Project Runway's season winner Jeff was in my dream

Right before waking, the last thing I dreamt was meeting Jeff from Project Runway.
I was in China and all of a sudden he showed up, standing in front of me, a couple feet lower than me, because I was on the upper part of a slanted sidewalk.
He looked up at me, I looked down at him, and I said, pointing at his chest, "You're that guy from Project Runway!!! Sorry...you probably get that all the time."
-"Don't worry about it, tell me what you thought."
"I thought that one guy's work was really cheap."
-"Yeah, seriously, it really was." he said nodding his head in agreement.
"And your clothing was incredible. It must have been such a stressful competition to be in..."
-"Hahaha," he looked down to the side, laughing more. "Actually it really wasn't as hard as you might think!" he continued to say with an enormous smirk on his face.
There was clearly something I didn't know about the show, but he wouldn't tell me what it was.
I thought maybe they had a longer time to work on their outfits than they showed us, or my other thought was they give them a lot of vodka to drink in the evenings...not sure why that would make the competition easier...

I tried looking for his neck tattoo but he had some kind of turtle neck unfortunately. His hair was cut short, and he had on a grey shirt with some pattern/design and tight black pants with a belt. Something I'd imagine he would normally wear on the daily.

No idea why I dreamt about him.

Bumbershoot '08

Bumbershoot provided us a quite a good day today.
The best parts were watching an older man dancing, working the crowd with his very controlled and interesting movements, going to see Unearth, a metal band, seeing Saul Williams, and walking through hundreds of hand-made music posters on display.
Unearth were talented, but as Shaun and I discussed afterwards...not distint. They sounded like a generic, talented, metal band. Nevertheless, I want to see more metal. Seeing them encouraged my interest in seeing metal live. There's certainly places to go in Seattle. I just need to ask someone to go with me.
I honestly hadn't heard Saul Williams until today, and he won my heart immediately.
The whole band was dressed amazingly, one with a shiny silver suit, another with a full cape, another with bright red plastic shoulder pads, and Saul with glittering blue makeup in a band across his face. There was a young kid on stage with them, probably one of the performers' munchkins. He got to hang out behind the drummer the whole show. There were keyboards, which fortunately played an array of electronic beats, and there was an electric guitar if I remember correctly.
Their performance was high energy, dancing, jumping on tables, running around.
The music was exciting too, of course, and you should listen to them! now.
They were so good that I was dancing by myself in the crowd. It was too good to pass up the desire to move. AND he covered Bjork's song 'Declare Independence' That was soooo awesome...and makes me anticipate the day I can finally see her. That will be one of the happiest days of my life, for sure.

To sum it up, it was a good day.

Lacey phone calls

Last night as Katie and I headed out to pick up a movie, I got a call.
The girl on the other end very excitedly said "Lacey!!!!!"
so I replied, "Sorry, this is her old phone. I have her old number so this isn't Lacey."
-"Oh, well me and a couple of her old friends are in town and we just wanted to meet up! Do you know her?"
"No. I don't know her. I just have her old number. I get a lot of calls for her."
-"Oh...We're having dinner somewhere and we want to know where's a cool place to go to a bar here?!"
"Ummmm...The Up & Up."
-"The WHAT?!"
"The Up & Up?"
-"Okay."(in the background-who are you talking to????-"I don't know. a girl, we're talking about what bars to go to!!!) "Any others that are cool around here?"
"Rumors?" (I suggested, hoping it would be packed with single homosexuals looking for a good time...I've heard it used to be a gay bar. Apparently nowadays it's for anyone, but there's a chance they've got the occasional catering to the gay community)
-"Okay! Hey, what's your name?!"
"Carissa..."
-"Me too! That's my name! Carissa!"
"Really? Crazy!" (I said genuinely excited. Random phone calls from someone with the same name doesn't happen often.)
-"Hey, do you know Jessie Warms???!"
"Actually, yeah, I think I do. From a class." (We aren't friends, I just met her and recognized the name.)
-"Cool! That's who I'm with right now! We're at Bob's Burgers downtown!"
"Oh. okay."
[This is the best part:]
-"Okay! Well if you see Lacey, tell her we're in town and we want to see her!!!"
"Haha......okay. I will."



who knows...maybe one day I will run into Lacey.
The day previous I got a message from Blockbuster informing me I, Lacey, would be charged for the movies I hadn't returned.
I've gotten texts from her friends too, saying things like "I wish you were here Babe" at 4 in the morning. Another saying something like "I enjoyed seeing you the other day so much!"...I replied with "I didn't."

