Weekly Photo Challenge: From Above

Posted on May 4, 2013 by

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Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use a “postaday2013″ or “postaweek2013″ tag.

3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

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Bourdain: Parts Unknown

Posted on April 29, 2013 by

anthony b

Anthony Bourdain seems to be everywhere, not just everywhere in the world but everywhere on TV. He’s the center of ABC’s The Taste, the Travel Channel, PBS’ Mind of a Chef and now CNN’s Parts Unknown. The series premiered with Bourdain heading to Myanmar, a country I’ve wanted to visit for years and years, but couldn’t as I didn’t want to support that military.

Bagan, Myanmar

Bagan, Myanmar

In episode 1, Bourdain travels to Myanmar, a.k.a. Burma. As you’d expect he meets up with interesting folk over enticing food. Many of his interview subjects had been imprisoned when the military was keeping tighter constraints and they openly discussed politics, their experiences and their expectations for the future.

After a few days in the capital, Bourdain and his mentor take a clunky slow train to Bagan. The town of Bagan looked so inviting and untouched. Yet the train ride seemed so risky. Perhaps when/if I visit Myanmar, I’ll skip the trains, though air travel isn’t much safer.

The episode was fascinating and Bourdain’s insights were wry and wise.

The series is off to a good start, though I’m not sure I’d spend the time on the second episode, which is L.A. Yeah, L.A. has its bizarro pockets and its elegance and diversity, but who doesn’t know that? I watch travel shows to discover places I can’t easily get to myself.

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture #2

Posted on April 29, 2013 by

Reblogged from Jinan Daily Photo:

  • Click to visit the original post

Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use a “postaday2013″ or “postaweek2013″ tag.

Read more… 217 more words

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Weekly Photo Challenge: Culture

Posted on April 29, 2013 by
Art in Bali (Ubud)

Art in Bali (Ubud)

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Art in Shanghai

Here’s how it works:

1. Each week, we’ll provide a theme for creative inspiration. You take photographs based on your interpretation of the theme, and post them on your blog anytime before the following Friday when the next photo theme will be announced.

2. To make it easy for others to check out your photos, title your blog post “Weekly Photo Challenge: (theme of the week)” and be sure to use a “postaday2013″ or “postaweek2013″ tag.

3. Subscribe to The Daily Post so that you don’t miss out on weekly challenge announcements. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

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Posted in Art, Asia, Culture, Museum, Weekly Photo Challenge | Tagged , , , , , , | 19 Comments

At the Art Institute of Chicago

Posted on April 24, 2013 by

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I feel like this painting to day, light and springlike.

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30th Annual Weifang International Kite Festival

Posted on April 23, 2013 by

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I’ve wanted to go to the Weifang International Kite Festival, but it’s always taken place during the work week. Finally, it was on a weekend. Two friends and I got train tickets, but one backed out Saturday morning as it was cold and we’d had snow, yes snow, the night before. April 19th will go down as the latest date for snow that I’ve experienced.

Ed and I ventured on. Yeah, the weather might be better on Sunday, but who knew?

The sleek bullet train whisked us to Weifang in about 90 minutes. At the station we got a cab rather easily. Tip: if you come to China make or download the addresses or names of places you need to get to. If possible zoom the print or write big, because a lot of cabbies need reading glasses.

Our cab took us to the stadium outside town, but a police barricade wouldn’t let him drop us off in front. In fact we had to be dropped off a couple miles away from the site. As it was, we were cutting it close to arrive for the opening ceremony. We started to walk and lucked into an official with the right sign on her dashboard. She offered us a ride and had the right status to get past the checkpoints.

Unfortunately, we were too late to make the opening ceremony, which by the dancers’ costumes looked great. We got to see them all as they trudged through the mud with their winter coats on on this fine April day.

From 11 am to 2 pm, there was free flying for anyone interested. Kites of every shape and size filled the sky, the gray sky, though that really didn’t matter. Neither did the cold. We got to talk with the American team and their Chinese translator and I learned that anything you can do on ice can be done with kites: dancing, stunts, competitions. I expected the events at two to have commentary, and there was some in Chinese, but I’d hoped an international festival would have another language as well. There were participants from 30 countries: France, Austria, the US, Bangladesh, India, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and more. I do speak some French and Japanese, so it needn’t be English.

