Ethnics

Ethnic minorities (recognized 56) in China.

Some days ago in a photographic set, at lunchtime in the park under our office.

Model makers

Company of model makers for architectural design.
So many workers.. I had to wait for them to go have dinner to take the picture, in order to show the models.

Their brochure mix jobs as the bird's nest stadium of Herzog and others more like a plastic for toy trains. The name of the company is "Ionic", with a roman's capital as logo.
And it all makes you think, expecially if you go there after a long and tiring and troubled design process.

Four

There are four temples in Beijing, dedicated to four nature's entities: Earth, Sky, Sun, Moon.
Chinese names are Ditan, Ritan, Tiantan, Yuetan.
They are positioned as cardinal points: north, south, east, west (in relation to the old city center - the forbidden city), inside the orthogonal city grid.

Simple, schematic, a little childish. Like an RPG game.


Temple of the Earth, Ditan Park. Today is just a squared empty space in the midde of a park, quiet and beautiful. Edge of paved area 130 mt.

Gestures... and Tai-Chi

Bruno Munari in the '60 wrote a little book called "Supplement to the Italian dictionary" which listed all the Italian gestures most commonly used while speaking. The classic " What do you want?", the "I do not care", the "It wasn't me ", etc.. All listed, analyzed, described in their movement. Personally, another not very famous master (PL.B.) has shown me that in a foreign country it is possible to say virtually everything just using three things: mimic, tonality and creativity. For example the question "Do you think it will rain tomorrow?" can 'be expressed by pointing to the sky, then at one's watch, then imitate the rain, all with an enigmatic and a little dumb face. From there on, my travels have always been a succession of combinations of basic verbs, orangutans's verses and a lot of persistence. And I did it always pretty well.

But yesterday, I had a bad struck about what I believed to be an universally valid language. My Chinese teacher was making strange gestures to indicate the concepts of "yesterday" and "tomorrow". Saying "yesterday", she was indicating in front of her, while "tomorrow" was positioned behind her, over her shoulder. Exactly the opposite of how we western people do! Then I asked for an explanation, and the answer was:

"Yesterday" is something that is past, it is known, it has been seen. So it is in front of our eyes. Instead "tomorrow" still has to come, so we don't have seen it yet: that's why it is on our back. "

Later, when she insisted on telling me that the concept of "next" is indicated pointing downwards, and for "previous" you have to point up, I haven't asked more questions.. and I realized why Munari had specified "Italian"!

But it all makes a kind of sense when you see old chinese people in the park doing some Tai-Chi exercise, and often walking backwards.
So see you soon (I point backward), for the next (I point downward) post.

Bei_SIM

In China there is no google, no youtube, no facebook. But they have made a copy for everything. For example, their google is called "baidu", and it is exactly as our google (excepts for the some contents, like Tibet or Tian'anmen) but the graphics, layout and how it works, are the same. And sometimes, better: for example, in "baidu maps" they have made a 3d model of the whole central part of the city of Beijing -something like the entire city of Milan-, all in a very fancy "Sim City" style.

In the picture, Tian'anmen square

link is

http://map.baidu.com/?newmap=1&ie=utf-8&s=s%26wd%3Dbeijing

(click on the upper right corner in the map, to activate the 3D visualization)

I will vs. you won't

The Great  Wall at Jinshanling, 120 km north-east of Beijing. But: "the strength of a wall depends of who guards it", as Gengis Kahn said before conquer his huge empire. (in the picture, mongolians where coming from the right).