Thursday, June 07, 2007
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Children's Day
Was today. And I was told, but forgot because I don't teach kids during the week and thus had no reason to celebrate them + me not being at school. Also another excitement I missed out on (since I don't have a cell phone) was the deluge of Children's Day text messages that one might receive from their co-workers. My roommate was telling me about his. Apparently, he got many in which it was suggested that he could pee in his bed and/or pants, and also wear baby clothes and eat child-amounts of candies. These seemed wonderfully inane at first until he made it clear that he was getting the same jokes over and over from everyone, and then it reminded me of how unoriginal the Chinese can be. Example: we had secret santa in our office during Christmas and one could tell which gifts can from the Chinese and which from the foreigners. Chinese gave their standards: new years pigs, wallets, belts, penny jars... But I guess if they maintain to be amused, then, well, its amusing.
So, though, today, I was in oblivion of the official appreciation of childhood, I ended up on a childlike scavenge in the little grocery store near my apartment. In the toy aisle I found some great literate contraptions. (click on the picture, then on then on my photo set called "Lovely Toys More Funny")
Clap Group
What an eerie day? Though I was in the best mood due to some delightfully cool haze, which Beijing wears well. I rode around on my bicycle and went into the school to finish some tests, and also use photocopiers to try out a new coloring book project idea. When I come home, I want to take nice portraits of friends and family, (but like my kind of portraits, not like the smile-for-me kind). Then turn them into cartoonish renderings, for coloring books. Then you/they could color your own portrait. I think I could make a beautifully personal coloring book this way; and then have the accompanying photographs of course, something within reason artistically I could do, easily. I have the idea there....working on the technique despite not having any real prints of my photos. Processing quality is laughable anywhere around here.
This is the clapping group that gets together every evening in the Sam's Club parking lot near my apartment. They clap. They start off slow, then fast, then syncopated, then free style, then cool down.
What a marvel, was today.
