Kullaberg © Ingrid Booz Morejohn
Friday, February 13, 2009
Kocka and Loki, cats and relationships
Kocka and Loki 090213 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn
Click on image to enlarge!
What is more appropriate than posting a cat picture on Friday the 13th? For more than two weeks now we've been responsible for two cats while our friends are away on vacation. The cats have stayed at their own home and we have gone there everyday to feed them. Today was the first day when the cats actually showed themselves more than a streak of fur flashing by to hide under the sofa. Or to stick their nose out when it was meal time. We've tried everything to lure them out to play but they've had none of it. Actually I could only find one of the cats. Couldn't figure out where the other one was and looked everywhere until Burton found it perched in the windowsill hiding behind a curtain.
I've got a dear friend who's been having trouble lately, faulting herself for the failure of a long relationship even though it was the partner who had wandered off with someone else. She keeps asking herself what she could have done to make it not happen, what she did do that caused it etc etc. She owns both cats and dogs so I told her to stop blaming herself, that we women are like dogs, always desperate to be liked and win approval, wagging our tails with our tongue hanging out, hoping that someone will pay us a crumb of attention and make us feel loved and included. Men are like cats, couldn't care less what people think of them and do any damn thing they please. Now how's that for a blatant generalization? Made my friend laugh and feel a little better though. As for Kocka and Loki their Mum and Dad are coming home tomorrow so I don't have to keep sucking up to them any longer, dog that I am.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
# 16 Today's picture 090212
Dragon Boat Festival, Funan River, Chengdu June 6, 2007 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn
As much as I feel sorry for the duck I feel good about this picture. I'm very satisfied with it: Great lighting, action, humor (sick humor), emotion and composition. So why is the guy in the water strangling a duck? The annual Dragon Boat Festival is held on the Funan River here in Chengdu. At the very end after the dragon boats have competed there are humorous competitions like tug-of-war until the loser boat sinks and....a number of ducks are released (actually thrown up into the air)...and whoever catches them first gets to keep them. Most of the ducks looked quite shellshocked (or dead) when they were finally man-handled to shore. An unhappy ending to a very good day.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Ramoche: How do monks cut their hair?
Ramoche, Lhasa 1995 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn
This picture was taken at Ramoche, an imposing temple in central Lhasa. I've always wondered how monks and nuns cut their hair, and got the answer this day. Two friends (or should I say colleagues?) were giving each other haircuts. The hairclipper must have been a little blunt (or the expertise of the person wielding it lacking), because there were numerous verbal exchanges, winces and lot's of pushing and shoving. It seemed to be general cleaning day as all the young monks, these included, were washing their heads and faces etc. For me it was a wonderful insight into a private world.
My most memorable image of Ramoche is walking around the temple in the company of the Ramoche Abbot, a man of wily, roving eyes and impressive girth. While turning the temple's massive prayer wheels he flicked his prayer beads back and forth in snappy fashion, all the while chanting "Ooooommmmmm mani padme HUM!" - beginning with a deep, Barry White, back of the throat voice and then ending up with a high, girlish HUM!
Ramoche is the most important temple in Lhasa after the Jokhang. Is is unusual in many ways: Constructed during the Tang Dynasty by Chinese architects (ca 641) it is a powerful link between the two cultures, being built to house the important Jowo statue that had been brought to Lhasa by Princess Wencheng as a wedding gift from the Tang Court. It was later switched with a statue in the Jokhang where it is housed today. The temple has been called the "Chinese Tiger".
If you would like to read more about architecture and temples in Lhasa I highly recommend: The Temples of Lhasa, Tibetan Buddhist Architecture from the 7th to the 21st Centuries, by André Alexander, Serindia Publications.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Photography: Old China New China, Great Wall at Badaling
Above: Great Wall at Badaling, ca 60-70 km NW of Beijing, ca 1877. Photograph attributed to Thomas Childe. Source: "The Face of China As Seen by Photographers & Travelers 1860-1912, p.22"/flickr.com/©etherflyer's photostream
Below: Badaling Great Wall, March 3, 2005 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn
Photography: Old China New China, Temple of Heaven
Above: Temple of Heaven, Beijing, ca 1911-15. Photographer unknown. Source "Imperial China, p. 122"/flickr.com/©etherflyer's photostream.
Below: Temple of Heaven, 2007 ©Ingrid Booz Morejohn
Ghost images of quake zone: Photographer Thomas H. Hahn
©Thomas H. Hahn
Thomas H. Hahn has recently posted a number of docu-images on his Zenfolio website about how Wenchuan, Yingxiu and Dujiangyan look today (images taken Jan 21, 2009). The images show eerily quiet ghost towns and massive destruction, the only people in the photographs being two men dressed in funeral garb. His introduction however states that Wenchuan is surprisingly full of life and feverish reconstruction, welcome news for all.
Hahn's Zenfolio website is otherwise a helpful source of historical photography of old China as well as Thomas H. Hahn's own photography of a changing China. As Hahn states in the opening page: "The main subject area is China and that country's rather rapid transformation from a rural to an urban-centered society". Hahn has been travelling regularly in China since the early 1980s.
(Side note: See my article about "thanatourism" posted 090202)
Watch this and weep
Posted from Youku.com
I don't know what to say about this...just when the Western world has got smoking somewhat under control, look at this little Chinese kid, smoking like a pro.
Monday, February 9, 2009
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