This phone call made me really appreciate Lacey. I look forward to the next exciting bout of conversation with one of Lacey's many acquaintances, who don't know her new number going on 3 years...

Wendy's called me today

I forgot to post the funniest part of my day.

I got a missed call. Didn't recognize the number, so called them back.
It was busy, tried again-busy, tried a third time (thinking it could be the lady from a Cafe I interviewed) and the girl who was at the other end answered, yelling "Wendy's!"
?
I, baffled, asked if she had called this number. She yelled to her fellow employees asking if anyone had called from the phone. They all denied it.
She said it must have been a mistake.

That's a pretty strange mistake if you ask me.

When I relayed the story to Maryann at the gym she said "Fast food restaurants are literally calling for you!"
...I thought that was clever.

current feelings

Today I spent hours organizing clothes, making a pile I need to get rid of, and listening to nonstop techno and dance beats. It was fun, dancing a little, while sorting all my clothes into categories.

I also bought a ticket to Seattle on the greyhound for tomorrow. I'm going to Bumbershoot with Shaun and Leila! I'll be seeing Band of Horses and Beck, amongst other bands I don't know of yet...I 'll post about the best music we see.

After that I went to the gym...It helps me feel energetic and happier. Being in Bellingham right now, I very much feel in limbo and out of place. It's depressing me rapidly. It's hard to remind myself that the reason I'm in this town is for school, when I'm not attending it.
To add to not working or attending school, I haven't felt inspired to make any art.
I guess I'm mostly feeling useless. I mean, I am looking for a job, cleaning a ton, and seeing friends...but there's something missing.
I really miss the daily adventures of Beijing. Every day really was interesting as long as you stepped outside, and sometimes even if you stayed in.
I also miss being around family. There's nothing like it-that comfort level, that unconditional love.
Being in China, living with Justin and Sebrina, aside from setting my decision to return to China after graduation, it also made me sure I want a family some day. Obviously there are practical issues that make it difficult to be married or have kids, but despite the realities I became more aware of this summer, it definitely seems worth it.

I'm just sort of ranting, and not sure how this even happened.
I went to type a boring blog about my day and intended to add a note about Bumbershoot, then I spilled.

Pictures of the Village trip

These are pictures from Sebrina's blog. I only took the one with her and Madison and all the ladies surrounding them. Sorry the order is off, but it's difficult to change...


Inside one of the homes in Xiao Zhong Dian, the first village we went to.


In the courtyard of Cheng He Die's home in the village Jiu He on the day of Torch Festival. Normally the two ladies dressed in traditional clothing would wear something more Western. Their mothers still wear the traditional outfits though.
Behind them is a view of the crops on the flat ground between hills. On the hill opposite the one we're on are the Naxi people. On their side they're Bai...and in this valley which stretches to the left and right on both sides of the crops, there are hundreds of tiny villages.


This was also in Xiao Zhong Dian. We were walking between homes and there was a large group of ladies doing hard labor on the side of the street. They were breaking up rocks with axes and hauling them away. They, like everyone else in China, adore Madison.


This was part of dinner on the festival day. Unfortunately I wasn't there to witness the killing, blooding, and de-feathering, but here's a picture of it prepped for cooking.

Developments on the Secret of the Universe

At CERN in Switzerland there's a Large Hadron Collider, which is a particle accelerator that is going to help us understand the universe we live in.
They're going to shoot some atoms through this and see if they can figure out what atoms are made of(below quarks and leptons) and therefore what all material existence is made of.

They're currently prepping the accelerator to do the big experiment, and have run it through two determining tests successfully. September 10th they'll run the real thing.

I'm honestly really excited about this...and I know I'm not alone because they're webcasting it. But I don't think I'll watch it, because unlike most people excited about this, I have no clue how it works.

what I did yesterday, and will do today

Yesterday I started the day earlier than usual, leaving the house at 9:30 am to meet Ata, Sheyda's boyfriend.
He really is a lovely guy. I don't use the word lovely as an adjective often, so seriously...very nice.
I let him tell his side of their "story" so far.

Then I met up with Shaun and Leila for pitas on the Ave, one of the coolest things you can do in Seattle midday.

Then I packed and we headed up to Bellingham. We stopped in for some outlet mall shopping along the way, which turned out to be somewhat successful. There were swarms of people, so navigating around them wasn't particularly easy, but if you focused well enough of the items for sale you could almost ignore all of them.

