Filed under: friends, life, photography, travel, writing | Tags: beijing, china, culture, forbidden city, history, olympics, peking, photography, travel
i don’t have a family legacy, per se. if i had to pick one thing that is passed down from generation to generation, it isn’t the regal asian splendor we’re discussing today, it’s probably alcoholism. but more on that later. today we’re talking about imperial china and my dear friend m.
as many of you know, m. has been showing me the ropes in photography. she is generous, intelligent and calming. i felt two things when her father died two months ago: sad for her, mystified by her strength.
(more on that saw blade in her foot later. ) what YOU want to read about is imperial china. more specifically, the forbidden city.
m.’s grandad was one of the few gringos living in the imperial stronghold of the forbidden city in, at the time, peking. decades later, (this year) after her father’s death, m. was doing executor things….rifling through property including photos. she happened on these original 8 x 10 film negatives of the forbidden city.
her grandparents lived in peking, where her father was born, between 1920 and 1925. as an engineer hired by the emperial corps, her grandfather designed the entire grid for peking (now beijing) and other staggering tasks of state includiung the coffin design for one of the leaders of modern chinese thought.
how rare and timeless these negatives are….
how amazing to find something that places your family in one of the most important and beautiful moments in world history!
today china is a hot button. olympics. tibetan freedom. animal activism. pandas. earthquakes.
recently i was accused of hating the chinese because i asked a grocery store to stop selling chicken strips from china after my friends’ dog died of chinese pet food. but the poetry and splendor of the region cannot be denied.
there will never be architecture like this again…
m’s grandparents and father were present duriung the denouement of an era. and perhaps it isn’t obvious to her, but having been loved by grandparents who lived in europe, turn of the century u.s.a. and the sunset of imperial china, well….perhaps that is why her days are full of color, creativity and practicality.
and i loved her before i ever had proof she was so interesting.
earlier today i posted satire pictures of my dog’s trip to the forbidden city. i mean no irreverence. each culture has an intricate time line. and every other country somehow is affected by it.
p.s….snaps to m.’s dad who kept so many artifacts in such pristine condition.
oh…and here is a chinese food dog toy…
Filed under: animals, dogs, friends, life, pets, travel | Tags: 2008 olympics, animals, beijing, dogs, humor, olympics, pets, photoshop, travel
as much as he loves pickles, cody bear thought it was time he get away for some grown up dog adventures. naturally he thought it would be ideal to meet up with his travel buddy, checkers. but where to go?
checkers had a suggestion: due to the upcoming 2008 beijing olympics, china was temporarily removing “dog” from the menus. at least that’s what he heard at wordpress. there would never be a safer time to visit….as long as they packed their own food….
the forbidden city
souvenirs included: a new jade bangle for cody bear’s p.a., a print from the national museum of china for checkers’ p.a., a year of the dog pendant for cody bear’s p.a., a pair of panda socks for checkers’ p.a. and fortune cookie squeaky toys for scruff, nash and pickles. cody bear and checkers wanted to also mention that they brought a message of peace with them to beijing: please don’t eat dogs and please ease up on tibet and please use safe ingredients in your exported pet foods.
olympic greetins from beijing!
the temple of heaven
the dogs agreed to skip the synchronized swimming events, neither of them loving water. they snuck into the gymnasium to see the women’s gymnastics, guessing correctly that the girls would go nuts when there were dogs to snuggle. ultimately, track and field was the most fun. snatching the relay baton and running hell-on-paws around the track, rolling on their backs in the long jump pit, and mocking the race walkers.
well, they would mention more, but they both want to go wizz on the great wall before it is time to head home!
(read about their previous trips here, here, here and here)
