*** [Ed’s Note]: A bit of background to this piece: In 2009, SmartShanghai freelance writer Ric Stockfis turned in an article for the “Offbeat” column on a derelict golf driving range in south Shanghai called the "Chiao Tai Golf Club". From a reader’s perspective, it seemed like Stockfis was interested in these little surreal and chaotic sections of Shanghai wherein nature was in the process of reclaiming the land from someone’s ill-fated capitalist dream. The article resonated with local writer Andy Best, who shares Stockfis’ predilections towards urban bush-whacking, Ballardian rumination (maybe), and infrastructural decay. He took a trip back out to the place two years later to see what was happening out there. Below is his text and photos. Here’s the original article from Ric, two years back. *** Stockfis had been the first to go there. And now he was gone. We’d looked on from relative safety but Stockfis had entered the Temporal Zone itself. In the zone, geography, objects and space changed arbitrarily leaving the mind unable to fix familiar reactions. Thought separated from location and it often stayed with you once you’d left. Previously clear signs and symbols became oddly detached from meaning. You could be transfixed by the most obvious shopping mall or car park, unable to get a sense of it, staring for minutes on end. Never the less I had to go back. The old route was blocked. The escalator had been gutted and ripped out. I stared at the underbelly. There was a hollow drop zone near the top, a receptacle for lost artifacts chewed up by the escalator’s teeth. Flimsy wooden doors without frames had been placed in the way. I looked down for a possible way by. Below me was a stagnant snake pool. It was inhabited by a writhing mass of rubber grip. I crossed hills of red brick and rubble. There was a gaping chasm. When was this? It was old and new and it was being re-made. The bricks, pillars and flaking whitewash seemed out of place. Would they replace all this with an information highway? Would they build more new-old units? Perhaps it had self-decayed and it was being restored? I stepped out of the main zone, behind, and into a refuse flow. These channels were used to store and move temporary objects. Zone stalkers, who lived along the edges, came in and out furtively. Their time in the zone had left them unable to attach any significance to the place at all. I re-entered the zone and arrived at Chiao Tai Golf. The zone had shifted significantly here. Slab oscillation had caused a wave in front of the main building, splitting the ground. The front wall and trees seemed untouched. The rips in the ground were the only clues. I stood staring at the yellow cube building. I had to focus here. I was being confronted with spatial re-drift. The zone around it had shifted, leaving it bereft of its former meaning. Now it was nothing. I didn’t enter, why would I. What was it? I climbed a small hillock and looked at the driving range. The building had been feature-scrubbed. The green faux-grass mats were gone and real grass was creeping in. The concrete structure leaked moisture. Across the way I saw a disintegration yard. It was an empty space but it was walled. This was because it held an area of high zonal fluctuation. It cracked and crumbled almost as I watched. Behind it was a cement plant. The tall fading red and white cylinders serviced an endless line of rumbling mixer trucks. I heard them come and go but did not lay my eyes on a single one. Another area had a higher wall that was reinforced carefully. I got in to see what was hidden behind the walls. It was more walls. It was a wall chamber. Walls are everywhere, in every sense. They could be half broken and diseased but they could not be seen fallen down like this. I thought I’d left the zone, walking out onto the sparkling new throughway next to the river. I looked at the perimeter fence, Chiao Tai Golf was just behind it. It looked like a new development, an office waiting to be populated. I realized I was in a reprogramming field. The clever pattern of dark asphalt, neat markings and green traffic islands transformed Chiao Tai Golf before me. Inside the perimeter fence it was still shifting and decaying. *** More from Andy Best: The majority of Andy’s stuff online is directly related to the local underground music scene at Kungfuology.com, although he’s taken a bit of a break from posting regularly. More figurative and fictional stuff from Mr. Best is over at H.A.L. Publishing online though, if you’d like to have a look.