After that, as we got closer to Bellingham I felt more and more nervous and anxious. I'm not sure why, but every time I return to Bellingham from some time away I get nervous. I think it might be that it's supposed to be my home, and despite the deep friendships I've developed here, I don't feel this place (as a place) is home. It's more like where my school is and where a bunch of sweet people are. I think that makes me feel concerned that maybe I won't fit into the life I had before I left because I've been living another life, quite different and far away.
So far I'm fitting back in, but now I'm nervous because I don't necessarily want to fit back into everything. I don't want to step back into old habits.

Today Katie and I planned to go to the gym, which she does now! That's a big change. She used to be the one completely averted to going there. I understood, but I went more than often. Now we're going together?! weird.
Then we're going to Buffalo Exchange to see if there's any awesome cheap clothing.
Then we're going to walk around town to see if i can't find a job somewhere else. (Crossing the fingers tightly...almost losing blood flow.)
And in the mean time I'll call Maryann and Calli to see them and the evening will unfold however it wants.

I've been sleeping too much these days

I'm posting this because it doesn't happen often for me, thankfully.

Yesterday I was meant to meet my friend Sheyda's boyfriend. (My friend Sheyda is especially dear to me, we went to high-school together and Israel and we'll never lose touch. We're more like family than friends. And her boyfriend, well, I'll just say he's more like her fiance.)
We were set to meet at noon at university village in Seattle, a trendy street of shops set up against the University of Washington's campus.
I set my alarm for 10, because it's about an hour's commute by bus from my brother's place.

I was prepared to be there, on time.

I woke up, feeling well and refreshed, looked at my phone to check the time, since I hadn't heard the alarm yet and it was dead!
It had died while I was sleeping.
I ran out to the kitchen to look at the oven time and it was in fact 12:56, which would leave me more than an hour late for our meeting!

I muttered 'Damn' quietly, thinking somebody might still be in the house and asleep?

I tried frantically searching for a cell phone charger, but to no avail.

So I unfortunately sent him a facebook message apology in the hopes that he's an avid checker.

An hour or so later Leila came home and I was able to charge the phone and text him at work. Of course he was gracious about it and we're meeting today instead...in fact, I should be getting ready right now.

this is what Seattle sounds like

These two bands were formed in Seattle within the past decade and they are very Seattle, whatever that means.

Band of Horses:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JK716RqoUms&NR=1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibE7IqEjni4

I haven't seen this band (of horses :P) but soon enough that statement will be a lie. In ten days I'll go to Bumbershoot with Shaun and Leila and...see them.


Fleet Foxes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCzIw4W7fdQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZGpmDw2cyE

Maryann, Evan, and I got to see Fleet Foxes at Sasquatch music festival and they successfully wooed us with their rounds of lively lullaby.

babble

I woke up at 4 pm today.
Leila, my sister-in-law, was actually afraid I had been killed and nearly came into my room to check.
I have no clue why I slept so late. I think I must be sick, with some kind of illness that manifests itself as sleeping comas, mild headaches, slight nausea, and over-thinking life.

I'm going back to Bellingham tomorrow, getting a ride up with Shaun and Leila since my brother doesn't work Wednesdays and the two of them love the town.
A part of me is worried that as soon as I arrive I'll want to escape back to more interesting places like Seattle or Beijing. Another part of me is excited to see friends and anxious to begin a new life in an old place.
I'm feeling strongly about getting my bike fixed because I've acquired a taste for freedom of movement at any time of day. I think a little thing like that could make a big difference in my life up there. I've thought about getting my license, but right now I can't muster up the interest in driving legally in America because there are options like biking and walking and busing which turn out to be easier than owning a car, paying for its gas, and finding parking spots (and getting over the stress of driving on a freeway.)
I'm also feeling strongly about trying to find a new job. My receptionist position should really be held by somebody who has an interest in clinics and I should be in a job that has to do with art, creativity of some kind, or coffee.

Also, I'm thinking I'll keep up a blog.
It will most likely be far less interesting than anything I posted from China, but it's something I've grown accustomed to having. It helps calm my mind, making the thoughts playing on repeat finally stop as I type them out in concrete statements on my laptop.

I'm going to try sleeping again now. It's been a long 7 1/2 hour day, and hopefully the sleep coma will come over me again soon.

woke up crying again

I woke up crying because young boys kept holding guns to my head through a car window, threatening to kill me.

Extra Fantastic

Today I learned that Dance Dance Revolution is actually extremely very fun. I would really like to see somebody memorize the steps of one of the sequences and perform it in a dance club. I would probably worship that person.
I've also learned I truly appreciate the excessive usage of qualifying words in Shaun and Leila's speech, so I'm adopting it for my own.

