(no subject)
I have a love-hate relationship with China, I think.
Mostly love, if only because I have great difficulty disliking any place. The little corners of the city that I have explored are… beautiful. Rich and heavy with intricate things and passionate, involved people. There are more colors than I tend to find in the US (except in the case of skin-there is no diversity here. None!) and a remarkable array of shapes: often spheres, which are pretty infrequently found in DC architecture in my experience. The city of Shanghai mostly smells terrible, and the street itself is generally pretty dirty, but these are not things that I mind too much. Bargaining for things was fun initially but now just exhausting, and I wonder at the quality of the objects that I purchase in China. For instance, I bought a jade (“jade”) cicada pendant at the Jade Buddha Temple because the symbolism of the cicada means a great deal to me, and at least a portion of the proceeds went to the monastery, and hey: it was only 160 RMB (about 25 USD.) I know enough about jade and stones in general to know that it is *probably* one of the cheap kinds of actual jade, so not jadeite-but I am not entirely convinced that it isn’t, you know, dyed quartz. I guess it doesn’t really matter, but speculating on that sort of thing: boo. But also necessary in any major city!
Karaoke is one of my favorite things. The karaoke halls in Shanghai are several floors of office buildings with what seem like hundreds of rooms for different parties on each floor… it is kind of a big deal.
I am having several dresses made at the Fabric Market. We will see if this was a good idea or not!
One thing that Was a good idea: persuading the GW economics department to pay for VIP tickets to a Chinese Circus. Absolutely.
Beijing on Friday!
Mostly love, if only because I have great difficulty disliking any place. The little corners of the city that I have explored are… beautiful. Rich and heavy with intricate things and passionate, involved people. There are more colors than I tend to find in the US (except in the case of skin-there is no diversity here. None!) and a remarkable array of shapes: often spheres, which are pretty infrequently found in DC architecture in my experience. The city of Shanghai mostly smells terrible, and the street itself is generally pretty dirty, but these are not things that I mind too much. Bargaining for things was fun initially but now just exhausting, and I wonder at the quality of the objects that I purchase in China. For instance, I bought a jade (“jade”) cicada pendant at the Jade Buddha Temple because the symbolism of the cicada means a great deal to me, and at least a portion of the proceeds went to the monastery, and hey: it was only 160 RMB (about 25 USD.) I know enough about jade and stones in general to know that it is *probably* one of the cheap kinds of actual jade, so not jadeite-but I am not entirely convinced that it isn’t, you know, dyed quartz. I guess it doesn’t really matter, but speculating on that sort of thing: boo. But also necessary in any major city!
Karaoke is one of my favorite things. The karaoke halls in Shanghai are several floors of office buildings with what seem like hundreds of rooms for different parties on each floor… it is kind of a big deal.
I am having several dresses made at the Fabric Market. We will see if this was a good idea or not!
One thing that Was a good idea: persuading the GW economics department to pay for VIP tickets to a Chinese Circus. Absolutely.
Beijing on Friday!