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Well, I suppose the commentary wasn’t crucial. I was surprised that when the events started there wasn’t much difference from the free kite time. We watched some more and then went into the city. It took awhile to wander to the main road and find a cab. In the end we did, though it was an illegal or black cab. Our disagreement over how much we “should” be over charged was brief.

We wandered around the park in front of the train station, and then on to some kite shops. Finally we went to the city park, which was quite beautiful, a nice surprise as Weifang is in need of some spiffing up. All in all, it was a terrific day.

The one recommendation I’d make is that the festival needs better restroom facilities. Spectators for an all day event need some facilities, real ones. Not a few holes in the ground with temporary walls of corrugated steel. Quite a turn off. Yes, the event is free, but a lot of people would gladly buy a ticket or pay to use a clean restroom. This is your premiere annual event.

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Travel Savings for Teachers

Posted on April 18, 2013 by

Edbeds.com is a way for educators to save on accommodations when traveling. The website lists and describes members’ beds and rooms that welcome guests, who must be teachers, for just $49 a night.

I haven’t tried this because I don’t have accommodations to offer now. My apartment in China is too small and the school wouldn’t be keen on this sort of hospitality. Perhaps once I move to my next job, I can try this.

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Travel Theme: Benches

Posted on April 15, 2013 by
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My favorite “benches” ever. (Could be classified as seats, though)

The “Where’s My Backpack?” theme this week is: Benches. If you would like to join in this week’s travel theme (everyone’s welcome!) here’s what to do:

Create your own post and title it Travel theme: Benches
Include a link to this page in your post so others can find it too
Get your post in by next Thursday, as the new travel theme comes out on Friday
Don’t forget to subscribe to keep up to date on the latest weekly travel themes. Sign up via the email subscription link in the sidebar or RSS.

Posted in Asia, Culture | Tagged , | 7 Comments

Walking Around Da Ming Lake

Posted on April 14, 2013 by

Reblogged from Ruined for Life: Phoenix Edition:

This afternoon was a picture perfect spring day so I went for a walk around Da Ming Lake, a sight Jinan is particularly proud of. I went into the scholar's home, which is a small museum. I'm not sure of the era of the home, but the furnishings were exquisite. I'd love to have such furniture, though I'd want modern futon or mattress for the bed.

Read more… 4 more words

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Snow Flower and the Secret Fan

Posted on April 14, 2013 by

snow flrw “A lovely face is a gift from heaven, but tiny feet can improve social standing.”

Lisa See‘s Snow Flower and the Secret Fan tells the story of Lily and her “old same” or lao tang, Snow Flower. Because the two girls share so many similarities in birth and life experience a matchmaker pairs them as old sames. During the 19th century in parts of China old sames were vowed relationship between two girls, sort of like an official sworn sister.

Lily and Snow Flower both start the foot binding process, a special form of Chinese torture in which girls’ feet would be bound to attract men and show beauty. The book describes this long process and tells us that at the time a mother’s job was to induce pain in her daughters to prepare them for a hard life. The girls were fed special foods believed to support this process. Furthermore, the girls were forced to walk back and forth in their rooms in agony. Some girls’ did die of infected feet as a character here does.

All this was for status and the women did buy into it. Their actual feet became hideous so women wore silk sleeping shoes in bed for their husbands to fondle.

Fascinating and tragic as this practice is, the heart of Snow Flower and Secret Fan is the relationship between the two girls as they grow. In the beginning Lily is in awe of Snow Flower, her social superior. Snow Flower’s ancestry has greater status and she is far more educated and refined than Lily. Yet as they grow and marry, Lily gains status and security, while Snow Flower is victimized by her father’s decline and her husband’s low status. The book intrigued me as a portrait of a far off, exotic arena where women were taken for granted, yet had the the audacity to invent their own written language, nu shu, which they used to communicate with the people they left behind when they got married off.

tiny shoeSnow Flower and Secret Fan is a dramatic, satisfying book that focuses on the trust, conventions and loyalty in another era presenting a different culture with historical authenticity.

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