I absolutely positively enjoy it, a lot.

Also, Amy Winehouses' song "Rehab" on constant replay has been the soundtrack of my life for the past couple of days. Actually that interspersed amongst songs from Akon's album "Konvicted."...not sure why it's spelled incorrectly like the Krab at the less than mediocre sushi bar we went to today...

What else? Oh, this is significant news:
Alisha called me yesterday to say hi, chat a bit, and ask if I would be in her wedding. Alex, her husband to be, said he would like his brothers to be in the wedding since he is accustomed to more traditional weddings. Our family so far hasn't experienced anything near tradition in the weddings so far, so I wasn't expecting to be actively participating in anything. Now that I know I am I feel a little mushy about it as well as excited by the prospect of being aside my sister for the special day.
And a cupcake terrace for a cake...too cool.

I think that's all for news today.
Life is pretty much vastly extra different from life in Beijing and I've decided I like both.

library

Today Leila and I went to the Seattle Central Library so I could see the architecture of the building, and to attend a talk by David B.-the easy to remember English name of a strongly-accented French graphic novel writer/artist. Pierre-François Beauchard is his real name.

This is the man who inspired and helped publish the writer of Persepolis...but he didn't mention it in the talk. Leila just knew that somehow, then she asked him to confirm it when we went up for book signing.
We bought books, if that wasn't obvious by my last statement.
We both bought the book 'Epileptic' which is about him growing up while realizing his brother has Epilepsy and the story of his brother's progression into the disease.
Instead of just signing the books he drew a picture to fill the inner title page. In the line, which took about an hour to get to the front of, I was thinking I'd really like him to draw a moon in my sketch. I was thinking I'd ask him to do that once we got to him...but by the time we did he seemed so exhausted of the constant drawing and there were still a few people behind me. So I didn't. I figured he would draw the main character riding a striped horse because that's what he did for maybe a third of the people wanting book signings. That or the other common drawing of the boy sitting.
He drew the boy standing looking at an open book with a face, with a moon behind him in the sky! I laughed out loud when he started drawing the moon and said 'I was going to ask you to draw a moon for me. Thankyou.' He may or may not have thought that was a weird thing to say, but it was necessary.

I think I'll start reading it tomorrow because today I've already entered the sleep-wake zone. Life gets weird around 5 pm, and increasingly strange as it gets later.

i want to sleep sleep sleep apples and bananas

After getting 4 hours of sleep my last night in Beijing, I woke up, went to coffee with Matt and Sebrina, ate some jian bing, then headed off on a plane to America.
Since that short stint of rest I've been awake for about 27 hours. On the plane I didn't sleep and instead spoke with the passenger beside me. When I did try the sleeping thing it wouldn't work. My head couldn't find the right place to be.

Now I'm at Shaun and Leila's house. It's cozy and I'm really happy to be here, but I'm absolutely exhausted, forcing myself to stay awake until I've eaten dinner, or at least until 8/9 pm here...which means I'll have been awake nearly 30 hours straight!

Shaun told me somebody reckons sleep deprivation is like drunkenness in terms of cognition and ability to accomplish tasks. I think I may have passed that state and maybe actually am partially asleep in waking life. Maybe I should philosophize about something right now...but no. i can't. i can hardly keep my eyes open. the writing of this blog, the energy i'm using to push my fingers down on these tabs, that is what is keeping me present.

later.

leaving now

Last night, the last time I would possibly have a chance to attend, I was offered tickets to an Olympic game! Matt and I went with a group of people to see women's field hockey-New Zealand v. Great Britain. Apparently they were well matched because only 3 total points were scored 1 NZ-2 GB. Though despite the very slight difference in goals, the British team was generally much better. Most of the game was New Zealand fending off Britain's offense. Unfortunately the New Zealanders in the audience were more enthusiastic, banging on the bleachers and screaming throughout the game...all to no avail.
Watching the game made me want to play hockey so badly. It's the one and only sport I'm all that interested in.

After that we went out to the Dutch house, a hang out for Dutch people and Olympic athletes. They let Americans in too...we saw a gold medalist, and otherwise just stood around making conversation in a little foreign bubble in the middle of Beijing.
Oh, and a couple times I had Dutch spoken to me. It made me feel more authentically European.



...In about 4 hours I head back to America.

But first another trip to the cafe is in order.

