populous cities in the world. It made me think about what it would take to truly access China, as without language proficiency and a WeChat account, it’s hard to experience a typical day in modern China. Her pictures made me feel like I had opened a timebox, one that captured a China that I visited in my youth, rather than the China I saw in my adulthood.

Being accustomed to adopting the cultural viewpoint of Western millennials, I could find the humour and share in the discovery of Alexander's pictures, though it is undeniably a white gaze that she brings to her subject. Hardly anyone in China would understand what’s funny about ‘420’ as a room number, or a brand of nappies called “GOON”, but it’s pretty funny for New Zealanders. It’s a white girl travel diary. It’s very successful at being that, and it doesn’t need to be anything else.

Rose Lu is a Wellington based writer. Her debut essay collection "All Who Live on Islands" was published by Victoria University Press in 2019. You can find her at @plainricedinner.

This review is supported by funding from Creative New Zealand.

Thank you, OK - reviewed