Photos
Sunday, May 02, 2004
What's This?
Some things look rather alien when you see them close up. I took this photo at my friend’s house when he was so kind as to let my mom and I stay there during our travels last winter. You’ll find it in a kitchen.
Saturday, May 01, 2004
How Steep It Is
In China they have a saying that: “If you don’t make it to the Great Wall, you aren’t really a good man.” I always chuckle when I think of that because I think “wow, women really got it made!” but I have to admit that the intention of the saying is that the Great Wall is not only a great sight that you must see—it is a challenge to overcome.
You have very likely heard many things about the great wall: that it is the only man-and-woman-made thing which can be seen from space (which it isn’t, actually), that David Copperfield walked through it one night (which he obviously couldn’t have really done), and that people periodically try to soar over it in a non-aerial vehicle (sometimes with unfortunate results.)
But one thing that is very difficult to understand, even when you see pictures of the great wall, is just How-Steep-It-Is. When you take the average picture up or down the great wall, you see that it is steep indeed, but you don’t really get the proper feeling of vertigo that you have in real life, as if you’ve come to a great precipice and the wind might just push you to your death at the bottom of the stairs.
This photo tries to capture something of that feeling. It’s about the relationship of the stairs to the mountains and trees behind them. You have to imagine how looking down to the left actually feels more dangerous than peering over that edge at the needle-like trees far below.
Friday, April 09, 2004
Excellence
I learned something about myself yesterday, and maybe something about human nature, too: putting your heart into something is what makes it meaningful to you.
As you already know, I have recently become a graduate student at Nanjing Arts Institute, and so far I’m enjoying it tremendously. Whenever I go there, I feel as though I’m soaking in a special kind of air, breathing in creativity along with oxygen, nitrogen and whatever else. It’s a place specially created for developing artistic talent, skill and inspiration—and it does just that.
I found that as I went there to study and absorb all those new experiences more, teaching at my Chinese high school began to seem older and less interesting. When I came back from my most recent trip, teaching English seemed almost unbearable, and I was filled with a desire to quit as soon as possible.
Then I realized that the high school itself hadn’t changed at all; my attitude towards it had. I let myself begin to think of it as an “old” thing and stopped wanting to try hard at it. In fact it was trying hard to be a good teacher all this time which had made it interesting in the first place. If I didn’t put any heart into this or any other part of my life, that part would certainly deteriorate into meaninglessness.
So now the challenge is to look at whatever I do with the knowledge that somehow just doing my best at whatever it is can really give it a life that it would never have had on its own. This website, for example, can only begin to transcend itself and become something more than just kilobytes on a hard drive when its author spends something of his heart on it, and uses some special love in the writing, a magic which belongs to his soul alone.
Perhaps this magic is a natural love of excellence itself. It can make any daily activity we undertake worthwhile and holy to us. Even if something seems to be meaningless at first, the act of doing our best at it can lift it into the realm of sacred work.
With that spirit, I ought to clean my apartment!
Photos • Yunnan • Way of Life • Writing • (45) Trackbacks • Permalink
Monday, March 22, 2004
Beautiful Homework
Another big news is that I’ve officially signed up to get an MFA in graphic design from Nanjing Arts Institute (where I happen to be writing this evening). My dream is write my own stories and illustrate them. As it is, I’ve been drawing pictures of my story ideas for years and years, but I never really thought that I could make a living at it. Anyway, I think I can have a chance at it if I get the skills I need to make it happen. And with the skills I do on the road to this goal, maybe I’ll be able to do some professional photography and other art as well! (The photograph associated with tonight’s post was an experiment in how close I can get to the flame without burning my camera—Thank God I still don’t know. Imagine how lucky I would be, though, if someone actually paid me for this!)
Today I just talked to my professor here, and I got my first real homework assignment! I am to work on a logo for a student of mine, and also design a new introduction to myself on this website. I need to try to use style as much as content to give you the kind of impression of me that I would like you to have.
For a long time, I always thought that a web page that was just about me would be a “vanity page,” a fruit of my own self-love and an attempt to show the world how great I was. But now, my professor has helped me understand it as something like an expanded electronic business card on the web. It’s as much a service to all of you out there as it is to myself, in that it helps you to understand what this particular person is all about as he offers his writings and photos to you in this manner.
Not only that, but it’s homework, too! How wonderful art school is!
Photos • Wuxi • Way of Life • Religion • (61) Trackbacks • Permalink
Friday, March 19, 2004
Back in Business
I haven’t written for Brightwind for over a month. In the meantime, a group of American students from my old high school came for a school-sponsored trip to China. The school here where I teach hosted them for a while, and during that time, they met with Chinese students here, danced, played and talked with them, and also visited nearby cities in the daytime. After about five days there, I took them on another adventure to Beijing. We saw the Great Wall, the Forbidden City (which is hardly forbidden anymore), the Ming Tombs, the Summer Palace, the Beijing Opera, and some Chinese Acrobatics.
I was lucky that the two teachers, husband and wife, that came with the students to China both happened to be artists. The man was my art teacher when I went to school there almost 10 years ago. Both of them gave me lots of really neat tips on my photography, and I feel much inspired from meeting them.
The students also proved to be fascinating people. They were very mature, and they embraced their new experiences with open-minded enthusiasm. I’m very proud to have attended the same school as them.
I have much more news to share, but I will save it for my next entry, which, now that I have a bit more time, will be coming much faster than this one has.
Photos • Beijing • Way of Life • Religion • (0) Trackbacks • Permalink
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