Beginning to reflect

Tomorrow, or I suppose as it's past 1 am...today, is my last full day in China.

It's certainly bittersweet. I've gotten used to a life here and have spent so much time with Justin, Sebrina, and Madison that I feel like I've become a part of their new nuclear family. I'll miss that.
I'll also miss the amount of art here.
I'll miss feeling proud of myself for being able to cross the road without being hit by a car, or navigate down a sidewalk without bumping into people.
I'll miss using the apartment as a safe quiet spot out of the hustle and bustle of the outside world.
I'll miss the adventure that is bound to happen nearly every day.
I'll miss feeling myself adapt to a new country.
And I'll miss the Olympic fever here.

But I'm looking forward to seeing Shaun and Leila, and then seeing friends in Seattle and Bellingham!
I'm looking forward to starting a halloween costume way early this year. The plan is to sit myself down in the living room of an artsy friend of mine-Maryann-and start constructing something out of cardboard and see where it goes.
I'm looking forward to really fixing my bike so this new found freedom in moving around outside in the dark can be sustained in little Bellingham where taxis just aren't a good option.
I'm looking forward to no more humidity! There's nothing like a comfortable heat with clear skies and dry air. Seriously, humidity is just horrible.
I'm looking forward to walking around relatively unnoticed.
And I'm looking forward to sitting in a cafe that isn't Starbucks and maybe seeking out a vegan baked good. Seattle is a great place for that.
Oh oh, and going to a library, just to remind myself there are whole buildings full of books in English.

Amidst these thoughts of positives and negatives of leaving this place, I've got crazy weird hormones running through my body. The past few days I've felt overly emotional, sometimes irritable, and have had bouts of lethargy. It's been more than the ordinary once a month few days of strangeness, but despite the emotional fog there's one thing I am clear on and that is, I want to and will come back to China.

Also...

My friend Matt Gregory is in town visiting!

We're going to the Summer Palace today, so I'll have some more photos to post later...

We also went to NAMOC

When Andrea was here, we went to NAMOC, and spent a few hours the first time, then came back for two more hours the next day. It was an Olympics inspired show with entries from around the world.


I love the huge painting on the wall. So simple, but so...nice. I have a picture sans Chinese man, but I kind of like this one better. A second later he noticed I was standing there with a camera posed, and he shyly laughed and giddily jogged away. :)


Those are sheep, clouds, spheres, and a woman on a blue scape.


They used acrylic and pen to add shading and depth with cross-hatching.

I believe that's an image of a winged creature carrying off a man's head.



Some nice paint application. They used the frosting technique...one of my favorites.


This is stainless steel and it reminds me of Bjork and the artwork associated with her Volta album.


And this reminds me of Wassily Kandinsky.
It's watercolor and Chinese ink.


This is what I want to look like for Halloween. Seriously, how cool would that be...but I'm not sure yet how to do it.

dream

last night the last dream i had before waking involved a car trip with fellow art students of mine and my mom. My mom was driving this fan, the back of which was an entire art classroom. We were working on a mutual art project as we rode to somewhere, trying to find Bush. When we arrived at this huge resort, the road went straight into a vacationer's hotel room, stopping about a foot away from their bed. I could see someone was in the bed by the boots sticking out the end of the blanket, but their face was covered by the top. When the person heard us arrive he pulled the blanket off of his face and revealed that it was my father.
My mom sat in bed and I was annoyed, because she was relaxing, while we were aimed to accomplish something...and in the meantime had a problem to fix, being that we had just driven into a building. While they were chatting about what was going on, another art student walked up looking very distressed. This guy was kind of a stoner, and he acted like one in my dream. He was like "Hey, you uhhhh...you've got my car. That's my car you just drove down the hill into this building." Apparently without us knowing, my mom had stolen the car from a parking spot on the hill, then put a rock in the space to reserve the spot to return the car later, then rode it down the hill. He was really upset, but my parents weren't phased at all. I was trying to be sympathetic and told him how crazy it is that she did that and how sorry I am. I wasn't really taking my apologies, but rather just looked into space with a worried look on his face.

Before that I vaguely remember living in a fort/cave/hobbit home with a few friends of mine. It was a group of people that have never been in the same room together: Maia, Robert Funk(maryann's friend. someone I hardly know), and Daniel (Maia's friend), Maryann, and other people I can't remember. We would sit and have dinner together like a family and have really interesting conversations. We also went on a walk together, with a ton more people who joined us. I gave out pipes to all of my friends and we walked and smoked.
Unfortunately right now I can't remember the rest.

