Incense burner and huā 花 niǎo 鸟 chóng 虫 yú 鱼

Incense burner from Hua Niao Chong Yu ©IBM

Hua niao yu chong ("flower, bird, fish and insect") is a common expression for a special kind of Chinese culture where the practitioner indulges in raising and growing small plants and animals, recreating a simile of nature in an urban environment. Crickets, birds, turtle, goldfish and ornamental carp are the typical animals and the flowers, of course, are endless, although leaning towards ones that have symbolic meaning like peonies, orchids, narcissus etc. Without knowing it I have been trying to create my own little hua niao yu chong world on our apartment terrace. I have a pond for my eight koi carp, flowers and plants galore and numerous trinkets to play with when drinking tea (usually coffee for me). I perfectly understand the need to retreat from the maddening crowd and spend time surrounded by beautiful things. This ideal life was of course reserved only for the rich in the China of the past, but today anyone with a few yuan can put a goldfish in a bowl of water and watch it swim around in circles. 

As I mentioned yesterday I have found a wonderful shop in one of Jinli Street's newly opened back alleys where I can buy all sorts of delightful ceramics from Jǐngdézhèn in Jiāngxī Province. The name of the shop is appropriately called Niao Hua Chong Yu and they have created a wonderful logo from the characters, painting them to look like what they represent (bird, flower and fish are originally pictographic representations. I don't know about worm/chong though, here is how it is written in traditional chinese 蟲). There is a very Japanese feel to this little shop, and I have to force myself to stay away. Latest purchase (actually my mother bought it for me as an early birthday present) is the incense burner above (xiāng lú 香炉). On the way home it only took a second to buy sandalwood incense (tán xiāng 檀香) in one of the many Tibetan stores on Wuhou Hengjie. 

huà niǎo chóng yú 花鸟虫鱼.

Check out their website: hcny.blogbus.com

Lumpy laile!

090428 ©IBM

Our neighbors left for the states this morning and yesterday we inherited a bunch of down and out plants and a goldfish named Lumpy. Lumpy came in a glass bowl in as bad a state as the plants so to make "her" feel better I moved her into a new home and blinged it with a few trinkets I bought on Jinli Street. Jinli has recently expanded and there is a new shop that I am absolutely crazy about selling artisan ceramics of all kinds from China's porcelain capital Jǐngdézhèn 景德镇. So Lumpy has a ceramic lotus seed pod, blue and white floating balls and a ceramic fish in whose mouth you can anchor the plant roots. She's got so much furniture now that she can hardly swim around, tomorrow she will be upgraded to a larger bowl. But for now, like it or lump it, Lumpy!

Kinesiska nyåret: Lyktfestivalen/Lantern Festival

Wuhou Temple, Chengdu ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn

For a few weeks now enormous floodlights have been shining into the murky Chengdu sky, beamed from the entrance of Wuhou Park. Their searching rays remind me of my childhood in California, when such lights announced the "Grand Opening" of a new shopping center or movie premier. These lights, however, are advertising the joint festival that is being held in Wuhou Temple (Wuhou Ci), Wuhou Park (Wuhou Gongyuan) and Jinli Street (Jinli Gujie) to celebrate the Chinese New Year. Every year this trio bands together to create a special "entertainment zone" that can be accessed for 20 yuan (about 22 SEK, children under 120 cm free). Needless to say every day a teeming sea of black-haired heads pass through the entrance gates to partake in a special kind of festival Hell: Grandparents with the grandkidlums, grown-ups out airing the Aged Ps, young lovers enjoying getting jostled against one another by the enormous crowds and of course a large number of plainclothes policemen looking for pickpockets and troublemakers. I love it but every time I drag my kids into this mass of food-stall munching, screeching, laughing, shoving humanity they ask me what on earth we are doing there. At night it's especially enchanting with the park area all lit up with fanciful, brightly colored lanterns, entertainment and foodstalls. The Lantern Festival (Yuanxiaojie) is the culmination of Chinese New Year's, arriving on the 15th day after the new moon, when the moon reaches complete fullness. This year it will occur on February 9th, so don't miss a visit to a park on that night to see the full moon and don't forget to eat tangyuan (also called yuanxiao): sweet riceballs filled with red bean, sesame or peanut  paste. And keep your earplugs handy because the night is finished off with the last round of deafening pyrotechnics!

Från På kinesiskt vis, ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn/Ica bokförlag:

Det kinesiska nyåret avslutas med lyktfestivalen då man firar årets första fullmåne. Yuan betyder "först" och xiao "natt". De två tecken tillsammans syftar på det nya årets första fullmåne. Parker och tempelgårdar pryds med hundratals, ibland tusentals färgglada lyktor i alla möjliga former: fjärilar, apor, fiskar, blommor, drakar, folksagofigurer och naturligtivs också den klassiska runda röda lyktan. Traditionellt gjordes de av papper men är i dag oftast masstillverkade i syntettyg.

På kvällen promenerar man omkring med de tända lyktorna eller samlas i de stora stadsparkerna som redan har förberett ljussättningen. En populär lek är att lösa gåtorna som finns skrivna på de hängande lyktorna. Det ställs till med lejon- och drakdanser, styltdanser, varieté- och tivoliunderhållning och man äter mängder av små yuanxiao (även kallade tangyuan) - söta rismjölsbollar fyllda med röd bönpasta, sesam- eller jordnötspasta - de finns även med salta fyllningar. Man fyrar av de sista fyrverkerierna coh förälskade par sätter ut små tända lyktor i sjöar och floder för att bevisa sin kärlek. Festivalen får inte förväxlas med mitthöstfestivalen, då man också firar månen med stora mängder lyktor.