Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Old Man Tree
Many trees in the Forbidden City, and elsewhere in Beijing’s historic sites, are so old and weak that they need to be supported by these big green crutches. This one looks like an old man trying to bend over without falling over. It’s pitiful, and beautiful, too, in an old and gnarly kind of way.
It reminds me of the dryads, tree spirits of Greek myth. Even though dryads were usually young and female, they had a vulnerability that is still here in this old tree.
In most cases, it would be the old trees that sacrifice themselves for us, in the form of paper, lumber, or a host of other purposes. Tourism is a force, however, that makes us bend over backwards to protect the few trees that tourists will see. Vast forests people don’t see—or more particularly, don’t spend money to see—are also something people rarely spend money to protect.
Statistics
This page has been viewed 827133 times
Page rendered in 0.3719 seconds
45 querie(s) executed
Debug mode is on
Total Entries: 55
Total Comments: 757
Total Trackbacks: 1101
Most Recent Entry: 07/13/2008 12:15 pm
Most Recent Comment on: 06/20/2009 01:08 pm
Total Members: 9
Total Logged in members: 0
Total guests: 11
Total anonymous users: 0
Most Recent Visitor on: 07/31/2010 04:51 pm
The most visitors ever was 197 on 03/07/2005 04:33 am