More 798

A wall-sized installation video of a close-up mouth with the artist's family members singing on his teeth. It was titled 'karaoke' and was about consumer culture and how it has infiltrated even our actions...that in some cases, our actions are a commodity we consume.


These images were printed onto a blanket and pillows.


These were printed onto cement blocks. That's my foot....it was Andrea's idea. :)

Not sure if I actually like this, but it makes me chuckle a little when I say "Take fake cake" out loud, so I thought it might entertain others too.

More Lin Tian Miao

798 again

Andrea, a lady from Kunming, and an old friend of Justin and Sebrina's is here visiting to take advantage of the abundance of art here.
Yesterday she and I went to 798, and today we went to the National Art Museum of China. We only saw about half of what's at NAMOC today, and will go back tomorrow.
Here are some highlights from 798.




To enter this tunnel you enter a white cavity in a wall. As soon as you enter, the tvs surrounding you overwhelm your senses with the different sounds and visuals coming from each. You have to take care, walking on the narrow path of metal sheets and stairs...It felt a lot like walking down the city streets, everything blaring and throbbing around you as you try to navigate your way through space. At the end of the tunnel there's a steep slide rapidly plopping you in a new gallery space you didn't realize you were already in. (I'm glad I had company. It could have been awkward riding a slide and uncontrollably giggling all by myself.)



This is a portion of a room-filling installation by Yin XiuZhen titled 'Introspective Cavity.' It was awesome to be in and to walk around. It's made of a metal framework with clothing of a somewhat monochromatic pallet sewn together. To enter there's a shiny buffed silver tunnel and inside the floor is at least a foot thick floor of foam. In the center of the space is a structure made of large mirrors. Because the clothing is mostly pink the space sort of glows pink light inside.

tiny tidbits

i dreamt i need to give the bank 10,300 dollars...

and i've gained a new appreciation for hip hop. it calms the baby down and i've learned to really like how it sounds.

Some more pictures of Xiao Zhong Dian

This was a common scene in Xiao Zhong Dian...Sebrina getting as much information out of her students about the local cultures as possible.


An animal hanging out.


The inside of the first house we visited. It had intricate wood paneling everywhere.

edit

I made a relatively major mistake considering the the contents of the "Mother's" exhibit.
Lin Tianmiao is a woman.

Lin Tianmiao

The last artist I'll blog about from yesterday's trip to the art district is Lin Tianmiao's solo exhibit "Mother's!"

It was an experience. First you had to wait in line because a limited amount of people were allowed in at once. Once you got to the front of the line, you had to sit down, take off your shoes, and put on blue fabric booties that had upturned pointed toes like elf shoes. Then, when it was your turn, you entered passing through two cream silk curtains and given a laminated map of the space. The whole space including the ground we walked on was molded into smooth curves and hills and covered with white silk squares. All around were miniature bodies of women, none of them with proper heads, and all of them in the middle of an action.
They too were made with white silk and many of them had fine silk hairs flowing from their bodies.
One of the bodies was split in two with balls of silk spilling out of both ends.
Another was bent over picking up or setting down silk pods.
Other bodies were:
crawling up a mirror.
walking on the floor with a thick mass of hair flowing from her neck to the ceiling.
stretched out on a table with a dog-like animal on either end hovering over her.
had electronics flowing from her neck onto a round table she sat on, surrounded by obscure electronic parts and cords.
Then there was a hill you had to carefully walk over, taking care not to slip on the incline of silk fabric. To help was a Chinese man saying 'man zou' (walk slowly/carefully) who took your hand to help. Over the hill and around a smooth corner there was a room of hanging silk balls, all hanging at different lengths.
I haven't mentioned all of the bodies, but some of the pictures are of those missing from my description.

It was such a surreal space to walk around and I'm glad it had limited numbers at once because it felt intended for intimacy and calm; it allowed for the open space that preserved the purity of an all white silk room.

Here is a website about him and his work: http://www.longmarchspace.com/lintianmiao/li-07/e-index.html

My impression of the work is that it gives us as viewers a chance to sympathize with the crises and difficulties of a mother. Also, to recognize the variant qualities and roles a woman has, as well as remember the purity associated with womanhood.
I honestly have no clue what the intent of his work is. I'm going to go read about it now.

last night's dream

It started off silly, and ended up incredibly sad.

First I was in a vacant bar/club with a few friends. We were just sitting around on the couches looking around at the empty room and dance floor. The lights were mostly off so it was dimly lit and quite boring. We sat there for a while, then entered another room that had something like fluorescents lighting over a long rectangular table. There were some other people sitting in there and we went to join them. There will small bowls of rippled spicy chips. After we sat the conversation really didn't pick up, so I pulled one of the bowls over to me out of boredom, and began picking through the chip remains. I picked one up and it turned out there was a chip game that they had previously been playing and thought I was starting up again.

I held the chip in the air and the person sitting beside me looked over at it too. A girl across the room from me made this horrible face and it made me feel bad, so I made it into a joke. I said 'Man, she's really looking at me as though she's saying "This girl is a moron! she doesn't know how to play the chip game!" Everyone laughed and I was automatically cool.

Then I realized there was a box of cards to the left of the chip I was still holding up in the air. You are meant to pick up a chip, look at it, then pick a card and answer the question...

Then my dream changed, other things happened I don't recall.

Then it changed again and I was on a public bus, standing up as we rode through a city. On the bus were a bunch of old friends of mine so we caught up. I saw Dominic and his fiance Chelsea so I went to say hello. I first went over to Dominic and was like "Hey! I haven't seen you in sooo long! How are things??" and he, far less excitedly, replied "Oh you know, things are alright" and didn't follow up his comment with the return question of how I was. I thought, that was a bust. So I went over to Chelsea and tried encouraging some happiness out of her, but she also was depressed. I asked her what was wrong and then the three of us were alone together and I found out her mother has breast cancer. I sat with her crying and I was able to hear her thoughts. We didn't speak, she just looked at me as I cried and thought about whether or not my compassion was real. At first she was weary, but after some time she realized I genuinely felt bad for her. I thought about how I really shouldn't be crying because it could make it worse for her, and finally got myself together and thought of some constructive advice I could give. She thought Western had a medical department and was going to look to them for help, but I advised her to go to UW because they have a full-on hospital. I also told her about people I know who have survived cancer. She didn't have much hope for a positive outcome and neither did Dominic. I overheard him accidentally telling someone the sad news was that her mother had died already.

I'm not sure exactly how this conversation went, but we still were not using words from our mouths. Our communication somehow involved a small dog. ?

Cai Guo Qiang

This is one of 9 tigers frozen mid air and full of arrows. It was made as a reflection on human cruelty.


Head On
This is an installation of 99 wolves leaping and crashing into a glass wall. Its purpose, as he wrote, is to "comment on the human fallibility of following collective ideology and society's fate to repeat mistakes."


Innoportune: Stage One

Another exciting artist.
This guy is really big. He became known for using gunpowder on Chinese paper to create works. Apparently, according to an article, this conceptually could relate to Mao's saying "Destroy nothing, create nothing."
I learned today that he is orchestrating the fireworks display at the opening ceremony of the Olympics. I also realized that I've seen his work in Seattle at the SAM. My dad and I talked about the car installation for a significant amount of time...but I didn't catch the artists' name apparently. It was made in response to 9/11 and is meant to appear like a car bomb.

Fang Lijun

Fang Lijun is a part of the Cynical Realism movement. He became well known for painting shaved peasants against a stark background, but he's grown to make paintings of a variety of things.
The painting above is titled '30th Mary.'

Wang Guangyi

Since I already posted about Zhang XiaoGang and Yue Minjun in a post back in June, I'll just post about the other 2 of the 4 major artists.

The three images above are made by Wang Guangyi. Essentially he puts images of communist era propaganda with images of Western goods and consumer culture. It looks like he used stencils on top of his paintings. He is considered a Political Pop artist, which I would assume is a category he would place himself in as well because one of his paintings is a juxtaposition of the name Andy Warhol with communist propaganda imagery.

rainbow pipes

I lied.
I was able to capture a few pictures, one of which is this one.
It was titled 'Drowning' and I really like it, but I'm not sure how the title relates to it's visual counterpart.

If you have any ideas let me know. I'd like to hear.

Chinese Modern Art

Before I forget, today I learned there are four major Chinese Modern artists.
They're names are:

Yue Minjun
Zhang XiaoGang
Fang LiJun
Wang Guangyi.

This is one thing truly great about Beijing...
Today I saw works made by all four.

I'll post about the art later. Unfortunately the posts will be sans-photos because the batteries I bought in the village had no power.

Sleepless in Seattle

I've already posted more than plenty today but I wanted to record a little thing that I thought was funny from today.

I went to the airline office more than half an hour taxi ride away, to get my new ticket and pay a fine. After sitting in the office a long time, they told me I needed to pay 800 yuan...more than one hundred dollars. I didn't have that much in my wallet in yuan so I asked if there was a place I could change the dollars I had. I literally said 'a place where I give them dollars they give me yuan,' because I didn't know how to say exchange money...
Anyway. I'm rambling.

A lady in the office said 'follow me!' so I did. We played followe the leader and arrived at the Bank, waited for a while, then when I told her in Chinese she could go back to work and I could stay there, she realized I knew a few words so we started chatting. We talked about all the places I just went to, and then I told her I'm studying in university and that I'm from Seattle...She, along with every other person I've told, recognized the name.
(I'm rambling again.)

Everyone seems to know Seattle here, so I asked her why that was. She said it was because of a movie. I knew immediately which one she meant. Sleepless in Seattle!
So now all the Chinese people know there's many bookstores, lonely people, and houseboats in Seattle.

Xiao Zhong Dian (at work) part III

Across the road there was a noodle-making family. When I went to take a picture the woman was resting while the husband scooped pre-noodle mush and put it into the noodle making machine, while the son placed the plates full onto a cabinet of trays behind him.










In the shop next door the women sold things like soda and cheese during the day, and weaved by night. They said they would stay up every night until midnight working on blankets, like the one above, and then wake up around 6 to start work again.
In this village the men leave to work elsewhere, so for the majority of the time only women are around. Also, being a matriarchal society, the leader of the village is a woman. Because the women stay in the village, they keep their traditional dress, while the men out traveling where more modern clothing like suits or button ups and pants.

Xiao Zhong Dian part II

The combination of my tendency towards being scatterbrained, and my inability to master the image downloader on this blog has cause pictures to be sort of scrambled up...
These pictures are from before those in part I.

This is in the Mian Bao (bread) bus that we took from Zhong Dian to Xiao Zhong Dian. It took a while for us to finally get a ride that would work. When we got off the bus in Zhong Dian, Sebrina called her student who advised her to take a bread bus, but we didn't know where to get one. The men nearby said they wouldn't go that direction, but that we must take a city bus to another bus stop where we could get one. They offered to drive us there but it would cost us, so instead we walked across the street and tried a different cluster of bread buses. They also declined, so we caught the next city bus that came along and luckily Sebrina spoke to another passenger just in time for her to tell us to get off at the next stop. There we finally found a bread bus that needed a few more passengers so they could head off.
The bus ride was fun. It was our first encounter with the local language, who even our Chinese friend could not understand. The women were all dressed in traditional garb. This was the official beginning of the exciting part of our journey.


When we arrived in Xiao Zhong Dian we sat and waited in this store until the students came to find us, since we had no clue where they were. We didn't realize we could have just walked the entire length of the town, maybe a five minute walk, to where we would stay.
Their store had everything in it from harvesting sheers to pencils.
The women working there were sitting working on their knit-wear.


This is the kitchen/living room where we were staying. The stove is in the background and behind the camera was a tv with a large poster of mao pasted on the wall behind it. Out the door on the right was a little courtyard with little vicious dogs, a pit toilet, and another building with our room. The dogs in this village are used as their security system and despite their miniature size, they really are scary. They were bred to hate it seems.
I have a particular fondness for the girl on the right at the table because we had a lengthy conversation about university, the similarities and differences between hers and mine, and about how I used to live in the Middle East.
It's amazing how much English students in China are required to learn. Her vocabulary was huge, but since she hasn't had much opportunity to practice speaking she recognizes more words by how they're spelled as opposed to how they sound. I think that's probably common for students here.

Xiao Zhong Dian part I

From Kunming we went to Lijiang, then to Zhong Dian, then to Xiao Zhong Dian, where we stayed with a couple who had a few open beds for us to sleep in.
It was a tiny tiny village where a couple of Sebrina's students were doing surveys in the local homes.

The surroundings were absolutely gorgeous, and even through my lack of caffeine fog brain, I could recognize how lucky we were to be there.


View looking back towards Xiao Zhong Dian.


Traditional housing of the area. I've forgotten the name of the people...I'll ask Sebrina. If you look at the house to the right you can see 5 large wooden beams running down the side of the house. The 2 on the outside are slanted inward and the angle of the edge of the home slants outward, making the house stronger, and lending to an interesting aesthetic.


This herder was walking past as I was standing in the entrance to the kitchen where we were staying.

And as we were walking back from speaking with villagers in their homes, these pigs were having a stroll alongside us.


This shows how vast the sky was there and shows probably a third of the village we were visiting.